"It was generally agreed that the object of the Union could not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a confederation of Sovereign States. A voluntary observance of the federal law by all the members could never be hoped for. A compulsive one could evidently never be reduced to practice, and if it could, involved equal calamities to the innocent and the guilty, the necessity of a military force, both obnoxious and dangerous, and, in general, a scene resembling much more a civil war than the administration of a regular government. "Hence was embraced the alternative of a government which, instead of operating on the States, should operate without their intervention on the individuals composing them; and hence the change in the principle and proportion of representation." The chief idea of the preamble is not set forth in any resolution or act of the Convention; and no instruction so to declare the source of authority was given to the Committee of Detail. The preamble belongs exclusively to Pinckney, though its words as we have before seen, were taken from the preamble of the constitution of Massachusetts. Chap. XI. The only amendment which the Committee of Detail made, was in the last line of Pinckney's, the insertion of a single word "our,"--"for the government of ourselves and our posterity." With the exception of this word the Committee took Pinckney's preamble as they found it, and so reported it to the Convention. During the subsequent sittings of the Convention it remained unamended and unquestioned and undiscussed until at last it received the final touch of the Committee of Style. In article 1 Pinckney followed in part the Articles of Confederation and in part the Constitution of New York: "The stile of this Government shall be the United States of America, and the Government shall consist of supreme legislative, Executive and judicial powers." This the Committee broke into two articles and in the first line changed "this" to "the" but made no other change. Article 2 relates to the legislative power and was taken by Pinckney almost verbatim from the constitution of New York. The Committee changed "House of Delegates" to "House of Representatives," and filled a blank with "first Monday in December," and in place of two "houses" said two "distinct bodies of men," and introduced a needless provision that each house "shall in all cases have a negative upon the other."