We have seen, also, that they were sent for the
"sole and express purpose" of revising the Articles of Confederation and
devising means for rendering the Federal Constitution, "adequate to the
exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union"; that the
terms "Union," "United States," "Federal Constitution;" and
"Constitution of the Federal Government," were applied to the old
Confederation in precisely the same sense in which they are used under
the new; that the proposition to constitute a "national" Government was
distinctly rejected by the Convention; that the right of any State, or
States, to withdraw from union with the others was practically
exemplified, and that the idea of coercion of a State, or compulsory
measures, was distinctly excluded under any construction that can be put
upon the action of the Convention.
To the original copy of the Constitution, as set forth by its framers
for the consideration and final action of the people of the States, was
attached the following words:
"Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States
present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our
Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the
Independence of the United States of America, the twelfth. In
witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names."
[Followed by the signatures of "George Washington, President, and deputy
from Virginia," and the other delegates who signed it.
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