Governments are instituted...

Very good piece recently by EJ Dionne on the Declaration of Independence and the federal government and what the Founders wanted... An excerpt:

I know states’ rights advocates revere the 10th Amendment. But when the word “states” appears in the Constitution, it typically is part of a compound word, “United States,” or refers to how the states and their people will be represented in the national government. We learned it in elementary school: The Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation to create a stronger federal government, not a weak confederate government. [Rick] Perry’s view was rejected in 1787 and again in 1865.