No Treason, Vol. VI.

as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supp

e been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the Constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they d

ect union, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessi

. In the second place, the language neither expresses nor implies that they had any intention or desire, nor that they imagined they had any right or power, to bind their "posterity" to live under it. It does not say that their "posterity" w

ent were entered

a fort on Governor's Island, to protect ou

, power, or disposition, on their part, to compel their "posterity" to maintain such a fort. It would only indicate that th

is it to be inferred that he is so foolish as to imagine that he has any right or power to bind them, to live in it. So far as they are concerned, he only mean

mpelling them, nor is it to be inferred that he is such a simpleton as to imagine that he has any right or power to compel them, to eat the fruit

rity; that it might promote their union, safety, tranquility, and welfare; and that it might tend "to secure to them the blessings of liberty." The language does not assert nor at all imply, any right, power, or disposition, on the part of the original parties to the agreement, to compel their "posterity" to live under it. If

" as a corporation, but as individuals. A corporation does not describe itself as "we," nor as "people," nor as "ourselves." Nor does a corporation,

n become practically perpetual only by the voluntary accession of new members, as the old ones die off. But for this v

stitution, nothing that professes or attempts to

their posterity, the question arises, whether their posterity have bound themselves. If they have don