We realize, as the Preamble of the Constitution before us expressly declares, what is the first proposal upon which we act affirmatively, when we say “Yes” to the whole proposal from Philadelphia. The first effect of that “Yes” is that we, that part of the American people in that particular state, do consent (with the Americans in eight or more other willing states) to join the new nation or political society of men, which is to be America, and that we consent to be, with those other Americans, the citizens of the new nation as soon as the Americans in eight other willing states give their similar “Yes.” We are well aware, as we sit in one of the “conventions,” that the Philadelphia proposal has left it open for the free Americans in each state to become members or not of the new society as they please, and that, therefore, the joining of that society, by the Americans in at least nine states, will mean that the new nation is created by unanimous action of the majority in every state whose Americans become citizens of America. From which we realize that the original grants of national power by _its_ citizens to the only government of the new nation will be the second effect of the “Yes” from the Americans in nine conventions. Thus these original grants, the First Article grants of enumerated power to interfere with the individual freedom of the American citizen, will be made simultaneously by the majority of Americans in _every_ state where Americans become citizens. But, once these early Americans leave those first “conventions,” the whole American people will constitute the members or citizens of the new nation, America. The people of these United States constitute one nation. They have a government in which all of them are deeply interested. (Justice Miller in the Supreme Court, Crandall v. Nevada, 6 _Wall._ 35.) As in any other republican nation, all _national_ powers must be granted by its members or citizens. Any future _national_ power, not granted by the citizens themselves, will be neither just nor valid because power of the American government to interfere with the freedom of the American citizen will not have been granted by those to be governed by its exercise.