Roger Sherman of Connecticut then tried to have the Article provide that the national government might also propose amendments to the several states, as such; such amendment to be binding if consented to by the several states, namely, all the states. For reasons that will appear in a moment, this clear attempt to enable the states, mere political entities, and their legislatures, always governments, to do what they might wish with the individual freedom of the American citizen--thus making him their subject--was never voted upon. It was, however, seconded by Gerry of Massachusetts. Its probable appeal to Sherman, always a strong opponent of the _national_ government of individuals instead of the _federal_ government of states, was that it would make it difficult to take away any power from Connecticut, unless Connecticut wished to give it up. Its appeal to Gerry, consistently a Tory in his mental attitude to the relation of government and human being, was undoubtedly the fact that it would permit government or governments to do what they might wish with individual freedom. It does not escape the attention of the average American that _our_ governments and leaders, during the last five years, have not only displayed the mental attitude of Gerry but have also acted as if the proposal, which he urged, _had_ been put into what is our Fifth Article. Only on that theory can we average Americans, with _our_ education, understand why governments in America have undertaken to exercise and to vest in our government a _national_ power over us, which power neither is enumerated in the First Article nor was ever granted by the citizens of America to their _only_ government; nor can we understand why our leaders have assumed that governments _in_ America, which are not even the government of the American citizens, can do either or both of these things. We know, if governments and leaders do not, that neither thing can ever be possible in a land where men are “citizens” and not “subjects.” CHAPTER X ABILITY OF LEGISLATURES REMEMBERED Living through the days of that Convention, we have now seen three months and ten days of its sincere and able effort to word a Constitution which would “_secure_ the Blessings of Liberty” to the individual American. We have seen them spend most of their time in the patriotic endeavor to adjust and settle how much, if any, _national_ power to interfere with individual freedom that Constitution shall give to its only donee, the new and general government. In other words, we have seen the mind and thought and will of that Convention almost entirely concentrated, for those three months and ten days, upon the Article which _is_ the constitution of government, the First Article, with its enumerated grants of general power to interfere with the human rights of the American citizen.