When _those_ Americans came to answer that question, there were facts which might have misled them as other similar facts of lesser importance have undoubtedly misled our leaders. In 1776, from that same Philadelphia had gone a suggestion that a constitution of government, with Articles granting power to government, be made in each former colony. In 1787, there had gone from that same Philadelphia a proposal that a constitution of a general government for America be made, with Articles granting power to that government. The proposal of 1776 had suggested that the proposed Articles be made by the people themselves, assembled in conventions. The proposal of 1777 had suggested that the proposed Articles be made by the legislative governments of the states. Both proposals, even as to the makers of the respective Articles, had been acted upon. All the Articles, although some had been made by the people themselves and others by legislatures, had been generally recognized as valid law. Some of the men at Philadelphia in 1787 had been members of the proposing Second Continental Congress, when the respective proposals of 1776 and 1777 had gone from Philadelphia. When, in 1787, they were called upon to find and state, as their legal decision, the correct answer to their important question, it was necessary for them to ascertain, as between state “legislatures” and the people themselves, in “conventions,” _which_ could validly make the Articles which had been worded and were about to be proposed. It would not, therefore, have been beyond the pale of our own experience if the earlier proposals had misled them and they had made the wrong answer to the question which confronted them. Furthermore, as we have already noted, although we can little realize the influence of such a fact upon men seeking the correct legal answer to an important question, their whole proposal was a new adventure for men on an uncharted sea of self-government. Under all of which circumstances, let us again pay them their deserved tribute that they went unerringly to the only correct answer. We know that the essence of that answer is expressed in the Seventh Article proposed from Philadelphia. Only one answer was possible to Americans of that generation. They had been “subjects” and had become “citizens.” They knew the vital distinctions between the two relations to government.