I Am Not Attempting To Write A
History Of The United States, And Will Not Therefore Trouble My
Readers With Historic Details, Which Are Not Of Value Unless Put
Forward With Historic Weight.
The fact of the failure is however
admitted, and the present written Constitution of the United States,
which is
The splendid result of that failure, was "Done in
Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present."* Twelve
States were present - Rhode Island apparently having had no
representative on the occasion - on the 17th of September, 1787, and
in the twelfth year of the Independence of the United States.
* It must not, however, be supposed that by this "doing in
convention," the Constitution became an accepted fact. It simply
amounted to the adoption of a proposal of the Constitution. The
Constitution itself was formally adopted by the people in
conventions held in their separate State capitals. It was agreed to
by the people in 1788, and came into operation in 1789.
I call the result splendid, seeing that under this Constitution so
written a nation has existed for three-quarters of a century, and
has grown in numbers, power, and wealth till it has made itself the
political equal of the other greatest nations of the earth. And it
cannot be said that it has so grown in spite of the Constitution, or
by ignoring the Constitution. Hitherto the laws there laid down for
the national guidance have been found adequate for the great purpose
assigned to them, and have done all that which the framers of them
hoped that they might effect. We all know what has been the fate of
the constitutions which were written throughout the French
Revolution for the use of France. We all, here in England, have the
same ludicrous conception of Utopian theories of government framed
by philosophical individuals who imagine that they have learned from
books a perfect system of managing nations. To produce such
theories is especially the part of a Frenchman; to disbelieve in
them is especially the part of an Englishman. But in the States a
system of government has been produced, under a written
constitution, in which no Englishman can disbelieve, and which every
Frenchman must envy. It has done its work. The people have been
free, well educated, and politically great. Those among us who are
most inclined at the present moment to declare that the institutions
of the United States have failed, can at any rate only declare that
they have failed in their finality; that they have shown themselves
to be insufficient to carry on the nation in its advancing strides
through all times. They cannot deny that an amount of success and
prosperity, much greater than the nation even expected for itself,
has been achieved under this Constitution and in connection with it.
If it be so, they cannot disbelieve in it. Let those who now say
that it is insufficient, consider what their prophecies regarding it
would have been had they been called on to express their opinions
concerning it when it was proposed in 1787.
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