A Word To The The Teachers And Others
“The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. The Government of the United States has been emphatically termed, a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.”
These words of Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, are the most significant and far reaching in their effect upon human government that were ever uttered by the lips of man.
“A government of laws and not of men.” This expresses the fundamental difference between the government of this great American republic and all other systems of government devised by man before the Constitution of the United States came into being.[113]
Government has been the great problem of the human race throughout all the ages since mankind first started out upon the great highway of life. The greatest problem men have ever been called upon to solve is “how they might live together in communities without cutting each others throats”.
As we look back at the warring world of yesterday, yea as we look at the warring world to-day (1920), we are reminded that the history of the human family tells a long, sad story of war and bloodshed and death. The path which humanity has traveled stretches back into the dim distance, a long [pg 203] gleaming line of white human bones. The flowers, the trees, and the shrubs along the way have been nurtured by the red blood that flowed from human hearts. All over the world the battle has waged; away down in Egypt where the Nile scatters her riches; upon the banks of the Tiber which for centuries has reflected the majesty of Rome; upon the heights above the castle crowned Rhine; on the banks of the peaceful Thames; and upon the prairies that sweep back from the Father of Waters, men have fought and died. In the field and in the forest, by the sweet running brook, and upon the burning sands, in the mountain pass, and in the stony streets of the populous city, within the chancel rail of holy churches, and at the dark entrance to the Bastile—in all these places, and in a thousand more, the hand of the oppressed has been lifted against the oppressor, the right to be free that God gave to men has struggled with the power which might has given, and, alas! so often might has triumphed, and the slave, sick at heart, has been scourged to his dungeon. On a thousand hillsides burning fagots have consumed men who dared to dream of freedom, and in dark and slimy prison cells where God's sunlight seldom entered, men have rotten with clanking chains upon their limbs because they dared to ask for the rights of freemen.
In the olden days force ruled the world; the king, the crown, the scepter, were the insignia of power. All about were the instruments of force, the cannon, the moated castle, the marching armies of the king.
And so it was until the American Nation was born, a Nation founded by exiles who were fleeing from oppression, from unrestrained power, exiles who dreamed of establishing a Nation, exiles with stout hearts and with strong hands with which to build it—a Nation where there would be no master and no slaves, where the citizen would rule and not the soldier, where the home and the school and not the castle [pg 204] would stand as the citadel of the Nation, where the steel would at last be molded into plowshares, and not into swords, where, instead of martial music, the song of the plowboy and the hum of the spinning wheel would greet the ear, where lust for power would be dethroned and brute force strangled, where love would rule and not brutality, where justice and not vengeance would be the end of judicial investigation, where the rights of men to live and to enjoy the fruits of their labor would be recognized. This was the dream of the fathers of the republic as they laid the foundation in the long ago.
But this dream never would have been realized had it not been for the recognition of that great constitutional principle, announced by Chief Justice Marshall, that in this Nation the law is supreme; not supreme alone with the citizen, but supreme with the Nation and the States that compose the Nation; not supreme with the humble toiler, but supreme with the richest and the strongest; not supreme in theory, but supreme in truth and in fact.
This great principle of the supremacy of the law finds its origin in that immortal document, the Constitution of the United States.[114]
Few there are in these modern days who fully appreciate the wonderful blessings of a written Constitution which gives recognition to the fundamental natural rights of man, and provides guaranties against the invasion of these rights.
Gladstone, the eminent statesman, said:
It (the American Constitution) is the greatest work ever struck off at any one time by the mind and purpose of man.
An eminent lawyer has said:
It has been the priceless adjunct of free government, the mighty shield of the rights and liberties of the citizen. It has been many times invoked to save him from illegal punishment, and save his property from the greed of unscrupulous enemies, and to save his political fights from the unbridled license of victorious political opponents controlling [pg 205] legislative bodies; nor does it sleep, except as a sword dedicated to a righteous cause sleeps in its scabbard.
Horace Binney says:
What were the States before the Union? The hope of their enemies, the fear of their friends, and arrested only by the Constitution from becoming the shame of the world.
Sir Henry Maine gives the following estimate of the Constitution:
It isn't at all easy to bring home to the men of the present day, how low the credit of the Republic had sunk before the establishment of the United States.... Its success has been so great and striking, that men have almost forgotten, that if the whole, or the known experiments of mankind in governments be looked at together, there has been no form of government so successful as the republican.
