Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/187

is required; which, with the present number, would make the concurrence of twenty-three States necessary to give effect to the act of ratification; and, of course, puts it in the power of any eight States to defeat a proposal to amend. The federal population of the eight smallest is but 776,969; and yet, small as this is, they can prevent amendments, against the united votes of the other twenty-two, with a federal population of 15,410,635; or nearly twenty times their number. But while so small a portion of the entire population can prevent an amendment, twenty-three of the smallest States — with a federal population of only 7,254,400 — can amend the constitution, against the united votes of the other seven, with a federal population of 8,933,204. So that a numerical minority of the population can amend the constitution, against a decided numerical majority; when, at the same time, one-nineteenth of the population can prevent the other eighteen-nineteenths from amending it. And more than this: any one State — Delaware, for instance, with a federal population of only 77,043 — can prevent the other twenty-nine States, with a federal population of 16,110,561, from so amending the constitution as to deprive the States of an equality of representation in the Senate. To complete the picture: Sixteen of the smallest States — that is, a majority of them, with a population of only 3,411,672 — a little more than one-fifth of the whole — can, in effect, destroy the government and dissolve the Union, by simply declining to appoint Senators; against the united voice of the other fourteen States, with a population of