The Federal Constitution, Formerly and Now [pp. 149-159]

THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.
thority, that exclusive obedience to such provisions is more
beneficial to their interests than the whole Constitution would
be. As a consequence of these lawless changes, the Constitution is not practically now, in some of the States, what it
has been; and if such changes should be tolerated, it will be
different hereafter from what it now is. We stigmatize them
as lawless, because they have not been made in the mode pre scribed by the Constitution, which is a part of the Constitution
itself, and without which the other parts of it would have
been rejected, and the attempt to establish one a failure. The
people of no State would have agreed to give discretionary
power to a majority of the whole people of the United States,
or to a majority of the people of a majority of the States,
to make changes in the Constitution. The people of each
State for themselves, ratified the Constitution, which, according to its own terms could acquire no validity in any without
such ratification. The ratification of it by all the States except one, could have given it no authority in the State withholding her assent. While the Constitution, as formed originally, had no validity in any State without a separate ratification by the people of the State, amendments may become
parts of the Constitution, if proposed according to the mode
prescribed by the 5th article thereof, and ratified afterward,
as the same article requires, by the legislatures or conventions of three fourths of the several States. Obedience to the
article would accomplish the object for which it was made
and prevent sectional amendments. Convinced of the sufficiency of this article, as a barrier against such amendments,
the notorious New York Senator has conceived a project for
its overthrow, and published it for the edification of his followers. His edict is a command to them to disregard the
constitutional mode of making amendments, as soon as his
party, the Black Republicans, shall have a President and ma.
jority in both houses of Congress of their own political faith,
and adopt such amendments as they desire by conventions in
a majority of the States. No one can doubt the object of
amendments to be made thus. The removal from office of
the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States would
be the immediate consequence of the success of this daring
scheme,for the establishment of the higher law of its principal professor, the source of which is in his own selfish pride
and ambition, and proclaimed and supported by him for his
own aggrandizement.
Amendments thus foisted, in effect, in the Constitution
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