Chapter VII: Preface (6)

You will see in Section 8 of Article I the specific powers granted to Congress by the people. They include the following: lay and collect taxes; pay debts; provide for defense and for the general welfare; borrow money; regulate commerce among the States and with foreign nations; provide for naturalization and uniform rules of bankruptcy; coin money, regulate the value thereof, and fix the standard of weights and measures; punish counterfeiting; establish post offices and post roads; protect authors and inventors by copyrights and patents; establish courts; punish piracies and felonies on the high seas; declare war, raise, and support armies; provide and maintain a navy; provide for organizing armies, for disciplining the militia, and for calling them to serge in certain emergencies; exercise exclusive power of legislation “over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States”; make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers “and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

So you see large powers were granted by the people to the new Nation.

However, the people were very careful. Nearly every government in the world, before the organization of the United States, had at times proven false to the people. Many governments were false to the people all the time. Indignities and abuses were often heaped upon helpless men, women, and children. Governments were more often maintained to serve royalty or aristocracy than to protect the rights and liberties of the common people. Therefore when it came to organizing this new Nation, the people were careful to guard against the abuses of the past. Thus they not only specified definitely the powers conferred upon the United States, but (Sections 9 and 10 of Article I) positively stated certain things which the United States could not do.

_The people also were suspicious._ The experience of the human race with governments justified this suspicion. When the Constitution was submitted to the people, many protested that the individual liberties of the people were not sufficiently guarded; and before the people consented to ratify the Constitution, it was necessary that they should be given assurance that upon the ratification of the Constitution, amendments would be proposed and submitted to the people, expressing clearly the guaranties given to the people against improper exercise of power by the National government and especially protecting the liberty of all the people. These amendments, which constitute the Great American Bill of Rights, were proposed by Congress in 1789 and were ratified by the States in 1791.

Now let us get the foregoing brief summary fixed in our minds.

The Constitution is a partnership between the people and the Nation in which the people (1) grant to the Nation certain specific powers; (2) restrain the Nation from exercising powers not granted; and (3) in many particulars direct the manner in which the powers granted shall be exercised. The Constitution also provides for what may be termed the “machinery of government”. It separates the powers of government into three divisions: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. It then provides for the officers (the agents or servants of the people), who shall exercise the powers of each department, and prescribes certain qualifications for such officers, the methods of their selection, and the terms of such officers.

In Article I we find certain qualifications for Senators and Representatives—the length of their term of service. Senators are elected for six years, Representatives for two years. There are also certain provisions as to their election, the organization of the Senate and House, to some extent the method of procedure, and direction as to the exercise of certain powers.

Article II of the Constitution fixes certain qualifications for President of the United States, the executive head of the Nation; provides the manner of the election of the President and the Vice President, confers certain powers and duties, provides that the term of office of President and Vice President shall be four years, and designates the causes for which they may be removed by impeachment.

Article III of the Constitution provides for courts and judges, and fixes their jurisdiction—their power—and gives direction as to trial and penalty in certain cases.

Thus we find that the Constitution guarantees a National government (a republican form of government), confers certain powers formerly held by the people, provides an executive to enforce the powers granted, a legislative body to make laws under which the powers may be exercised, and establishes courts to construe and apply the laws enacted, to the end that human rights and liberties shall be protected.

Let us carry in our minds this picture of the people of the colonies, who through generations had struggled with royalty to secure the blessings and liberties for which they had come to the New World. In the local government of the colonies much had been done to apply the principles of liberty, but in their relation to the mother country they had endured abuses and sufferings, which finally in 1776 found expression in the Declaration of Independence.

In an effort to unite their strength they had formed a federation of the thirteen States, but their dreams of a free country were not realized until in the Constitution they had formed the “more perfect Union” which was created to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.

Now let us bear in mind that the people reserved much of their power, which under the plan of government adopted was to be used in their respective States under Constitutions and laws expressing the will of the people with relation to their domestic affairs. At our next meeting, we shall consider briefly something of the Constitutions of the States, where they come from, and the wonderful purpose they serve in carrying out the scheme of the people in actual self government.

