That Which Was Wanted From Some Form Of
Government, Has Been Obtained With Much More Than Average
Excellence; And Therefore The Form Adopted Has Approved Itself As
Good.
You may explain to a farmer's wife, with indisputable logic,
that her churn is a bad churn; but as long as she turns out butter
in greater quantity, in better quality, and with more profit than
her neighbors, you will hardly induce her to change it.
It may be
that with some other churn she might have done even better; but,
under such circumstances, she will have a right to think well of the
churn she uses.
The American Constitution is now, I think, at the crisis of its
severest trial. I conceive it to be by no means perfect, even for
the wants of the people who use it; and I have already endeavored to
explain what changes it seems to need. And it has had this defect -
that it has permitted a falling away from its intended modes of
action, while its letter has been kept sacred. As I have endeavored
to show, universal suffrage and democratic action in the Senate were
not intended by the framers of the Constitution. In this respect
the Constitution has, as it were, fallen through, and it is needed
that its very beams should be restrengthened. There are also other
matters as to which it seems that some change is indispensable. So
much I have admitted. But, not the less, judging of it by the
entirety of the work that it has done, I think that we are bound to
own that it has been successful.
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