Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution Part 2

Religion, the philosophy of morals, the teaching of history, the experience of every human life, point to the same conclusion-that in the practical conduct of life the most difficult and the most necessary virtue is self-restraint. It is the first lesson of childhood; it is the quality for which great monarchs are most highly praised; the man who has it not is feared and shunned; it is needed most where power is greatest; it is needed more by men acting in a ma.s.s than by individuals, because men in the ma.s.s are more irresponsible and difficult of control than individuals. The makers of our const.i.tution, wise and earnest students of history and of life, discerned the great truth that self-restraint is the supreme necessity and the supreme virtue of a democracy. The people of the United States have exercised that virtue by the establishment of rules of right action in what we call the limitations of the const.i.tution, and until this day they have rigidly observed those rules. The general judgment of students of government is that the success and permanency of the American system of government are due to the establishment and observance of such general rules of conduct. Let us change and adapt our laws as the shifting-conditions of the times require, but let us never abandon or weaken this fundamental and essential characteristic of our ordered liberty.