ELEMENTARY QUESTIONS

1. Why are the individual guaranties of the Constitution so important?

2. What is meant by legislative power?

3. In whom is the legislative power of the United States vested?

4. When and how was the Nation formed?

5. What is a partnership? How is it usually formed?

6. From whom did the United States obtain its power?

7. State the terms of service of: (a) the President, (b) Senators, (c) Representatives, (d) the Vice President?

ADVANCED QUESTIONS

A. Tell some of the powers conferred by the people upon the United States.

B. Into what departments does the Constitution separate the powers of government?

C. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, why were the people suspicious?

D. Name some officers now in service of the National government: (a) in the executive department, (b) in the legislative department, (c) in the judicial department.

E. Write a statement of the attitude of the people of the States when the Constitution was submitted to them for ratification, what was the subject of public discussion, what parties were formed, and what was done to secure the consent of the people to ratify the Constitution?

F. Write in 100 words or less a summary of what the United States Constitution is.

XXVII. STATE CONSTITUTIONS

The Grant And Limitations Of Power Expressed By The People In The
Constitutions Of The States

Every human organization had a beginning. This is a large city in which we now live, but there was a time within the memory of men still living, when there was nothing here but an unbroken prairie. A log cabin was the first building where the city now stands. Then came the cultivated fields. A flour mill was erected down on the river bank, then a blacksmith shop, a store, a livery stable, some modest dwellings, then a school house, and a church. Thus came the little village which through the years has slowly grown into the present city.

Thus came all the cities, and thus came the States. There was a time not so long ago when there were no white people within what is now the borders of our State. There was the “first white settler”, the first cultivated patch of ground, the first log house, the little settlements, the lonely log cabins in between, and then the State.

Thus were the thirteen colonies founded, and thus were founded the thirty-five States which have been admitted to the Union since the adoption of the Constitution.

Every human organization with any degree of permanence has something in the nature of a constitution. It may be in writing, it may be oral, or it may rest in a mutual understanding expressed only by acts and conduct. It may be manifest from customs which have been observed by all the members of the group.

The proud boast of America is that it was the first Nation in the world which adopted a complete written Constitution binding upon the Nation and upon the people, a Constitution which provides for courts with the power of restraining the Nation and the individual from acts or conduct which violate its provisions, designed to guard human rights.

Until the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the colonies in their joint efforts for liberty and justice, were called the “United Colonies”; but after independence was proclaimed, this title gave place to that of “The United States”. Thereupon eleven of the thirteen States adopted Constitutions. In two States—Connecticut and Rhode Island by an act of the legislature, the existing charters were continued in force so far as consistent with independence. These Constitutions all came into being before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. Of course they were far from perfect, and all have been amended from time to time, so that now the Constitution of each State provides a truly American system of government.(102)

Nothing in the Constitution of the United States requires that each State shall have a written Constitution, but the wonderful achievement of the people in creating the Constitution of the United States has been a guide and inspiration to the people of the States, and each State has adopted a written State Constitution, following the method and spirit of the colonists in the long ago, drafting the Constitution in a convention of delegates and ratifying it by another special convention or by the vote of all the people.

Then as each new State was admitted to the Union, a Constitution was adopted.(103) By the Constitution of the United States, Congress has the power to admit new States, thus by implication controlling the subject matter of the original Constitution of each State admitted.

It is not my intention to consider in detail the Constitutions of the various States. This is not essential to the purpose which I have in talking to you. I am very anxious that you shall realize that each State is a separate sovereignty; that when the people created the United States, and adopted the Constitution of the United States, they give to the United States limited power; that the plan of government contemplated that each State should have its own Constitution; and that in each State the people should enact their own laws governing the conduct of the people in their respective States.

An examination of the Constitutions of all the States will show how carefully the people of each State incorporated in their State Constitution the great principles of government, and the guaranties of liberty which were so carefully provided in the Constitution of the United States.

Different language is used in the different State Constitutions, but in each it will be found that the government of the State, as of the United States, is divided into three departments—the executive, the legislative, and the judicial; that the executive power in the States is vested in a Governor; that the legislative power rests in what is usually termed a “General Assembly” consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, modeled after the Congress of the United States; that the judicial power is to be exercised by courts—a Supreme Court and other courts designated as District Courts, Circuit Courts, and many other titles, varying in different States.

