Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/380

 340 of the several states, or between the whole people of the United States, and the people of the several states, or between each citizen of all the states, and all other citizens, are, if not absolutely insuperable, so serious, and so wholly founded upon mere implication, that it is matter of surprise, that they should have been so extensively adopted, and so zealously propagated. These theories, too, seem mainly urged with a view to draw conclusions, which are at war with the known powers, and reasonable objects of the constitution; and which, if successful, would reduce the government to a mere confederation. They are objectionable, then, in every way; first, because they are not justified by the language of the constitution; secondly, because they have a tendency to impair, and indeed to destroy, its express powers and objects; and thirdly, because they involve consequences, which, at the will of a single state, may overthrow the constitution itself. One of the fundamental rules in the exposition of every instrument is, so to construe its terms, if possible, as not to make them the source of their own destruction, or to make them utterly void, and nugatory. And if this be generally true, with how much more force does the rule apply to a constitution of government, framed for the general good, and designed for perpetuity? Surely, if any implications are to be made beyond its terms, they are implications to preserve, and not to destroy it.