Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/497

 Some Great Constitutional Questions. 487

shall be The United States of America.' &c. Hut the whole instrument, after being agreed upon and adopted, article by article, was placed in the hands of a committee of revision, who reported it back considerably changed and improved in mere form. As to the preamble, the generaliza- tion: 'We. the people of the United States,' was substituted as an equiva- lent to a specification of the States. This was proper for the reason that the Constitution was to take effect when ratified by nine States, and it might result that some would be named, though not in the Union.

" It should further be explained tiiat the phrase ' we, the people,' was used to contradistinguish tliis pact from the previous one, which had been ratified or acceded to by the State governments — the mere creatures of the people ; whereas in this case, it was intended to connect the Federal Government directly with and base it upon the very source of power — the people — the sovereignty itself, making thirteen sovereignties, as Madison said, and all the fathers understood the constitutors of the new pact — the constituents or principals of the new agency. As the States were obliged to act as organi- zations, and according to the law of their natures, they gave separate assents, and hence the new was not less a compact than the old Constitution, though the powers vested by it in the government created, were more extensive [see letter of Hamilton to Pickering, 1803]. And the Convention accepted the Constitution, as revised, as their work, and never reversed their solemn and unanimous approval of the phrase, ' We, the people of the States.' Messrs. Dane and Story must have known this, when the former penned, and the latter quoted approvingly, the following in reference to the meaning of the preamble: 'They properly said, we, the people of the United States, do ordain and establish ; and not — we the people of each State.' "

The author then goes on to state the following corroborative facts, which I condense, to-wit: that in the Convention of 1787, Mr. Ells- worth moved to expunge from the plan of the Constitution " the word 'national,' and retain the proper title ' The United States ;' " that this was agreed to ?i€m. con.; that, accordingly, the word nationr.l was struck out of the proposed " Articles of Union " (as they were then called) twenty-six times ; that Ellsworth stated, tiem. dis., that " he wished the plan to go forth as an amendment to the articles of confederation;" that all the States had carefully instructed their deputies to make " such alterations and provisions as would make the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Govern- ment and the preservation of the Union," and had not authorized them to go further ; that the preamble adopted declared this union of States to be (in comparision) "a more perfect Union;" that the Convention, after maturing the plan, unanimously, through the pen of Washington, stated their aim to be "the /i'</<rra/ Government," and that the Congress of States declared on the i3ih of September, 1788, that they had received and filed the ratifications 0/ the Stairs,