pact_. The whole then stands as a
"_constitutional compact_"! And in this way he hopes to pass off a
plausible gloss, as satisfying the words of the instrument. But he will
find himself disappointed. Sir, I must say to the honorable gentleman,
that, in our American political grammar, CONSTITUTION is a noun
substantive; it imports a distinct and clear idea of itself; and it is
not to lose its importance and dignity, it is not to be turned into a
poor, ambiguous, senseless, unmeaning adjective, for the purpose of
accommodating any new set of political notions. Sir, we reject his new
rules of syntax altogether. We will not give up our forms of political
speech to the grammarians of the school of nullification. By the
Constitution, we mean, not a "constitutional compact," but, simply and
directly, the Constitution, the fundamental law; and if there be one
word in the language which the people of the United States understand,
this is that word. We know no more of a constitutional compact between
sovereign powers, than we know of a _constitutional_ indenture of
copartnership, a _constitutional_ deed of conveyance, or a
_constitutional_ bill of exchange. But we know what the _Constitution_
is; we know what the plainly written fundamental law is; we know what
the bond of our Union and the security of our liberties is; and we mean
to maintain and to defend it, in its plain sense and unsophisticated
meaning.

The sense of the gentleman's proposition, therefore, is not at all
affected, one way or the other, by the use of this word. That
proposition still is, that our system of government is but a _compact_
between the people of separate and sovereign States.

Was it Mirabeau, Mr. President, or some other master of the human
passions, who has told us that words are things? They are indeed things,
and things of mighty influence, not only in addresses to the passions
and high-wrought feelings of mankind, but in the discussion of legal and
political questions also; because a just conclusion is often avoided, or
a false one reached, by the adroit substitution of one phrase, or one
word, for another. Of this we have, I think, another example in the
resolutions before us.

The first resolution declares that the people of the several States
"_acceded_" to the Constitution, or to the constitutional compact, as it
is called. This word "accede," not found either in the Constitution
itself, or in the ratification of it by any one of the St