![handle is hein.journals/denlj11 and id is 1 raw text is: MORE LAW - LESS ORDERLINESS
Andrew Durand*
A sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments,
a legislation over communities, as contradistinguishedfrom
individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice is it
subversive of the order and ends of civil polity. James Madison
and Alexander Hamilton'
To persuade the electors of New York to ratify the new Constitution of the
United States giving Congress power to legislate directly over citizens of the
United States rather than the alternative of giving Congress the power to coerce
States to pass federal legislation, Madison advanced this dreadful theory.
Whether a sovereignty over sovereigns is an appropriate description of the
European Union, and, whether it has been subversive of the order and ends of
civil polity, will be explored.
Although it was certainly designed as a step on the path towards some still
undefined political union which would be capable of managing a foreign policy,
the European Community Treaties were not constructed as a Constitution, let
alone as a federal constitution, but rather as a number of sophisticated
procedures to enable sovereign states to work together, in some defined cases, as
a League of States and, in still narrower circumstances, produce joint decisions.
The development of some form of largely unwritten Constitution on the basis of
the original treaty structure, together with the Maastricht changes, in part by the
European Court2 and in part by conventional acquiescence of a majority of the
. Professor of European Law, the University of Buckingham. This is a revised version of
an inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Buckingham in April, 1996.
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No.20, (2nd.ed.,Blackwell) at 97.
2 The case of Van Gend en Loos v. Nederlandse Belastingsadministratie (Case 26/62)
[1963] E.C.R. 1 contains the Court of Justice of the European Communities' fundamental
assertion that the E.E.C. Treaty, as it then was, set up a New Legal Order in national law. That
assertion is and remains entirely apriori.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/denlj11&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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