Stoux City Academy of Science and Letters. 127 
Moreover, most or all of these measures strongly 
alfect the interests of the capitalistic classes, as slavery 
did. We may therefore expect that all the expedients 
which wealthy interests resort to for the purpose of con- 
trolling legislation will be brought into play in resisting 
the popular demand for amendment. Any sensible con- 
sideration of the outlook must take this fact into consid- 
eration. 
The party seeking to amend the constitution must 
first do one of two things: secure the proposal of the 
amendment by the congress; or obtain applications to 
the congress for a constitutional convention, from the 
legislatures of two-thirds of the several states. 
If the first procedure be adopted, the proposal must 
be made by a two-thirds vote of both houses of congress. 
This is most difficult. On any mooted question a two- 
thirds vote of the house might be supposed to indicate a 
sufficient popular conviction. But in addition a like vote 
in the senate must be secured. This involves carrying, 
not only two-thirds of all the congressional districts, but 
two-thirds of the state legislatures as well, so as to con- 
trol the United States senate. In these state legisla- 
tures, each lower house must be carried and held, until 
the slower-changing upper house is secured, thus greatly 
increasing the difficulty. Furthermore this proposal must 
come from states, the small states having equal influence 
with the great, and the fifteen smallest states in the 
union might permanently stand in the way of the desires 
of all the other thirty. These states have now a popula- 
tion of less than 5,000,000, and a bare majority in each 
of these, which might easily be made up of 2,500,000 
souls, might balk the will of the rest of the 84,000,000. 
Assuming, however, that all these things have been 
done, and that none of the votes for the measure have 
been diverted from the obedience to the people’s will 
which pure representatives give, the fight has only be- 
gun. A constitutional convention must now assemble, - 
over the personnel of which the states would exercise 
complete control. Each state would decide for itself 
whether or not it would be represented in the conven- 
tion, and how its delegates should be chosen, if at all. 
Here would be a fruitful field for the operation of all the 
forces of corruption, and the political wiles which balk 
