In Brazil, as with us, amendments may be initiated by either Congress or the legislatures of the States.

From time to time Presidents have suggested to Congress the propriety of proposing amendments to the Constitution. Jefferson, who had questioned the constitutional power to make the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, suggested to Congress (1806) that an amendment be proposed authorizing the spending of surplus National funds for education throughout the States, for the construction of roads, the opening of rivers and the digging of canals. President Monroe suggested (1817) the propriety of an amendment authorizing the establishment of seminaries throughout the land. In 1829 President Jackson recommended an amendment permitting the distribution of surplus National revenue among the States so as to avoid what he considered the illegal appropriation of public money for non-National purposes. On December 3, 1860, the month after Lincoln was elected, President Buchanan asked Congress to propose an "explanatory amendment" (1) recognizing property in slaves where they then were held or might afterward be owned; (2) protecting the right of slave owners to hold slaves in Territories, the right thereafter to be determined by a vote of the people; and (3) recognizing the right of an owner to his fugitive slave and declaring all State laws void which were designed to impair or defeat his rights. In 1868 President Johnson asked Congress to propose an amendment for the election of the President by the direct vote of the people, limiting his term to six years, and forbidding reëlection. President Grant desired (1873) an amendment authorizing the President to veto any item of a bill to which he might object without negativing the whole bill; and in 1882 President Arthur made a like request, calling the attention of Congress to the fact that fourteen States had at that time made such provision for the veto of legislative bills by their governors. President Grant also (1873) requested the pro

posal of an amendment that a special session of Congress be forbidden to deal with any subject except that for which it had been specially convoked.

To illustrate how closely the applicability of the Constitution has always been studied it may be mentioned that from April to November, 1921, there were offered in the first session of the Sixty-seventh Congress twentyfive resolutions to amend it, some of them being substantially repetitions of others. One was for making the term of the President six years and prohibiting his reëlection; another would authorize him to veto any provision of a bill and approve the remaining ones; another would empower Congress to regulate the employment of children under sixteen years of age (see Note 45); another would extend the word "elections" in the Constitution to include primaries (see Note 26); another would submit to a vote of the people the question of declaring war (Note 55); another would extend the constitutional definition of treason (Note 113) to include acts of injury in time of war to the military, physical, or financial resources of the United States; another would require the ratification of an Amendment by the voters of the country to the exclusion of the legislatures of the States; and more of various kinds. It has been said that over 2000 amendments have been proposed in the course of our National life.

Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses [Notes 61 and 65] in the Ninth Section of the first Article; 130 and that no State, without its

130 This relates to slavery.

Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.131

131 Once more the small State is guaranteed against being prejudiced by the large ones. In the Brazilian Constitution it is provided that bills to abolish the republican federative form of government, or to destroy equality of representation in the Senate, are not subjects of deliberation. (See Note 18.)

ARTICLE VI

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution as under the Confederation.1 132

132 This was "a solemn assurance to public creditors and to the world that the public faith would be inviolably kept by the United States under its changed government."

Hamilton put the debt of the Union at $11,710,378 owing in foreign countries and $42,414,085 of domestic debt. The States themselves owed $25,000,000, making debts in the aggregate of $79,000,000.

The credit of the Colonies had sunk so low during the Revolution that had it not been for bankers in Holland and France the war for freedom must have failed. Thereafter the young States issued so much paper money and passed so many laws making it difficult for creditors to collect debts that it was considered necessary to give assurance to the world that the Nation would pay.

In like manner the Dominion of Canada assumed in its Constitution (1867) responsibility for existing debts.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; 133

133 This means that the Constitution itself is a law which it is the duty of the courts (State as well as National) to

uphold and enforce as they do all other laws. A law of Congress to be one of the supreme laws must be "made in pursuance thereof" and not in conflict with the Constitution. When not made in pursuance thereof it is of course unconstitutional and of no effect.

"If the State governments had not been restrained from encroaching on the powers vested in the National Government," wrote President Monroe, "the Constitution, like the Confederation, would soon have been set at naught; and it was not within the limit of the human mind to devise any plan for the accomplishment of the object other than by making a National Constitution which should be to the extent of its powers the supreme law of the land." "Legislators have their authority measured by the Constitution," says Cooley; "they are chosen to do what it permits, and nothing more, and they take solemn oath to obey and support it. . To pass an act when they are in doubt whether it does not violate the Constitution is to treat as of no force the most imperative obligations any person can assume."

Before this supreme law the acts of Congress, the acts of State legislatures, and the constitutions of States, when conflicting with it, go down. When the people express their will in the National Constitution all conflicting expressions of will of an inferior sort go for nothing. An excellent illustration of the absolute supremacy of the Constitution was presented in the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, because at the time of its adoption there were not only many States with laws permitting the manufacture and sale of liquors, but there were also acts of Congress, and, moreover, the National treasury derived large revenue from licenses and taxes respecting liquors. But all those fell and were nothing the instant that the Eighteenth Amendment, the supreme law, took effect. "The first section of the Amendment," said the Supreme