In those same “conventions” (named in the Fifth Article) we insisted, again in futile effort to keep modern “constitutional thinkers” from monumental error, that there be written the exact declaratory statement that the entire Constitution gave no power (to act for us, the citizens of America, in any matter) to any donee except our new general government, the government of the First Article enumerated powers. And, in those “conventions,” we insisted that there be written into that Constitution the accurate declaratory statement that all powers to act for us in any matter, except the powers _of that kind_ we gave to that one limited general government, we retained exclusively to ourselves, the citizens of America, that they might be exercised only _by ourselves_ or upon further grant _from ourselves_. Those two important declaratory statements were written into that Constitution in the shape of the Tenth Amendment. That we ourselves might have a CONSTITUTIONAL mode of procedure in which _constitutionally_ we could make that future exercise or further grant of those powers which we reserved to ourselves, we named ourselves--the “conventions” of the kind in which we sat--in the Fifth Article and provided therein the CONSTITUTIONAL mode in which we _could_ again do exactly what we were then doing in the same kind of “conventions.” It was impossible for us in those conventions, “being a people better acquainted with the science of government than any other people in the world,” to anticipate that modern “constitutional thinkers” should make the ludicrous mistake of inferring, from that mention, that we--the “conventions”--granted to ourselves--the “conventions”--all or some of the very power we were then exercising in those “conventions.” Nor did we anticipate, inasmuch as _we_ (in those “conventions”) never forgot that this new Constitution was to be _federal_ as well as _national_, that modern “constitutional thinkers” would make another monumental error in assuming that a similar _mention_ of the existing ability of state legislatures (the ability to make _federal_ or declaratory Articles) was a _grant_ to those governments of our own power to make _national_ ones. Even if we had possessed (in those “conventions”) the vision to see the future that was 1920, we would have felt that the Statute of ’76, the opening words of the First Article and the explicit declarations of the Tenth Amendment made any such error impossible for modern “constitutional thinkers.” Yet, one or more of such errors are the basis of every argument in every brief of the fifty-seven lawyers of 1920.