erican truism, namely, that the majority shall rule.
Two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, or two-thirds of the legislatures
of the several States, must unite in the first instance, before
amendments can be proposed, or a convention called in which to propose
them. If thus far effected, they must be ratified by three-fourths of
the States, before they can be incorporated into the Constitution. The
process is as difficult as that which awaited the proposer of an
amendment to the legislation of the Locrian lawgiver, who made his
motion with a rope round his neck, with which he was strangled, if that
motion was negatived. The provisions of Article V. pay no more attention
to the mere majority of the people than Napoleon III would pay to a
request from the majority of Frenchmen to abdicate that imperial
position which he won for himself, and which it is his firm purpose
shall remain in his family.

It would be no difficult matter to point out other anti-democratic
provisions in our National Constitution; and it would be easy to show
that in the Constitutions of most of our States, if not in all of them,
there are provisions which flagrantly violate the democratic principle,
and of which European democrats never could approve. All through the
organic laws of the Nation and the States there are to be found
restraints on numbers, as if the leading idea of the Constitution-makers
of America were aversion to mere majorities, things that fluctuate from
year to year,--almost from day to day,--and therefore are not to be
trusted. We are stating the fact, and it does not concern our purpose to
discuss the wisdom of what has here been done. How happened it, then,
that our polity was so generally regarded as purely democratical in its
character? Partly this was owing to the extremely popular nature of all
our political action, and to the circumstances of the country not
admitting of any struggle between the rich and the poor. Because there
was no such struggle, it was inferred that the rich had been conquered
by the poor, when the truth was, that, outside of the cities and large
towns, there were no poor from whom to form a party. Degrees of wealth,
and of means below wealth, there were, and there were poor men; but
there was no class of poor people, and hence no material from which to
form a proletarian party. In all our great party-conflicts the wealth
and talents of the country were not far from equally divided, the wealth
and abi