The Constitution, it will be seen, was framed to remove difficulties arising from State Rights. So paramount was this purpose, that, according to the letter of Washington, it was kept steadily in view in all the deliberations of the Convention, which did not hesitate to declare _the consolidation of our Union_ essential to prosperity, felicity, safety, and perhaps national existence. The unity of the Government was expressed in the term “Constitution,” instead of “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States,” and in the idea of “a more perfect union,” instead of “a firm league of friendship.” It was also announced emphatically in the Preamble:-- “_We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union_, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Not “we, the States,” but “we, the people of the United States.” Such is the beginning and origin of our Constitution. Here is no compact or league between States, involving the recognition of State Rights, but a government ordained and established by the people of the United States for themselves and their posterity. This government is not established _by the States_, nor is it established _for the States_; but it is established _by the people_, for themselves and their posterity. It is true, that, in the organization of the government, the existence of the States is recognized, and the original name of “United States” is preserved; but the sovereignty of the States is absorbed in that more perfect union which was then established. There is but one sovereignty recognized, and this is the sovereignty of the United States. To the several States is left that specific local control which is essential to the convenience and business of life, while to the United States, as Plural Unit, is allotted that commanding sovereignty which embraces and holds the whole country within its perpetual and irreversible jurisdiction. This obvious character of the Constitution did not pass unobserved at the time of its adoption. Indeed, the Constitution was most strenuously opposed on the ground that the States were absorbed in the Nation. In the debates of the Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry protested against consolidated power.