I Have Declared My Opinion That It Is Inefficient For Some Of Its Required Purposes, And Have Said That, Whether Inefficient Or Efficient, It Has Been Broken And In Some Degree Abandoned.

I maintain, however, that in this I have not contradicted myself.

A boy, who declares his purpose of learning the AEneid by heart, will be held as being successful if at the end of the given period he can repeat eleven books out of the twelve. Nevertheless the reporter, in summing up the achievement, is bound to declare that that other book has not been learned. Under this Constitution of which I have been speaking, the American people have achieved much material success and great political power. As a people they have been happy and prosperous. Their freedom has been secured to them, and for a period of seventy-five years they have lived and prospered without subjection to any form of tyranny. This in itself is much, and should, I think, be held as a preparation for greater things to follow. Such, I think, should be our opinion, although the nation is at the present burdened by so heavy a load of troubles. That any written constitution should serve its purposes and maintain its authority in a nation for a dozen years is in itself much for its framers. Where are now the constitutions which were written for France? But this Constitution has so wound itself into the affections of the people, has become a mark for such reverence and love, has, after a trial of three-quarters of a century, so recommended itself to the judgment of men, that the difficulty consists in touching it, not in keeping it.

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