ic poem, yet this would scarcely be accepted as evidence that they
are not epic poems. In an examination of Mr. Webster's remarks, I do not
find that he announces them to be either a speech or an argument; yet
their claim to both these titles will hardly be disputed--
notwithstanding the verbal criticism on the Constitution just quoted.

The distinction attempted to be drawn between the language proper to a
confederation and that belonging to a constitution, as indicating two
different ideas, will not bear the test of examination and application
to the case of the United States. It has been fully shown, in previous
chapters, that the terms "Union," "Federal Union," "Federal
Constitution," "Constitution of the Federal Government," and the like,
were used--not merely in colloquial, informal speech, but in public
proceedings and official documents--with reference to the Articles of
Confederation, as freely as they have since been employed under the
present Constitution. The former Union was--as Mr. Webster expressly
admits--as nobody denies--a compact between States, yet it nowhere
"calls itself" "a compact"; the word does not occur in it even the one
time that it occurs in the present Constitution, although the
contracting States are in both prohibited from entering into any
"treaty, confederation, or alliance" with one another, or with any
foreign power, without the consent of Congress; and the contracting or
constituent parties are termed "United States" in the one just as in the
other.

Mr. Webster is particularly unfortunate in his criticisms upon what he
terms the "new vocabulary," in which the Constitution is styled a
compact, and the States which ratified it are spoken of as having
"acceded" to it. In the same speech, last quoted, he says:

"This word 'accede,' not found either in the Constitution itself
or in the ratification of it by any one of the States, has been
chosen for use here, doubtless not without a well-considered
purpose. The natural converse of accession is secession; and
therefore, when it is stated that the people of the States
acceded to the Union, it may be more plausibly argued that they
may secede from it. If, in adopting the Constitution, nothing
was done but acceding to a compact, nothing would seem
necessary, in order to break it up, but to secede from the same
compact. But the term is wholly out of place. Accession, as a
word applied to politic