Public officers, servants of the people, are provided for, and usually their selection is by vote of the people at general elections for which provision is made.

The really important thing in the State Constitutions, as well as in the Constitution of the United States, is the Bill of Rights specifically guarding the natural rights and liberties of the people.

The guaranties in the State Constitutions are not all uniform, but as a general thing you will find that each State has incorporated in its Constitution those sacred guaranties which in the Constitution of the United States form the real foundation and protection of human liberty.

Always bear in mind that the Constitution in each State, as in the Nation, is an instrument of fundamental law, or body of laws, which prescribes the form of government, fixes the different departments of government, provides the agencies of government, and declares and guarantees the rights and liberties of the people.(104)

The Constitution of the United States is the Supreme law of the land, and the Constitution of each State is the supreme law of the State. These Constitutions must be respected, and must be obeyed; and any law enacted by the legislature of a State or by the Congress of the United States which is contrary to the provisions of the Constitution is null and void.

By their Constitution the people of a State proclaim and establish their power superior to the power of the legislature of the State or any officer of the State. The power expressed in the Constitution is the power of the people. They have, by their solemn document—the Constitution—established certain rules, regulations, principles, and guaranties, which cannot be changed by ordinary legislation.(105) Of course the people can change and modify the Constitution of State or Nation. Every Constitution provides some method of amendment. Some States provide for a constitutional convention from time to time, where the people through their representatives selected for such a purpose assemble to consider the question of change or modification. In other States the legislature may propose amendments which must be submitted to the people for their approval. In all States some procedure is provided which requires careful deliberation and consideration by the people before the Constitution is changed.(106)

Now it is very important that every citizen shall have a knowledge of the Constitution of his State. It is of the highest importance that every man, woman, and child shall know and feel the solicitude, the care, which has been exercised in the framing of the Constitution to guard individual rights.

As I have heretofore explained, the purpose of government is to guard human rights and human liberty. This is true of the government of the United States, and it is true of the government of each State. Always keep in mind that in this country, what we call “the government” is merely an agency of the people—an expression of the power of the people in a defined way, agreed upon by them, through which they protect themselves against wrong by the agencies of government which they have created, and against wrong by their neighbors.

Inspiring indeed is it to contemplate the spirit in which the founders of the American Nation and of the States of America studied the methods by which human rights should be protected. They were unselfish; they were in the highest degree inspired by a holy purpose to guard the people of America against the wrongs, the abuses, the cruelty which their ancestors in the past had suffered; and to accomplish their purpose they exercised the greatest care to maintain the power of government in the people themselves—the power to make laws and to enforce them.

I suppose it may be said that the highest achievement of the American people in creating a National government and the governments of the States is expressed in the words of Lincoln when he proclaimed this to be “a government by the people”.

ELEMENTARY QUESTIONS

1. What is a village?

2. What is a State?

3. When were the colonies first called States?

4. What States adopted Constitutions before the adoption and ratification of the Constitution of the United States?

5. Can the people of the State of New York enact a law punishing a person for coining silver dollars? Why?

6. Can Congress pass a law Sting the punishment of a person for stealing a horse in the State of Michigan?

7. When was the State in which we live admitted to the Union?

8. Who framed the Constitution of this State?

ADVANCED QUESTIONS

A. What is a constitution?

B. Explain fully how a Constitution of a State comes into, being.

C. Must a constitution be in writing? If not, what may be its form?

D. State how the Constitution of the United States may be amended.

E. In what way may the Constitution of a State be amended?

F. Write briefly telling the advantages of a written constitution.

G. State in writing the power of the courts in exercising their power and duty of defending the Constitution. Give an illustration.

H. Write an explanation of the power and influence of the Constitution of the United States in guiding the people in framing the Constitutions of their States, and in what things the Constitution of the States follow the Constitution of the United States.

