Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-03-19
constitutional Amendment-The LegisIa-
ture of Indiana,

~ u Ia
The Legislature Of Indiana, on the 18th.
inst, adopted a joint resolution requesting
Congress to call a convention to amend the
Constitution of the United States. The
resolution sets forth that " while we regard
the Constitution of the United States, if
properly interpreted and duly enforced. aa
simply sufficient to secure the just rights of
tee people of this Union; still, as dissatis-
factions and misunderstanding have arisen
respecting the proper Interpretation of that
Instrument the Congress is hereby requested
to call q convention" &c.
The Constitution of the United States, in
the opinion Of the General Assembly of the
State of Indiana, does not require amend
ment, but Interpretation; and the object of
the Convention which it requests, is not to
alter il, but to put a construction upon it, or
upon its provisions. Whether there Is to be
q wholesale or a retail interpretation-an
analysis to discover the meaning of specific
passages, or a distillation to arrive at the
essence OF the entire instrument, does not
appear; and, we are more than half inclined
" 3AoRNNNl "N9 nv = NANoA W hIOEC WIN
psssed tie resolution.
We think we may safely say that there is
not a single clause of the Constitution of the
United States, disagreements as to the in.
depreciation Of which have been the occasion
Of any part of the present difficulties. There
is not one upon which there is much room
for disagreement.
The trouble with the Constitution is that,
taken as a whole, it enacts and produces
equality DisaffectiOn with this equality has
been the occasion of sectional attempts, not
TO interpret separate clauses or provisions,
but to foist upon the whole a sort of col
lectiye character which it does not now DOS
sess; in short, to push it from the perpen-
dicular, under the idea that the Government
will rest more easy upon it in an inclined
than in an erect position. To this enter
prise the Legislature of Indiana has lent
itself in this resolution.
What party it is proposed to conciliate-
the States that have gone out, or those that
threaten but are afraid to go-by a Consti-
tuuond Convention, does not appear in the
resolution. Perhaps that is a branch of the
subject that did not occur to their sup
porters.
One Convention to interpret the doings of
another is certainly a novelty in legislation.
Hitherto the function entrusted with the
duty of giving construction to eonstitu-
tonai provisions has been supposed to be
the judiciary. Two functions performing
the same duty in Government is an anomaly
whose existence is contrary to all sound
PTnciPles. Suppose some future Judiciary
should dissent from the interpretations of
The convention, which of the two would be
permitted to govern? These are points
which may not seem of much moment now.
bat If there are arbitrary interpretations of
constitutional clauses appended to that in.
strument under the name of amendments,
they VIII arise, and will in all probability
become more troublesome thar any thing
now complained of in the Consultation.
When States declare themselves out of the
Union, AID their people violently sever the
political lies that hold them 70 their fellow
citizens OF the same nation. the ~prognOstics
are bad for future unity but they are not so
hAd-oOking upon the future not as a short
berries Of weeks and moRths, but as a long
ssnes OF years and generations-as this
Eetsnern disposition to let down the moral
sn.frsses q teee Osernment by superinduc-
ins upon NE Constitution Interpretations
inconsistent with it, and the ends It was
framed to promote. We mean 10 be under.
stood that the Omens for the future national.
itJars quite as melancholy in Indiana and
Ohio ns they are in South Carolina.