Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber This raises a distinction that applies to all entrenchment clauses. They may be inserted by the framers of the original constitution or they may be inserted by amendment. Let us call the former "original" limitations on the AC, and the latter "self-imposed". The latter are self-imposed even if the AC is not directly amended by them, for the provision that is entrenched against future amendment stands as a limit on the power of the AC, put there by the AC.[Note 15] The distinction is important because original and self-imposed entrenchment clauses may differ in their mutability. I will assume that all limitations on the AC that could make it less than omnipotent take the form of entrenchment and self-entrenchment clauses, some possibly tacit and implied. An AC could be described in language that clearly suggested limited power, but any such description could be interpreted as immunizing some provision (possibly indeterminate) from amendment, thereby acting as an entrenchment of that provision (to be determined). If no clause of the constitution is immunized or entrenched, by words or tacit rules qualifying the protected clause or the AC, then the AC is clearly unlimited. Whether it has self-embracing or continuing omnipotence, or some strange mix or third type, is a question for courts or philosophers looking at the history of amendment. Even though all limitations on an AC may be construed as entrenchment clauses, there is still a useful distinction between limitations that make certain amendments inconsistent with protective language, and limitations that make certain amendments void. Amendments of the former kind are sometimes upheld by courts in deference to the people's will in ratifying them, while the latter seem impermissible or void ab initio. The former may overcome the protective language they violate by virtue of the rule of priority favoring the most recent voice of the sovereign in cases of irreconcilable conflicts. I will call these two types limitation through protection and limitation through incompetency. Limitation through protection prohibits amendments that contradict valid rules of protection; limitation through incompetency prohibits those that are ultra vires, that is, unauthorized or beyond the scope of authority. The two are not always easy to distinguish, as when one argues that the Bill of Rights "cannot" be repealed. The advocates of that idea might mean that a tacit entrenchment clause protects the Bill of Rights, or that the amending power is incompetent to repeal certain basic values of the community or "natural rights". One might argue that original limitations on the AC are more likely to be limitations through incompetency, and that self-imposed limitations — especially complete self-entrenchment clauses— are more likely to be limitations through protection. This theory might be based on the proposition that an AC cannot limit its own competency, but can protect a rule from amendment, especially from routine amendment. Of course both types would constitute the self-limitation of the competency of the AC. I will also assume that an entrenchment clause that is not self-entrenched, like any other clause that is not entrenched, may be amended or repealed in the ordinary way. This must be true, regardless whether the entrenchment clause is original or self-imposed. The only questionable case is entrenchment of the AC itself (for which see Section 9), or the implied self-entrenchment of an entrenchment clause (which will be examined below). If Section A entrenches Section B without entrenching itself, then the framers of A may well have intended that it be as difficult to amend as B. But I will treat the problem of self-entrenchment independently, and therefore need not complicate matters by finding it tacit in an indefinite number of cases of mere entrenchment. Hence, entrenchment clauses are not immutable and do not limit the power of the AC, except possibly when they entrench the AC itself (Section 9). Our present inquiry, then, reduces to the question whether self-entrenchment clauses can be immutable, or whether they can be amended or repealed. Implied limitations on the amending power that have been suggested by writers and plaintiffs will also be examined as possible limitations on the amending power. First, notice that immutable self-entrenchment clauses are compatible with both self-embracing and continuing omnipotence in small and different ways. Self-embracing omnipotence may limit itself immutably, and therefore may be the source of an immutable self-entrenchment clause. After the self-entrenched amendment is adopted, of course, the self-embracing omnipotence has forsaken its omnipotence. Continuing omnipotence is already limited immutably; this limitation may take the form of a self-entrenchment clause that describes its immutable continuing character. Such a clause could be original or self-imposed by an AC that formerly had self-embracing omnipotence. After the amendment is adopted which immutably gives an AC continuing omnipotence, self-embracing omnipotence may be at an end, but continuing omnipotence is created and protected.[Note 16] In short, an immutable self-entrenchment clause may be the product and termination of self-embracing omnipotence, and the beginning and safeguard of continuing omnipotence. But an immutable self-entrenchment clause that does not entrench the AC excludes both types of omnipotence from the moment it becomes immutable. Incomplete self-entrenchment is the easiest to cope with. If Section A contains a clause that says, "nothing in Section A, including this provision, may be amended except by a constitutional convention," then the clause can obviously be repealed by convention. One possible difficulty arises when the self-entrenchment clause names a method of amendment not included in the AC. In such a case a stubborn proponent of the inference model might deny that the constitution contains the authority to repeal the clause. But anyone else, not necessarily an acceptance theorist, could use the method outlined in the clause itself as permitted for the use of repealing the clause, either by appeal to the framers’ intent, or the reasonably plain meaning of the clause —and of course despite any paradox of self-amendment. Another possible difficulty arises when the incomplete self-entrenchment clause says it can only be repealed by a special method, and the amending body attempts to amend it by another method, perhaps the usual method. I do not believe this has ever happened in the United States, but it happened in New South Wales, Australia. The N.S.W. constitution created a body called the Legislative Council and provided that it could not be abolished by a simple amending act of parliament, but only by an amendment that was ratified in a popular referendum. Moreover, the 44