XXVIII. THE SUFFRAGE

The Significance Of The Nineteenth Amendment To The Constitution

This meeting was at night. Some of the parents who had attended the talks from time to time had requested that the last meeting be held at night so that some of the busy fathers and mothers might come. The assembly room was crowded, and although extra chairs had been placed in the aisles, there were a number of people standing. The principal said that it was the largest crowd that he had ever seen in the room.(107)

First everybody arose and sang “The Star Spangled Banner”, and when the meeting closed, the audience joined in singing “America”.(108) The judge was greeted with loud applause. He said:

I am happy to-night. This meeting is an inspiration. It is a real community meeting, a real American meeting. If meetings like this were held once each week or once every two weeks in every school building in the United States I should not fear socialism or bolshevism or anarchy. Such ideas cannot live in a community where the people really know each other. There are no class lines here to-night. You are too close together. I see a banker over there whom I have known for thirty years. He was brought up in this city, attended this school, and has spent his whole life here. His success in life came to him among old friends in the community where he was born. Near him I see a bricklayer. I have known him and respected him since boyhood. We played on the same baseball team when we were both younger and could run faster than we can now. He went to the Washington school. The children of these men are in this school now. In a few years they will be grown men and women doing the work that we shall have to give up soon.(109)

So with most of the people in this room to-night. They were born here, went to school here, and they have worked here all their lives. Some followed one occupation, some another. This was a matter of their own choice. Their children are now growing up, as they once grew up. Soon they will be selecting their life work. Soon they will be voting and performing other duties of citizenship. Soon you and I, fathers and mothers, will pass off the stage of life. Soon we shall be forgotten by all except the few who compose the family circle, who love us notwithstanding our faults.

For a few weeks I have been acting as teacher. I have been trying hard to bring into the minds and hearts of the pupils in this school something of the sacredness of human liberty, something of the cost of American liberty, the sacrifices, the struggles, the bloodshed, the heartaches, and heartbreaks which finally triumphed when our Constitution was adopted. I have endeavored to explain that the Constitution is not a mere skeleton or framework, defining the relation of the Nation and the States and providing for the election of officers to carry out the plans of the National government. I have repeatedly told the great truth that in America there is more freedom, justice, charity, and kindness than in any other Nation in the world. I have pointed out that in America we have in our Constitution written guaranties of life, liberty, and property rights such as no other Nation in the history of the world ever had. We have found that this is a government by the people, that the people rule, that the few cannot rule unless the many refuse to perform their duties as citizens of this great republic. Oh! if we can only put in the hearts of the American people a realization of the _power_ and the _duty_ of the people!

To-night I wish to present briefly something of the manner in which the people express their power, the method by which the people disclose their wishes in public affairs. The Star Baseball Club, the Irving Literary Society, the City Teachers Association, the Woman’s Club, the Charity Guild, these are all mere organisations of people. _That is all that America is._ These organizations have written constitutions. _So has America._ These organizations must have laws or rules of conduct, aside from their constitutions. _So must America._ These societies must have a policy and transact business. _So must America._ In adopting laws or rules of conduct these societies secure an expression of the wishes of their members. These wishes are generally expressed by their votes, sometimes by ballot and sometimes orally in a meeting.

America secures an expression of the wishes of the people by their votes. The votes of the people either in writing or printed are cast on election days fixed by laws enacted through the vote of the people. In no other way can the wishes of the people be made known. It, is through the ballot that the people exercise their powers. It is through the ballot that America is governed.(110)

I wonder if the people of America generally realize what a wonderful thing it is that a government as large as ours must depend entirely upon the wishes of the people expressed by their vote on election day. I wonder if they realize that in this way the people rule. On election day we see something of the equality of the people. If you go near the polling place, you will see the president of the bank, perhaps, or the president of the railroad walking side by side with the hodcarrier or the brakeman on the train. In the voting booth each has the same power in helping to shape the destiny of their country.

In a way this is a new method of government. Only in a country where there is a government by the people do we find such a thing as the right of all men regardless of property, race, or creed to exercise the same power in the ballot box.(111)

From the beginning America has led in granting the right of suffrage, the right to vote. In the early days in some of the States a man had to own a certain amount of property before he could vote, but this has not been true for more than fifty years. _Now a new day has come._ After a struggle for generations, the right to vote has been conferred upon all female citizens, regardless of property, social position, religion, or race. It has been a long struggle and now that victory has been won for equal suffrage, is there anyone who will still contend that in this country the people do not rule?

