f the conventions of
_nine States_ shall be sufficient for the _establishment_ of this
Constitution between _the States so ratifying_ the same." If it was
already established, what need was there of further establishment? It
was not ordained or established at all, until ratified by the requisite
number of States. The announcement in the preamble of course had
reference to that expected ratification, without which the preamble
would have been as void as the body of the instrument. The assertion
that "it was not ratified by the States" is so plainly and positively
contrary, to well-known fact--so inconsistent with the language of the
Constitution itself--that it is hard to imagine what was intended by it,
unless it was to take advantage of the presumed ignorance of the subject
among the readers of an English journal, to impose upon them, a
preposterous fiction. It was State ratification alone--the ratification
of the _people_ of each State, independently of all other people--that
gave force, vitality, and validity to the Constitution.

Judge Story, referring to the fact that the voters assembled in the
several States, asks where else they could have assembled--a pertinent
question on our theory, but the idea he evidently intended to convey was
that the voting of "the people" by States was a mere matter of
geographical necessity, or local convenience; just as the people of a
State vote by counties; the people of a county by towns, "beats," or
"precincts"; and the people of a city by wards. It is hardly necessary
to say that, in all organized republican communities, majorities govern.
When we speak of the will of the people of a community, we mean the will
of a majority, which, when constitutionally expressed, is binding on any
minority of the same community.

If, then, we can conceive, and admit for a moment, the possibility that,
when the Constitution was under consideration, the people of the United
States were politically "one people"--a collective unit--two deductions
are clearly inevitable: In the first place, each geographical division
of this great community would have been entitled to vote according to
its relative population; and, in the second, the expressed will of the
legal majority would have been binding upon the whole. A denial of the
first proposition would be a denial of common justice and equal rights;
a denial of the second would be to destroy all government and establish
mere anarchy.

Now, _neither_