Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber could be accomplished in principle through an AC. Against this theory is the reflection that neither Thomas Jefferson nor the framers of the state clauses valued anarchy enough to recognize a right to create it. Every right to alter or abolish clause without exception declares that the right is "inalienable" or "indefeasible". That suggests that this particular type of amendment power is continuing, not self-embracing. It also suggests an appeal to higher law. Although inalienable rights may be guaranteed by ordinary positive law, the clauses may intend to secure positive law by moral law. They may be guarantees of the liberties by which the nation and its states came into being, including the right to revolt, without intending to be guarantees "in law". They may exist, even in otherwise enforceable sections of the constitution, as symbols of the state's principles and willingness to declare them in august form. That would make them more than rhetorical adornment and in different ways both more and less than a legal right to amend. They would be legally unenforceable declarations of a right underlying and transcending law. Very few states have settled the relationship of their AC to their right to alter or abolish, even in part. Maryland is one of the few states with a "Declaration of Rights" in its constitution that is less authoritative than the other sections. It is much more than a long rhetorical ornament, however, for its language does control when the main text is unclear. That was the holding of Anderson v. Baker, 23 Md. 531 (1865). For more than a century after Anderson, the AC and the right to alter or abolish coexisted in an unsettled state. But in 1970 Bourbon v. Governor of Maryland, 258 Md. 252, 265 A.2d 477 held that the AC in the main text was "clear, explicit, and unambiguous."[Note 9] That in effect reduced the right to alter or abolish to a merely symbolic statement. Iowa is one of the few other states to address even partially or indirectly the relationship of the AC to the right to alter or abolish government. In Iowa an amendment defectively passed by the legislature but properly ratified by the people, under the ordinary AC, was held invalid and not cured by a clause in the constitution declaring that "all political power [lies] in the people." Koehler v. Hill, 60 Iowa 543, 14 N.W. 783, 15 N.W. 609 (1883). The theory that the right to alter or abolish is an appeal to higher law is supported by the difficulty of conceiving a positive law right to revolt or overthrow positive law.[Note 10] Moreover, only the Colorado clause extends the right to the alteration or abolition of the state constitution. All other states speak only of altering or abolishing "government" or the "form of government". This suggests a right to revolt or act, rather than a legalistic right to amend language. But at the same time it forces us to ask whether a right to revolt, in a constitution, is a legal or moral right, and whether a legal right to revolt is a contradiction in terms. If it is a moral ("higher law") right, then is its placement in the constitution merely for emphasis, or for the symbolic effect of gravely treating it as if it were law? If it is a legal right, then we must either give up the idea that revolution is inherently illegal, or admit that a contradiction has been elevated to constitutional law. The former is a question which I could contentedly answer either way,[Note 11] and the latter is an acceptable consequence of the acceptance theory. B. The right to alter or abolish government self-applied Finally we must ask whether the right to alter or abolish government can give rise to the paradox of self-amendment. Can the rule of change represented by the right be self-applied? If the typical language of "inalienability" and "indefeasibility" makes the right continuing, not self- embracing, then most self-application is precluded. More precisely, all self-imposed limitations will be revocable. But if the right is continuing, then it is limited and cannot amend itself in ways that would diminish its power or scope irrevocably —and this may be inconsistent with the broad language of some of the clauses. But the whole question of self-application is avoided if the right is read to apply to governments only, not to documents or to powers of the people. Then the right is beyond its own application, and is immune to itself, and self-diminution would be impossible. The interpretation I prefer, however, is that the acceptance of the people possesses contingent, continuing omnipotence and cannot irrevocably deprive itself of the power to validate the ultimate premises of the legal system (see Section 8.B). This amounts to an alegal right to revolt that cannot irrevocably be amended, repealed, or limited by any legal process. It need not be stated in a right to alter or abolish clause, nor should stating it be taken to render it repealable or limited, as if confined to the mutability and specificity of the language expressing it. But on the other hand the unfailing rights of acceptance are well expressed by the right to alter or abolish clauses, not in every particular, but as strong, general statements of the superiority of the will of the people to their government and form of government, even if the rules of the latter make it supreme, exclusive, incompletely self-entrenched and mutable only by its own procedures. All this is to say, however, that the clauses are somewhat confused. They may express well the serious convictions of their framers, in a place somewhat germane to those convictions. But it is like inserting into the rulebook for Monopoly the proposition that no one has to play if they don't want to, and that if they begin, then they can quit, and that if everyone playing agrees, then they can start with less money or make other rule changes. It may not go without saying to some players, so the insertion may be an effective communication to some of its audience. But inserting it into the rulebook creates an unnecessary air of paradox, since it is not a rule but a meta-level reflection on the rules. But this paradox is more amusing than calamitous. For players who modify the rules of monopoly cannot modify this meta-level reflection, even though it is stated as a rule. They may introduce new rules to limit their freedom to change the rules, but they are still free to change the new rules. Even when they feel bound, they can quit.[Note 12] 126