§ 72. “Equal Representation .. Shall be Maintained.”
The immobility of the principle of the equal representation of Original States in the Senate is assumed to be secured by the combined operation of this section and section 128, which provides that no alteration diminishing the proportionate representation of any State in either House of the Parliament, shall become law unless the majority of the electors voting in that State approve the proposed law. Referring to the corresponding section of the Constitution of the United States, Dr. Burgess says:—
“The principle of representation in the Senate is State-equality. The Constitution secures this equality even against amendment in the ordinary manner. That is, the state, the sovereignty, as it was organized back of the Constitution, undertakes to secure the principle of State-equality in the Senate, against the state, the sovereignty, as
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organized within the Constitution. This is confused and unnatural. It is not possible that this restriction could stand against a determined effort on the part of the state within the Constitution to overthrow it. It is a relic of confederatism, and ought to be disregarded. It may be good political science now and in the future that the principle of State-equality should prevail in the Senate, but the state as organized in the Constitution must be the final judge of this. No Constitution is complete which undertakes to except anything from the power of the state as organized in the Constitution. Such a Constitution invites the reappearance of a sovereignty back of the Constitution, i.e., invites revolution.” (Burgess, Pol. Sc. II. p. 49.)