Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/489

 CH. VI.] was framed, ought to have the sole and exclusive right to ratify, amend, and control its provisions.

§ 465. At this distance of time, after all the passions and interests, which then agitated the country have passed away, it cannot but be matter of surprise, that it should have been urged, as a solid objection to a government intended tor the benefit of the people, and to operate directly on them, that it was required to be ratified by them, and not by bodies politic created by them for other purposes, and having no implied authority to act on the subject.

§ 466. The constitution having been in operation more than forty years, and being generally approved, it may, at first sight, seem unnecessary to enter upon any examination of the manner and extent, to which it is calculated to accomplish the objects proposed in the preamble, or the importance of those objects, not merely to the whole, in a national view, but also to the individual states. Attempts have, however, been made at different times, in different parts of the Union, to stir up a disaffection to the theory, as well as the actual exercise of the powers of the general government; to doubt its advantages; to exaggerate the unavoidable inequalities of its operations; to accustom the minds of the people to contemplate the consequences of a division, as fraught with no dangerous evils; and thus to