[118] friends in various states, referred to the Constitution as a compact or treaty, and repeatedly uses the terms “accede” and “accession,” and once the term “secession.” He asks what the opponents of the Constitution in Virginia would do, “if nine other States should accede to the Constitution.” Luther Martin of Maryland informs us that, in a committee of the general convention of 1787, protesting against the proposed violation of the principles of the perpetual union already formed under the Articles of Confederation, he made use of such language as this:
Will you tell us we ought to trust you because you now enter into a solemn compact with us? This you have done before, and now treat with the utmost contempt. Will you now make an appeal to the Supreme Being, and call on Him to guarantee your observance of this compact? The same you have formerly done for your observance of the Articles of Confederation, which you are now violating in the most wanton manner.1It is needless to multiply the proofs that abound in the writings of the “fathers” to show that Webster's “new vocabulary” was the very language they familiarly used. Let two more examples suffice, from authority higher than that of any individual speaker or writer, however eminent—from authority second only, if at all inferior, to that of the text of the Constitution itself—that is, from the acts or ordinances of ratification by the states. They certainly ought to have been conclusive, and should not have been unknown to Webster, for they are the language of Massachusetts, the state which he represented in the Senate, and of New Hampshire, the state of his nativity. The ratification of Massachusetts is expressed in the following terms:
Commonwealth of Massachusetts The Convention, having impartially discussed and fully considered a Constitution for the United States of America, reported to Congress by the convention of delegates from the United States of America, and submitted to us by a resolution of the General Court of the said Commonwealth, passed the 25th day of October last past, and acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, in affording the people of the United States, in the course of his Providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud or surprise, of entering into an explicit and solemn compact with each other, by assenting to and ratifying a new Constitution, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity—do, in the name and in behalf of the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, assent to and ratify the said Constitution for the United States of America.
