Virginia’s 1776 resolution tacitly divided sovereignty between states and Congress.
Evidence
By this ambiguous language, the Virginia Convention placed responsibility for declaring independence on Congress without resolving whether the United States or each individual state thereby became free. Pendleton’s resolution did add the proviso, not in any of the draft proposals, “that the power of forming government for, and regulations of the internal concerns of each colony, be left to the respective colonial legislatures.” While later used by Jefferson to bolster the case for states’ rights over such domestic matters as slavery, the provision tacitly entrusted Congress with authority for such key aspects of national sovereignty formerly held by the Crown as war and peace, foreign affairs, and international commerce. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 194
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to modern federalism debates over which sovereign held what powers - directly useful for a legal systems course tracing the states’ rights lineage of the slavery/sanctuary state arguments. — connects to: Sovereignty fragments into overlapping partial rights to rule. — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 122; Virginia, not the North, shaped the Revolution and the new republic. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 108
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: Pendleton added the ‘internal concerns’ proviso deliberately - could this early 1776 text already encode the states’-rights reading of divided sovereignty later used against federal power?
Broader Connections
- Sovereignty fragments into overlapping partial rights to rule.
#expands(0.78) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 122 - Virginia, not the North, shaped the Revolution and the new republic.
#exemplifies(0.72) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 108