CHAPTER 9

The Sovereignty You Gain by Atlantic Union


The American Way of Life has become the religion of the masses in five
continents: as with so many other religions, the nature of its Deity
remains a mystery. ... The greatest achievement of American civilization
is not the opulent standard of living, nor even the economic machine
that created it; It is the political system that made both of them
possible. The U.S., it is often said, is a young country, immature and
even adolescent. Culturally, it may be. Politically, it is the oldest
and most mature democracy, in the modern world. Americans like to think
of themselves as practical people with a genius for gadgets. In fact,
they are idealists with a genius for politics almost unequaled in
history. But why? -- David Marquand, reviewing W. R. Brock's The
Character of American History in Manchester Guardian Weekly, March 17,
1960.

If there is a country in the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty
of the people can be fairly appreciated, where it can be studied in its
applications to the affairs of society, and where its dangers and its
advantages may be judged, that country is assuredly America ... It is
unencumbered by those fictions that are thrown over it in other
countries, and it appears in every possible form, according to the
exigencies of the occasion ... The people reign in the American
political world as the Deity does in the universe. They are the cause
and the aim of all things; everything comes from them, and everything is
absorbed in them. -- Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

When the signers of the Federal Constitution posed to their fellow
citizens the simple, revolutionary idea that the way to secure and to
advance their lives and liberties was to unite themselves, and divide
their governments, the better to rule them, the cry that this meant
"sacrificing" their sovereignty was raised even more loudly than in the
Convention -- though perhaps not more than now by opponents of an
Atlantic Union. Mercifully for Patrick Henry -- but unfortunately for
themselves -- most Americans have forgotten how confused this great
Virginian patriot was on this issue. He warned that by ratification of
the Constitution not merely "the sovereignty of the States will be
relinquished" but "the rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of
the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human
rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this
change." He commiserated his fellow Virginians "who, by the operation of
this blessed system, are to be transformed from respectable, independent
citizens to abject, dependent subjects or slaves." He continued down
this line, day after day, from June 4 through June 25, 1787, when the
convention which the people of Virginia had elected to ratify or reject
the Federal Constitution, voted down the country's most famous orator 88
to 80, and voted in the Union, 89 to 79.

HOW BOTH VIRGINIANS AND DELAWAREANS
GAINED SOVEREIGNTY

The majority in every state was wise enough to see that it was not the
citizens who sacrificed sovereignty when they shifted certain powers of
government from their state government to other men they elected to
represent them in the Federal Government. Each of Virginia's sovereigns
had one vote in electing the members of the state government, and each
enjoyed the same equal power with all the sovereigns of all the Thirteen
States in electing representatives to the Federal government.

Since there were many more Virginians than Delawareans, the people of
Virginia thus gained ten times the votes they had enjoyed in the old
Confederation which, we have seen, gave each sovereign state the same
single vote. The change, however advantageous to Virginia, seems at
first glance to the disadvantage of the sovereign citizens of Delaware
-- but they saw, even sooner than the Virginians, that in reality they
had lost nothing. In fact, they had gained, if anything, even more than
the Virginians.

Although little Delaware alone had sent delegates to the Federal
Convention who were explicitly instructed to reject any surrender of the
state's equal vote in the Confederation it was the first to ratify the
abolition of this principle -- and it ratified the Federal Constitution
unanimously. Yet the latter also deprived the state governments of their
right to be the sole representative of their people in the
Confederation. They could no longer name their delegates to its
Congress, instruct them on how to cast the state's vote, and recall them
at will. In their federal union -- as in all federations -- the state
governments as bodies politic had no voice whatever in the affairs of
the Union; it was independent of them, and they were no less independent
of it. The citizens of Delaware saw, however, that the new Union
guaranteed them as complete an independence in their purely state
affairs as did the Confederation -- but did this much more effectively.
To them Virginia seemed big enough to maintain its independence amid the
Confederation's anarchy, but Delaware was much too small to survive in
such conditions.

The Delawareans saw, too, that the Federal Union also gave them equality
of representation with Virginia in the Senate where each had two votes,
but on a different basis -- one which strengthened them. For one thing,
Federal Union gave the Senate the sole voice in ratifying treaties and
important executive appointments. Moreover, whereas it gave the House
a veto over all other legislation passed by the Senate, it gave the
Senate a veto over all bills passed by the House.[1] Since there were
more small than large states in the Union, the people of the smaller
states could be sure that they would always command a majority in the
Senate, and could thus veto any move the large states might make through
the House to upset this balance between the states.

