" This provision was an element
of weakness and recognized as such by the men who sat in the
Constitutional Convention of 1787. As the Articles constituted a
league between independent states it was deemed necessary to make it
incapable of alteration except by unanimous consent of the states in
order to preserve to each state all of its rights.
When the convention of 1787 met to agree upon a Constitution to submit
to the States one of the questions they had to consider was whether it
should be made capable of amendment. They agreed that it was the
part of wisdom to provide that the States might modify the system of
government the Constitution established when in the progress of time
to do so seemed desirable. Mr. Madison accordingly proposed what with
some modifications became the Fifth Article.
The Congress was given power by that Article to propose amendments by
a vote of two-thirds of both Houses and amendments so proposed were to
become valid to all intents and purposes as parts of the Constitution
when ratified by three-fourths of the several States.
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