important man who takes part in the building of a house’’ (Holmes, Collected Papers (1921) 200). 526. It seems to me that the words ‘‘sovereignty’’ and ‘‘sovereign power’’, used repeatedly by learned Counsel defending the 39th Amendment to describe the constituent power, should for several good reasons, be avoided, so far as possible, by lawyers who seek that clarity of thought for which precision in language is the first requirement. One of these reasons was given by Lord Bryce (Studies in ‘‘History and Jurisprudence’’ (1901) (503-504)). ‘‘The frontier districts, if one may call them so, of Ethics of Law and of political science have been thus if tested by a number of vague or ambiguous terms which have produced many barren discussions and caused much needless trouble to students... No offender of this kind has given more trouble than the so-called ‘Doctrine of Sovereignty’’. Prof. Mellwain, however, opined: ‘‘But this very fact is proof of its vital importance in our modern world, and the wide variety of the views held concerning its essence, as well as the conflicting conclusions to which these views still lead, may furnish sufficient excuse for another attempt to clarify some of our ideas touching this central formula under which we try to rationalize the complicated facts of our modern political life.’’ Another reason for eschewing such expressions, so far as possible, is that they are ‘‘emotive’’ or of a kind about which Mr. Leonard Schapiro, (writing on ‘‘Key concepts in Political Science’’ Series, at p. 7) rightly observed, ‘‘Emotive words such as ‘equality. ‘dictatorship’, ‘elite’ or even ‘power’ can often, by the very passions which they raise, obscure a proper understanding of the sense in which they are, or should be, or should not be, or have been used. Confucius regarded the ‘rectification of names’ as the first task of government. ‘If names are not correct, language will not be in accordance with the truth of things’, and this in time would lead to the end of justice, to anarchy and to war’’. At any rate, in America, the concept of State Sovereignty, ranged against that of national sovereignty, did produce a civil war which is said to have been precipitated by the decision of the American Supreme Court in Dred Scoot v. Sandford, (1856) 19 How. 393. 527. I must preface my observations here about the concepts of ‘‘sovereignty’’ and exercise of ‘‘sovereign power’’, between which I make a distinction with two kinds of explanation. The first kind involves an exposition of a functional or sociological point of view. I believe that every social, political, economic, or legal concept or doctrine must answer the needs of the people of country at a particular time. I see the development of concepts, doctrines, and institutions as responses to the changing needs of society in every country. They have a function to fulfil in relation to national needs. The second type of explanation may be called historical or meant merely to indicate and illustrate notions or concepts put forward by thinkers at various times in various countries so as to appropriately relate them to what we may find today under our Constitution. We have to appreciate the chronology or stages of their development if we are to avoid trying to fit into our Constitution something which has no real relevance to it or bearing upon its contents or which conflicts with these. It must not, if I may so put it, be