The other exception must have been admitted on the same
considerations which produced the privilege defended by it.
9. "The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be
sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the
States, ratifying the same."
This article speaks for itself. The express authority of the people
alone could give due validity to the Constitution. To have required the
unanimous ratification of the thirteen States, would have subjected the
essential interests of the whole to the caprice or corruption of a
single member. It would have marked a want of foresight in the
convention, which our own experience would have rendered inexcusable.
Two questions of a very delicate nature present themselves on this
occasion: 1. On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the
solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the
unanimous consent of the parties to it? 2. What relation is to subsist
between the nine or more States ratifying the Constitution, and the
remaining few who do not become parties to it?
The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute
necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to
the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that
the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all
political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be
sacrificed.
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