forth in that instrument
against errors and oversights committed in its formation.
Amendments, as the term indeed implies, are to be limited to
the correction of such errors....

It is "This Constitution" that may be amended. "This
Constitution" is not a code of transient laws but a framework
of government and an embodiment of fundamental principles. By
an amendment, the identity or purpose of the instrument is
not to be changed; its defects may be cured, but "This
Constitution" must remain. It would be the greatest absurdity
to contend that there was a purpose to create a limited
government and at the same time to confer upon that government
a power to do away with its own limitations.

[Footnote 1: Id., pp. 354-356.]

The Attorney General of the State of New Jersey:[1]

attacked the amendment as an invasion of state sovereignty not
authorized by the amending clause and as not, properly
speaking, an amendment, but legislation, revolutionary in
character.

[Footnote 1: 253 U.S., pp. 356-357.]

The eminent Chicago lawyer, Levy Mayer, and ex-Solicitor General William
Marshall Bullitt, contended,[1] among other things, that

the power of "amendment" contained in Art. V does not
authorize the invasion of the sovereign powers expressly
reserved to the states and the people by the Ninth and Tenth
Amendments, except with the consent of _all_ the states....

If amendment under Art. V were unlimited, three-fourths of the
legislatures would have it in their power to establish a state
religion and prohibit free exercise of other religious
beliefs; to quarter a standing army in the houses of citizens;
to do away with trial by jury and republican form of
government; to repeal the provision for a president; and to
abolish this court and with it the whole judicial power
vested by the Constitution.

[Footnote 1: Id., pp. 357-361.]

Elihu Root, preeminent as a constitutional lawyer, appeared as counsel
in one of the test cases. His main contention was summarized in his
brief as follows:[1]

(a) That the authority to amend the Constitution is a
continuance of the constitution-making power and as such is a
power quite different and altogether distinct from the
law-making power under the Constitution.

(b) That a grant of the one power does not include or impl