From the absence of one word of protest we quite clearly realize that no man in that Convention so misconstrued the simple statement of Madison’s Fifth Article as to read into it an imaginary “grant” of any ability whatever to the state legislative governments. We realize that these men, who were accurate thinkers, knew that the “conventions” named in this Madison Article were exactly the same “conventions” which Philadelphia had already named in what we know now as the Seventh Article. We realize that they knew at once, when Madison proposed his Article, that the “conventions” named in it, like the same “conventions” named in the Seventh, were “We, the people” of America, named in the Preamble. And, from a moment’s reflection, we are aware that the delegates at Philadelphia immediately knew that Madison was not making the absurd suggestion that the American people, the “conventions” of the Seventh and Madison’s new Article, should _grant_, in the very “conventions” of the Seventh, to _themselves_, anything whatever of power, either all or part of the power which they would be then exercising in those “conventions.” From which it follows, as the night the day, that the delegates also knew that if Madison’s Article was not a grant by the “conventions” to the “conventions,” it was not a grant to the “legislatures.” For which reason we will not dwell at all upon the obvious fact that there is not the slightest suggestion of a word of grant in the Fifth Article. Before emphasizing the absurdity of the thought that the Americans at Philadelphia ever intended the plain statement of the Fifth Article to be a “grant” of power of any kind, it seems proper that we should grasp at once what it clearly _was_ understood by them to be. Their understanding and knowledge of its meaning become very clear to us, when _we_ read it, as they heard it from Madison, fresh from their great debate as to the grant of enumerated powers in their First Article and their proposal of a ratification by “conventions” as the only valid mode of ratification for an Article which grants power to interfere with human freedom. We recall now that, when Madison suggested _his_ Fifth Article to them, on September 10, the echoes were still ringing of the sound statements of Madison and others that Philadelphia _must_ propose a mode of ratification by the people or “conventions” because legislatures never could be competent, in America, to make Articles which did constitute government by granting power to interfere with human freedom. When _we_ read Madison’s Fifth Article, with the same statements still fresh in _our_ minds, we realize at once how the delegates at Philadelphia recognized, in the Madison Article, the meaning of every reference to the duties imposed upon, not the powers granted therein, to Congress. The delegates had met at Philadelphia with purpose and intent to draft and _propose_ constitutional Articles in their judgment best designed to secure human