1] Elliot, _Debates_, iii. 150, 462, 445-446.

[382] Elliot, _Debates_, iii. 149-150.

[383] Elliot, _Debates_, iii. 58-60.

[384] Bancroft, _Hist. Const._ ii. 459-460.

[385] Elliot, _Debates_, iii. 653.

[386] Elliot, _Debates_, iii. 652.

[387] Bancroft, _Hist. Const._ ii. 316-317.

[388] Rives, _Life of Madison_, ii. 610.

[389] Kennedy, _Life of Wirt_, i. 345.

[390] Spencer Roane, MS.

[391] Elliot, _Debates_, iii. 187.

[392] _Ibid._ iii. 406, 104, 248, 177.

[393] St. George Tucker, MS.

[394] Elliot, _Debates_, iii. 580.

[395] St. George Tucker, MS.

[396] Elliot, _Debates_, iii. 625.

[397] Wirt, 296-297. Also Spencer Roane, MS.

CHAPTER XIX

THE AFTER-FIGHT FOR AMENDMENTS

Thus, on the question of adopting the new Constitution, the fight was
over; but on the question of amending that Constitution, now that it
had been adopted, the fight, of course, was only just begun.

For how could this new Constitution be amended? A way was
provided,--but an extremely strait and narrow way. No amendment
whatsoever could become valid until it had been accepted by three
fourths of the States; and no amendment could be submitted to the
States for their consideration until it had first been approved,
either by two thirds of both houses of Congress, or else by a majority
of a convention specially called by Congress at the request of two
thirds of the States.

Clearly, the framers of the Constitution intended that the supreme law
of the land, when once agreed to, should have within it a principle of
fixedness almost invincible. At any rate, the process by which alone
alterations can be made, involves so wide an area of territory, so
many distinct groups of population, and is withal, in itself, so
manifold and complex, so slow, and so liable to entire stoppage, that
any proposition looking toward change must inevitably perish long
before reaching the far-away goal of final endorsement, unless that
proposition be really impelled by a public demand not only very
energetic and persistent, but well-nigh universal. Indeed, the
constitutional provision for amendments seemed, at that time, to many,
to be almost a constitutional prohibition of amendments.

It was, in part, for this very reason that Patrick Henry had urged
that those amendments of the Constitution which, in his opinion, were
absolutely necessary, should be secured before its adoption, and not
be left to the doubtful chance of their b