They may be further told, that every
constitution must limit its precautions to dangers that are not
altogether imaginary; and that no real danger can exist that the
government would DARE, with, or even without, this constitutional
declaration before it, to remit the debts justly due to the public, on
the pretext here condemned.
8. "To provide for amendments to be ratified by three fourths of the
States under two exceptions only."
That useful alterations will be suggested by experience, could not but
be foreseen. It was requisite, therefore, that a mode for introducing
them should be provided. The mode preferred by the convention seems to
be stamped with every mark of propriety. It guards equally against that
extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable; and
that extreme difficulty, which might perpetuate its discovered faults.
It, moreover, equally enables the general and the State governments to
originate the amendment of errors, as they may be pointed out by the
experience on one side, or on the other. The exception in favor of the
equality of suffrage in the Senate, was probably meant as a palladium to
the residuary sovereignty of the States, implied and secured by that
principle of representation in one branch of the legislature; and was
probably insisted on by the States particularly attached to that
equality.
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