Restricted The meaning of "Perpetual" in The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union

trice

Colonel
Joined
May 2, 2006
Just in case anyone wonders what the meaning of "perpetual" might be in US law, here is what the accepted meaning of the word would have been in 1777 when The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were written:
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So at the time of the writing of The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, the possible meanings of the word perpetual would be:
  1. Never ceasing; eternal with respect to futurity.
  2. Continual; uninterrupted; perennial.
The delegates who developed and wrote the Articles in 1777 were educated men and the document was based on an original draft submitted by Benjamin Franklin. When they said "and the Union shall be perpetual", they would mean "never ceasing" / "eternal" / "continual" / "uninterrupted" /"perennial".

The definition is from Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, the 1773 edition (his last). His first edition came out in 1755. The 1773 edition was regarded as the gold standard of English dictionaries until the publication of the Oxford English Dictionary (compiled from 1884 on and finally published in 12 volumes in 1928).

Also, in case anyone asks, I could not find an American dictionary published until 1806 when Noah Webster produced A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language and began work in 1807 on his An American Dictionary of the English Language which was finally published in 1828.
 
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