Without a single exception, the fifty-seven lawyers on these briefs base their every argument, no matter how those arguments may challenge one another, on the ridiculous sheer assumption that the Fifth Article is a great power of attorney to the state governments from the citizens of America. All these fifty-seven lawyers ignore the undeniable fact--mentioned continually in the “conventions” of the Seventh Article which wrote their own name, “conventions,” into the Fifth Article--that the Constitution is both _federal_ and _national_. This first mistake, this ignoring of that fact, led all of them immediately into the fatal error of wholly ignoring the vitally important fact that the Fifth Article distinctly names those who already could make _federal_ Articles, the state governments, and those whose exclusive right it always was and is to _make national_ Articles, the people assembled in their “conventions.” Only because of these two mistakes, the next step comes in the guise of the absurd concept that the Fifth Article is a grant of _any_ power of attorney, from the citizens of America, either to the “state legislatures” or the “conventions.” In this patent absurdity, all fifty-seven lawyers concur. That each of them does not see its patent absurdity is due entirely to the fact that not one of them states the proposition, that the Fifth Article _is_ a grant, in the frankest mode of stating it. That _frankest_ way is to state the proposition in these words: “In the Fifth Article the citizens of America, assembled in the ‘conventions’ of 1788, _granted_ to the state legislatures _and_ to _themselves_, the citizens of America, assembled in their ‘conventions,’ a quantum of power as attorneys in fact of the citizens of America. We fifty-seven lawyers only differ as to the _extent_ of the power which the citizens of America grant to themselves and to the state governments. We, who _support_ the new amendment, contend that the citizens of America grant to the state governments and to the citizens of America _all_ the power of the citizens of America. On the other hand, we, who _oppose_ validity, contend that the citizens of America grant to the state governments and to the citizens of America only _some_ of the unlimited power of the citizens of America, the very power they were exercising when they made the grant which is the Fifth Article.”