s--a principle so just that by it we are
enabled in these bitter days to faithfully withstand the usurpation that
seeks to justify itself by appealing to the right of revolution. For in
the principle of amendment (as has heretofore been stated in this
magazine) the right of revolution was at the same time recognized and
exalted; and by it a means of war was made a means of peace, and so
revolution was sought to be forestalled. Nothing but despotism itself
would have disregarded this humane provision of the Constitution, and
sought a remedy for alleged grievances that is only justified by
despotism.

What, then, is the principle of amendment in our Constitution, and what
are its provisions? They are found in the fifth article, and read thus:
'_The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it
necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution_, or, 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 to all intents and purposes, as part of this
Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the
several States_, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one
or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress;
provided, ... that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of
its equal suffrage in the Senate.'

Can anything be clearer? And yet how men have contrived to mystify the
whole question by vague declamation about the rights of States! As if
those rights of States that were meant to be protected, were not
carefully guarded by the article itself, and especially by the proviso
'that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal
suffrage in the Senate'! As if, too, the rights of the States were
everything, the rights of the Nation nothing! It might well be asked,
moreover (as, indeed, a discriminating writer in _The Evening Post_ has
lately asked), whether the _people_ of the States have no rights that
are to be considered in this discussion; whether there are not certain
reserved rights of the people that have been violated by many
States--rights reserved in the very constitutions of those States, as
well as in the Constitution of the United States? But let it be noted,
as above intimated, that this fifth article is duly careful to guard the
rights of States. Three fourths of the States must concur in the
amendment; and in