And we become rather convinced that Hamilton and Madison, when submitting the Fifth Article at Philadelphia, never worded it so that _national_ power in America could be granted through the illegitimate authority of the state legislatures, when we read what either one or both of them have to say on Tuesday, February 5, 1788, in _The Federalist_, No. 49. “As the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived, it seems strictly consonant to the republican theory to recur to the same original authority”--a direct reference to the “conventions” of the _Seventh and the Fifth_ Articles--“whenever it may be necessary to enlarge, diminish, or new-model the powers of government.” If we ever had any doubt as to what Hamilton meant the Fifth Article to provide, our doubt is ended forever when we hear Hamilton, in the New York Convention, speak of the state legislatures, which the “constitutional thinkers” of 1917 and 1920 assume to have been made attorney in fact for the American people for every purpose by that Fifth Article. “Look through their history,” he says, speaking of those state legislative governments. “What factions have arisen from the most trifling causes! What intrigues have been practiced for the most illiberal purposes! Is not the State of Rhode Island, at this moment, struggling under difficulties and distresses, for having been led blindly by the spirit of the multitude? What is her legislature but the picture of a _mob_?” Most of the states “are either governed by a single democratic assembly, or have a senate constituted entirely upon democratic principles. These have been more or less embroiled in factions, and have generally been the image and echo of the multitude.... _Let us beware that we do not make the state legislatures a vehicle in which the evil humors may be conveyed into the national system._” (2 _Ell. Deb._ 317.) When Hamilton knew that these state legislatures were not the legitimate source of national powers in a republic and when he had _this_ view of their general character, will any sane man believe that he advocated that the citizens of America should make these legislatures (although the citizens of America elect not a single member in them) absolute attorney in fact for the citizens of America for all purposes? Will any sane man believe that he proposed to substitute them, as grantors of _national_ power, for the “conventions” of the Fifth Article, which “conventions” already excited the admiration of the entire world, according to the author of the Fifth Article, as the only safe or effective mode in which the free citizens of a nation could vest its government with any power to interfere with their own individual liberty.