Simultaneously therewith, as _its_ citizens, they had made their grant of enumerated national powers to interfere with their own human freedom. Simultaneously therewith, they had destroyed forever the absolute independence of their nine nations; they had kept alive those nations, as partially independent political societies, each to serve certain purposes of its members who still remained citizens of that political society as well as citizens of the new nation; they had taken from the government of each of those nations much of its _national_ power, had given to each such government no new power whatever, but had left with it much of its former _national_ power over its own citizens; they had kept alive the federation of nations, now a federation of partially independent states; they had made their own new _national_ government also the _federal_ government of that continuing federation and their own _national_ Constitution also the _federal_ Constitution of that continued federation; they had subordinated all those nine states and the government of each and of the federation to their own supreme will, as the citizens of the new nation, expressed in its Constitution. This was the meaning of the second section of the Sixth Article in the document, which they had signed, which reads: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” The makers of the new nation are identified by the opening words of the document: “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.” It would be diverting, were it not somewhat pathetic, to hear that the Constitution was made by the states. From that quoted Preamble alone, volumes might be written to show the absurdity of such thought. It identifies the makers as “people” and not as political entities. It expressly says that its makers, “the people,” ordain it “in order to form a more perfect Union.” The states already had a perfect union of states. But the human beings or “people” of all America had no union of themselves. The only “people” in America, who had no union of themselves, identify themselves unmistakably when they say, “We the _people_ of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, etc.” They are the “people” or human beings of America, the whole people of America, the collective possessors of the supreme will which had enacted the Statute of ’76.