That clause alone, coupled with Article III and with John Marshall’s effective establishment of the principle of judicial review, created the “one out of many” that is the American Republic. Yet the objective student of public affairs who would understand the South’s classic and traditional position in advocacy of States’ rights should devote some thoughtful attention to certain aspects of the Constitution that have remained unchanged from the very beginning of the Union, surviving civil war and the growth of nearly two centuries--aspects that remain unchanged to this day. At the risk of being tedious, it is necessary to examine the Constitution as it is, and not as centralizers might wish it to be. This is our organic law, the basis of our public institutions; the spirit that lives and breathes in it is the American spirit, and the great beams and foundation stones of this written compact support the whole structure of our government. The few paragraphs that follow may seem elementary. They are, in fact, essential to an appreciation of what was wrong with _Brown_ v. _Board of Education_ in 1954. The preamble itself offers the first source of misunderstanding. It begins, of course, “We the people of the United States,” and for 175 years superficial students of the Constitution have been crying triumphantly that the opening three words prove the existence of some national democracy: “We, the people.” The demonstrable facts prove no such thing. On Monday, August 6, 1787, the Philadelphia convention received its first full draft of a Constitution. The preamble submitted by South Carolina’s John Rutledge on that day read as follows: “We the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, do ordain, declare and establish the following Constitution for the Government of Ourselves and our Posterity.” The preamble in this form was adopted the following day without dissent, and indeed without debate. It was not until September 10, when the weary delegates were ready to have the final document whipped into form by a committee on style, that the presumptuousness of the draft preamble became apparent. James Wilson of Pennsylvania made the point that it would be “worse than folly to rely on the concurrence of Rhode Island.” The State of New York, he observed, “has not been represented for a long time past in the Convention.” North Carolina’s agreement was most uncertain. Many individuals from other States had spoken against the plan. And though Wilson was here addressing himself to a specific proposal that the draft Constitution be submitted first to the Congress, rather than directly to the States, his remarks made obvious good sense to members of the committee on style. They prudently recast the preamble to omit all mention of specific States--how could they know which