nine would bind themselves by ratification?--and the preamble emerged as we know it. The point is that there was not the slightest doubt in the minds of the delegates at Philadelphia, or in the minds of the State conventions thereafter, that “We the people” meant, as Madison said, “We the people of the States as thirteen sovereignties.” The first eight words of Article I are important: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested....” We are dealing, at the outset, as the careful choice of a noun makes clear, with _powers_, and with a specific kind of power: _legislative_ power. These powers are “granted _herein_,” which is to say, granted by the ratifying States in the Constitution itself, and in no other place; and these powers are to be “vested” (a most judicious verb) in the Congress. In Section 2 of Article I, the first of more than ninety references to “the States” appears: The House of Representatives is to be composed of members chosen every second year “by the people of the several States.” No congressional district ever may extend across a State line, for “the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.” Moreover, every Representative must be “an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.” Then follows the enumeration of the States to whom the Constitution would be submitted, if they wished to enter the Union: The State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three members of the House, Massachusetts eight, and so forth. Section 3 deals with composition of the Senate. A preposition is important here: To become a Senator, a man must be an inhabitant of that State _for_ which he shall be chosen. From the beginning, the concept has been that Representatives represent people, or groups of people, or districts of people; Senators speak for the larger, mystical entity of the States themselves. Section 4 re-emphasizes the status and function of the States, even as it lays down the first of the limitations upon State power voluntarily accepted by the ratifying members of the Union: “The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof: But the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the place of choosing Senators.”