Appendix
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.