The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. Sitting with these Americans, in _their_ “conventions,” we note immediately, as they note, that the Article names _themselves_. And we note, as they note, that it names themselves, the individual American citizens, the “people” of the Preamble and the Tenth Amendment, by exactly the same name, “conventions,” as in the Seventh Article and as in the Resolution of the Philadelphia Convention, _which proposed the only valid mode of ratification for the constitution of government of men in the First Article_, the mode which required ratification by the individual Americans themselves, the “conventions” of the Seventh and the Fifth Articles. _We_ cannot help noting it--as we intend never to forget it--because _we_ are sitting with them, as the people of America, in the very “conventions” so named in the Seventh Article.