Who are these “People” he is talking about? He’s not referring to the serfs, is he? Silly rabbit. /s
[Thanks for posting this. My other great source text on the thoughts of the Founding Fathers, Madison’s Notes on the Convention, is out on loan right now. Anyone with access to it at the moment, who can describe for us the discussions around this issue?]
“We have received it [the Constitution] as the work of the assembled wisdom of the nation. We have trusted to it as to the sheet anchor of our safety in the stormy times of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe. We have looked to it with sacred awe as the palladium of our liberties, and with all the solemnities of religion have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes here and our hopes of happiness hereafter in its defense and support. Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance to the Constitution...? No. We were not mistaken. The letter of this great instrument is free from this radical fault...No, we did not err!...The sages...have given us a practical and, as they hoped, a permanent Constitutional compact...The Constitution is still the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defense in danger, the source of our prosperity in peace: it shall descend, as we have received it, uncorrupted by sophistical construction, to our posterity...”
— President Andrew Jackson, Proclamation of December 10, 1832