[sudo-discuss] forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings

[Eddan Katz]

I've often thought of Sudo Room a little bit like the District of Columbia. and Rachel's subject for her email reminded me of that.

It is often forgotten that there was a first constitution of the United States after Independence before the one that people call the Constitution. It was called the Confederacy of States. The nation's capital was in Philadelphia and through a series of events ended up moving to a newly formed neutral district - that we all know now as DC.

It wasn't just a series of events, but a structural flaw in the Confederacy that doomed itself. As James Madison wrote in Federalist 43, "We have seen the inconvenience of this omission, and the assumption of power into which Congress have been led by it. With great propriety, therefore, has the new system supplied the defect. The general precaution, that no new States shall be formed, without the concurrence of the federal authority, and that of the States concerned, is consonant to the principles which ought to govern such transactions."

As population grew and the country was further colonized by the European settlers, the creation of new states turned into a disuniting disaster. Different coalitions of states banded together to promote their collective interest at the expense of others. Those states excluded formed their own alliances and there were many cries of treason thrown around back and forth. Each cluster thought of themselves as the "us" and the others as the "them" until the "them" became the "us" and the "us" was "them". And so on.

So while New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland - all wanted the new federal seat of power in their states, a deal was struck to create a district that didn't belong to any particular state. They all wanted to have the center of the nation's power in their territories. And this is how we got in Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, the provision saying:  

"To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislatures of the States in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings."

I'm not sure we need forts and magazines and arsenals and such, but I still think we need a neutral center so that no particular cluster confuses themselves as being what constitutes Sudo Room. Only when the country adopted a political structure that transformed the "us" and "them" into we - did the agreement amongst them create stability and mutual respect that made them united states.

 
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