If the constitution had intended that any portion of "the people of the United States" should be excepted from its benefits, disfranchised, outlawed, enslaved, it would of course have designated these exceptions with such particularity as to make it sure that none but the true persons intended would be liable to be subjected to such wrongs. Yet, instead of such particular designation of the exceptions, we find no designation whatever of the kind. But on the contrary, we _do_ find, in the preamble itself, a sweeping declaration to the effect that there are no such exceptions; that the whole people of the United States are citizens, and entitled to liberty, protection, and the dispensation of justice under the constitution. If it be admitted that the constitution designated its own citizens, then there is no escape from the conclusion that it designated the whole people of the United States as such. On the other hand, if it be denied that the constitution designated its own citizens, one of these two conclusions must follow, viz., 1st, that it has no citizens; or, 2d, that it has left an unrestrained power in the _state_ governments to determine who may, and who may not, be citizens of the _United States_ government. If the first of these conclusions be adopted, viz., that the constitution has no citizens, then it follows that there is really no United States government, except on paper--for there would be as much reason in talking of an army without men, as of a government without citizens. If the second conclusion be adopted, viz., that the state governments have the right of determining who may, and who may not be citizens of the United States government, then it follows that the state governments may at pleasure destroy the government of the United States, by enacting that none of their respective inhabitants shall be citizens of the United States.