The following is from the book, Webster's Great Speeches; Boston;
Little, Brown, & Co.
1879
THE RHODE ISLAND GOVERNMENT
AN ARGUMENT MADE IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 27TH OF JANUARY, 1848, IN THE DORR REBELLION CASES
I have said that it is one principle of the American system, that the people limit their governments, National and State. They do so; but it is another principle, equally true and certain, and according to my judgment of things, equally important, that the people often limit themselves. They set bounds to their own power. They have chosen to secure the institutions which they establish against the sudden impulses of mere majorities. All our institutions teem with instances of this. It was their great conservative principle, in constituting forms of government, that they should secure what they had established against hasty changes by simple majorities. By the fifth article of the Constitution of the United States, Congress, two thirds of both houses concurring, may propose amendments of the Constitution; or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the States, may call a convention; and amendments proposed in either of these forms must be ratified by the legislatures or conventions of three fourth of the States. The fifth article of the Constitution, if it was made a topic for those who framed the "people's constitution" of Rhode Island, could only have been a matter of reproach. It gives no countenance to any of their proceedings, or to any thing like them. On the contrary, it is the one remarkable instance of the enactment and application of that great American principle, that the constitution of government should be cautiously and prudently interfered with, and that changes should not ordinarily be begun and carried through by bare majorities.
But the people limit themselves also in other ways. They limit themselves in the first exercise of their political rights. They limit themselves, by all their constitutions, in two important respects; that is to say, in regard to the qualifications of electors, and in regard to the qualifications of the elected. In every State, and in all the States, the people have precluded themselves from voting for everybody they might wish to vote for; they have limited their own right of choosing. They have said, We will elect no man who has not such and such qualifications. We will not vote ourselves, unless we have such and such qualifications. They have also limited themselves to certain prescribed forms for the conduct of elections. They must vote at a particular place, at a particular time, and under particular conditions, or not at all. It is in these modes that we are to ascertain the will of the American people; and our Constitutional laws know no other mode. We are not to take the will of the people from public meetings, nor from tumultuous assemblies, by which the timid are terrified, the prudent are alarmed, and by which society is disturbed. These are not American modes of signifying the will of the people, and they never were. If any thing in the country, not ascertained by a regular vote, by regular returns, and by regular representation, has been established, it is an exception, and not the rule; it is an anomaly which, I believe, can scarcely be found.
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Another American principle growing out of this, and just as important and well settled as is the truth that the people are the source of power, is, that, when in the course of events it becomes necessary to ascertain the will of the people on a new exigency, or a new state of things or of opinion, the legislative power provides for that ascertainment by an ordinary act of legislation. Has not that been our whole history? It would take me from now till the sun shall go down to advert to all the instances of it, and I shall only refer to the most prominent, and especially to the establishment of the Constitution under which you sit. The old Congress, upon the suggestion of the delegates who assembled at Annapolis in May, 1786, recommended to the States that they should send delegate to a convention to be holden at Philadelphia to form a Constitution. No article of the old Confederation gave them power to do this, but they did it, and the States did appoint delegates, who assembled at Philadelphia, and formed the Constitution. It was communicated to the old Congress, ant that body recommended to the States to make provision for calling the people together to act upon its adoption. Was not that exactly the case of passing a law to ascertain the will of the people in a new exigency? And this method was adopted without opposition, nobody suggesting that there could be any other mode of ascertaining the will of the people.