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.