2. The Language of the Constitution. “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The first clause of this preamble to the Constitution, wholly detached from its history and from every other portion of the same instrument, as well as from all the contemporary and subsequent expositions of its authors, is made the very corner-stone of the Northern theory of the general government of the United States.
