Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 12.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

“ [487] shall be The United States of America,” &c. But the whole instrument, after being agreed upon and adopted, article by article, was placed in the hands of a committee of revision, who reported it back considerably changed and improved in mere form. As to the preamble, the generalization: “We, the people of the United States,” was substituted as an equivalent to a specification of the States. This was proper for the reason that the Constitution was to take effect when ratified by nine States, and it might result that some would be named, though not in the Union.

It should further be explained that the phrase “we, the people,” was used to contradistinguish this pact from the previous one, which had been ratified or acceded to by the State governments—the mere creatures of the people; whereas in this case, it was intended to connect the Federal Government directly with and base it upon the very source of power—the people—the sovereignty itself, making thirteen sovereignties, as Madison said, and all the fathers understood the constitutors of the new pact—the constituents or principals of the new agency. As the States were obliged to act as organizations, and according to the law of their natures, they gave separate assents, and hence the new was not less a compact than the old Constitution, though the powers vested by it in the government created were more extensive [see letter of Hamilton to Pickering, 1803]. And the Convention accepted the Constitution, as revised, as their work, and never reversed their solemn and unanimous approval of the phrase, “we, the people of the States.” Messrs. Dane and Story must have known this, when the former penned, and the latter quoted approvingly, the following in reference to the meaning of the preamble: “They properly said, we, the people of the United States, do ordain and establish; and not—we the people of each State.”