an
amendment. We are not disposed, however, to look for arguments in the
debates and discussions of the Convention, in our view often a deceptive
and dangerous method of construing a law, since the vote is very
frequently given on even conflicting reasons. Different minds arrive at
the same results by different processes; and it is no unusual thing for
men to deny each other's premises, while they accept their conclusions.
We shall look, therefore, solely to the compact itself, as the most
certain mode of ascertaining what was done.

'No one will deny that all the great powers of sovereignty are directly
conceded to the Union. The right to make war and peace, to coin money,
maintain armies and navies, etc., etc., in themselves overshadow most of
the sovereignty of the States. The amendatory clause would seem to
annihilate it. By the provisions of that clause three fourths of the
States can take away all the powers and rights now resting in the hands
of the respective States, with a single exception. This exception gives
breadth and emphasis to the efficiency of the clause. It will be
remembered that all this can be done within the present Constitution.
It is a part of the original bargain. Thus, New York can legally be
deprived of the authority to punish for theft, to lay out highways, to
incorporate banks, and all the ordinary interests over which she at
present exercises control, every human being within her limits
dissenting. Now as sovereignty means power in the last resort, this
amendatory clause most clearly deprives the State of all sovereign power
thus put at the disposition of Conventions of the several States; in
fact, the votes of these Conventions, or that of the respective
Legislatures acting in the same capacity, is nothing but the highest
species of legislation known to the country; and no other mode of
altering the institutions would be legal. It follows unavoidably, we
repeat, that the sovereignty which remains in the several States must be
looked for solely in the exception. What, then, is this exception?

'It is a provision which says, that no State may be deprived of its
equal representation in the Senate, without its own consent. It might
well be questioned whether this provision of the Constitution renders a
Senate indispensable to the Government. But we are willing to concede
this point and admit that it does. Can the vote of a single State, which
is one of a body of thirty, and which is bound to