FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135  
136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   >>   >|  
s, in advance of its proper place in the argument--the attention of the reader may be directed to the refutation, afforded by this article of the Constitution, of that astonishing fiction, which has been put forward by some distinguished writers of later date, that the Constitution was established by the people of the United States "in the aggregate." If such had been the case, the will of a majority, duly ascertained and expressed, would have been binding upon the minority. No such idea existed in its formation. It was not even established by the _States in the aggregate_, nor was it proposed that it should be. It was submitted for the acceptance of each separately, the time and place at their own option, so that the dates of ratification did extend from December 7, 1787, to May 29, 1790. The long period required for these ratifications makes manifest the absurdity of the assertion, that it was a decision by the votes of one people, or one community, in which a majority of the votes cast determined the result. We have seen that the delegates to the Convention of 1787 were chosen by the several States, _as States_--it is hardly necessary to add that they voted in the Convention, as in the Federal Congress, by States--each State casting one vote. We have seen, also, that they were sent for the "sole and express purpose" of revising the Articles of Confederation and devising means for rendering the Federal Constitution, "adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union"; that the terms "Union," "United States," "Federal Constitution;" and "Constitution of the Federal Government," were applied to the old Confederation in precisely the same sense in which they are used under the new; that the proposition to constitute a "national" Government was distinctly rejected by the Convention; that the right of any State, or States, to withdraw from union with the others was practically exemplified, and that the idea of coercion of a State, or compulsory measures, was distinctly excluded under any construction that can be put upon the action of the Convention. To the original copy of the Constitution, as set forth by its framers for the consideration and final action of the people of the States, was attached the following words: "Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135  
136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
States
 

Constitution

 

Convention

 
Federal
 

people

 

action

 

majority

 

Government

 

Confederation

 

distinctly


United

 
established
 

aggregate

 
applied
 
rendering
 

devising

 

adequate

 

Articles

 

seventeenth

 

revising


exigencies

 

present

 

consent

 

preservation

 

purpose

 
government
 

unanimous

 

express

 

casting

 

thousand


hundred

 

Congress

 
eighty
 

September

 

practically

 

exemplified

 

framers

 

coercion

 

compulsory

 

construction


measures
 
excluded
 

consideration

 

withdraw

 

precisely

 
original
 

proposition

 
constitute
 
attached
 

rejected