The Constitution of the United States Part 8

Happily, that cannot be affected by any change in man's environment! For even when the cave-man retreated from the advance of the polar cap, which once covered Europe with Arctic desolation, he not only defied the elements but showed even then the love of the sublime by beautifying the walls of his icy prison with those mural decorations which were the beginning of art.

a.s.suredly, the man of to-day, with the rich heritage of countless ages, can do no less. He has but to diagnose the evil and he will then, in some way, meet it.

But what can man-made law do in this warfare against the blind forces of Nature?

It is easy to exaggerate the value of all political inst.i.tutions; for they are generally on the surface of human life and do not reach down to the deep under-currents of human nature. But the law can do something to protect the soul of man from destruction by the soulless machine.

It can defend the spirit of individualism. It must champion the human soul in its G.o.d-given right to exercise freely the faculties of mind and body. We must defend the right to work against those who would either destroy or degrade it. We must defend the right of every man, not only to join with others in protecting his interests, whether he is a brain worker or a hand worker-for without the right of combination the individual would often be the victim of giant forces-but we must vindicate the equal right of an individual, if he so wills, to depend upon his own strength.

The tendency of group morality to standardize man-and thus reduce all men to the dead level of an average mediocrity-is one that the law should combat. Its protection should be given to those of superior skill and diligence, who ask the due rewards of such superiority. Any other course, to use the fine phrase of Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural, is to "take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned."

Of this spirit one of the n.o.blest expressions is the Const.i.tution of the United States. That Magna Charta has not wholly escaped the destructive tendencies of a mechanical age. It was framed at the very end of the pastoral-agricultural age and at a time when the spirit of individualism was in full flower. The hardy pioneers who, with their axes, made straight the pathway of an advancing civilization, were st.u.r.dy men who need not be undervalued to us of the mechanical age. The "prairie schooner," which met the elemental forces of Nature with the proud challenge: "Pike's Peak or bust," produced as fine a type of manhood as the age which travels either in Mr. Ford's "fliver" or the more luxurious Rolls-Royce.

The Const.i.tution was framed in the period that marked the pa.s.sing of the primitive age and the dawn of the day of the machine. Watt had recently discovered the potency of steam vapour as a motive power; but its only use at first was for pumping water out of the mines.

When the framers of the Const.i.tution met in high convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, a Connecticut Yankee, John Fitch, was then also working in Philadelphia upon his steamboat; but twenty years were to pa.s.s before the prow of the Clermont was to part the waters of the Hudson, and nearly a half century before transportation was to be revolutionized by the utilization of Watt's invention in the locomotive. Of the wonders of the steamship, the railroad, the telegraphic cable, the wireless, the gasoline engine, and a thousand other mechanical miracles, the framers of the American Const.i.tution did not even dream.

The greatest and n.o.blest purpose of the Const.i.tution was not alone to hold in nicest equipose the relative powers of the nation and the States, but also to maintain in the scales of justice a true equilibrium between the rights of government and the rights of an individual. It did not believe that the State was omnipotent or infallible, and yet it proclaimed its authority within wise and just limits. It defended the integrity of the human soul.

In other governments, these fundamental decencies of liberty rest upon the conscience of the legislature. Under the American Const.i.tution, they are part of the fundamental law, and, as such, enforceable by judges sworn to defend the integrity of the individual as fully as the integrity of the State.

When did a n.o.bler "vision" inspire men in the political annals of mankind? Without that vision to restrain each succeeding generation of Americans from the tempting excesses of political power, the American Commonwealth, with its great heterogeneous democracy, would probably perish.

That vision still remains as an ideal with the American people and still leads them to ever-higher achievements, for in all the mad changes of a frenzied hour, they have not yet lost faith in or love for the Const.i.tution of the Fathers! That vision will remain with them as long, and no longer, as there is in their hearts a conscious and willing acquiescence in its wisdom and justice. Obviously, it can have no inherent vigour to perpetuate itself. If it ceases to be of the spirit of the people, then the yellow parchment whereon it is inscribed can avail nothing. When that parchment was last taken from the safe in the State Department, the ink in which it had been engrossed nearly 134 years ago was found to have faded. All who believe in const.i.tutional government must hope that this is not a portentous symbol. The American people must write the compact, not with ink upon parchment, but with "letters of living light"-to use Webster's phrase-upon their hearts.

Again the solemn warning of the wise man of old recurs to us:

"Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."