Justice Mitchell of Pennsylvania, some twenty odd years ago said:
A century and a decade has passed since the Constitution of the United States was adopted. Dynasties have arisen and fallen, boundaries have extended and shrunken 'till continents seem almost the playthings of imagination and war; nationalities have been asserted and subdued; governments built up only to be overthrown, and the kingdoms of the earth from the Pillars of Hercules to the Yellow Sea have been shaken to their foundations. Through all this change and obstruction, the Republic, shortest lived of all forms of government in the prior history of the world, surviving the perils of foreign and domestic war, has endured and flourished.
And yet, it is true, “and pity 'tis, 'tis true”, that in these days there seems to be a great lack of confidence, nay even a feeling of contempt existing in the minds and hearts of many men for this great charter of human liberty. Men born to the blessings of freedom, men who do not stop to think about the cost of freedom, men who do not realize that this Nation is not the child of chance, but that it is the outgrowth of centuries of tears and blood and sacrifice in the cause of human freedom—these men assume an attitude of criticism, and would, by destroying the Constitution, fly from the “ills we have” and open their arms to evils “we know not of”.
And this feeling, this unrest, this spirit of criticism, is not limited to the ignorant, nor the lowly. Many men and women of education and culture are prominent in the ranks of those who raise their voices in reckless condemnation.
What is the source of this widespread feeling?
For several years before the World War, we were passing through a period of readjustment in the political and social life of the Nation. Many people felt that privilege was too strongly entrenched in governmental favor. A noble feeling of sympathy for the weak and the unfortunate created a demand for social justice. A great political party was thrown out of power. Out of all this came appeals for legislation, most of it inspired by the highest motives, but much of it impractical and visionary, some of it so framed that in providing a benefit for a certain class, the rights of some other class were forgotten. Often it became necessary to recall the provisions of the Constitution, and some times it was used as a bar to the enactment of measures which were inspired only by the loftiest motives. Under such circumstances it is only natural that those intensely interested, seeing only from one standpoint, not understanding perhaps the far reaching effect of their favorite measures, should cry out at the limitations imposed by the Constitution.
Then again courts are sometimes compelled, under their sworn duty to defend the Constitution, to hold that a legislative enactment is unconstitutional and void, because it violates some of the principles of that great document, created, not by courts, not by presidents, but by the people themselves for their own guidance and protection.
But Chief Justice White gives the strongest reason for this feeling of contempt for the Constitution. He says:
There is great danger, it seems to me, to arise, from the constant habit which prevails where anything is opposed or objected to, of resorting without rhyme or reason, to the Constitution as a means of preventing its accomplishment, thus creating the general impression that the Constitution is but a barrier to progress, instead of being the broad highway through which alone true progress, may be enjoyed.
Not only is this true, but unfortunately it is also true that every base murderer who begins to feel the rope tighten about his neck can find some lawyer who can devise some alleged [pg 207] constitutional reason why his client should not hang. The courts are constantly engaged in defending the Constitution against these base and unworthy attempts to defeat justice.
Then upon every hand are those who hate authority, who despise law and order, and who denounce the Constitution because it stands between them and a realization of their greedy, vicious purposes.
Justice White further says that there is “a growing tendency to suppose that every wrong that exists, despite the system, and which would be many times worse if the system did not exist, is attributable to it, and therefore that the Constitution should be disregarded or over-thrown”.
The foregoing are some, but not all of the causes which weaken the faith of the people in the Constitution.
Now recognizing that there is in this Nation a lack of respect for the Constitution, and knowing something of the causes which underlie this feeling, and realizing that the Constitution is in very truth the fortress and the glory of our republic, what is our duty?
The duty of every man, woman, and child in America is to defend the Constitution with his life, if necessary, against those who condemn and traduce and seek to destroy.
But how shall we defend it? Shall we oppose all amendments of the Constitution? No, by its very terms it is subject to amendment; but in contemplating its amendment, we should approach this sacred document in the same reverent spirit we would have if we were entering upon some holy shrine. It is the people's Constitution; it is their right to amend it. Yea, it is their duty to amend it, if upon due deliberation, the rights of the whole people can be better protected or enforced.
Complaint is sometimes made because of the delay involved in its amendment; but the provisions of the Constitution requiring [pg 208] deliberation were wisely inserted. It was intended that fundamental principles should not be changed under the inspiration of sudden passion. It contemplated mature deliberation. The fathers of the Republic were mindful of the storms which at times in the history of the world had swept the people to destruction.[115]
Shall we rebuke the people who seek reforms? Shall we decry progress or change? No, we should be the leaders in all such reforms. We should aid in guiding public sentiment along channels safe and sound and constitutional. We should give recognition to the appeals of those who would lighten the burdens of our brothers who may be heavy laden. We should aid in convincing the people that the Constitution is no restraint upon their aspirations for higher and better things; that it is in truth the guide and inspiration to better things.
