On the first day after the adoption of the rules, Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, opened the great business. He began by announcing that the “Confederation” produced no security against foreign invasion; that the “Federal Government” could not suppress quarrels or rebellion; that the “Federal Government” could not defend itself against encroachments from the States; and then, insisting that the remedy must be found in “the republican principle,” concluded with a series of propositions for a National Government, with a “National” Legislature in two branches, a “National” Executive, and a “National” Judiciary, the whole crowned by the guaranty of a republican government in each State. This series of propositions was followed the next day by a simple statement in the form of a resolution, where, after setting forth the insufficiency of “a union of the States merely Federal,” or of “treaties among the States as individual sovereignties,” it was declared “that a National Government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary.” Better words could not have been chosen to express the prevailing aspiration for national life. After ample debate, the resolution in this form was adopted. At a later stage, in seeming deference to mistaken sensibilities, the word “National” gave place to the term “the government of the United States”; but this term equally denoted National Unity, although it did not use the words. The whole clause afterwards found a noble substitute in the Preamble to the Constitution, which is the annunciation of a National Government proceeding directly from the People, like the Declaration of Independence itself.
From the beginning to the end of its debates, the Convention breathed the same patriotic fervor. Amidst all difference in details, and above the persistent and sinister contest for the equal representation of the States, great and small, the sentiment of Unity found constant utterance. I have already mentioned Madison and Hamilton, who wished a National Government; but others were not less decided. Gouverneur Morris began early by explaining the difference between “Federal” and “National.” The former implied “a mere compact, resting on the good faith of the parties”; the latter had “a complete and compulsive operation.”[39] Constantly this impassioned statesman protested against State pretensions, insisting that the States were originally “nothing more than colonial corporations,”[40] and exclaiming, “We cannot annihilate, but we may perhaps take out the teeth of the serpents.”[41] Wilson was a different character,—gentle by nature, but informed by studies in jurisprudence and by the education brought from his Scottish home. He was for a National Government, and did not think it inconsistent with the “lesser jurisdictions” of States, which he would preserve;[42] he would not “extinguish these planets,” but keep them “within their proper orbits for subordinate purposes.”[43] He was too much of a jurist to admit, “that, when the Colonies became independent of Great Britain, they became independent also of each other,” and he insisted that they became independent, “not individually, but unitedly.”[44] Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, was as strong on this point as Gouverneur Morris, insisting that “we never were independent States, were not such now, and never could be, even on the principles of the Confederation.”[45] Rufus King, also of Massachusetts, touched a higher key, when he wished that “every man in America” should be “secured in all his rights,” and that these should not be “sacrificed to the phantom of State sovereignty.”[46] Good words, worthy of him who in the Continental Congress moved the prohibition of Slavery in the national territories.[47] And Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, said, in other words of precious significance, that “every freeman has a right to the same protection and security,” and then again, that “equality is the leading feature of the United States.”[48] Under such influences the Constitution was adopted by the Convention.
It is needless to dwell on its features, all so well known; but there are certain points not to be disregarded now. There is especially the beginning. Next after the opening words of the Declaration of Independence, the opening words of the Constitution are the grandest in history. They sound like a majestic overture, fit prelude to the transcendent harmonies of National life on a theatre of unexampled proportions. Though familiar, they cannot be too often repeated; for they are in themselves an assurance of popular rights and an epitome of National duties: “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Thus by the people of the United States was the Constitution ordained and established; not by the States, nor even by the people of the several States, but by the people of the United States in aggregate individuality. Nor is it a league, alliance, agreement, compact, or confederation; but it is a Constitution, which in itself denotes an indivisible unity under one supreme law, permanent in character; and this Constitution, thus ordained and established, has for its declared purposes nothing less than liberty, justice, domestic tranquillity, the common defence, the general welfare, and a more perfect union, all essentially National, and to be maintained by the National arm. The work thus begun was completed by three further provisions: first, the lofty requirement that “the United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government,”—thus subjecting the States to the presiding judgment of the Nation, which is left to determine the definition of a republican government; secondly, the practical investiture of Congress with authority “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof,”—thus assuring the maintenance of the National Government, and the execution of its powers through a faithful Congress chosen by the people; and, thirdly, the imperial declaration, that “this Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding,”—thus forever fixing the supremacy of the National Government on a pinnacle above all local laws and constitutions. And thus did our country again assume the character and obligations of a Nation. Its first awakening was in the Declaration of Independence; its second was in the National Constitution.
On its adoption, the Constitution was transmitted to Congress with a letter from Washington, where, among other things, it is said that “in all our deliberations we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our National existence.”[49] Enough that this letter is signed “George Washington”; but it was not merely the expression of his individual sentiments. It was unanimously adopted by the Convention, on the report of the committee that made the final draught of the Constitution itself, so that it must be considered as belonging to this great transaction. By its light the Constitution must be read. If anybody is disposed to set up the denationalizing pretensions of States under the National Constitution, let him bear in mind this explicit declaration, that, throughout all the deliberations of the Convention, the one object kept steadily in view was the consolidation of our Union. Such is the unanimous testimony of the Convention, authenticated by George Washington.
The Constitution was discussed next in the States. It was vindicated as creating a National Government, and it was opposed also on this very ground. Thus from opposite quarters comes the concurring testimony. In Connecticut, Mr. Johnson, who had been chairman of the committee that reported the final draught, said, in reply to inquiries of his constituents, that the Convention had “gone upon entirely new ground: they have formed one new Nation out of the individual States.”[50] George Mason, of Virginia, proclaimed at home that “the Confederation of the States was entirely changed into one consolidated government,”—that it was “a National government, and no longer a Confederation.”[51] Patrick Henry, in his vigorous opposition, testified to the completeness with which the work had been accomplished. Inquiring by what authority the Convention assumed to make such a government, he exclaimed: “That this is a consolidated government is demonstrably clear.… Give me leave to demand, What right had they to say, We, the people?… Who authorized them to speak the language of We, the people, instead of We, the States?… If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great consolidated National government of the people of all the States.”[52] Then again the same fervid orator declared, with infinite point, “The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing, the expression, We, the people, instead of the States.”[53] Patrick Henry was right. The question did turn on that grand expression, We, the people, in the very frontispiece of the Constitution, filling the whole with life-giving power; and so long as it stands there, the denationalizing pretensions of States must shrink into littleness. Originally “one people” during colonial days, we have been unalterably fixed in this condition by two National acts: first, the Declaration of Independence, and then again, the National Constitution. Thus is doubly assured the original unity in which we were born.
Other tokens of Nationality, like the air we breathe, are so common that they hardly attract attention; but each has a character of its own. They belong to the “unities” of our nation.