of the state. Without necessarily admitting the inevitable "decline of this conception from that of a state mind whose rule is the rule of appetite and force," it is obvious that the German idea of the state is diametrically opposed to the conception of the state held by Americans, and that the German notion of liberty, flowing from the German notion of the state, is to the

truth might make them free. And freedom is not an intellectual state; it is a possession to be guarded vigilantly and fought for valiantly. fought for valiantly. And the reconciliation of liberty and democracy will fully come to pass not merely when men think in terms of law and justice, but when they act the part of good citi

zens.

at all.

"How then," asks Professor Alexander, "shall we save our state and its ideals? Is a truly democratic liberty possible? Organization for material interests is essential to human society; yet organization of ideal interests is ruinous. Can we maintain the one and avoid the other?" The just mean, he conceives, is to be found only in the way of a clearer conception of law and justice, that longed-for ideal of healthy freedom and real justice, which desires that force shall be used no longer to create law, but that law shall regulate the use of force. But above all we need a prophet, a Socrates, to sting the lethargic souls of men. For "in the United States to-day I seem to see a petty efficiency prized over liberty, party loyalty over justice, subservience to mob expression over the exercise of individual reason. These, I believe, are symptoms of a deep and biting disease. And for its cure I can conceive no other agency than the personal inspiration of personal thought." The professor might have added that the philosophy of Socrates did not remain in the clouds. He meant it to issue in action. He taught his disciples to see the truth, but it was in order that the

To restate the philosophy on which the Constitution of the United States was founded is the object of David Jayne Hill's timely and illuminating article, "A Defense of the Constitution," in the March number of the North American Review. To realize how opportune is a return to such a study of basic principles, we have only to remind ourselves of the tide of criticism and hostility to the Constitution now unhappily prevalent, of the hundred proposals to amend it, some of them quite revolutionary, of the disposition to forsake the safe and tried highway and wander into the field of rash experimentation in government, and of the ill-concealed purpose of those who wish to dismember the Constitution to use their new freedom for some form of spoliation, to destroy some form of personal liberty, or to force upon protesting states or individuals some surrender of their constitutional rights. Besides it is unfortunately the fact that the people in the mass have no comprehension of what the Constitution really means for the common man. The enormous majority of Americans are neither plutocrats nor proletarians. They are just the plain

Do

people, the substantial citizens. they realize how intimately the Constitution is concerned in the preservation of all that is dear to them-their pride of freedom, their little possessions, their opportunities for advancement, their pursuit of happiness?

The establishment of our Constitution was in fact, as Dr. Hill points out, “the first attempt in history to lay the foundations of government in the deep setting of human rights." It gave to government a human foundation instead of a merely dynamic foundation. For the unique contribution of the American Constitution to political philosophy was the conception of liberty as a strictly personal prerogative, as distinguished from something appertaining to the citizenry in the aggregate, or the concession of a monarch to the demands of his subjects. From this premise it must follow that the prime concern of our system of government is not the state, but the citizen. The collective purpose of the people is to be accomplished through the state as their instrument. But there is no room in our philosophy for the conception of a state endowed with a will and a soul of its own, commanding the subservience of its constituent members and rightfully entitled to exploit their lives and industry for its own purposes. On the contrary, with us, liberty is not a gift from above, but the necessary precondition of selfrealization. In this view, the purpose of government is "not to repress but to elicit the powers of the individual by creating the conditions for their peaceful and profitable activity. In effect, government, in this conception of it,

can be nothing else than the legal organization of liberty." The real problem of the founders was to reconcile government with liberty. But they

were utterly unable to admit that there could exist anywhere in human society an unlimited and absolute authority. The reconciliation was to be effected by the enactment of just and equal laws, bility of tyranny or oppression. but also by the exclusion of any possi

It is very significant in this connection, as Dr. Hill reminds us, that the very name of "sovereignty" was hateful and revolting to the men of the American Revolution, because of its implication of arbitrary power on the one hand and of obedience on the other. A "sovereign" has "subjects." But they were not the subjects of anybody, not of King George, not of each other, and not, if they could help it, of the state they intended to found. The word "sovereignty" does not appear in the Declaration of Independence. It is found in the Articles of Confederation ("each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence"), but the meaning here is that no central power claiming sovereign authority in the absolute sense could be allowed to imperil local liberty. And the Constitution was "ordained and established" by "the People." We often speak of "the sovereignty of the people." This is correct. Under our system of government the collegiate sovereignty in the state and nation resides in the people. But popular sovereignty under written constitutions does not connote unrestricted power. It is not in any way inconsistent with the restraints imposed by the constitutions. It is some

thing altogether different from a right of revolution. In effect, both the justification for the term and the ultimate attribute of the thing it means are found in the rightful power of the people, proceeding in the forms of law, to alter and amend their constitutions when and as they will. Our sovereign has no subjects. But above the impulses of men stands the majesty of law. And if we would preserve our liberty, we need never be ashamed to avow, in the noble words of Cicero, that "we are all the servants of the law in order that we may be free."

