world, it was by its founders properly made subject to amendment. At the
first session of the first Congress ten amendments were adopted; two have
been added since; and experience has approved this action.

That other amendments may hereafter be necessary and proper it would be
presumptuous to deny. But we ought to touch the ark of our political
testimony with careful and reverent hand.

All legislative bodies are liable to sudden and wayward impulses. To these
the Congress of our young country is more exposed than the Parliaments or
Chambers of older nations. It would have been very unsafe to trust a
Congressional majority with the power of amending the Constitution.

Difficulties and delays were properly put in the way of exercising such a
prerogative. To two-thirds of both houses, or to a convention called by
the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, was granted the
power of proposing amendments; while the power to ratify these was not
confided to less than to the legislatures, or to the conventions, of
three-fourths of the States composing the Union.

To alter the Constitution in any other way--as by the consent of a
majority only of the several States--would be a revolutionary act.
Doubtless revolutionary acts become a justifiable remedy on rare and great
occasions, as in 1776; but they are usually replete with danger. They are
never more dangerous than when employed by one section of a confederacy
against another, weaker section of the same. To the stability of
government, it is necessary that the rights of minorities should be
strictly respected. The end does not necessarily justify the means. "No
example," says an eminent and philosophical writer, "is more dangerous
than that of violence employed for a good purpose by well-meaning men."[6]

[Footnote 6: "Il n'y a pas de plus dangereux exemple que celui de
la violence exercee pour le bien et par les gens de
bien."--"_L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution_," par Alexis de
Tocqueville, Paris, 1856, p. 310.]

To such considerations has it been, in a measure, due that the people of
the United States, with as much unanimity as usually characterizes any
national decision, have held back, until now, from following the example
of the civilized nations of Europe in emancipating their slaves. Until the
Secessionists levied war against the Union, not the Democratic party
alone, but the mass of the Republican party also, assented to the
declarati