It was from Webster’s declaration, “It is the people’s Constitution, the people’s government; made for the people; made by the people and answerable to the people,” that Lincoln took the closing words of his short immortal Gettysburg address, and applied them to the national soldiers who had there died for the Union: “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Webster referred to contemporary history, to the writings of the _Federalist_, to the debates in the conventions, to the publications of friends and foes, as all agreeing in the statement that a change had been made from a confederacy of States to a different system, to a national government. The writers of the _Federalist_ say: “However gross a heresy it may be to maintain, that a party to a compact has a right to revoke the compact, the doctrine itself has had respectable advocates. The possibility of a question of this nature proves the necessity of laying the foundations of our national government deeper than in the mere sanction of delegated authority. The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis _of the consent of the people_.” And amongst all the ratifications by the States, there is not one which speaks of the Constitution as a compact between States. “They say they ordain and establish it; we do not speak of ordaining leagues and compacts.” He argued that the Constitution that was formed was not a league, confederacy, or compact between States, but a _government proper_, creating direct relations between itself and individuals of the States. It punished all crimes committed against the United States. It had power to tax individuals, in any mode and to any extent, and it possessed the power of demanding from individuals military service. “It does not call itself a compact; it uses the word compact but once and that is when it declares that the States shall enter into no compact. It does not call itself a league or a confederacy but it declares itself a constitution.” “A constitution is the fundamental regulation which determines the manner in which the public authority is to be executed,”[6] “the very being of the political society.” It says, this Constitution shall be the law of the land, anything in any State constitution to the contrary notwithstanding; “and it speaks of itself, too, in plain contradistinction from a confederation; for it says that all debts contracted and all engagements entered into by the United States shall be as valid under this Constitution as under the confederation; it does not say as valid under this compact, or this league, or this confederation.”