As their existence before
independence in distinct colonies did not prevent their unity,
so their existence since in distinct States does not hinder them
from being one people. The States severally simply continue the
colonial organizations, and united they hold the sovereignty that
was originally in the mother country. But if one people, they
are one people existing in distinct State organizations, as
before independence they were one people existing in distinct
colonial organizations. This is the original, the unwritten, and
Providential constitution of the people of the United States.
This constitution is not conventional, for it existed before the
people met or could meet in convention. They have not, as an
independent sovereign people, either established their union, or
distributed themselves into distinct and mutually independent
States. The union and the distribution, the unity and the
distinction, are both original in their constitution, and they
were born United States, as much and as truly so as the son of a
citizen is born a citizen, or as every one born at all is born a
member of society, the family, the tribe, or the nation. The
Union and the States were born together, are inseparable in their
constitution, have lived and grown up together; no serious
attempt till the late secession movement has been made to
separate them; and the secession movement, to all persons who
knew not the real constitution of the United States, appeared
sure to succeed, and in fact would have succeeded if, as the
secessionists pretended, the Union had been only a confederacy,
and the States had been held together only by a conventional
compact, and not by a real and living bond of unity.
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