The Convention of North Carolina, as he showed, had laid down the same principle in the same words. And it was to be observed that, in both conventions, the article was under the head of a Declaration of Rights, "asserting and securing from encroachment the essential and inalienable rights of the people," according to the language of the Virginia Convention; and "asserting and securing from encroachment the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and the inalienable rights of the people," as expressed by the Convention of North Carolina. It must follow that these two Conventions considered it as a fundamental, inviolable, and universal principle in a free Government, that no power could supersede a law without the consent of the Representatives of the people in the Legislature.
In the Maryland Convention also, it was among the amendments proposed, though he believed not decided on, "that no power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, unless derived from the Legislature, ought to be exercised or allowed."
The Convention of North Carolina had further explained themselves on this point, by their twenty-third amendment proposed to the constitution in the following words: "That no Treaties shall be directly opposed to the existing laws of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be valid until such laws shall be repealed or made conformable to such Treaty; nor shall any Treaty be valid which is contradictory to the Constitution of the United States."
The latter part of the amendment was an evidence that the amendment was intended to ascertain rather than to alter the meaning of the constitution; as it could not be supposed to have been the real intention of the constitution that a Treaty contrary to it should be valid.
He proceeded to read the following amendments accompanying the ratification of State Conventions:
The New York Convention had proposed "that no standing army or regular troops shall be raised or kept up in time of peace without the consent of two-thirds of the Senators and Representatives in each House."
"That no money be borrowed on the credit of the United States, without the assent of two-thirds of the Senators and Representatives in each House."
The New Hampshire Convention had proposed "that no standing army shall be kept up in time of peace, unless with the consent of three quarters of the members of each branch of Congress." In the Maryland Convention a proposition was made in the same words.
The Virginia Convention had proposed "that no navigation law, or law regulating commerce, shall be passed without the consent of two-thirds of the members present in both Houses."
"That no standing army or regular troops shall be raised or kept up in time of peace, without the consent of two-thirds of the members present in both Houses."