It _is_ a fact that the state legislatures, before the Constitution was even proposed, had existing ability to make _federal_ Articles. It _is_ a fact, as the Tenth Amendment declares, that the “conventions” of the Seventh Article _reserved_ that _federal_ ability to those state governments and that the Fifth Article did not “_grant_” it to them. It _is_ a fact, that the “conventions” of ourselves, the American citizens assembled in their respective states, the “conventions” of the Seventh _and_ the Fifth Article, even before the Constitution was worded or proposed, had _exclusive_ ability to make _national_ Articles, which either directly interfere or grant ability to interfere with individual freedom. It _is_ a fact that this power of the “conventions” included the ability to make any kind of Article, either _federal_ or _national_. It _is_ a fact, therefore, as the “conventions” of the American citizens had this omnipotent power before the Fifth Article was even drafted, and as the Tenth Amendment states that _they_ reserved it to _themselves_, that they did not grant _all of it_ (as the advocates of the new Amendment claimed in March, 1920), or _part of it_ (as the opponents of the new Amendment claimed in March, 1920) to themselves in their own Fifth Article. It _is_ a fact, therefore, that the _mention_ of the two existing abilities (the existing omnipotent ability of the “conventions” and the existing _limited_ ability of the “state legislatures”) does _not_ make the Fifth Article any “_grant_” of power either to the “conventions” (who made the Article) or to the state “legislatures.” It _is_ a fact that the very “conventions” named in the Fifth Article and the American citizens assembled therein, while they were making that Article, accurately knew that it was nothing but a _constitutional_ mode of procedure for two distinct and existing powers, and that it did not “_grant_” any power whatever to the state governments. Speaking of the Constitution, with its Fifth Article, the entire convention in Virginia declared that all the powers granted in the Constitution were being granted by the people _of America_ “and that every power, not granted thereby, remains with _them_, and at _their_ will.” Nothing could more clearly express the knowledge that the Fifth Article was not a grant of any power by the “conventions” to the “conventions” or to the state governments. In the Virginia convention, Lee stated: “This new system shows, in stronger terms than words could declare, that the liberties of the people are secure. It goes on the principle that all power is in the people, and that rulers have no powers but what are _enumerated_ [in the First Article] in that paper.... Candor must confess that it is infinitely more attentive to the liberties of the people than any state government.” (3 _Ell. Deb._ 186.)