Who has conferred this great privilege upon the women of America? The voters of America decided that every State should grant this privilege.

The amendment to the Constitution is as follows:

“_The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex._”

The people did not vote directly upon this constitutional amendment, but they voted for the members of the House and the members of the Senate who voted for the amendment and they voted for the members of the legislatures of the different States which ratified the amendment. Thus the responsibility rests with the people. This is true of course as to nearly all the laws enacted by State and Nation—the people do not vote directly upon them, but they select their agents, who, under the law, are authorized to act for them.

Under this amendment we have the written guaranty in the Constitution that so far as men and women are concerned they shall have equal rights to vote.(112)

Perhaps you were not in favor of woman suffrage. Many good men and women were opposed to it. Many are still opposed to it. This is a good illustration of the way we do things in a democracy. We have different temperaments, different dispositions. We are reared in different surroundings. We have different interests. We look at life in different ways. Each of us has a right to his opinion and each of us has the right to express it by our vote. When we finally vote, a decision is made. If we belong to the majority, we find that our wish is carried out. If we are in the minority, we cheerfully follow what the majority of the people, what most of the people in America desire.

The thing that I wish to impress to-night is that to vote on election day is not only a right, it is a duty. Whether we were for woman suffrage or not it has come. It is settled. It brings into power twenty-seven million new voters. Each of these women, whether she desires it or not, must assume this new share of the responsibilities of government. It is a patriotic duty. At every election we must cast our votes. Before every election we must study the issues, the problems to be met. Unless we do that we are failing in patriotism and loyalty. Unless we vote we are not good citizens.

Now I must close. I hope that the talks I have given in this school have planted in the hearts of boys and girls, and possibly in the hearts of grown men and women, something of the simple truth of American life, something perhaps of the privileges of American citizenship and something of the duties that we all owe in return.

I have promised the principal of this school that next term I will again appear and present some new topics. I wish to talk to the boys and girls about authority and obedience, the source of authority and the duty of obedience. I wish also to talk about the making of laws, the origin of laws, how they are put in form and finally enacted by the people. I wish to talk about our public servants, because one of the important things for each citizen to know is that from the President of the United States down to the constable of the humblest village, all officers are mere servants of the people and that no officer in America is in his official capacity master of any man, woman, or child. I wish to impress as far as I am able the great truth expressed by Chief Justice Marshall when he said long years ago, “This is a government of laws and not of men.”

ELEMENTARY QUESTIONS

1. Show the ways in which the United States is just like a small club?

2. Why must we always vote?

3. Why is it right that women should vote?

4. Show that this is more than a privilege: it is a duty.

5. Imagine some person saying that America is only for the rich. Review all the work that we have done, and show how it is just as fair to the poor man as to the rich.

ADVANCED QUESTIONS

A. Re-read the questions to chapters one and two. Note the difference in your answers.

B. Map out a program so that you can show to all critics of America the ways in which the Constitution of the United States gives to all Americans the rights to LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

C. You can now answer fully the question, “Why is America the most free and most just Nation on the globe?”

D. What did Chief Justice Marshall mean when he said, “This is a government of laws, and not of men.”

E. Prepare in writing a constitution for the “Lincoln Debating Club”.

A WORD TO THE THE TEACHERS AND OTHERS

“The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. The Government of the United States has been emphatically termed, a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.”

These words of Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, are the most significant and far reaching in their effect upon human government that were ever uttered by the lips of man.

“A government of laws and not of men.” This expresses the fundamental difference between the government of this great American republic and all other systems of government devised by man before the Constitution of the United States came into being.(113)

Government has been the great problem of the human race throughout all the ages since mankind first started out upon the great highway of life. The greatest problem men have ever been called upon to solve is “how they might live together in communities without cutting each others throats”.

