It is a striking commentary upon the ability of Hamilton and his generation, when contrasted with our modern “constitutional thinkers,” that he knew and appreciated _what would happen in a century to come_, while they have not understood what _had_ happened in a century that had gone, although the record of that century was spread out before them to read. None of _our_ leaders _have_ appreciated the fact that every one of the first seventeen Amendments to our Constitution _was of the kind_ that state legislatures had ability to make before our Constitution was even drafted at Philadelphia, because all were _federal_ (or declaratory) Articles and were not _national_ Articles. If they had known, _after_ these seventeen Amendments were history, what he prophesied _before_ the Constitution itself was adopted, the story of the last five years might not have been what we shall learn hereafter that it was. That _we_ may know, _of our knowledge_, what _he_ prophesied and what _they_ entirely overlooked and ignored, let us briefly examine the nature of those seventeen Amendments. Thus we will learn why governments, known at Philadelphia in 1787 to be incompetent to make _national_ Articles, could and did make those seventeen Articles in the _constitutional_ mode of procedure which the Fifth Article provided for the exercise of their existing ability limited to the making of _federal_ or declaratory Articles. The first ten Amendments were declarations insisted upon by the American citizens, assembled in “conventions” where we have sat, as specific security against government usurpation of power over their individual freedom. The Supreme Court has repeatedly declared that everything in those ten Amendments was in the Constitution when it was ratified by those “conventions” and that the Amendments simply declared what the will of the people themselves, assembled in those “conventions,” had already established as the fundamental law in America. Certainly no man would challenge the prophecy of Hamilton on the theory that any one of those Amendments added to the mass of government powers to interfere with human freedom. They are, each and every one of them, the declaration that government cannot do “this” and government cannot do “that.” So far from being _national_ Articles, the kind which only “conventions” of American citizens could or can make, the kind which tell government that it can command the American citizens on this or that subject, they are all Articles which tell government that it _cannot_ command the American citizen. And, for the further security of the individual freedom of the American citizen, _a security never needed more than in this year_ 1923, the Tenth Declaration emphatically declares _who_ it is that RETAINS the _exclusive_ ability to alter, in one iota, “the mass of powers” (over the individual freedom of the American citizen) granted _by them_ in the First Article and the exclusive ability to exercise any power _of