structing their delegates on the subject." This provision of the
Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 was copied in the Vermont constitution
of 1777. The constitution of Georgia, 1777, contained the following: "No
alteration shall be made in this constitution without petitions from a
majority of the counties, and the petition from each county to be signed
by a majority of the voters in each county within this state; at which
time the assembly shall order a convention to be called for that
purpose, specifying the alterations to be made, according to the
petitions preferred to the assembly by the majority of the counties as
aforesaid." The Massachusetts constitution of 1780 provided that the
question of amendment should be submitted to the qualified voters of the
state, and if two-thirds of those voting favored amendment, it was the
duty of the legislature to order the election of delegates to meet in
convention for that purpose. The New Hampshire constitution of 1784
contained a similar provision.

We see, then, that several of the early state constitutions expressly
gave, either directly to a majority of the qualified voters, or to their
representatives, the right to amend; and even in Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, and Delaware, whose constitutions expressly limited the power
of the majority, the limitation was not effective, since the majority
could push through under the guise of ordinary legislation, measures
which virtually amounted to an exercise of the amending power. Such
limitations on the power of the majority did not become effective until
a judiciary not directly responsible to the people, acquired the right
to declare acts of the legislature null and void.

An examination of these features of the various state constitutions in
force in 1787 shows clearly the reactionary character of the Federal
Constitution. It repudiated entirely the doctrine then expressly
recognized in some of the states and virtually in all, that a majority
of the qualified voters could amend the fundamental law. And not only
did it go farther than any state constitution in expressly limiting the
power of the majority, but it provided what no state constitution had
done--the means by which its limitations on the power of the majority
could be enforced.

A comparison of this feature of our Constitution with the method of
amendment in other countries is interesting and instructive. In England
no distinction is made between constitutional am