nstitution;
or,

2. On the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of
the several States, shall _call a Convention_ for PROPOSING
_amendments_, which, in either case, shall be valid as part
of the Constitution, when _ratified_ by the Legislatures, or
by Conventions in _three-fourths_ of the States.

The first mode is recommended by the majority of the committee, in the
expectation that Congress, by a two-thirds vote of both houses, will
propose, on the request of this Convention, for ratification by the
States, the several amendments they have reported.

The second mode is the one proposed by the Legislature of Kentucky,
and which, in accordance therewith, I have moved to substitute for the
recommendation of the committee.

There are now but few days remaining before the termination of the
functions of the present Congress. If it were within the fair scope
and interest of the constitutional provision that Congress should act,
in the proposing of amendments, on the recommendation of this
Conference Convention, no one, I think, can reasonably expect them to
consider and deliberately act on such recommendation during the few
remaining days of the present Congress. Other questions, of engrossing
interest, now pending before them, and the acts of necessary
legislation at the close of the session, will prevent it. It must,
therefore, go over to the next Congress. Assuming that during the term
of that Congress the amendments recommended by this Convention shall,
by two-thirds of both houses, be _deemed necessary_, and be proposed
to the States for ratification; there would probably be no earlier
final action by the requisite number of States, than in the mode
proposed by Kentucky, and recommended by the resolution which I have
moved to substitute for the mode of amendment reported by the
committee. But the great objection, in my mind, to the mode of
amendment contemplated by the majority report, is that it is not in
accordance with either the letter or the spirit of the Constitution.
The people of the United States intended, when they adopted the
Constitution under which we have for more than seventy years enjoyed a
higher degree of prosperity than has fallen to the lot of any other
people, that it should remain in full force and unchanged, except in
one of the two modes prescribed in that sacred instrument for its own
amendment.

It is a Constitution which binds the people of every S