Is Davis a Traitor: Or Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861? Annotated.

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

He dwelt, particularly, on the words of the preamble, “We, the people of the United States,” to show that his most fatal objection to the new Constitution was well founded; and he added, “States are the characteristic and soul of a confederacy. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great consolidated government of the people of the United States.” He insisted that it would be so. But Patrick Henry, it should be remembered, was not a member of the Convention of 1787, and he was an enemy of the new Constitution. His mind was fertile and overflowing with objections. If he had known the history of the words, “We, the people of the United States,” as it appears in the debates of the Convention, which had not then been published, he would have seen, that “We, the people,” really meant “We, the States; or We, the Convention,” acting in the name and by the authority of the sovereign people of the several States.( See chap. x.)