The Proposed Amendment of Article V: A Threatened Disaster

Abstract

Three proposals for amending the Constitution have recently come from the Council of State Governments, and are being propelled down the never before used alternative route of article V-the route via state applications to Congress for the calling of a convention. Of the three, one (which would establish a Court of the Union, composed of the state Chief Justices in all their multitude, to meet on extraordinary occasions to review judgments of the Supreme Court) is so patently absurd that it will probably sink without trace. Another, eradicating Baker v. Carr, concerns a special subject, and hence does not generally affect the federal power or the whole shape of the Union. The third is of supreme interest to students of constitutional law. Its adoption would effect a constitutional change of a higher order of importance than any since 1787-if one excepts (and that only doubtfully) the de facto change implicit in the result of the Civil War.