Federal territories should have voting representation in Congress.

This destroys the entire premise of the Constitution.

Please expand upon that statement.

The federal government was set up as kind of a corporation, the "Articles of Incorporation" being the Constitution. It was an agreement between the independent states to serve the best interests of everyone and provide for the general welfare, coinage of money, defense, etc.

The federal government is the slave of the state governments in theory anyway. Allowing the federal government to have territories in which it could create a voter base would allow it unprecendented power over itself, rather than being under the control of the states.

Of course, I'm speaking as if the federal government hadn't already become the primal force that it is today. But that doesn't mean we need to erode it even further.

My main point in all these things is always that we should follow the Constitution. If we don't like the Constitution it is amendable and we should change it. But if we simply ignore it then everything falls apart.

I don't think that giving currently existing federal territories allows the federal government to "create a voter base [which would] allow it unprecendented power over itself", and I can't think of any other reason to deny federal territories representation.

Would you be more comfortable with this claim if it were "The constitution should be amended to allow federal territories to have representation in Congress."?

Well, there are two big objections. One is a constitutional objection -- this is not legally permissible without amending the Constitution.

The other is a states' rights argument, which says that because the United States is a federation of sovereign states who have each independently elected to become a part of the United States of America by ratifying the Constitution, the Federal government exists at the pleasure of the states and should not get its own vote in controlling it.

That is to say, in order for someone to rightly have a voice in the government of the states united under the Constitution (i.e. the United States, which was plural until sometime in the 1800s), they should be required to be a citizen of one of those states.

I'm not really sure what I think of this. I'll have to consider it more.

@Ben: I think that would be a better way to word the claim but I still would be against it. That would require we had two entities defined in the Constitution, one entity being a State, and the other being a federal territory. I personally think it would be too complex to decide how these new entities would be represented and handled inside the three branches of federal government. I think the territories should just be able to decide if they want admitted to the union, if they don't (as in the case of Puerto Rico) then they don't get representation.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I'm astonished by the results of this claim, but I'm guessing it speaks to people's desire that everyone have a voice in government. Because when the consequences of allowing this are thought out, it loses it's idealistic appeal.

If a commonwealth or territory prefers its current status of non-State, then it should not be rewarded with the benefits of being a State.

I have given this additional thought. It should be the case that they can hear the arguments and even so on record with how their vote would have been counted. However, the recognition for speech would still be at the discretion of the moderator. And certainly no voting power until taking the package deal.