Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber clauses, except to note that it is undemocratic to allow one generation to bind its successors irrevocably. I agree with that. But it is arguably as undemocratic to ignore the manifest will of the people in ratifying an entrenchment clause. In other terms, he does not explain why democracy requires continuing, not self-embracing, omnipotence, nor why democracy can abide the immutable limitation that makes continuing omnipotence continuing. I believe he is right in this normative preference for the continuing omnipotence of the people, but if he had articulated his reasons, then he probably could not, so easily, have justified the total nullification of entrenchment clauses. See Section 21. 17. In chronological order the chief articles are Clarence Norton Goodwin, "How Should the Illinois Constitution be Amended?" Illinois Bar Review, 9 (1915) 601-11; A.L. Powell, "A Plan for Facilitating Constitutional Amendment in Illinois," Illinois Law Review, 30 (1935) 59-67; Special Committee on Constitutional Convention, "The Gateway Amendment," Illinois Bar Journal, 38 (1950) 308; L.A. Kohn, H.I. Green, and T.J. Welds, "Debating the Gateway Amendment," Illinois Bar Journal, 39 (1950) 127-33; Robert L. Farwell, "Gateway to What?" DePaul Law Review, 10 (1961) 274-85; and Samuel W. Witwer, "Workable Amending Clause or Strait-Jacket?" Chicago Bar Record, 50 (1968) 10. 18. The second such limitation is hard to find. Justice Wayne had just summarized the original three limitations on the federal amending power. Two of them expired in 1808: the irreflexive entrenchment of Article I, §9.1 and §9.4. Grammatically he must have meant that the second of these, and the equal suffrage limitation, were immutable. But if so, he is clearly wrong on the entrenchment of I.9.4, since it expired (see Section 14). I believe he was wrong about the equal suffrage limitation as well, for even if it is impliedly self-entrenched, it is incompletely self-entrenched, and therefore mutable by a special procedure. 19. See Lester Bernhardt Orfield, The Amending of the Federal Constitution, University of Michigan Press, 1942, at 84-85. See my Section 8, note 47, above. 20. In the former case the most complete entrenchment clause in any American constitution was declared repealable, although perhaps because it was not self-entrenched; see entry under Alabama in Appendix 2. The latter case was discussed in Section 8.C; an amendment that delegated the decision on its effective date to its beneficiaries was upheld on the assumption that delegation was prohibited and that the prohibition was completely entrenched. 21. Linder, op. cit. passim. 22. Linder, op. cit. at 723-24. 23. See the learned opinion of Hartz' Estate v. Cade, 247 Minn. 362, 77 N.W.2d 169 (1956). See also 26 ALR 755, 52 ALR 83, 125 ALR 1135, and 157 ALR 584; Harold Kertz, "Contesting a Will in the Face of a Forfeiture Clause," Georgia Law Journal, 45 (1956) 200-213; Jack Leavitt, "Scope and Effectiveness of No-Contest Clauses in Last Wills and Testaments," Hastings Law Journal, 15 (1963) 45-91; and W. Harvey Jack, "No-Contest or In Terrorem Clauses in Wills— Construction and Enforcement," Southwestern Law Journal, 19 (1965) 722-39. Leavitt says the following (at 91): "The value of laws cannot be determined by their internal consistency or chaos, for legal symmetry is admirable only when its subject matter is equally symmetrical....What if...deserving parties would have been harmed by [a truly logical result]?" 24. But see Demosthenes on the Locrians, In that country the people are so strongly of the opinion that it is right to observe old-established laws, to preserve the institutions of their forefathers, and never to legislate for the gratification of whims, or for a compromise with transgression, that if a man wishes to propose a new law, he legislates with a halter round his neck. If the law is accepted as good and beneficial, the proposer departs with his life, but, if not, the halter is drawn tight, and he is a dead man. Demosthenes, "Against Timocrates," @139, p. 463 of vol. III of the Loeb Classical Library edition of his works, trans. J.H. Vince, Harvard University Press, 1951. See also Jon Elster, Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality, Cambridge University Press, rev. ed., 1984, pp. 88f. 25. Orfield, op. cit. at 44. 26. Henry Rottschaefer, Handbook of American Constitutional Law, West Pub. Co., 1939, at 9-10. 27. See note 8, above. 28. Richard Swineburne, "Omnipotence," American Philosophical Quarterly, 10 (1973) 231-37, at 237. This view has been criticized by Edward J. Khamara, "In Defense of Omnipotence," Philosophical Quarterly, 28 (1978) 215-28 at 215-16. 29. John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, Section 13, in e.g., John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett, Cambridge University Press, 1963. 30. James Madison, The Federalist #10. For more discussion of the reflexivity of becoming a judge in one's own case, see Section 20. 31. J.M. Finnis, "Revolutions and the Continuity of Law," in A.W.B. Simpson (ed.), Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, Second Series, Oxford University Press, 1973, pp. 44-76, at 52f. 72