What was his original wording?
remove “people”
‘I find that these shrewd Northern Statesmen have outwitted our Southern men again in the wording of these amendments. They determined when this Constitution was framed to make this a great consolidated National Government of all the people of the States. To secure this object they inserted in its preamble the words ‘We, the People of the United States,’ instead of We, the States.
Their object was to make it a government of a majority of the whole people, that is a Government of the Northern People; for they have this majority; and under such a government holding this power they can and will exercise it oppressively to the South for their own advantage. To prevent this, and to hinder this majority from doing whatever they may think proper for ‘the general welfare,’ which they will construe to mean their own sectional welfare, I wrote the first 20 amendments adopted, and recommended by the Convention of Virginia in these words: ‘Each State in the Union shall respectively retain every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this Constitution delegated to the Congress of the United States, or to the departments of the Federal Government.’
This was intended to secure the rights of the States, and to prevent the exercise of doubtful powers by the Federal Government, but they have omitted it, and substituted for it this equivocal thing to which they have tacked the objectionable and dangerous words of ‘the people.’ ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’ Why did they add, ‘or to the people?’ They determined to make it a consolidated government. They added these words to neutralize the amendment of Virginia, and they have done it effectually. This government cannot last. It will not last a century. We can only get rid of its oppression by a most violent and bloody struggle.”