creation of a will independent of the human members of the society] will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States,” the very Constitution of which contains the Fifth Article. We average Americans are now satisfied, beyond dispute, that neither Madison nor his associates in the early conventions, to which we will now return, understood or meant that the Fifth Article would or should create such an independent will. Sitting again in the conventions of old, we recall exactly the same thought expressed by Madison himself in _The Federalist_, No. 10, where he says: “When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.... Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such co-existent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number _and local situation_, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression.” These thoughts, from the worder of the Fifth Article, sink deep into our minds and hearts as we sit in those conventions. They come before us with startling clearness, when we read his words in that Article, “_conventions in three fourths_ thereof,” and his words in reference to that Fifth Article mode of procedure, “In requiring more than a majority, and particularly in computing the proportion by _states_, not by _citizens_, it departs from the _national_ and advances toward the _federal_ character.” (_Fed_. No. 39.) We realize that his mode of procedure is _national_, in its strict conformity to the Statute of ’76, that all power over the people must come _directly_ from the people, but that a judicious mixture of the _federal_ system, in _counting_ the votes of the people, is the best check human ingenuity has yet devised to protect individual rights against a tyrannical majority or an aggressive minority. CHAPTER XII TWO ARTICLES NAME “CONVENTIONS”