CITIZEN SOVEREIGNTY IN A FEDERAL SENATE AND HOUSE

It should be noted that the Senators were then to be elected by their
state legislatures -- not directly by the people as the Members of the
House have always been. But since even then the two Senators were
elected separately, at intervals of two years, for a term of six years
(not subject to recall), and were paid by the Federal Treasury, not by
their state government, the latter, as a body politic, lost all control
over them in practice.[2] Moreover, the Federal Constitution authorized
each Senator to cast his vote independently of the other. Since the two
may be from opposing political parties, and necessarily always differ on
many measures, their two votes often cancel each other out.

None of this works, however, to keep the Senate, whenever the essential
federal balance is involved, from being an effective upholder of it and
a strong brake against overcentralization. It does work instead to give
more citizens of each state a vote they could not otherwise have, on all
the multitude of inter-state measures on which they differ. For example,
if the citizens of a state are divided about equally between two
parties, those in each party can, by federal union, have their own
Senator. Again, if many citizens in a state favor a given treaty whose
ratification many others in it oppose, both the pro and con may have a
spokesman and an equal vote in a Federal Senate. In NATO, or in a
confederation, only the party in power in each nation can speak or vote.

These gains for the citizens are, of course, even greater in the Federal
House. The citizens elect their Representatives in it from the district
in which they live. The populations of these districts are differently
composed, and may have quite opposing interests -- as, for example, city
districts and rural ones do. It results that small groups of sovereign
citizens in Virginia, who had no spokesman and no vote in the
Confederation, gained representation on interstate affairs through
Federal Union. In like manner, the huge groups and interests in the
United States, Britain, France, and all the other NATO nations who have
none now in it, would gain representation on Atlantic affairs through an
Atlantic Union. What the citizens of the larger states thus gain from
federalism is obvious -- but it is also an asset to those of the smaller
states.

Certainly, the people of Delaware understood this, even though their
smaller number allowed its citizens only one representative in the
House. In the convention the Delaware delegates had pleaded that "it
would not be safe for Delaware to allow Virginia" so many votes. They
found, however, that even this was in the end an improvement over the
Confederation. For the fact that the representatives from the larger
states were elected in different districts guaranteed that the ten votes
from Virginia would rarely if ever all be cast against the interests of
Delaware -- as was inevitable in any conflict of interest in the
Confederation, where the state government put all of Virginia's weight
behind its one vote. By the federal system, it became possible that,
whenever the interests of the people of Delaware happened to be the same
as that of the people in various districts in Virginia the votes of
those Representatives would be cast on the same side as Delaware's lone
vote. There was the possibility too that the party that commanded a
majority in Delaware might also elect a majority of the Representatives
from Virginia, Pennsylvania and other large states.

This may suffice to show why Federal Union's transfer of voting power on
interstate affairs from the state government back to the citizens proved
so attractive to the people, and most of all in the small states. It is
significant that New Jersey, whose delegation led the opposition in the
Federal Convention to any "surrender of state sovereignty," was the
third state to ratify the Federal Constitution -- and New Jersey, like
Delaware, ratified it unanimously. All the major battles against
ratification and all the close votes for it came in the larger states:
Pennsylvania, 46 to 23; Massachusetts, 187 to 168; Virginia, 89 to 79;
and New York, 30 to 27.

THOSE WHO LOSE AND THOSE WHO WIN BY UNION

The truth was, and is -- and it can hardly be stressed too often -- that
whether or not the change from alliance or confederation to federal
union results in loss of sovereignty depends entirely on whether one
considers as supreme the "sovereignty" of the state or that of the
citizen. If one shares the Communist idea that the state is supreme,
then one is right in concluding that federal union involves a sacrifice
of sovereignty by the states included in it. But if one shares the
American concept that the citizen is the true sovereign, then federal
union involves no sacrifice whatever of his sovereignty, and brings only
gain.

Before the Federal Convention met, George Washington wrote a letter to
Henry Knox on February 3, 1787; in explaining his grave doubts that it
could possibly succeed, he put his finger on the only persons who
actually lose power in such a change:

I believe that the political machine will yet be much tumbled and
tossed, and possibly be wrecked altogether, before such a system as you
have defined will be adopted. The darling Sovereignties of the States
individually, the Governors elected and elect, the Legislators, with a
long train of et cetera whose political consequence will be lessened, if
not annihilated, would give their weight of opposition to such a
revolution.