As we look back at the warring world of yesterday, yea as we look at the warring world to-day (1920), we are reminded that the history of the human family tells a long, sad story of war and bloodshed and death. The path which humanity has traveled stretches back into the dim distance, a long gleaming line of white human bones. The flowers, the trees, and the shrubs along the way have been nurtured by the red blood that flowed from human hearts. All over the world the battle has waged; away down in Egypt where the Nile scatters her riches; upon the banks of the Tiber which for centuries has reflected the majesty of Rome; upon the heights above the castle crowned Rhine; on the banks of the peaceful Thames; and upon the prairies that sweep back from the Father of Waters, men have fought and died. In the field and in the forest, by the sweet running brook, and upon the burning sands, in the mountain pass, and in the stony streets of the populous city, within the chancel rail of holy churches, and at the dark entrance to the Bastile—in all these places, and in a thousand more, the hand of the oppressed has been lifted against the oppressor, the right to be free that God gave to men has struggled with the power which might has given, and, alas! so often might has triumphed, and the slave, sick at heart, has been scourged to his dungeon. On a thousand hillsides burning fagots have consumed men who dared to dream of freedom, and in dark and slimy prison cells where God’s sunlight seldom entered, men have rotten with clanking chains upon their limbs because they dared to ask for the rights of freemen.

In the olden days force ruled the world; the king, the crown, the scepter, were the insignia of power. All about were the instruments of force, the cannon, the moated castle, the marching armies of the king.

And so it was until the American Nation was born, a Nation founded by exiles who were fleeing from oppression, from unrestrained power, exiles who dreamed of establishing a Nation, exiles with stout hearts and with strong hands with which to build it—a Nation where there would be no master and no slaves, where the citizen would rule and not the soldier, where the home and the school and not the castle would stand as the citadel of the Nation, where the steel would at last be molded into plowshares, and not into swords, where, instead of martial music, the song of the plowboy and the hum of the spinning wheel would greet the ear, where lust for power would be dethroned and brute force strangled, where love would rule and not brutality, where justice and not vengeance would be the end of judicial investigation, where the rights of men to live and to enjoy the fruits of their labor would be recognized. This was the dream of the fathers of the republic as they laid the foundation in the long ago.

But this dream never would have been realized had it not been for the recognition of that great constitutional principle, announced by Chief Justice Marshall, that in this Nation the law is supreme; not supreme alone with the citizen, but supreme with the Nation and the States that compose the Nation; not supreme with the humble toiler, but supreme with the richest and the strongest; not supreme in theory, but supreme in truth and in fact.

This great principle of the supremacy of the law finds its origin in that immortal document, the Constitution of the United States.(114)

Few there are in these modern days who fully appreciate the wonderful blessings of a written Constitution which gives recognition to the fundamental natural rights of man, and provides guaranties against the invasion of these rights.

Gladstone, the eminent statesman, said:

It (the American Constitution) is the greatest work ever struck
off at any one time by the mind and purpose of man.

An eminent lawyer has said:

It has been the priceless adjunct of free government, the mighty
shield of the rights and liberties of the citizen. It has been
many times invoked to save him from illegal punishment, and save
his property from the greed of unscrupulous enemies, and to save
his political fights from the unbridled license of victorious
political opponents controlling legislative bodies; nor does it
sleep, except as a sword dedicated to a righteous cause sleeps in
its scabbard.

Horace Binney says:

What were the States before the Union? The hope of their enemies,
the fear of their friends, and arrested only by the Constitution
from becoming the shame of the world.

Sir Henry Maine gives the following estimate of the Constitution:

It isn’t at all easy to bring home to the men of the present day,
how low the credit of the Republic had sunk before the
establishment of the United States.... Its success has been so
great and striking, that men have almost forgotten, that if the
whole, or the known experiments of mankind in governments be
looked at together, there has been no form of government so
successful as the republican.

Justice Mitchell of Pennsylvania, some twenty odd years ago said:

A century and a decade has passed since the Constitution of the
United States was adopted. Dynasties have arisen and fallen,
boundaries have extended and shrunken ’till continents seem almost
the playthings of imagination and war; nationalities have been
asserted and subdued; governments built up only to be overthrown,
and the kingdoms of the earth from the Pillars of Hercules to the
Yellow Sea have been shaken to their foundations. Through all this
change and obstruction, the Republic, shortest lived of all forms
of government in the prior history of the world, surviving the
perils of foreign and domestic war, has endured and flourished.

