41 States an absolute veto over all future constitutional modifications under that article. In the near term, such compromises made possible a continental union of North and South that provided bountiful benefits to freeborn Americans. But in the long run, the Founders’ failure to put slavery on a path of ultimate extinction would lead to massive military conflict on American soil-the very sort of conflict whose avoidance was literally the primary purpose of the constitution of 1788. (America’s Constitution, ibid) “We the People of the united States ….” United how? When? Few questions have cast a longer shadow across American history. Jefferson Davis had one set of answers, Abraham Lincoln had another. And the war came. “The Preamble began the proposed constitution; article Americans VII ended would it. The ‘establish Preamble this said that constitution’; article VII said how the people ‘would establish this constitution”. The preamble said this deed would be done by ‘the People’; article VII clarified that the people would act via specially elected ‘Conventions’.