Citizen or subject?

by Francis X. Hennessy

We recall vividly the proposal that came from Philadelphia eleven years earlier or in 1776, that the Americans in each former colony constitute a government with such powers to interfere with the human freedom of its citizens. We recall that such governments were constituted in what Marshall states to be the only way in which men can act safely, effectively or wisely, when constituting government of themselves, namely, by assembling in “conventions.”

We also recall vividly the proposal that came from the same Philadelphia a year later or in 1777, that the states constitute a federal government of states. And we recall that the state legislatures, because they possessed existing ability to make federal Articles, did validly make the federal Articles suggested in that proposal.

We also recall, that the new Constitution, which is before us in the “conventions” named in the Seventh Article, is to be both a national Constitution, constituting government of men, and a federal Constitution, constituting government of states. And we recall that only one of the present Articles in that proposed Constitution, the First Article, constitutes government of men by granting government power to interfere with individual freedom. And we recall, with Hamilton in the Convention beside us, the probability that all future Articles in that dual Constitution, will probably be of the federal or the declaratory kind which the existing ability of state legislatures can make.

And so we understand why Madison and Hamilton, in their Fifth Article, mention that existing ability of the state legislatures to make Articles which do not relate to interference with individual freedom, as well as they mention our own exclusive ability, the ability of the “conventions” of the American people, to make Articles which do relate to interference with individual freedom.

And, sitting in those conventions with the “people better acquainted with the science of government than any other people in the world,” when we read the language of the Fifth Article, it is impossible for us to make the monumental error of assuming that the mention of the two existing abilities adds anything to one or subtracts anything from the other.

And so, with our minds in those “conventions” free from any possibility of such monumental error, we now read and clearly understand the most important words in the constitutional mode of procedure for existing powers, which we know as the Fifth Article. To none of the Americans in those conventions is there any doubt, to no American, who understands what America is, can there ever be any doubt, what are the most important words. They are the words “in three fourths thereof” immediately following the words which name the very kind of “conventions” in which we sit. These words, “by conventions in three fourths thereof,” bring home to us the marvel of what our “conventions” are doing.

In them sit the people of America, possessors of the supreme will in America, assembled in their respective states, as free men and not as the citizens of the particular state in which each convention of Americans assembles.

We realize, as the Preamble of the Constitution before us expressly declares, what is the first proposal upon which we act affirmatively, when we say “Yes” to the whole proposal from Philadelphia. The first effect of that “Yes” is that we, that part of the American people in that particular state, do consent (with the Americans in eight or more other willing states) to join the new nation or political society of men, which is to be America, and that we consent to be, with those other Americans, the citizens of the new nation as soon as the Americans in eight other willing states give their similar “Yes.” We are well aware, as we sit in one of the “conventions,” that the Philadelphia proposal has left it open for the free Americans in each state to become members or not of the new society as they please, and that, therefore, the joining of that society, by the Americans in at least nine states, will mean that the new nation is created by unanimous action of the majority in every state whose Americans become citizens of America.

From which we realize that the original grants of national power by its citizens to the only government of the new nation will be the second effect of the “Yes” from the Americans in nine conventions. Thus these original grants, the First Article grants of enumerated power to interfere with the individual freedom of the American citizen, will be made simultaneously by the majority of Americans in every state where Americans become citizens.

But, once these early Americans leave those first “conventions,” the whole American people will constitute the members or citizens of the new nation, America.