I submit that the word "amendment" necessarily implies an
improvement upon something which is possessed, and can have no proper
application to that which did not previously exist.
The apprehension that was felt of this power of amendment by the framers
of the Constitution is shown by the restrictions placed upon the
exercise of several of the delegated powers. For example: power was
given to admit new States, but no new State should be erected within the
jurisdiction of any other State, nor be formed by the junction of two or
more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures
of those States; and the power to regulate commerce was limited by the
prohibition of an amendment affecting, for a certain time, the migration
or importation of persons whom any of the existing States should think
proper to admit; and by the very important provision for the protection
of the smaller States and the preservation of their equality in the
Union, that the compact in regard to the membership of the two Houses of
Congress should not be so amended that any "State, without its consent,
shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." These
limitations and prohibitions on the power of amendment all refer to
clauses of the Constitution, to things which existed as part of the
General Government; they were not needed, and therefore not to be found
in relation to the reserved powers of the States, on which the General
Government was forbidden to intrude by the ninth article of the
amendments.
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