Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/718

 710 been ratified. North Carolina in her first convention rejected it; and Rhode-Island did not accede to it, until more than a year after it had been in operation. Some delicate questions, under a different state of things, might have arisen. What they were, and how they were disposed of at the time, is made known by the Federalist, in a commentary upon the article, which will conclude this subject.

§ 1846. This article speaks for itself. The express authority of the people alone could give due validity to the constitution. To have required the unanimous ratification of the thirteen states, would have subjected the essential interests of the whole, to the caprice or corruption of a single member. It would have marked a want of foresight in the convention, which our own experience would have rendered inexcusable.

§ 1847. Two questions of a very delicate nature present themselves on this occasion. (1.) On what principle the confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the states, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it? (2.) What relation is to subsist between the nine or more states ratifying the constitution, and the remaining few, who do not become parties to it?

§ 1848. The first question is answered at once, by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature, and of nature's God, which declares, that the safety and happiness of society, are the objects, at which all political institutions