And yet, it is true, “and pity ’tis, ’tis true”, that in these days there seems to be a great lack of confidence, nay even a feeling of contempt existing in the minds and hearts of many men for this great charter of human liberty. Men born to the blessings of freedom, men who do not stop to think about the cost of freedom, men who do not realize that this Nation is not the child of chance, but that it is the outgrowth of centuries of tears and blood and sacrifice in the cause of human freedom—these men assume an attitude of criticism, and would, by destroying the Constitution, fly from the “ills we have” and open their arms to evils “we know not of”.

And this feeling, this unrest, this spirit of criticism, is not limited to the ignorant, nor the lowly. Many men and women of education and culture are prominent in the ranks of those who raise their voices in reckless condemnation.

What is the source of this widespread feeling?

For several years before the World War, we were passing through a period of readjustment in the political and social life of the Nation. Many people felt that privilege was too strongly entrenched in governmental favor. A noble feeling of sympathy for the weak and the unfortunate created a demand for social justice. A great political party was thrown out of power. Out of all this came appeals for legislation, most of it inspired by the highest motives, but much of it impractical and visionary, some of it so framed that in providing a benefit for a certain class, the rights of some other class were forgotten. Often it became necessary to recall the provisions of the Constitution, and some times it was used as a bar to the enactment of measures which were inspired only by the loftiest motives. Under such circumstances it is only natural that those intensely interested, seeing only from one standpoint, not understanding perhaps the far reaching effect of their favorite measures, should cry out at the limitations imposed by the Constitution.

Then again courts are sometimes compelled, under their sworn duty to defend the Constitution, to hold that a legislative enactment is unconstitutional and void, because it violates some of the principles of that great document, created, not by courts, not by presidents, but by the people themselves for their own guidance and protection.

But Chief Justice White gives the strongest reason for this feeling of contempt for the Constitution. He says:

There is great danger, it seems to me, to arise, from the constant
habit which prevails where anything is opposed or objected to, of
resorting without rhyme or reason, to the Constitution as a means
of preventing its accomplishment, thus creating the general
impression that the Constitution is but a barrier to progress,
instead of being the broad highway through which alone true
progress, may be enjoyed.

Not only is this true, but unfortunately it is also true that every base murderer who begins to feel the rope tighten about his neck can find some lawyer who can devise some alleged constitutional reason why his client should not hang. The courts are constantly engaged in defending the Constitution against these base and unworthy attempts to defeat justice.

Then upon every hand are those who hate authority, who despise law and order, and who denounce the Constitution because it stands between them and a realization of their greedy, vicious purposes.

Justice White further says that there is “a growing tendency to suppose that every wrong that exists, despite the system, and which would be many times worse if the system did not exist, is attributable to it, and therefore that the Constitution should be disregarded or over-thrown”.

The foregoing are some, but not all of the causes which weaken the faith of the people in the Constitution.

Now recognizing that there is in this Nation a lack of respect for the Constitution, and knowing something of the causes which underlie this feeling, and realizing that the Constitution is in very truth the fortress and the glory of our republic, what is our duty?

The duty of every man, woman, and child in America is to defend the Constitution with his life, if necessary, against those who condemn and traduce and seek to destroy.

But how shall we defend it? Shall we oppose all amendments of the Constitution? No, by its very terms it is subject to amendment; but in contemplating its amendment, we should approach this sacred document in the same reverent spirit we would have if we were entering upon some holy shrine. It is the people’s Constitution; it is their right to amend it. Yea, it is their duty to amend it, if upon due deliberation, the rights of the whole people can be better protected or enforced.

Complaint is sometimes made because of the delay involved in its amendment; but the provisions of the Constitution requiring deliberation were wisely inserted. It was intended that fundamental principles should not be changed under the inspiration of sudden passion. It contemplated mature deliberation. The fathers of the Republic were mindful of the storms which at times in the history of the world had swept the people to destruction.(115)

Shall we rebuke the people who seek reforms? _Shall we decry progress or change?_ No, we should be the leaders in all such reforms. We should aid in guiding public sentiment along channels safe and sound and constitutional. We should give recognition to the appeals of those who would lighten the burdens of our brothers who may be heavy laden. We should aid in convincing the people that the Constitution is no restraint upon their aspirations for higher and better things; that it is in truth the guide and inspiration to better things.

