Could America's States stand alone without the Federal Government?

In my opinion, I do not think that we could because the way our government system is set up.

IMHO, The second our central government ceases, we become 50 independent countries, none responsible to another for mutual aid or support. Our national guard will become independent state guards - which they are technically supposed to be anyways - then loose alliances start being formed, etc. Do the states that possess the nukes end up being the power brokers? Fugly to even think about it.

YES!!!

The Federal government's role is to interact with other foreign nations. States are prevented from interacting with other nations by Article VI the "Supremacy" Clause.

1SG Michael Blount If you want to be historically accurate, the Annapolis convention decided to remedy the Articles of Confederation, not replace it. The convention in Philadelphia is widely accepted to have acted beyond its mandate. It was vindicated by the capitulation of the Articles Congress in recognizing the ratification by 11 of the 13 states (contrary to Article 13), and ordered elections to be held for the new government.

Minor point, but does reveal that the country was hijacked by a few good men. That a majority of the people followed them is just a testimony to their influence.

PO2 Christopher Morehouse - I was recalling from a Political Science course I took over 30 years ago, so please forgive the word choice. I think we agree, however, the Annapolis Convention decided the old Articles of Confederation (from which we get the words Federal and Confederate-but that's a story for another day) had to go. Replace or remedy is a word choice that doesn't really matter.

1SG Michael Blount - I understand. The only reason why this is fresh in my mind is I just finished a semester on the Philadelphia convention at law school. However, I was not meaning to engage in semantics, though I agree the point is minor in the grand scheme of things. I was disagreeing with the idea that the Annapolis Convention came to the conclusion that the Articles of Confederation had to go.

The report from the Annapolis convention says they simply wanted a new convention in order to effectively remedy the defects of the Articles of confederation because not every state showed up and not every delegation had the same authority to negotiate on behalf of their state. Indeed, the Annapolis Convention was merely attended by 5 state delegations. Their resolution was simply to have a convention with all the state reps with powers to make changes other than on just commerce in order to facilitate the changes needed. This is evident in the Articles Congress' mandate to the Philadelphia Convention to simply propose revisions to the Articles of confederation. It was not the mission of the convention in Philadelphia to create a whole new constitution and system of government. It was the delegates to the Philadelphia convention that took it upon themselves to create something new.

I do not doubt that some members of the Annapolis Convention had ulterior motives in calling for the Philadelphia convention, especially with someone like Alexander Hamilton being in attendance. But to say that it was determined there is a stretch.

Only five States attended? I didn't remember THAT

The irony is that if you look at the states that receive the most in tax payer money, they're all red states that say "no fed". Ultimate hypocrisy. If you want to refuse the fed, start by not accepting a disproportionate amount of fed dollars.