There is more importance than may, at first sight, appear, in the introduction of this new word, by the honorable mover of these resolutions.  Its adoption and use are indispensable to maintain those premises from which his main conclusion is to be afterwards drawn.  But before showing that, allow me to remark, that this phraseology tends to keep out of sight the just view of a previous political history, as well as to suggest wrong ideas as to what was actually done when the present Constitution was agreed to.  In 1789, and before this Constitution was adopted, the United States had already been in a union, more or less close, for fifteen years.  At least as far back as the meeting of the first Congress, in 1774, they had been in some measure, and for some national purposes, united together.  Before the Confederation of 1781, they had declared independence jointly, and had carried on the war jointly, both by sea and land; and this not as separate States, but as one people.  When, therefore, they formed that Confederation, and adopted its articles as articles of perpetual union, they did not come together for the first time; and therefore they did not speak of the States as acceding to the Confederation, although it was a league, and nothing but a league, and rested on nothing but plighted faith for its performance.  Yet, even then, the States were not strangers to each other; there was a bond of union already subsisting between them; they were associated, united States; and the object of the Confederation was to make a stronger and better bond of union.  Their representatives deliberated together on these proposed Articles of Confederation, and, being authorized by their respective States, finally “ratified and confirmed” them.  Inasmuch as they were already in union, they did not speak of acceding to the new Articles of Confederation, but of ratifying and confirming them; and this language was not used inadvertently, because, in the same instrument, accession is used in its proper sense, when applied to Canada, which was altogether a stranger to the existing union.  “Canada,” says the eleventh article, “acceding to this Confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into the Union.”

Having thus used the terms ratify and confirm, even in regard to the old Confederation, it would have been strange indeed, if the people of the United States, after its formation, and when they came to establish the present Constitution, had spoken of the States, or the people of the States, as acceding to this Constitution.  Such language would have been ill-suited to the occasion.  It would have implied an existing separation or disunion among the States, such as never has existed since 1774.  No such language, therefore, was used.  The language actually employed is, adopt, ratify, ordain, establish.