Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/392

372 372 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. Its use first occurs in the preamble/ in which it is used twice. The first time it is plainly used in its original sense, i. e., as the col- lective name of the States which should adopt it. If the words had been "We, the people of the thirteen^ United States respec- tively," the sense in which "United States" was used would have been precisely the same. Nor is there any doubt that it is used in the same sense at the end of the preamble. Of course there is a very strong presumption that when a constitution is made by a sovereign people, it is made exclusively for the country inhabited by that people, and exclusively for that people regarded as a body politic, and so having perpetual succession; and the same thing is true, mutatis mutandis, of a constitution made by the people of several sovereign States united together for that purpose. The preamble, however, does not leave it to presumption to determine for what regions of country and what people the Constitution of the United States was made; for it expressly declares that its purposes and objects are, first, to form a more perfect union {i. e., among the thirteen States, or as many of them as shall adopt it). Then follow four other objects which, though in terms indefinite as to their territorial scope, are by clear imphcation limited to the same States ; ^ and lastly its purpose and object are tablish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." inconvenient, because it was uncertain, when the Constitution was framed, how many States would adopt it. It was provided by Art. 7 that, as soon as it was adopted by nine States, it should become binding upon the States adopting it, nine being within a fraction of three-fourths of the whole, and the assent of nine States having been required by the Articles of Confederation for the doing of all acts of prime importance. (See Art. 9, last paragraph but one, and Arts. 10 and 11.) In fact, only eleven States partici- pated in the first election of Washington as President, and only that number was rep- resented in Congress during the first session of the first Congress. ' Moreover, the usage of the times furnishes positive proof that the terms "com- mon defence" and "general welfare" were used in the preamble with exclusive refer- ence to the thirteen States; for the words "common" and "general" were familiarly used to distinguish what concerned the United States from what concerned the several States as such, and that too at a time when "United States" could not possibly mean anything else than the thirteen United States. Thus, the 3d Article of Confedera- tion provides as follows: "The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their 'common' defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and 'general' welfare." So also the 5th Article contains the follow- ing: "For the more convenient management of the 'general' interest of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed ... to meet in Congress." So also in
 * "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, es-
 * To have stated the number of States in the preamble would, however, have been