union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the
common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution, for the United States of America."

It is, we the people of the United States, for ourselves and our
posterity; not for the people of Louisiana; nor for the people of New
Orleans or of Canada. None of these enter into the scope of the
instrument; it embraces only "the United States of America." Who these
are, it may seem strange in this place to inquire. But truly, sir, our
imaginations have, of late, been so accustomed to wander after new
settlements to the very ends of the earth, that it will not be time ill
spent to inquire what this phrase means, and what it includes. These are
not terms adopted at hazard; they have reference to a state of things
existing anterior to the Constitution. When the people of the present
United States began to contemplate a severance from their parent State,
it was a long time before they fixed definitely the name by which they
would be designated. In 1774, they called themselves "the Colonies and
Provinces of North America." In 1775, "the Representatives of the United
Colonies of North America." In the Declaration of Independence, "the
Representatives of the United States of America." And finally, in the
articles of confederation, the style of the confederacy is declared to
be "the United States of America." It was with reference to the old
articles of confederation, and to preserve the identity and established
individuality of their character, that the preamble to this
Constitution, not content, simply, with declaring that it is "we the
people of the United States," who enter into this compact, adds that it
is for "the United States of America." Concerning the territory
contemplated by the people of the United States, in these general terms,
there can be no dispute; it is settled by the treaty of peace, and