"Tinkering the Constitution"

Although Mr. L. White Busbey's very valuable paper, "Tinkering the Constitution," was published more than a year ago (The Unpopular Review, January, 1916), the subject of which it treats is of perennial rather than passing interest, and it may be heartily

commended to the attention of those who care to inform themselves as to the multitudinous proposals for the amendment of the once-venerated instrument, the Constitution of the United States. Many people will be surprised, a few startled, to learn that more than 2,500 resolutions to amend the Constitution have been introduced in Congress since the date of its adoption. It is not at all easy to put through a constitutional amendment. But the facts of history should go far to convince us that this is not a deplorable condition, but a saving one. For had it been otherwise, or had it been possible to secure the adoption of even a considerable part of the 2,500 resolutions, the Constitu

tion, as Mr. Busbey says, "would long ago have become a medley of contradictions and a patchwork as curious as that produced at the old-fashioned quilting-bee, when our grandmothers gathered around the frame, each with an assortment of brilliantly colored and oddly shaped patches to piece into the crazy quilt for exhibition at the county fair." Space does not permit us to follow Mr. Busbey through his instructive review of the character of these proposed amendments, further than to say that very few appear to have been supported by any weighty considerations, while many have been entirely trivial and not a few actually ludicrous. It is amusing to note how the Constitution as the natural remedy many people think first of amending for any condition of public affairs which does not wholly suit them, and what floods of proposed amendments have reflected nothing more than a temporary irritation, spite against an unpopular official, hostility to a religious body or a creed, disappointment over an election, dissent from the decision of a court, or perhaps the crest of a fast-subsiding wave of popular reform,-in short, an impulse so ephemeral that, had the proposed amendment been adopted, the very reason for its existence would have been forgotten in a few years. There is much truth in the remark attributed to Daniel Webster that the Constitution has been "a collection of topics for everlasting controversy, heads of debate for a disputatious people."

Another circumstance of interest is that many of the most recent demands for changes in the fundamental law

turn out to be nothing more than echoes from an agitated but long-buried past. The "recall of judges" is a topic much in the public mind to-day, but it was proposed more than a hundred years ago, when John Randolph advocated an amendment for the removal of federal judges on the joint address of both houses of Congress, as to which, however, it should be said that this method of removal has always been understood in England (where it has occasionally been practised) to imply a full defense and hearing, something not essentially different from the proceedings on an impeachment. So, in 1869, a representative from Ohio proposed an amendment to the effect that United States judges should not be eligible to any office under the national government, declaring that one-third of the members of the Supreme Court were crazed with the glitter of the presidency, and that he wanted to remove the germ of that insanity. It cannot have been forgotten that a very similar amendment was offered in 1916. To limit the President to a single term of office is a proposition attracting much contemporary notice; but that likewise is something like a hundred years old.

How many of us were aware that an amendment proposed in 1810 was still undecided and before the state legislatures for their consideration? In the year mentioned a proposal was brought forward for elaborating and making more stringent the prohibition against accepting gifts, emoluments, or titles from foreign powers without the consent of Congress. Mr. Busbey tells us that "this amendment was adopted by Congress, submitted to the states,

ratified by twelve of them, and under the impression that the necessary three-fourths had ratified, it was printed as a part of the Constitution, and remained there until 1817, when, in answer to an inquiry from Congress, the State Department reported that no record could be found of any action by the state of Virginia. It was concluded that the amendment had failed and it was dropped from the official copy of the Constitution. There is a contention, which is supported by precedent, that when a state has once approved a constitutional amendment, that approval can never be withdrawn. On this contention, that amendment submitted to the states more than a hundred years ago is still alive and pending, with twelve votes in its favor."

Constitution has become an old-fashLest it be thought that tinkering the ioned sport, like bear-baiting, it is well to emphasize the fact brought out by the article under review, that more than 1,000 proposals for amendments have been offered in Congress within the last fifty years. It is also significant that a large part of them are designed to effect the moral regeneration of the people by force of the fundamental law. The authors of the Constitution, including its early amendments, were concerned with writing into it prohibitions against the government. Presentday tinkers seek to write into the Constitution prohibitions against the citi

zen.

No doubt there is ripe political ability among the men of our generation. But those who are impatient to remodel the organic law of the Republic might profitably pause a moment