The fact that the instrument of 1789 is termed a "Constitution "has by some been taken to indicate that a National State, and not a confederacy of States was intended to be created. Thus Webster in his reply to Hayne said: "They [the people of the United States] undertook to form a general government which should stand on a new basis; not a confederacy, not a league, not a compact between States, but a Constitution." And in his reply to Calhoun, he declared: "Sir, I must say to the honorable gentleman that, in our American political grammar, Constitution is a noun substantive; it imparts a distinct and clear idea of itself; and it is not to be turned into a poor, ambiguous, senseless, unmeaning adjective, for the purpose of accommodating any new set of political notions. . . . By the Constitution we mean, not a 'constitutional compact,' but simply and directly the Constitution, the fundamental law; and if there be one word in the language which the people of the United States understand, it is that word." And later he says: "Does it call itself a compact? Certainly not. Does it call itself a league, a confederacy, or subsisting treaty between the States? Certainly not. But it declares itself a Constitution."

By members of the school of Webster weight is also given to the fact that it is declared that the people of the United States "do ordain and establish" and not that they "do contract" or "enter into a treaty."

The writer of this treatise is not disposed to ascribe much value to this argument of Webster based upon the use of the word "Constitution." At most it can only have a corroborating value. In the first place, it is by no means certain that the term had, in 1780, the definite technical meaning which Webster ascribes to it. And, in the second place, and more significantly, the nature of the Union provided for by the Constitution is properly to be determined by the distribution of powers actually provided for by it. and not by the title that may have been given to it.

The description of the new federation in the Preamble as "a more perfect Union," has occasionally been referred to as an argument of the complete sovereignty of the United States. For example, in Texas v. White,41 Chief Justice Chase, after referring to the fact that the Articles of Confederation had provided for a perpetual Union, says: "And when these articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union.' It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be more indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?"