Though some of the state executives and legislators helped instead to
bring about the change, others did seek, as Washington foresaw, to
prevent the change to Federal Union by representing their loss of power
as a sacrifice by the people of their own sovereignty. But the people
were not fooled -- not the majority of them. They grasped the basic
truth which James Wilson of Pennsylvania had hammered home in the
Federal Convention. Speaking on June 16, "he could not persuade
himself," Madison noted, "that the State Governments and Sovereignties
were so much the idol of the people, nor a National government so
obnoxious to them, as some supposed.... Will each Citizen enjoy under it
less liberty or protection? Will a Citizen of Delaware be degraded by
becoming a Citizen of the United States?" (His emphasis.)

Again, on June 20 Wilson argued: "A private Citizen of a State is
indifferent whether power be exercised by the general or State
Legislatures -- provided it be exercised most for his happiness." And
Hamilton chimed in on June 29: "The state of Delaware, having 40,000
souls, will lose power, if she has 1/10 only of the votes allowed to
Pennsylvania, having 400,000 [people]; but will the people of Delaware
be less free, if each citizen has an equal vote with each citizen of
Pennsylvania?" (His emphasis.)

The sovereign citizens proved Wilson and Hamilton right by ratifying the
Constitution -- and so did Federal Union by its results. Under it no
citizen lost his citizenship in his own state, but each gained
citizenship in the United States. Each remained sovereign in his state,
but won a sovereignty he had never had, for he became an American
sovereign, too. This gave him far greater dignity and power than even
the citizens of the largest states enjoyed before. Nor was this all. The
citizens also gained in sovereignty by each of the transfers of power
they made from their state governments to their Union.

FIVE POWERS CITIZENS GAIN BY FEDERAL UNION

Consider how much the people have gained in all the fifty states by
having a common United States force to defend their individual liberties
and their state rights. What if each state had to uphold the liberty and
state rights of its citizens all by itself, be prepared to fight not
only Old World dictators but neighboring states? Before the Thirteen
federated, troops of New York and of Massachusetts were moving to their
frontier, threatening war over Vermont. What taxes, military service and
war we would suffer now if each of our fifty states had to defend its
rights alone!

Consider the gain to all the citizens of all the fifty states from
having a common foreign policy. Let any American ask himself: What if my
state could have a tough policy toward Soviet Russia, while neighboring
states could appease Moscow? Before the Thirteen federated, when
Massachusetts closed its ports to British ships, Connecticut welcomed
them, made the most of this chance to get business -- much as the
British recognized Red China when the United States refused to ... while
the master of the Kremlin chuckled scornfully, and attacked the divided
democracies, first in Korea, then in Indo-China, and has since advanced
through their division, in Suez as in science.

Consider the gain to all the citizens of the Thirteen States when
federation freed them from the vexation and cost of doing business with
thirteen currencies. Think of the enormous advantages we Americans now
have from having one currency throughout the fifty states....

Consider how much American citizens everywhere gained when federation
removed the tariffs between their states, and allowed every American to
sell whatever he had to sell in the highest market in the United States
and buy whatever he needed in its cheapest market -- without any state
government interfering with his trade. How our American standard of
living would be cut down if our states regained the "sovereign right" to
vex the citizens with trade barriers as do the states of Africa, Latin
America and Europe's Seven and six....

Consider, finally, how much even the Texans admit they gain by being
citizens of the United States as well as of their own state, with no
passports or visas to impede their travel, business, study or change of
residence anywhere in the Union ...

By every one of the United States transfers of power from the state to
the Federal Government, the citizens in every state gained immensely,
became much stronger, freer sovereigns.

In achieving for each of us all these -- and other -- gains in sovereign
equality, dignity, freedom, power, the citizens of the Thirteen States
sacrificed not only none of theirs, but no iota of the revolutionary
American concept of national sovereignty. It is only our generation that
has been sacrificing this concept. Like Cinderella confined to the
kitchen by her ugly sisters who monopolize all relations with the
neighbors, our revolutionary concept of sovereignty is now confined to
purely domestic duties while we let the theory of sovereignty which
Communism stands for -- in the Congo and in Cuba as in the Soviet
kitchen -- govern our relations even with our closest friends.

