Under such restrictions, the new Government would have been as helpless
as the old, unless new powers had been added to it from time to time
by the precarious method of amendment. Advancement must have been
hindered constantly by waiting on the slow process of adding provisions
to the Constitution. Such crises as the purchase of Louisiana, the
suppression of domestic insurrection, and the adjustment of the national
finances after the War of 1812 could never have been met because of
constitutional limitations.
Several of the States incorporated in their acts of ratification a
kind of political creed of the inalienable rights of the individual.
Although not intended as amendments or even as conditions of
ratification, they were supposed to be a kind of perpetual compact
between the State and the nation. They were modelled after the Bill
or Declaration of Rights in some of the State constitutions. Rhode
Island, for instance, declared that "the rights aforesaid cannot be
abridged or violated and that the explanations aforesaid are consistent
with the said Constitution." Time was to show in seasons of national
aggrandisement, during the reconstruction period, for instance, how
futile such State barriers would be in hedging about the national
powers.
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