Put simply, Washington’s words require the recognition that the United States had adopted a national government before it was a unified nation. The opening words of the Constitution—“We the people of the United States”—were more a wish than a reality in late-eighteenth-century America. As one historian so nicely put it, the Constitution was “a roof without walls,” meaning a political structure designed to facilitate a national ethos that did not exist. Washington’s plea for all citizens to regard themselves as Americans united under a single government can be comprehended only within that
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