There never was a day at Philadelphia in 1787 when the clear-minded Americans did not remember and realize this vital distinction between Americans, in their capacity as members of their respective existing societies, and Americans, in their capacity as members of the prospective society of the whole American people. There never was a day when they did not realize that the members of the proposed new and supreme society of men would never have but one attorney in fact for any purpose, the government at Washington, while the members of each small and inferior society would still have, as they already had, in their capacity as such members, their own attorney in fact, their own government. One instance alone is sufficient to show how that Philadelphia Convention never forgot these important things. When the Committee of Detail, on August 6, 1787, reported to the Convention the first draft ever made of our Constitution, the Preamble read: “We, the people of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, etc.” (enumerating all the states), “do ordain, declare, and establish, the following constitution for the government of ourselves and our posterity.” (5 _Ell. Deb._ 376.) But, so that future generations, like our own, should not ignore the fact that it was not the people of the respective states but the whole people of America who made the Constitution, before the proposal was made from Philadelphia, the Preamble, identifying the makers of the Constitution, was changed to read, “We, the people of the United States,”--the whole people of the new nation, America. In the Virginia convention, Patrick Henry put the clear fact all in one pithy statement. He made that statement in one of his eloquent arguments against ratification of the Constitution. Many Americans today do not know that Patrick Henry was the most zealous opponent of the proposed Constitution. He was a citizen of the nation of Virginia. His human liberty as an individual could not be interfered with by any government or governments in the world except the Virginia government and only by it, under grant of _national_ power to it from him and his fellow citizens of Virginia. That is exactly the status which he wished to retain for himself and which he insisted was the best security for individual freedom of all Americans in Virginia. “This is an American government, not a Virginia government!” he exclaimed. Nothing could more clearly express his knowledge, the common knowledge of all in that day, that he and his fellow Americans in that convention were being asked as Americans, not as citizens of Virginia, to constitute a new nation of the American people and a national government for that people.