The Short Constitution Part 27

E. Prepare in writing a const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 pa.s.s, 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 G.o.d 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 f.a.gots have consumed men who dared to dream of freedom, and in dark and slimy prison cells where G.o.d'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 l.u.s.t 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 const.i.tutional 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 doc.u.ment, the Const.i.tution of the United States.(114)

Few there are in these modern days who fully appreciate the wonderful blessings of a written Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution) 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 Const.i.tution from becoming the shame of the world.

Sir Henry Maine gives the following estimate of the Const.i.tution:

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 Mitch.e.l.l of Pennsylvania, some twenty odd years ago said:

A century and a decade has pa.s.sed since the Const.i.tution 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 a.s.serted 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 a.s.sume an att.i.tude of criticism, and would, by destroying the Const.i.tution, 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 pa.s.sing 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 n.o.ble 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 cla.s.s, the rights of some other cla.s.s were forgotten. Often it became necessary to recall the provisions of the Const.i.tution, and some times it was used as a bar to the enactment of measures which were inspired only by the loftiest motives. Under such circ.u.mstances 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 Const.i.tution.

Then again courts are sometimes compelled, under their sworn duty to defend the Const.i.tution, to hold that a legislative enactment is unconst.i.tutional and void, because it violates some of the principles of that great doc.u.ment, 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 Const.i.tution. 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 Const.i.tution as a means of preventing its accomplishment, thus creating the general impression that the Const.i.tution 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 const.i.tutional reason why his client should not hang. The courts are constantly engaged in defending the Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution.

Now recognizing that there is in this Nation a lack of respect for the Const.i.tution, and knowing something of the causes which underlie this feeling, and realizing that the Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution? No, by its very terms it is subject to amendment; but in contemplating its amendment, we should approach this sacred doc.u.ment in the same reverent spirit we would have if we were entering upon some holy shrine. It is the people's Const.i.tution; 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 Const.i.tution requiring deliberation were wisely inserted. It was intended that fundamental principles should not be changed under the inspiration of sudden pa.s.sion. 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 const.i.tutional. 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution? 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution defy all the unlawful force of the world.