granted except by direct grant from the citizens _of America_ assembled in their “conventions.” The Fifth Article had been the command of the citizens of America that only a “Yes” from three fourths of those “conventions” of _themselves_ should be valid to add a new power over themselves to those enumerated in their First Article. From 1776 to 1917 it had been the _obeyed_ fundamental law in America that no government could acquire, from another government or from other governments, any power to interfere with the individual freedom of the human beings within its jurisdiction. The human beings in each state were members or citizens of the nation which is America. They were also, in each state, the members or citizens of the nation which is that state. The states were also members of their own federation, whose _federal_ government had been continued by the citizens of America. In its personnel, that _federal_ government was identical with the _national_ government of those citizens of America. In the Fifth Article, the citizens of America had recognized and mentioned the existing ability of the states, as political entities, to make constitutional Articles of a _federal_ nature. For that reason, the Fifth Article had been the command of the citizens of America that, when the states exercised their limited ability, a “Yes” from the legislatures of three fourths of the states should be effective to make a _federal_ Article. In the matter of interference with individual human freedom, so far as experience tells the story, there had continued from 1776 to 1917 the knowledge of the legal fact, made basic American law by the Statute of ’76, that no government could get any _national_ power except by direct grant from its own citizens, and that no government could exercise any _national_ power over any but those in its own jurisdiction and then only by direct grant of that power from its own citizens. We know that this was the wonderful system of constitutional government under which Americans had lived from 1790 to 1917. We know that the Americans, who were our predecessors in 1787, had prescribed that system as best calculated to protect their human liberty and our own from outside aggression and from usurpation of power by their governments and our own. Educated with them, from the day when they were all subjects of a legislative government, we know much of their struggle to rid themselves forever of the status of “subject” and to become free men. In that education, however, we have dwelt but little so far upon one phase of that struggle. At this point, it is essential that we educate ourselves briefly but accurately on that one phase.