No other _people_ were known to the authors of the
declarations above quoted. Mr. Madison was a leading member of the
Virginia Convention, which made that declaration, as well as of the
general Convention that drew up the Constitution. We have seen what
_his_ idea of "the people of the United States" was--"not the people as
composing one great body, but the people as composing thirteen
sovereignties."[94] Mr. Lee, of Westmoreland ("Light-Horse Harry"), in
the same Convention, answering Mr. Henry's objection to the expression,
"We, the people," said: "It [the Constitution] is now submitted to _the
people of Virginia_. If we do not adopt it, it will be always null and
void as to us. Suppose it was found proper for our adoption, and
becoming the government of _the people of Virginia_, by what style
should it be done? Ought we not to make use of the name of the people?
No other style would be proper."[95] It would certainly be superfluous,
after all that has been presented heretofore, to add any further
evidence of the meaning that was attached to these expressions by their
authors. "The people of the United States" were in their minds the
people of Virginia, the people of Massachusetts, and the people of every
other State that should agree to unite. They _could_ have meant only
that the people of their respective States who had delegated certain
powers to the Federal Government, in ratifying the Constitution and
_acceding_ to the Union, reserved to themselves the right, in event of
the failure of their purposes, to "resume" (or "reassume") those powers
by _seceding_ from the same Union.
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