Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/545

Rh opportunity, and a more stable political order made for the spirit of fair play among men. But in the main, the government instituted in 1789 appealed to the property-loving instinct rather than to the idealism of the nation. The assumption of state debts, the establishment of the United States Bank, the enactment of a protective tariff, policies espoused by Hamilton, all tended to enlist men of substance on the side of the government.

The mode provided for amending the constitution contributed to the same end. A two thirds majority of both houses of congress, or a convention called on application of two thirds of the states, is necessary to propose an amendment, and ratification either by conventions or legislatures in three fourths of the states is required for its adoption. The people have no direct voice either in proposing or in adopting amendments, and the obstinacy of a group of states containing a small minority of the population may effectually block the will of states containing an overwhelming majority. According to Walter E. Weyl, less than one fortieth of the voters may block the will of the remaining thirty-nine fortieths. So difficult is the mode of amendment that with the exception of the first twelve amendments, the first ten of which were the price paid to secure the adoption of the constitution and all of which were added shortly after its ratification, the only others are the three resulting from the Civil War and the two recently added. But for military occupation of the southern states, it is doubtful whether all the war amendments would have been ratified by the requisite number of states. In no democratic country are property owners more secure against innovations in the organic law. In England, the power to amend the constitution is vested in the House of Commons. In France, an absolute majority of the two houses in joint session suffices. And in Switzerland, proposed amendments are adopted by a majority of all the votes cast at a popular election provided a majority in a majority of the cantons is at the same time received. The federal constitution of Australia has copied this provision.

Our constitutional system further safeguards property by the system of checks and balances, a leading feature of which is the federal courts. The power to override an act of congress is exercised by an appointive judiciary holding office for life whose compensation "shall not be diminished during their continuance in office." The fifth amendment prohibits congress from depriving any one "of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," and the fourteenth amendment imposes the same prohibition upon the states. Property is mentioned along with life and liberty implying that it is either on a par with or is necessary to them. As the watch-dogs of both these amendments stand the federal