Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by
anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now
binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can
ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced
to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance
what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the
writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution
is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that
by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has
been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different
thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has
heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such
is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or
another, this much is certain--that it has either authorized such a
government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In
either case, it is unfit to exist.