Such has been and is our confusion that some organizations of American
veterans have led in demanding that the United States "surrender none"
of ... this brand of national sovereignty on which Communism feeds.
Their confusion is understandable, since most living veterans were
drafted to fight for that concept in the two World Wars it has caused,
whereas the veterans of the American Revolution fought to overthrow it.

One might expect that the descendants of these first veterans, who with
filial piety and pride call themselves Daughters of the American
Revolution, or Sons of it, would be the first to set our living veterans
right on this vital point. Instead, these organizations have themselves
been even more insistent champions of the same counter-revolutionary
concept. They long opposed even calling an Atlantic Convention patterned
on the Philadelphia one, to explore how far the federal principles of
their Fathers might be applied now to unite the Atlantic peoples in
upholding the revolutionary American concept which all these nations now
share.

THE CONTINUING NEEDLESS SACRIFICE
OF U.S. SOVEREIGNS

Our generation has been sacrificing American sovereignty not merely in
principle but concretely in practice -- increasingly, tragically. If you
agree that the American people are equally the sovereigns of the United
States, then every limitation on the citizen's life and liberty that he
suffers to maintain merely certain powers he has delegated to the
nation-state, is a needless sacrifice of his sovereignty.

Consider how much freer each of our lives would be if we did not have to
pay the heavy taxes we pay now. P. F. Brundage, who retired in 1958 as
Director of the Budget Bureau of the United States, testified before the
House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 17, 1960 that at least $10
billion dollars could be saved each year by effective Atlantic Union as
regards defense alone. There you have an example of needless sacrifice
of each citizen's sovereign right to spend his hard-earned income as he
pleases -- a sacrifice made to maintain not his own sovereignty but
merely that of his national government. In his testimony, Mr. Brundage
said:

In my work on the Federal Budget for four years, I was deeply concerned
by the amount of duplication within the NATO group and the lack of
uniformity in our Atlantic policies, in our equipment, in our training
procedures and in our defense plans. I became convinced that a closer
cooperation or coordination, even to the extent of a limited union of
our NATO countries, would greatly reduce our over-all expenditures and
greatly increase the effectiveness of our defense measures.

My own experience has indicated how difficult it is to put a dollar mark
on any expected savings. I have estimated that the over-all saving, if
we were to accomplish a real effective coordination to the extent of
unified forces, common bases, common weapons and a common master plan,
could amount to more than $10 billion a year. I still believe that this
is a very moderate estimate of the potential savings.

This $10 billion economy was Mr. Brundage's estimate of the saving for
American taxpayers alone. This would be about one-fourth of the present
American expenditure on defense. A similar saving by the other NATO
nations would make the economy for all fifteen of them total $12.8
billion a year. British and French taxpayers would also save the huge
expenditures their governments are now making to catch up with the
United States in atomic weapons. The French at this writing are planning
to spend $2.4 billion more on their five-year atomic program -- or about
one-fifth of the total of their previous general budget. Apart from the
waste of money which results from the example of atomic nationalism
which we Americans were the first to set, there is the even worse waste
of scientific and technical knowhow which goes with it.

It should be noted, too, that Mr. Brundage's estimate was based on NATO
merely achieving "effective coordination to the extent of unified
forces, common bases, common weapons and a common master plan." Full
federal union would permit even greater strength at still greater saving
for the Atlantic community.

Every citizen who is drafted into the armed services is sacrificing
another big portion of his share of our "national sovereignty." As with
taxes, some such sacrifice is necessary -- so necessary that it is
rather an investment than a sacrifice, as Union Now pointed out in
Chapter VII. The only portion that is truly a sacrifice is the needless
part. The power that lies in union is proverbially great and, being
inherent in the principle, involves relatively no burden. The defensive
power we fail to get thus by Atlantic Union, we now try to get from our
citizens, not only in taxes but by drafting men. All the power thus
gained which could be gained by Union at less cost in money and men
represents a needless sacrifice of the citizen's share of the nation's
sovereignty.

Every citizen who is slain in war that could have been prevented by
Atlantic Union is sacrificing, of course, all the rest of his
sovereignty as a citizen.

