A yet more important clause in the Constitution shows conclusively the supremacy and national character of the government; namely that giving it the power of changing and extending its authority to whatever extent it chooses by amendments, provided they are accepted by the Legislatures of three quarters of the States. By amendments made in this manner the United States can take whatever authority it pleases from the States. It can give its government a veto over the laws of the separate States, appoint the executive officers of a State--powers proposed in the convention that made the Constitution. The only limit in the Constitution to the extension of the government’s power by amendments is that no State without its consent could be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate, and the importation of slaves until 1808 should not be prohibited. Under this provision the General Government, with the concurrence of three fourths of the Legislatures of the States, has an authority that no State government has. None of the State constitutions grant its Legislature the right to extend its powers over counties, cities, and towns; it must go to the people for that. How can it be said that sovereignty remains in a State, when it gives to its associates the right to make all its laws if only three quarters of them so elect? The granting by a community of power to a government over it to control it, as it pleases, takes away the very foundation of sovereign right; and objection was made to this clause for this very reason. In the convention Elbridge Gerry, a prominent delegate from Massachusetts, afterwards Governor of that State and Vice-President of the United States, objected because the Constitution is paramount to the State constitutions, and that two thirds of the States may introduce innovations that would subvert the State constitution altogether.[19] It is by the power given in this clause, that after the war of secession slavery was abolished through the acceptance by the States of amendments to that effect. The proclamation of Lincoln abolishing slavery in the States in insurrection on January 1, 1863, did not give liberty to the slaves in Delaware, Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky, and parts of other States, that were not in rebellion. Many, perhaps all, of these States abolished slavery before the amendments were passed. [19] 5 Elliot, p. 530. The clause was altered so that the ratification of three fourths of the Legislatures of the States was required, though two thirds of the States can call a new convention, and two thirds of Congress propose amendments to the Constitution.