In his brief, Hughes emphatically asserts the truth that “the people never become a legislature.” Yet, the basis of his whole argument is that what “the people” of the Tenth Amendment expressly reserved to themselves may be given away by the “legislatures” of the states, although the “states” are an entirely different reservee in the Tenth Amendment. He does not know, what all knew when the Fifth Article was made, that the “conventions,” who made it and who are named in it, meant “the people” themselves. He does not know the tribute of Madison, in the Virginia convention which ratified the Fifth Article, to the American “conventions” in which the people themselves directly constituted new government of men; “Mr. Chairman: Nothing has excited more admiration in the world than the manner in which free governments have been established in America; for it was the first instance, from the creation of the world to the American Revolution, that free inhabitants have been seen deliberating on a form of government, and selecting such of their citizens as possessed their confidence, to determine upon and give effect to it.” (3 _Ell. Deb._ p. 616.) Hughes does not know, as Story did, that the drafter and the makers of the Fifth Article put into it the lessons of their own experience in the making of _national_ Articles, by the “conventions” of 1776, and in the making of _federal_ Articles by the state “legislatures” between 1777 and 1781. “It is wise, therefore, in every government, and especially in a Republic, to provide means for altering and improving the fabric of government as time and experience or the new phases of human affairs may render proper to promote the happiness and safety of the people. The great principle to be sought is to make the changes practicable, but not too easy; to secure due deliberation and caution; _and to follow experience_, rather than to open a way for experiment suggested by mere speculation or theory.” (2 Story on the Constitution, Sec. 1827.) For all of which reasons, Hughes and his associates, although they might be certain that the people never became the legislature, were not aware that, to the Americans who made the Fifth Article, its “conventions” _were_ “the people” of the Tenth Amendment.