580 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 



unworkable. If we are ever to rid ourselves of this obstacle we must 

 find some other way than that which I have just outlined as the 

 apparently legal way. But is there any other legal way? Can the 

 amending clause itself be revised by the ordinary course of amend- 

 ment so as to omit the exception in behalf of the equal representation 

 of the states in the Senate? It certainly can be so revised as to 

 anything and everything else. But I am quite persuaded that the 

 framers of the constitution never intended to provide any means 

 whereby this exception could be set aside. I am quite sure that they 

 intentionally placed this obstacle in the way of the legal sovereign, as 

 they organized it for ordinary action. I do not feel sure that they 

 realized the fact that they were sowing the seeds of revolution upon 

 this subject by erecting an insurmountable barrier to regular con- 

 stitutional progress concerning it. The great natural, universal, 

 and irresistible principle of development was not then understood 

 as now. Men really believed, at that stage in the growth of philo- 

 sophic thought, that they could construct institutions for all time, 

 which would need no change or improvement. 



There is, indeed, good ground in political philosophy for holding 

 that the amending clause in a constitution may itself be revised by 

 the general process provided therein. These grounds are that there 

 cannot be logically two legal sovereigns within a constitution any 

 more than there can be two original sovereigns behind the constitu- 

 tion, and that there cannot be logically any exceptions from the 

 power of the legal sovereign any more than there can be from the 

 power of the original sovereign. Different methods of governmental 

 action in regard to the same subject, and exceptions from the powers 

 of the government, are all scientifically legitimate, but the exercise 

 of sovereignty is an entirely different matter. One body and only 

 one can possess it at any given time within a given state, and from 

 its operation nothing whatsoever can be logically excepted. But 

 when we shift from the legal to the political in respect to this subject, 

 are we not committing a revolutionary act? I think this must be 

 acknowledged. It must be conceded that we are committing the 

 same kind of a revolutionary act as that committed by the national 

 constitutional convention of 1787 and the ratifying conventions 

 within the states of the Confederation. If that was justifiable, 

 this would be, and upon exactly the same grounds, viz., that existing 

 legality upon this subject does not comport with the social, political, 

 and economic conditions of a national democratic state, but contra- 

 dicts them in an unendurable way and to an unendurable extent. 

 Sound political theory demands that the amending power within 

 the constitution, the legal sovereign, should be an organization 

 faithfully representing the original sovereign behind the constitution, 

 separate from, independent of, and supreme over, the powers of 



