it is said, is no part of a statute. Therefore, by a misnomer, this summary and epitome of the whole Constitution is to be degraded from its most important position, as the first, most authoritative, and commanding portion of the instrument, to the performance of the mere secondary and insignificant office of a preamble; to be used, not as any part of the supreme law, but only by way of argument in the construction of some doubtful phraseology in other parts of the Constitution. This is doing no justice to the law, but great injustice to the people who made it. The enacting clause is perfectly authoritative in its source, the people; peremptory in its action, ordain and establish; definite and exact in its subject, this Constitution; and distinct, broad, and extensive in its purposes and ends, embracing the "liberty, safety, and welfare of the whole Union, and all its people."

§ 63. This part of the Constitution being, like all the rest, the supreme law of the land, the ordained and established purposes and ends of the people in making it are to be accomplished thereby, if, consistently with the moral law and the principles of free government, they may be; and the government of the United States," to whom it is committed for administration and execution, is responsible to the nation-the whole people for the performance of the whole of them. The powers and duties of the government are not to be distinguished or separated;

nor to be held inadequate to the plenary accomplishment of the declared intentions, and peremptory purposes of the people of the United States.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PURPOSES.

§ 64. WE will next consider the character and extent of these six express purposes, constituting the duties and limiting the powers of the national government under the Constitution. They are thus expressed in the first sentence of the Constitution: 1. "To form a more perfect Union; 2. establish justice; 3. insure domestic tranquillity; 4. provide for the common defence; 5. promote the general welfare; and, 6. secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

65. This has reference to the condition of the Union, as it existed in 1787, under the Articles of Confederation; which, by implication, it pronounces imperfect, and thereupon declares the purpose of forming one more perfect. Let us recur a little in detail to the process by which the independent nationality and sovereignty,

that on the division of the British empire fell to the American portion of it, became deteriorated. All the rights of sovereignty and governmental power, which had previously been exercised over them by the king and Parliament, or under the authority of either, having been abrogated, and allegiance totally abjured, remained with the new nation, to be used or disposed of by them, and in the mean time devolved inevitably upon the people. The people, for this corporate or national purpose, were one and indivisible. As it was necessary they should act, and as they could not act collectively, they must act by agents or representatives.

§ 66. Having no written. constitution or other legal organization, limiting the authority of their agents, those whom the people chose to recognize as their representatives acted by a general and unlimited power, in the name of the good people, and exercised all their authority, sovereignty, and supremacy. It made no difference when, how, by whom,' or with what commissions, the representatives or agents were appointed, though most of these were sufficiently broad for any purpose whatever. Witness the following: In the Virginia Convention, June 20, 1776,

1 None of them were appointed by any legal authority till after the organization of the States, certainly not by any under the king's government; and there was no other. Some delegates to Congress were appointed by conventions of citizens in small localities, as towns or counties; but few, if any, were appointed by any general convention, properly representing a whole colony.

ee

"Resolved, that . . . Esquires, be, and they hereby are, appointed delegates to represent this colony in the general Congress, for one year from the 11th of August next." July 9, 1776, the Convention of New York authorized her delegates to concert and adopt all such measures as they may deem conducive to the happiness and welfare of the United States." "Pennsylvania, in Convention, July 20, 1776, proceeded to the election of delegates to serve in the Continental Congress and chose for that service Dr. Benjamin Franklin," &c. State of New Hampshire, in House of Representatives, Sept. 12, 1776, voted that . . . be, and hereby is, appointed a delegate to represent this State at the Continental Congress, one year next ensuing. In Council eodem die, read and concurred.” Massachusetts, Dec. 10, 1776, expressly authorized their delegates to direct any measures" for prosecuting the war, concluding peace, contracting alliances, establishing commerce," and the rights and liberty of the American States; in fact, to do any thing which the Declaration of Independence alleged that independent nations could do.

§ 67. The appointing power itself had no other than a Revolutionary authority; and their acts, like those of their appointees, whether in form recommendatory or mandatory, were received and obeyed as laws, because they expressed the will of the people, and were accepted