tax should be laid unless in proportion to the census or enumeration of the inhabitants of the states in which three-fifths only of the slaves were included. So we see that the founders withdrew from the possibilities of amendment the subjects regarding which they were unwilling amendments should be made. The understanding of the States therefore must have been that as respects all subjects not so withdrawn the right of amendment might be exercised whenever the States desired to exercise it. Whenever they do see fit to exercise it they are not breaking faith with each other, or doing anything wrongfully. The mode of amending the Constitution is in strict accordance with the doctrine of State Rights. The amending power is not to be exercised by the collective people of the United States acting as a majority. It can only be exercised by three-fourths of the States acting as States in their sovereign capacity. If three-fourths of the States desire to amend the instrument then the one-fourth must submit to the will of the three-fourths. There is no principle in the doctrine of State Rights which is violated when the Constitution is amended by the three-fourths, for all the states have agreed that the three-fourths shall possess the power to do so and that the minority will consent to be bound by action so taken. The principle that the minority must submit to the majority is a principle which the States apply to the government of their local communities and to the people of their several commonwealths. And it is a principle which the States as sovereigns have agreed shall be applied to themselves in their relations to each other and to the Federal Government. In creating the amending power the framers of the Constitution were careful to remove it from the people of the nation and to lodge it in the State sovereignties. That is all that the believers in the doctrine of State Rights asked. They could not wisely ask, and they did not ask, more. They only asked that in so important a matter as the amendment of the fundamental law the minority should not be compelled to submit to a mere majority, but only to three-fourths of the whole.