provisions, or subsequent interpretation, which ought not to be in it, the people know how to get rid of it. If any construction be established, unacceptable to them, so as to become practically a part of the constitution, _they_ will amend it at their own sovereign pleasure. But while the _people_ choose to maintain it as it is--while _they_ are satisfied with it, and refuse to change it--_who_ has given, or who _can_ give, to the state legislatures a right to alter it, either by interference, construction, OR OTHERWISE?... Sir, the people have not trusted _their_ safety, in regard to the general constitution, to these hands. They have required other security, and taken other bonds.” (From Webster’s reply to Hayne, U. S. Senate, January, 1830. 4 _Ell. Deb._ 498 et seq.) We average Americans, now educated in the experience of the average American from 1776 to the beginning of 1787, find much merit and comfort in Webster’s understanding of basic American law. He had a reasoned and firm conviction that Americans really _are_ citizens and not subjects. His conviction, in that respect, while opposed to the convictions of _our_ leaders and “constitutional” lawyers, has seemed to us quite in accord with the convictions of earlier leaders such as Iredell and Wilson and the others, and also with the decisions of our Supreme Court. Briefly stated, it has become quite clear to us that the American people, from 1776 to 1787, were fixed in their determination _to make_ our basic American law what the conviction of Webster and the leaders of every generation prior to our own knew it to be. Let us go back, therefore, to the Americans in the Philadelphia convention of 1787, who worded the Constitution which is the supreme law of America, and ascertain how their knowledge of fundamental American law dictated the wording of their proposed Seventh Article. CHAPTER VIII PHILADELPHIA ANSWERS “CONVENTIONS, NOT LEGISLATURES” We recall how clearly the Americans at Philadelphia, in 1787, knew that any grant of _national_ power to interfere with the freedom of individuals _was_ the constitution of government. We recall the bitter conflict of opinion, threatening the destruction of the assembly, over the manner of choosing the members of the legislature to exercise whatever powers _of that kind_ the citizens of America might grant. We recall the great opposition to the proposal of a grant of _any_ power _of that kind_ and to the particular proposal of each of the enumerated powers _of that kind_, all embodied in the First Article.