Consider how much these sacrifices of the citizen's sovereignty on the
altar of the state have been mounting:

In 1938 the bill for United States defense amounted to only $16 a
citizen. Now it is $253 for every man, woman and child -- sixteen times
as much as it was before the worst war in history. In 1938 no American
citizen was subject to draft. Now millions are drafted and subject to
draft. In World War I, the United States called into the services
4,609,190 men, of whom 53,403 were killed in battle. In World War II,
15,513,657 United States citizens were called into the armed services,
and 293,105 sacrificed in battle their entire share of the nation's
sovereignty. All this adds up to an appalling sacrifice of sovereignty
by American citizens.

How much more will be sacrificed in military service before World War
III, with so many drafted now?

How many, many more Americans will sacrifice all their share of the
national sovereignty in the third World War toward which we are moving,
despite all this taxing and drafting -- a war in which millions can be
killed by a single H-bomb?

We Atlantic Federal Unionists are anxious to prevent more of this
fearful, flesh-and-blood sacrifice of sovereignty which the citizens of
our nation have already suffered. We want to save the real sovereigns of
this republic, and of every democratic nation, from unnecessary
sacrifice and make them stronger sovereigns. We believe this can be done
only by extending America's federal principles around the North
Atlantic.

ATLANTIC UNION GUARANTEES YOUR LANGUAGE, CULTURE
AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

Whether you are an American or a Belgian, a Briton or a Dane, a Canadian
or a Dutchman, a Frenchman or a German -- whatever the people of which
you are now an equal sovereign, you would lose no sovereignty by
federating your nation with others in an Atlantic Union; you would gain
instead. You would gain even more than the people of the Thirteen States
did by Union because this Union -- like the dangers now facing us --
would be a hundred times greater than their.

The creation of this greater Federation would involve no change whatever
in the languages, customs, institutions that diversify Atlantica. The
laws of the Union would operate in Danish in Denmark, in Dutch in The
Netherlands, in French in France and Belgium, in English in Britain,
Canada and the United States, just as the national laws do now. No one
whether Icelander, German or other, would be under any more compulsion
to learn any new language than he is now. True, debates of the Union
Congress or Parliament would no doubt be conducted, for convenience
sake, officially in only two of the major languages -- probably English
for the Germanic ones and French for the Latin ones. But representatives
who spoke neither of these would remain free to address the Congress in
their native tongue and have their words translated, as in the United
Nations. The Union would, of course, give much greater incentive to
people in every one of its nations, large and small, to enrich their
individual culture by learning to speak other languages.

Each nation would continue to educate its children as it saw fit, and
regulate relations between church and state, and worship in the ways its
own people wished.

The Union's creation would bring no change whatever in the existing
municipal, county, state or other local governments within the member
nations, nor any change in the structure of their national governments.
Except for the few powers that would be transferred from each of them to
the Union government, they would continue to operate under their
existing constitutions as they do now. The American people would still
elect their President and he would still be their President only. The
British would still have their Queen, but she would reign only where she
reigns now. The same, of course, would be true of the Presidents of
France and of Germany, the King of the Belgians and the Queen of the
Netherlands, and so on. The British would still govern their national
affairs through their Parliamentary system, the Americans by their
Presidential system of divided powers, the French through their
intermediate system. The national governments of Britain, France, Italy,
would remain unitary, while those of the United States, Canada and
Germany would continue to be federations within the Atlantic Union.

You would, in short, continue to belong to your nation and it to you,
just as now. You would retain all your sovereign right to govern your
national affairs as you please, free from interference by the
governments or people of any other nation, inside or outside the Union.
But now you are able at the showdown to count only on the combined
strength of your fellow Dutchmen (or your fellow Norwegians, or
Frenchmen, or Americans) to uphold all this independence. By forming
part of an Atlantic Union you can count on the united power of its
471,000,000 citizens to guarantee this. And they would guarantee it not
merely against the British, French, Germans, or other nations in the
Union whom your nation has had to fight for independence in the past,
but -- far more important -- against any attack, or threat, or pressure,
from the Communist empires.

SOVEREIGNTY -- WHERE NATIONS DEPRIVE YOU OF IT NOW

While thus strengthening immensely your sovereign right to govern
directly and independently all the purely national affairs of your
nation, you would gain similar citizen sovereignty in a much greater
country in which you already live, but in which the tyranny of unlimited
national sovereignty now gives you no citizenship and no sovereign
rights whatever -- the Atlantic Community. All the 471,000,000 persons
who form this community share in common certain affairs -- notably the
defense and advance of their common concept of citizen sovereignty. To
defend and advance it, what should be the common policy toward the
Communist dictatorship?

