Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/305

 whole number when the constitution was ratified — this proportion of the States was required in order to amend it (without regard to an inconsiderable fraction) because of the facility of its application.

But independently of these considerations, there were strong reasons for adopting that proportion in providing a power to amend. It was, at least, as necessary to guard against too much facility as too much difficulty, in amending it. If, to require the consent of all the States for that purpose would be, in effect, to prevent amendments which time should disclose to be — or change of circumstances make necessary — so, on the other hand, to require a bare majority only, or but a small number in proportion to the whole, would expose the constitution to hasty, inconsiderate, and even sinister amendments, on the part of the party dominant for the time. If the one would give it too much fixedness, the other would deprive it of all stability. Of the two, the latter would be more dangerous than the former. It would defeat the very ends of a constitution, regarded as a fundamental law. Indeed, it would involve a glaring absurdity to require the separate ratification of nine States to make the constitution binding as between them — and to provide that a mere majority of States, or even a small one, when compared with the whole number, should have the power, as soon as it went into operation, to amend it as they pleased. It would be difficult to find any other proportion better calculated to avoid this absurdity, and, at the same time, the difficulties attending the other extreme, than that