I Have Now Endeavored To Describe The Strength Of The Constitution
Of The United States, And To Explain Its Weakness.
The great
question is at this moment being solved, whether or no that
Constitution will still be found equal to its requirements.
It has
hitherto been the main-spring in the government of the people. They
have trusted with almost childlike confidence to the wisdom of their
founders, and have said to their rulers - "There! in those words you
must find the extent and the limit of your powers. It is written
down for you, so that he who runs may read." That writing down, as
it were, at a single sitting, of a sufficient code of instructions
for the governors of a great nation, had not hitherto in the world's
history been found to answer. In this instance it has, at any rate,
answered better than in any other, probably because the words so
written contained in them less pretense of finality in political
wisdom than other written constitutions have assumed. A young tree
must bend, or the winds will certainly break it. For myself I can
honestly express my hope that no storm may destroy this tree.
CHAPTER X.
THE GOVERNMENT.
In speaking of the American Constitution I have said so much of the
American form of government that but little more is left to me to
say under that heading. Nevertheless, I should hardly go through
the work which I have laid out for myself if I did not endeavor to
explain more continuously, and perhaps more graphically, than I
found myself able to do in the last chapter, the system on which
public affairs are managed in the United States.
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