What should be our "foreign policy" toward all the nations of Latin
America, Africa and Asia who are seeking to govern themselves in freedom
-- and therefore offer so vast and promising a field for the growth of
our revolutionary democratic concept of citizen sovereignty? What policy
will best serve this, as regards both foes and friends, in military,
economic, monetary, scientific and other fields of common Atlantic
concern? And what policies and institutions for governing the intense
relations of the Atlantic peoples with each other -- the inter-state
trade, travel, communications of these 450,000,000 free Atlanticans with
one another -- will best serve their lives, liberties and pursuit of
happiness as individual men and women?

These fields are not national but Atlantic-wide. On them depend peace or
war, the freedom or the slavery of each of us Atlanticans, the life and
death of millions of us -- and of our concept of citizen sovereignty.
Here is the area of government that most vitally concerns each of us
Atlanticans -- yet it is precisely here that none of us sovereign
citizens now enjoys any of the sovereign rights our forefathers won for
us within our own nation. We each would gain all this sovereignty on an
Atlantic scale by Federal Union. Only by being its Founding Fathers
ourselves can we and our children enjoy the equal and direct voice in
Atlantic affairs that we have in our national and local affairs -- plus
(if we follow the American example) the extension throughout Atlantica
of our sovereign right to work, play, trade, travel, study and live
where and when we please. Only by Atlantic Union can we each gain this
sovereignty to the degree we now possess it within our national fraction
of the Land -- or perhaps we should say, the Ocean -- of the Free.

WHEREVER YOU LIVE IN ATLANTICA -- YOU GAIN BY UNION

Our gains in citizen sovereignty would vary, of course, with our
nations. For example, in an Atlantic Union of 471,000,000 citizens, the
144,000 Icelanders would gain 3,000 times more strength, in manpower
alone, to defend their freedom, both as individuals and as a nation than
they now have. The 4,448,000 Danes would gain 100 times more strength by
this one measure, the 44,500,000 Frenchmen ten times and the 180,000,000
Americans only 2.5 times. But all of us would gain.

The reverse ratio would be true by another measure: By shifting from the
Atlantic Alliance's one vote for Iceland, Denmark, France and the United
States to federation's one equal vote on Atlantic affairs for every
Icelander, Dane, Frenchman and American, 3,000 Americans would gain a
vote for every Icelander who did. In other words, each Icelander would
no longer have the weight of 3,000 Americans. But, again, every one
would gain a direct voting on Atlantic affairs, a power he does not have
today -- without the Americans gaining any voice in purely Icelandic
affairs, or vice versa. And since one vote could make a majority, in the
Atlantic Union as in Iceland, each Icelander would gain as much from
this standpoint as each American.[3]

One can measure the relative gains in other ways; the results vary even
more than in the two opposite examples just given. For example, the gain
the Union would bring each of our peoples, and each of us, by enlarging
our domestic market could be measured in terms of wealth or productive
power or knowhow as well as of population. On the population basis,
Atlantic Union would increase the domestic market of the French from
44.5 millions to 471 millions, or more than ten times; it would increase
that of the United States from 180 to 471 millions, or 2.6 times. But if
the French gained four times more in domestic market by Atlantic Union
than the Americans did on a population basis, the latter would gain more
on another basis. Their greater financial power and experience in doing
business in a vast market would give them a compensating advantage.
Whatever the degree of gain in any respect, and whatever the varying
totals might be if all the factors that enter into life, liberty,
happiness and citizen sovereignty could possibly be measured, the
important fact remains that each of us would gain in some degree in some
way. And the total gain for us all would be incalculable.

____

1. The veto of each House over the other results from the fact that our
Constitution requires the concurrence of a majority of both Houses for
any bill to become law. This veto, significantly, is the only absolute
veto in the federal union system; not only does no citizen or state have
a veto, but the "veto" which the Constitution gives the President is
limited, since a two-thirds majority in both Houses can over-ride it.

2. The state government's complete loss of control over the state's
Senators has been made clear to all since 1913 when the 17th Amendment
to the Constitution deprived the Legislatures of their right to elect
them and gave this directly to the citizens.

3. See Union Now, Chapter VII for more on this matter.