Shall we condemn those who through lack of knowledge do not appreciate the great value of the Constitution? No, we should teach them. We should lead them. We should inspire them with love and veneration for this great bulwark of human freedom.
We must in very truth become teachers of all the people. We must carry to them the light of our knowledge. We must point out to them the rocks upon which other republics have been wrecked.[116]
We must teach them that in the Constitution we find an absolute guaranty of protection for life, for liberty, and for property rights. That there is no man so lowly, that he cannot point to the Constitution as his shield from the acts of the tyrant, that he cannot point to his humble home as his “castle”, and under the sacred guaranties of the Constitution defy all the unlawful force of the world.
We must teach them that it guarantees the inviolability of [pg 209] contracts, that it prevents even a great State from taking the life or property of its humblest citizen without a trial under due process of law, that trial by jury is preserved, and that no man can be convicted of a crime without the privilege of being represented by counsel, and that no man can be compelled to be a witness against himself.
We must recall to them the awful tragedies enacted in the days of old, where, under Star Chamber proceedings, men were deprived of their property and their lives upon charges of treason, which were never proven; and then we must point out to them the burning words of the Constitution, which provides that no man can be found guilty of treason without at least two witnesses to the overt act.
We must impress upon them the great truth, that there is not now, and never has been, a system of government which can abolish sorrow, or sickness, or stay the hand of death. That no government can help men who will not help themselves; that there is no way in which any government can bring riches to the indolent, nor bread to those who will not toil. We must combat the false philosophy which assumes that all men are equal in all things, because men are not equal, except as under the Constitution they are equal before the law. No system of legislation and no method of government can equalize the strong with the weak, the wise with the simple, the good with the bad. While God gives to some men wisdom and shrewdness which others do not possess, while some are broad shouldered, with muscles of steel, and others are frail, and tremble as they walk, there will always be riches, there will always be poverty, and any scheme for equalizing the possessions of men is but an idle dream which never can be realized until men are made over into beings without passion or pride or ambition or selfishness. Do not let them feel that its provisions are intended to protect only the rich and powerful. If the right of a railway [pg 210] corporation to certain lands is sustained under some constitutional provision, do not allow the people to assume that this provision exists only for corporations, but impress upon them that the same constitutional provision which protects the railway company in its rights, may be invoked in defense of the little homestead out upon the prairies.
If some desperado should be acquitted because he invoked the constitutional requirement that he upon his trial must be confronted by the witnesses against him, remind those who criticise that this same provision is made for their sons who may to-morrow be unjustly charged with a crime; impress upon them that it is impossible to have one law for the guilty, and another for the innocent; and that under our Constitution, every man is presumed to be innocent until proven to be guilty.
Then impress upon the people something of the wonderful growth of the Nation, the development of the Nation, and the progress of the Nation—all under the wise protection of the Constitution. To those who may be discouraged in the battle of life, and who may attribute their failure to the injustice of social conditions, point out what other men have done under the same conditions, with no better opportunity, and ask them to ponder the question as to whether their failure is not to be attributed largely to their own lack of energy and determination.[117]
And if they point out abuses which do exist, ask them to aid in eliminating these abuses. If half the energy which is exerted by earnest, but misguided people, in efforts to tear down our form of government, were honestly applied in an effort to remedy existing evils in a constitutional way, these people would show that they were patriots, and at the same time they would accomplish something for their country and their fellowmen.[118]
Too long have we been silent while the enemies of our [pg 211] country have poisoned the minds of youth, yea, and of manhood and womanhood, with the gospel of treason.
Those who despise and condemn the Constitution have in the past ten years had more earnest students of their vicious doctrines than have those who uphold the Constitution and prize their liberties which the Constitution guards and protects.
All over the land earnest men and women are endeavoring to teach the great truth of Americanism, and with substantial success; but those who understand human nature realize that the faith of our fathers can only be firmly established by lighting the fires of patriotism and loyalty in the hearts of our children. Through them the great truths of our National life can be brought into the homes of the land.
And the Nation will never be safe until the Constitution is carried into the homes, until at every fireside young and old shall feel a new sense of security in the guaranties which are found in this great charter of human liberty, and a new feeling of gratitude for the blessings which it assures to this, and to all future generations.