B INTRODUCTION THE CONSTITUTION AND ITS MAKERS1 ESIDE the question of the maintenance or destruction of the Constitution of the United States all other questions of law and policy sink into utter insignificance. In its presence party lines should disappear and all sectional differences melt away like the early mists of dawn before the rising sun. The Constitution is our fundamental law. Upon its provisions rests the entire fabric of our institutions. It is the oldest of written constitutions. It has served as a model for many nations, both in the Old World and in the New. It has disappointed the expectations of those who opposed it, convinced those who doubted, and won a success beyond the most glowing hopes of those who put faith in it. Such a work is not to be lightly cast down or set aside, or, which would be still worse, remade by crude thinkers and by men who live only to serve and flatter in their own interest the emotion of the moment. We should approach the great subject as our ancestors approached it-simply as Americans with a deep sense of its seriousness and with a clear determination to deal with it only upon full knowledge and after the most mature and calm reflection. The time has come to do this, not only here and now, but everywhere throughout the country. Let us first consider who the men were who made the Constitution and under what conditions they worked. Then let us determine exactly what they meant to doa most vital point, for much of the discussion to which 'Adapted from an address delivered before the Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina, at Raleigh, on November 28, 1911. we have been treated thus far has proceeded upon a complete misapprehension of the purpose and intent of the framers of the Constitution. Finally, let us bring their work and their purposes to the bar of judgment, so that we may decide whether they have failed, whether in their theory of government they were right or wrong then and now, or whether their work has stood the test of time, is broad based on eternal principles of justice, and, if rent or mangled or destroyed, would not in its ruin bring disaster and woes inestimable upon the people who shall wreck their great inheritance and, like The base Indian, throw a pearl away, First, then, of the men who met in Philadelphia in May, 1787, with doubts and fears oppressing them, but with calm, high courage and with a noble aspiration to save their country from the miseries which threatened it, to lead it out from the wilderness of distractions in which it was wandering blind and helpless, into the light, so that the chaos, hateful alike to God and men, might be ended and order put in its place. It is the fashion just now to speak of the framers of the Constitution as worthy, able, and patriotic persons whom we are proud to have embalmed in our history, but toward whom no enlightened man would now think of turning seriously for either guidance or instruction, so thoroughly has everything been altered and so much has intelligence advanced. It is commonly said that they dealt wisely and well with the problems of their day, but that of course they knew nothing of those which confront us, and that it would be worse than folly to be in any degree governed by the opinions of men who lived under such wholly different conditions. It seems to me that this view leaves something to be desired and is not wholly correct or complete. I certainly do not think that all wisdom died with our fathers, but I am quite sure that it was not born yesterday. I fully realize that in saying even this I show myself to be what is called old fashioned, and I know that a study of his tory, which has been one of the pursuits of my life, tends to make a man give more weight to the teachings of the past than it is now thought they deserve. Yet, after all allowance is made, I can not but feel that there is something to be learned from the men who established the Government of the United States, and that their opinions, the result of much and deep reflection, are not without value, even to the wisest among us. On questions of this character, I think, their ideas and conclusions are not lightly to be put aside; for, after all, however much we may now gently patronize them as good old patriots long since laid in their honored graves, they were none the less very remarkable men, who would have been eminent in any period of history and might even, if alive now, attain to distinction. Let us glance over the list of delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. I find, to begin with, that their average age was 43, which is not an extreme senectitude, and the ages range from Franklin, who was 81, to John Francis Mercer, of Virginia, who was 28. Among the older men who were conspicuous in the convention were Franklin, with his more than 80 years; Washington, who was 55; Roger Sherman, who was 66; and Mason and Wythe, of Virginia, who were both 61. But when I looked to see who were the most active forces in that convention, I found that the New Jersey plan was brought forward by William Paterson, who was 42; that the Virginia plan was proposed by Edmund Randolph, who was 34; while Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, whose plan played a large part in the making of the Constitution, was only 29. The greatest single argument, perhaps, which was made in the convention was that of Hamilton, who was 30. The man who contributed more, possibly, than any other to the daily labors of the convention and who followed every detail was Madison, who was 36. The Connecticut compromise was very largely the work of Ellsworth, who was 42; and the committee on style, which made the final draft, was headed by Gouverneur Morris, who was 35. Let us note, then, at the outset that youth and energy, abounding hope, and the sympathy for the new |