Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/16

12 shown from the debates and official documents accompanying and preceding the framing and adoption of the federal constitution. We have not the time to examine fully into all these test words here; for a fairly full compilation or tabulation of the data bearing on them, see the subjoined note. (19) To one or two of these words let us devote a few sentences.

First, then, as to the phrase, "We the people of the United States." The preamble to the federal constitution does use this expression. But Article VII of the instrument itself provides that "The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this constitution BETWEEN THE STATES so ratifying the same." Mark you these most significant words, between the States. It is not provided that the ratification of this constitution by a prescribed majority of the whole people of the then existing United States under the Articles of Confederation shall establish it over the whole people of all those United States (a provision that would have been an utter nullity, for stubborn historical reasons), but that its ratification by a certain number of the States shall establish it between—not over, but BETWEEN those particular States, and none others, unless and until such others shall also ratify, each for itself.

Bearing in mind this Article VII of the federal constitution, the preamble becomes plain. A cardinal canon of construction is, that if possible all the parts of a written instrument shall be so construed as to be harmonious with each other. The "people of the United States," then, here means the people (or, peoples) of those several distinct States which may elect to establish the proposed constitution between themselves. And indeed, this constitution of 1787, and the union under it, first went into effect between eleven of the States, only, as we have remarked above; North Carolina and Rhode Island remaining separate and independent republics until, after President Washington's inauguration, they chose, each for itself, to come into the new union or confederacy.

So we see that Mr. Webster's centralist construction of the word or phrase, "the people," as used in the constitution, falls to the ground.