This Convention does therefore recommend to the several States to unite with Kentucky in her application to Congress to call a Convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, to be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States, or to Conventions therein, for ratification, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress, in accordance with the provision in the fifth article of the Constitution.
I propose to avail myself of the privilege of a short reply to the arguments against my proposition; and in order that I may occupy as little time as possible, I have reduced my reply to writing. At the risk of repeating some of the remarks I made at the opening of the discussion, I wish to recur to the facts on which my report is based.
The resolution which I have moved to substitute, recommends to the several States to unite with Kentucky in her application for the calling of a Convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution.
On the 28th day of January, seven days before the assembling of this Conference Convention, the Governor of Kentucky transmitted to the President of the United States the joint resolutions of the General Assembly of that Commonwealth, "recommending a call for a Convention of the United States," with a request that the President would lay the same before Congress; and on the 5th of February, the day after the assembling of this Convention, they were, by a special message of the President, communicated to Congress, with the expression of great satisfaction in the performance of that duty, and of confidence that Congress would bestow upon those resolutions the careful consideration due to the distinguished and patriotic source from which they proceeded, as well as to the great importance of the subject which they involve. The resolution requesting the call of a Convention I have already read to the Conference.
There are, sir, but two modes provided by the people of the United States for altering the fundamental law of their Government, both of which are specified in the fifth article of the Constitution:
1. Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to the Constitution; or,
2. On the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid as part of the Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures, or by Conventions in three-fourths of the States.
The first mode is recommended by the majority of the committee, in the expectation that Congress, by a two-thirds vote of both houses, will propose, on the request of this Convention, for ratification by the States, the several amendments they have reported.
The second mode is the one proposed by the Legislature of Kentucky, and which, in accordance therewith, I have moved to substitute for the recommendation of the committee.
There are now but few days remaining before the termination of the functions of the present Congress. If it were within the fair scope and interest of the constitutional provision that Congress should act, in the proposing of amendments, on the recommendation of this Conference Convention, no one, I think, can reasonably expect them to consider and deliberately act on such recommendation during the few remaining days of the present Congress. Other questions, of engrossing interest, now pending before them, and the acts of necessary legislation at the close of the session, will prevent it. It must, therefore, go over to the next Congress. Assuming that during the term of that Congress the amendments recommended by this Convention shall, by two-thirds of both houses, be deemed necessary, and be proposed to the States for ratification; there would probably be no earlier final action by the requisite number of States, than in the mode proposed by Kentucky, and recommended by the resolution which I have moved to substitute for the mode of amendment reported by the committee. But the great objection, in my mind, to the mode of amendment contemplated by the majority report, is that it is not in accordance with either the letter or the spirit of the Constitution. The people of the United States intended, when they adopted the Constitution under which we have for more than seventy years enjoyed a higher degree of prosperity than has fallen to the lot of any other people, that it should remain in full force and unchanged, except in one of the two modes prescribed in that sacred instrument for its own amendment.