Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/521

Rh people of that country made free and happy by representatives, as responsible as those the states elect here? The effects to be engendered here by a moral cause, such as exists there are there demonstrated If the degrees of responsibility are the same, the effects must also be the same; and supposing a septennial power to change an entire chamber of representatives at one period, to be one year more valuable in point of responsibleness, than a sexennial power of changing it at three equidistant periods, these degrees are the same.

The opinion, that the mode prescribed for amending "the constitution of the United States, does not pursue the "principles of democracy, self government or majority," is met and contested by the arguments used to explode a similar objection to the structure of the senate. States being considered as entitled to equal rights, and the people of the United States having rights also independent of state governments, it was necessary to obtain the consent of all these rights to amendments, in pursuance of the principles said to be violated by the mode adopted. Amendments, inflicted by a majority of the people and a minority of states, or by a majority of states and a minority of people, would have violated the natural or political equality, either of individuals as members of the general national society, or of the same individuals, as members of the state national societies. To violate neither was the object of the constitution, and therefore a mode of amendment, sanctified by the consent of a majority of both of these free, equal and independent parties to the union, was adopted.

The people of the states, treated and united as independent of each other, surrendered a portion of their independent rights, into a common treasury, and retained another portion. The contract derives its force, not from the consent of a majority of states, but from the separate consent of each. If the moment the contract was signed by these independent parties, it had been subject to modification by a majority of states, the common treasury of rights, might