"NO TREASON" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spooner Lysander)

We, the people of the United States (that is, the people THEN EXISTING
in the United States), in order to form a more perfect union, insure
domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
AND OUR POSTERITY, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America.

It is plain, in the first place, that this language, AS AN AGREEMENT,
purports to be only what it at most really was, viz., a contract between
the people then existing; and, of necessity, binding, as a contract,
only upon those then existing. In the second place, the language neither
expresses nor implies that they had any right or power, to bind their
"posterity" to live under it. It does not say that their "posterity"
will, shall, or must live under it. It only says, in effect, that their
hopes and motives in adopting it were that it might prove useful to
their posterity, as well as to themselves, by promoting their union,
safety, tranquility, liberty, etc.

Suppose an agreement were entered into, in this form:

We, the people of Boston, agree to maintain a fort on Governor's Island,
to protect ourselves and our posterity against invasion.

This agreement, as an agreement, would clearly bind nobody but the people
then existing. Secondly, it would assert no right, power, or disposition,
on their part, to compel their "posterity" to maintain such a fort. It
would only indicate that the supposed welfare of their posterity was one
of the motives that induced the original parties to enter into the
agreement.

When a man says he is building a house for himself and his posterity, he
does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of binding
them, nor 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 means to be understood as saying that his hopes and
motives, in building it, are that they, or at least some of them, may find
it for their happiness to live in it.

So when a man says he is planting a tree for himself and his posterity,
he does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of
compelling 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.
So far as they are concerned, he only means to say that his hopes and
motives, in planting the tree, are that its fruit may be agreeable to them.

So it was with those who originally adopted the Constitution. Whatever may
have been their personal intentions, the legal meaning of their language,
so far as their "posterity" was concerned, simply was, that their hopes and
motives, in entering into the agreement, were that it might prove useful