Did the U.S Constitution revoke or merely amend the the Articles of Confederation?

Question

This may seem like a silly question, but I only ask because of a U.S. Supreme Court case that actually cited the Articles of Confederation.

After the civil war, there is this case called Texas_v._White, which in the process of judging the case, the Supreme Court had to give an opinion on whether the state of Texas actually legally left the United States during the civil war. The answer was of course no. Chief justice Salmon P. Chase ruled that Texas never legally left the Union.

The interesting part is the reasons he used to justify his opinion. This is important because he acknowledged that the State of Texas and its people had officially voted to leave the Union, but even this process was void because:

"The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these, the Union was solemnly declared to 'be perpetual.' And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union.' It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?"

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A simple search will show that the phase "perpetual union" is not in the Constitution anywhere but all over the place in the Articles of Confederation. This suggests that Chase believed that the Union established by the Constitution is only a refinement of the Union previously established by Articles of Confederation. For matters where the Constitution does not clearly redefine (such as whether the Union is perpetual), the Articles of Confederation retains its legal authority.

Considering that U.S court cases set precedences, the case of Texas vs White seems to suggest that the Articles of Confederation still as legal power today, as long as it does not conflict with the constitution.

Doesn't that sound a little weird?

Answer 1

It was replaced under Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation, which stated:

[T]he Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.

The only questions as to which document held precedence ended when the last state of the Confederation (Rhode Island) ratified the Constitution in 1790. Prior to that, there would have been some legal limbo stemming from the fact that Article VII of the Constitution only required 9 states to ratify.

Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court would not hold any authority over the enforcement of the Articles of Confederation, as Article III, Section 2 defines that authority to "extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution."

The wording quoted from Justice Chase's opinion in Texas v. White is basically just legal hyperbole, and serves as an introduction to the actual basis for the Court's decision a couple paragraphs later:

But the perpetuity and indissolubility of the Union, by no means implies the loss of distinct and individual existence, or of the right of self-government by the States. Under the Articles of Confederation each State retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right not expressly delegated to the United States. Under the Constitution, though the powers of the States were much restricted, still, all powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. And we have already had occasion to remark at this term, that "the people of each State compose a State, having its own government, and endowed with all the functions essential to separate and independent existence," and that "without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States." Not only, therefore, can there be no loss of separate and independent autonomy to the States, through their union under the Constitution, but it may be not unreasonably said that the preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National government. The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States.

Note that this does not use the Articles of Confederation as the legal basis of the decision - it uses arguments based on the Constitution. You can read the full decision of the court here - Wikipedia pulls a couple of quotations out of context.