and, it is equally true that development is as much a law of
state life as existence. Prohibit the former, and the latter is the
existence of the body after the spirit has departed. When, in a
democratic political society, the well-matured, long and deliberately
formed will of the undoubted majority can be persistently and
successfully thwarted, in the amendment of its organic law, by the will
of the minority, there is just as much danger to the state from
revolution and violence as there is from the caprice of the majority,
where the sovereignty of the bare majority is acknowledged. The
safeguards against too radical change must not be exaggerated to the
point of dethroning the real sovereign."[38]

What Professor Burgess seems to overlook is the fact that the framers of
the Constitution deliberately intended to dethrone the numerical
majority. The restrictions which they placed upon the exercise of the
amending power were not only not inconsistent with the form of
government which they established, but as a matter of fact absolutely
necessary to ensure its preservation, since without such a limitation of
the power to amend, the majority could easily overcome all other checks
upon its authority.

This feature of the Constitution, which nominally provides for
amendment, but really makes it an impossibility, is perhaps the best
proof we could have that the Constitution as framed and adopted
represented the views of a minority who intended by this means to
perpetuate their influence. But, we are told, this can not be the case
since the states were free to accept or reject it. Let us not forget,
however, that at no stage of the proceedings was the matter referred
directly to the people. Bryce says: "Had the decision been left to what
is now called 'the voice of the people,' that is, to the mass of the
citizens all over the country, voting at the polls, the voice of the
people would probably have pronounced against the Constitution."[39]
Moreover, "the Convention met," as he observes, "at the most fortunate
moment in American History [for securing the adoption of such a
constitution].... Had it been attempted four years earlier or four years
later at both of which times the waves of democracy were running high,
it must have failed."[40] But even under these favoring conditions it
was no easy task to get the states to adopt it. The advocates of the
Constitution employed every argument and influence that could contribute
to