en at Philadelphia
to form a Constitution. No article of the old Confederation gave them
power to do this; but they did it, and the States did appoint delegates,
who assembled at Philadelphia, and formed the Constitution. It was
communicated to the old Congress, and that body recommended to the
States to make provision for calling the people together to act upon its
adoption. Was not that exactly the case of passing a law to ascertain
the will of the people in a new exigency? And this method was adopted
without opposition, nobody suggesting that there could be any other mode
of ascertaining the will of the people.

My learned friend went through the constitutions of several of the
States. It is enough to say, that, of the old thirteen States, the
constitutions, with but one exception, contained no provision for their
own amendment. In New Hampshire there was a provision for taking the
sense of the people once in seven years. Yet there is hardly one that
has not altered its constitution, and it has been done by conventions
called by the legislature, as an ordinary exercise of legislative power.
Now what State ever altered its constitution in any other mode? What
alteration has ever been brought in, put in, forced in, or got in
anyhow, by resolutions of mass meetings, and then by applying force? In
what State has an assembly, calling itself the people, convened without
law, without authority, without qualifications, without certain
officers, with no oaths, securities, or sanctions of any kind, met and
made a constitution, and called it the constitution of the STATE? There
must be some authentic mode of ascertaining the will of the people, else
all is anarchy. It resolves itself into the law of the strongest, or,
what is the same thing, of the most numerous for the moment, and all
constitutions and all legislative rights are prostrated and disregarded.

But my learned adversary says, that, if we maintain that the people (for
he speaks in the name and on behalf of the people, to which I do not
object) cannot commence changes in their government but by some previous
act of legislation, and if the legislature will not grant such an act,
we do in fact follow the example of the Holy Alliance, "the doctors of
Laybach," where the assembled sovereigns said that all changes of
government must proceed from sovereigns; and it is said that we mark out
the same rule for the people of Rhode Island.

Now will any man, will my adversary