action is unconstitutional or
improper? Cannot Virginia and her people, acting through their
representatives, suggest the means of amendment or improvement in our
Constitution to Congress?--the Congress which represents the people,
and whose members are servants only of the people? Can she not call
together a convention of this kind and suggest measures to be
considered by it for the purpose of saving an imperilled country?
Virginia knew well that this was to be an advisory Conference merely.
She invited commissioners from all the States to come here and present
their views, to compare and discuss them, to devise measures for the
benefit of the country, in the same way that any assemblage of the
people may lawfully do. Has the gentleman looked into the history of
our present Constitution? Virginia did the same thing previous to the
adoption of that Constitution, which she is doing now.

Some State must invite a Conference, if one is to be had. If it was
proper that Virginia should do it before the adoption of our present
Constitution, it is eminently proper that she should do it now. There
are occasions, sir, in the history of nations, when men should rise
far above the rules of special pleading. This is one of them. Let the
gentleman look into the history of the old articles of Confederation;
let him read the debates which arose upon their adoption. Virginia
originated measures then, far more important than any before us now;
and there were gentlemen then, who took the same ground that gentlemen
do now, who sought by the use of dilatory pleas, by interposing
objections, temporary in their nature, to prevent and delay action
upon the great national questions then under consideration. Now, in a
time of great peril, when the whole country is convulsed, when the
existence and perpetuity of the Government is in danger, Virginia has
invoked her sister States to come here and see whether they cannot
devise some method to avoid the danger and save the country.

In the preamble to the first ten articles of Confederation, there is
to be found an express reference to the action of the State
Legislatures in initiating proposals of amendment. Every amendment
that has hitherto been made to our Constitution originated with the
people, and directly or indirectly through the action of State
Legislatures. What purpose can gentlemen have in interposing these
dilatory pleas, objections merely for delay, when we all know that
Congress is