1650 JOINT RESOLUTIONS.

NO. 16.

A Joint Resolution requesting Congress to submit an amend-
ment to the Constitution of the United States, providing that
all amendments to said Constitution shall be submitted to a
Referendum Vote.

WHEREAS, Under the present method of amending the Con-
stitution of the United States it is possible for amendments
to be adopted when the majority of the people are opposed to
them; and

WHEREAS, Under recent decisions of the Supreme Court of
the United States construing the provisions of Article 5 of the
Constitution of the United States, the people of every state
have in effect been deprived of any opportunity to express
their views, whether directly through a referendum, or in-
directly by the requirement that an election should intervene
between the submission of an amendment by Congress and its
ratification by the Legislature of any state; and

WHEREAS, It is contrary to the spirit of our institutions and
of American liberty that any serious change should be made
in our form of government without the consent of the gov-
erned; therefore,

Be it resolved by the General Assembly of Maryland, That
the Congress of the United States be and it is hereby earnestly
requested to submit an amendment to the Constitution of the
United States providing that thereafter all such amendments
shall be submitted to a Referendum Vote and that no amend-
ment shall become a part of the Constitution unless it receives
a majority of the votes cast for and against it in three-fourths
of the states; and be it further

Resolved,, That the Secretary of State of Maryland be and
he is hereby requested to transmit under the Great Seal of this
State a copy of the aforegoing Resolution to the President of
the U. S. Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representa-
tives of the United States and to each of the Representatives
from Maryland in the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States.

Approved April 1, 1927.