...whenever and however [government] is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers.

...Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs...

This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties. ... To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people, each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection. As a nation we have made peace and war; as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies; as a nation we have formed alliances, and made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign states.

This intelligent people ... continuing no less attached to union than enamored of liberty; they observed the danger which immediately threatened the former and more remotely the latter [and convened the Constitutional Convention to found a government that could best protect both]