and did fail to provide any CONSTITUTIONAL method in which government power to interfere with individual liberty, as all surrendered power _of that kind_ was distributed between different governments in the Constitution, could be changed in any way or transferred from one government to another, unless the “conventions” of the American citizens _in_ three fourths of the states said “Yes” to any proposed change or transfer. The Philadelphia Convention having proposed this particular check upon the existing ability of the people themselves to oppress individual liberty, a check which makes the words “by conventions in three fourths thereof” by far the most important words, the Fifth Article goes on to prescribe exactly the same check on the exercise of the ability of the state legislatures to make _federal_ Articles. That the Fifth Article, a constitutional mode of procedure for the exercise of two different existing abilities, was _not a grant_ of any power to the state legislative governments is something that was known to every man in the conventions which made that Fifth Article. In the Pennsylvania convention, Wilson plainly stated the knowledge of all that the supreme power “_resides_ in the people, as the fountain of government; that the people have not--that the people meant not--and that the people ought not--to part with it to any government whatsoever. In their hands it remains secure. They can delegate it in such proportions to such bodies, on such terms, and under such limitations, as they think proper. I agree with the members in opposition, that there cannot be two sovereign powers on the same subject.... My position is, sir, that, in this country, the supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power resides in the people at large.” (2 _Ell. Deb._ 456 et seq.) When more than half a century had passed, the same thing was known to those who knew American Constitutional Law. “It is obviously impossible for the whole people to meet, prepare and discuss the proposed alterations, and there seems to be no feasible mode by which an expression of _their_ will can be obtained, except by asking it upon the single point of assent or disapproval. But no body of representatives, _unless specially clothed with power for that purpose by the people when choosing them_, [ergo, no permanent state governments or legislatures] can rightfully take definitive action upon amendments or revisions; they must submit the result of their deliberations to the people--WHO ALONE ARE COMPETENT TO EXERCISE THE POWERS OF SOVEREIGNTY IN FRAMING THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW--for ratification or rejection.” So spoke the great Cooley in reference to making changes in _national_ constitutions in his work on Constitutional Limitations (7th ed., 1903, at p. 61). When one hundred and seventeen years had passed since the conventions in which we just sat, the same thing was known in the Supreme Court, in 1907.