This was an interpretation of the new Constitution with far-reaching political and philosophical implications, for it not only defied the classical assumption—as old as Aristotle—that every government must have one supreme and final source of authority, but also transformed the Constitution from a clear blueprint for a nation-size republic to a framework for debate in which arguments about federal versus state sovereignty would continue forevermore. Indeed, argument itself became the abiding solution, and ambiguity the great asset that ensured the argument could never end, making the
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