tes by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people."

Amendment, however, of the delegated powers was made more easy than it
had been under the Confederation. Ratification by three fourths of the
States was sufficient under the Constitution for the adoption of an
amendment to it. As this power of amendment threatens to be the Aaron's
rod which will swallow up the rest, I propose to give it special
examination. What is the Constitution of the United States? The whole
body of the instrument, the history of its formation and adoption, as
well as the tenth amendment, added in an abundance of caution, clearly
show it to be an instrument enumerating the powers delegated by the
States to the Federal Government, their common agent. It is specifically
declared that all which was not so delegated was reserved. On this mass
of reserved powers, those which the States declined to grant, the
Federal Government was expressly forbidden to intrude. Of what value
would this prohibition have been, if three fourths of the States could,
without the assent of a particular State, invade the domain which that
State had reserved for its own exclusive use and control?

It has heretofore, I hope, been satisfactorily demonstrated that the
States were sovereigns before they formed the Union, and that they have
never surrendered their sovereignty, but have only intrusted by their
common agent certain functions of sovereignty to be used for their
common welfare.

Among the powers delegated was one to amend the Constitution, which, it
is submitted, was merely the power to amend the delegated grants, and
these were obtained by the separate and independent action of each State
acceding to the Union. When we consider how carefully each clause was
discussed in the General Convention, and how closely each was
scrutinized in the conventions of the several States, the conclusion can
not be avoided that all was specified which it was intended to bestow,
and not a few of the wisest in that day held that too much power had
been conferred.

Aware of the imperfection of everything devised by man, it was foreseen
that, in the exercise of the functions intrusted to the General
Government, experience might reveal the necessity of modification--i.e.,
amendment--and power was therefore given to amend, in a certain manner,
the delegated trusts so as to make them efficient for the purposes
designed,