to conventions chosen by the people, and, if ratified by them, is to be binding.
[105] This resolve was opposed, among others, by the delegation of Maryland. Your delegates were of opinion, that, as the form of government proposed was, if adopted, most essentially to alter the constitution, of this State; and as our constitution had pointed out a mode by which, and by which only, alterations were to be made therein, a convention of the people could not be called to agree to and ratify the said form of government, without a direct violation of our constitution, which it is the duty of every individual in this State to protect and support. In this opinion, all your delegates who were attending were unanimous. I, Sir, opposed it also upon a more extensive ground, as being directly contrary to the mode of altering our federal government, established in our original compact; and, as such, being a direct violation of the mutual faith plighted by the States to each other, I gave it my negative.
[106] I was also of opinion, that the States, considered as States, in their political capacity, are the members of a federal government; that the States, in their political capacity, or as sovereignties, are entitled, and only entitled originally to agree upon the form of, and submit themselves to, a federal government, and afterwards, by mutual consent, to dissolve or alter it; that every thing which relates to the formation, the dissolution, or the alteration of a federal government over States equally free, sovereign, and independent, is the peculiar province of the States, in their sovereign or political capacity, in the same manner as what relates to forming alliances or treaties of peace, amity, or commerce; and that the people at large, in their individual capacity, have no more right to interfere in the one case than in the other. That according to these principles we originally acted, in forming our confederation; it was the States, as States, by their representatives in Congress, that formed the articles of confederation; it was the States, as States, by their legislatures, ratified those articles; and it was there established and provided, that the States, as States, that is, by their legislatures, should agree to any alterations that should hereafter be proposed in the federal government, before they should be binding; and any alterations agreed to in any other manner, cannot release the States from the obligation they are under to each other, by virtue of the original articles of confederation. The people of the different States never made any objection to the manner the articles of confederation were formed or ratified, or to the mode by which alterations were to be made in that government; with the rights of their respective States they wished not to interfere. Nor do I believe the people, in their