Shall we condemn those who through lack of knowledge do not appreciate the great value of the Constitution? No, we should teach them. We should lead them. We should inspire them with love and veneration for this great bulwark of human freedom.

We must in very truth become teachers of all the people. We must carry to them the light of our knowledge. We must point out to them the rocks upon which other republics have been wrecked.(116)

We must teach them that in the Constitution we find an absolute guaranty of protection for life, for liberty, and for property rights. That there is no man so lowly, that he cannot point to the Constitution as his shield from the acts of the tyrant, that he cannot point to his humble home as his “castle”, and under the sacred guaranties of the Constitution defy all the unlawful force of the world.

We must teach them that it guarantees the inviolability of contracts, that it prevents even a great State from taking the life or property of its humblest citizen without a trial under due process of law, that trial by jury is preserved, and that no man can be convicted of a crime without the privilege of being represented by counsel, and that no man can be compelled to be a witness against himself.

We must recall to them the awful tragedies enacted in the days of old, where, under Star Chamber proceedings, men were deprived of their property and their lives upon charges of treason, which were never proven; and then we must point out to them the burning words of the Constitution, which provides that no man can be found guilty of treason without at least two witnesses to the overt act.

We must impress upon them the great truth, that there is not now, and never has been, a system of government which can abolish sorrow, or sickness, or stay the hand of death. That no government can help men who will not help themselves; that there is no way in which any government can bring riches to the indolent, nor bread to those who will not toil. We must combat the false philosophy which assumes that all men are equal in all things, because men are not equal, except as under the Constitution they are equal before the law. No system of legislation and no method of government can equalize the strong with the weak, the wise with the simple, the good with the bad. While God gives to some men wisdom and shrewdness which others do not possess, while some are broad shouldered, with muscles of steel, and others are frail, and tremble as they walk, there will always be riches, there will always be poverty, and any scheme for equalizing the possessions of men is but an idle dream which never can be realized until men are made over into beings without passion or pride or ambition or selfishness. Do not let them feel that its provisions are intended to protect only the rich and powerful. If the right of a railway corporation to certain lands is sustained under some constitutional provision, do not allow the people to assume that this provision exists only for corporations, but impress upon them that the same constitutional provision which protects the railway company in its rights, may be invoked in defense of the little homestead out upon the prairies.

If some desperado should be acquitted because he invoked the constitutional requirement that he upon his trial must be confronted by the witnesses against him, remind those who criticise that this same provision is made for their sons who may to-morrow be unjustly charged with a crime; impress upon them that it is impossible to have one law for the guilty, and another for the innocent; and that under our Constitution, every man is presumed to be innocent until proven to be guilty.

Then impress upon the people something of the wonderful growth of the Nation, the development of the Nation, and the progress of the Nation—all under the wise protection of the Constitution. To those who may be discouraged in the battle of life, and who may attribute their failure to the injustice of social conditions, point out what other men have done under the same conditions, with no better opportunity, and ask them to ponder the question as to whether their failure is not to be attributed largely to their own lack of energy and determination.(117)

And if they point out abuses which do exist, ask them to aid in eliminating these abuses. If half the energy which is exerted by earnest, but misguided people, in efforts to tear down our form of government, were honestly applied in an effort to remedy existing evils in a constitutional way, these people would show that they were patriots, and at the same time they would accomplish something for their country and their fellowmen.(118)

_Too long have we been silent_ while the enemies of our country have poisoned the minds of youth, yea, and of manhood and womanhood, with the gospel of treason.

Those who despise and condemn the Constitution have in the past ten years had more earnest students of their vicious doctrines than have those who uphold the Constitution and prize their liberties which the Constitution guards and protects.

All over the land earnest men and women are endeavoring to teach the great truth of Americanism, and with substantial success; but those who understand human nature realize that the faith of our fathers can only be firmly established by lighting the fires of patriotism and loyalty in the hearts of our children. Through them the great truths of our National life can be brought into the homes of the land.

And the Nation will never be safe until the Constitution is carried into the homes, until at every fireside young and old shall feel a new sense of security in the guaranties which are found in this great charter of human liberty, and a new feeling of gratitude for the blessings which it assures to this, and to all future generations.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Government:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.