of a national government; for that would have been incompatible with the context, as well as with the continuance of the union — which the sentence and the entire letter imply. Interpreted, then, in conjunction with the expression used in the preamble — "to form a more perfect union" — although it may more strongly intimate closeness of connection; it can imply nothing incompatible with the professed object of perfecting the union — still less a meaning and effect wholly inconsistent with the nature of a confederated community. For to adopt the interpretation contended for, to its full extent, would be to destroy the union, and not to consolidate and perfect it.
If we turn from the preamble and the ratifications, to the body of the constitution, we shall find that it furnishes most conclusive proof that the government is federal, and not national. I can discover nothing, in any portion of it, which gives the least countenance to the opposite conclusion. On the contrary, the instrument, in all its parts, repels it. It is, throughout, federal. It every where recognizes the existence of the States, and invokes their aid to carry its powers into execution. In one of the two houses of Congress, the members are elected by the legislatures of their respective States; and in the other, by the people of the several States, not as composing mere districts of one great community, but as distinct and independent communities. General Washington vetoed the first act apportioning the members of the House of Representatives among the several States, under the first census,
