eration of the thirteen
States was omitted, and the equivalent phrase "people of the United
States" inserted in its place--plainly meaning the people of such States
as should agree to unite on the terms proposed. The imposing fabric of
political delusion, which has been erected on the basis of this simple
transaction, disappears before the light of historical record.

Could the authors of the Constitution have foreseen the perversion to be
made of their obvious meaning, it might have been prevented by an easy
periphrasis--such as, "We, the people of the States hereby united," or
something to the same effect. The word "people" in 1787, as in 1880,
was, as it is, a collective noun, employed indiscriminately, either as a
unit in such expressions as "this people," "a free people," etc., or in
a distributive sense, as applied to the citizens or inhabitants of one
state or country or a number of states or countries. When the Convention
of the colony of Virginia, in 1774, instructed their delegates to the
Congress that was to meet in Philadelphia, "to obtain a redress of those
grievances, without which _the people of America_ can neither be safe,
free, nor happy," it was certainly not intended to convey the idea that
the people of the American Continent, or even of the British colonies in
America, constituted one political community. Nor did Edmund Burke have
any such meaning when he said, in his celebrated speech in Parliament,
in 1775, "The people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen."

We need go no further than to the familiar language of King James's
translation of the Bible for multiplied illustrations of this
indiscriminate use of the term, both in its collective and distributive
senses. For example, King Solomon prays at the dedication of the temple:

"That thine eyes may be open unto the supplication ... of _thy
people_ Israel, to hearken unto them in all that they call for
unto thee. For thou didst separate them from among _all the
people_ of the earth, to be thine inheritance." (1 Kings viii,
52, 53.)

Here we have both the singular and plural senses of the same word--_one
people_, Israel, and _all the people of the earth_--in two consecutive
sentences. In "the people of the earth," the word _people_ is used
precisely as it is in the expression "the people of the United States"
in the preamble to the Constitution, and has exactly the same force and
effect. If in the latter case it imp