LECTURE I. said: "As the British constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." And while I heartily indorse this, and feel it impossible to find language in which to express my admiration and my love for the Constitution of the United States, and my profound belief that the wisdom of man, unaided by inspiration, has produced no writing so valuable to humanity, I should fail of a most important duty if I did not say on this public occasion, that no amount of wisdom in a constitution can produce wise government, unless there is a suitable response in the spirit of the people. The Anglo-Saxon race, from whom we inherit so much that is valuable in our character, as well as our institutions, has been remarkable in all its history for a love of law and order. While other peoples, equally cultivated, have paid their devotion to the man in power, as representative of the law which he enforces, the English people, and we their descendants, have venerated the law itself, looking past its administrators, and giving our allegiance and our obedience to the principles which govern organized society. It has been said that a dozen Englishmen or Americans, thrown on an uninhabited island, would at once proceed to adopt a code of laws for their government, and elect the officers who were to enforce them. And certainly this proposition. The growth of is borne out by the early history of our emi- LECTURE I. grants to California, where every mining camp the United States. organized into a political body, and made laws for its own government, which were so good that Congress adopted them until they should be repealed or modified by statute. I but repeat the language of the Supreme Conclusion. Court of the United States when I say that in this country the law is supreme. No man is so high as to be above the law. No officer of the Government may disregard it with impunity. To this inborn and native regard for law, as a governing power, we are indebted largely for the wonderful success and prosperity of our people, for the security of our rights; and when the highest law to which we pay this homage is the Constitution of the United States, the history of the world has presented no such wonder of a prosperous, happy civil government. Let me urge upon my fellow-countrymen, and especially upon the rising generation of them, to examine with careful scrutiny all new theories of government and of social life, and if they do not rest upon a foundation of veneration and respect for law as the bond of social existence, let them be distrusted as inimical to human happiness. And now let me close this address with a quotation from one of the ablest jurists and most profound commentators upon our laws,-Chancellor Kent. He said, fifty years ago: "The Government of the United States was created by the free voice and joint will of the people of LECTURE I. America for their common defence and general welfare. Its powers apply to those great interests which relate to this country in its national capacity, and which depend for their stability and protection on the consolidation of the Union. It is clothed with the principal attributes of sovereignty, and it is justly deemed the guardian of our best rights, the source of our highest civil and political duties, and the sure means of our national greatness." NOTES UPON LECTURE I. The Constitution THE Constitution of the United States, like LECTURE I. all systems of government which are permanent, the outcome of had its origin in the history and necessities of previous history. the people through whose instrumentality and for whose benefit it was formed. Driven by those necessities, the people of the United Colonies assumed and exercised the national powers of a federative government, before any written charter was made. The very Act of Separation assumes this fact. It is not the Declaration of thirteen individual States, but of "the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled." In Colonial days more than one effort had been made to secure a local union of Colonies in different parts of the country. These doubtless contributed more or less to the desire for unity and nationality which eventually found expression in the Constitution.1 In 1765 an American Congress assembled at New York, but it was a deliberative body only, with no governmental functions, and no powers, executive or legislative. On the 5th of Sep 1 Bancroft's History of the United States, Last Revision, vol. 1, pp. 291, 292; 2 Ib. pp. 74, 75; 6 Ib. pp. 7, 8. LECTURE I. The Congress of 1775 exercises tember, 1774, the first Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. When it adjourned it provided for a second Congress to meet in Philadelphia in the following May. Before that time arrived the battles of Lexington and Concord had taken place. This outbreak of a state of war found in each National powers. Colony or Province an organized government with separate functions, exercising a limited sovereignty under the king of Great Britain. Many of the broader powers and functions of National Sovereignty, which the Constitution now places in the government of the United States, then resided in the British king and Parliament. When British sovereignty fell, such powers were assumed and exercised, without question, by the Congress of the United Colonies, before the United States existed as an independent nation; months before the Articles of Confederation were agreed to; years before they became operative by receiving the assent of all the States. They were never enjoyed or exercised by the States separately; and consequently, as an historic fact, independently of theory, they could not have been retained when the States conferred upon the general Government other enumerated powers in the Articles of Confederation. The United States Unconsciously to themselves the people of the becomes a nation. United States were absorbed into a new nationality by the very fact of their combined resistance to Great Britain. They carried on war; they officered and maintained armies; they |