Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/26

20, are never valid until ratified by the high treaty-making powers of the respective countries. As the several states of this Union first acted through delegates of their own appointing, and then ratified their acts, in conventions also chosen by constituencies of their own selection, it is not easy to establish any thing more plainly than the fact, that the constitution of the United States was framed by the states then in existence, as communities, and not by the body of the people of the Union, or by the body of the people of the states, as has been sometimes contended.

In favor of the latter opinion, it is maintained that the several states were an identified nation previously to the formation of the government, and the preamble of the constitution itself, has been quoted to prove that the compact was formed by the people, as distinct from the states. This preamble commences by saying that "We the people of the United States," for reasons that are then set forth, have framed the instrument that follows; but in respecting a form of phraseology, it, of necessity, neither establishes a fact, nor sets up a principle, and when we come to examine the collateral circumstances, we are irresistably led to regard it merely as a naked and vague profession.

That the several states were virtually parts of one entire nation previously to the formation of any separate general government, proves nothing in the premises, as the very circumstance that a polity distinct from that of Great Britain was established by our ancestors, who were members of the great community that was then united in one entire nation, sufficiently shows that these parts can separate, and act independently of each other. Such a circumstance might be, and probably it was, a strong motive for forming a more identified government, but it cannot properly be quoted as authority for, or against any of its