He is advocating that our only American government should ask the legislative governments of the states, which are not the governments of _American_ citizens, directly to interfere with our individual freedom and to grant to themselves and to our only government future power to interfere therewith on a matter not enumerated in the First Article. Naturally, as real fact would make manifest the absurdity of such proposal, he states that, when the Constitution was made, “by votes of the Southern States the power to amend the federal Constitution was vested in three fourths of the states.” Undoubtedly he meant us to understand that the Constitution (through whose real making we have just lived) was made by the states and that the Southern States granted to the legislatures of three fourths of the states the omnipotent ability over the human beings of America, which those human beings themselves had denied to the English king and his legislature. That he meant us so to understand we shall learn to a certainty in a moment. Meanwhile, let us note how inadvertently he states part of the truth, while omitting all reference to the part thereof which would make his own proposal the clear absurdity which it was. We note his reference to that part of the Fifth Article which _mentions_ the ability of three fourths of the state legislatures to amend the _federal_ Constitution. Because we have lived through the days of the real American leaders, we recall that our Constitution is both _federal_ and _national_ and that state legislatures always had ability to make _federal_ Articles and never had ability to make _national_ ones. We also remember that those state legislatures were permitted, by the people who made our Constitution, to retain some of the ability they had and were given no new ability. We also remember that the Fifth Article mentions their existing ability to make _federal_ Articles and prescribes, as the command of the people of America, that a “Yes” from three fourths of them shall validly make a change in the _federal_ part of our dual Constitution. For which reason, with somewhat of amusement, we note Sheppard’s inadvertent accuracy of statement, when he says that three fourths of the state legislatures may amend the _federal_ Constitution. With our knowledge, we do not care what he meant or intended that others should understand. We know that nothing has been more definitely settled in America, since 1776, than that legislative governments never can make a _national_ Article or change our _national_ Constitution.