"That members only be permitted to inspect the journal.
"That nothing spoken in the House be printed, or otherwise
published or communicated, without leave."[41]
We can understand, by reference to these rules, how Mr. Madison should
have felt precluded from making allusion to anything that had occurred
during the proceedings of the Convention. But the secrecy then covering
those proceedings has long since been removed. The manuscript journal,
which was intrusted to the keeping of General Washington, President of
the Convention, was deposited by him, nine years afterward, among the
archives of the State Department. It has since been published, and we
can trace for ourselves the origin, and ascertain the exact
significance, of that expression, "We, the people," on which Patrick
Henry thought the fate of America might depend, and which has been so
grossly perverted in later years from its true intent.
The original language of the preamble, reported to the Convention by a
committee of five appointed to prepare the Constitution, as we find it
in the proceedings of August 6, 1787, was as follows:
"We, the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, do ordain, declare, and
establish, the following Constitution for the government of
ourselves and our posterity.
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