ut these were men without
experience. They had no capacity to govern, and they were selected
without wisdom on the part of the people. The people, in fact, had not
the ability to select their best and wisest men for rulers. That is an
evil inherent in all popular governments. Does San Francisco or New York
send its greatest men to Congress? Do not our cities elect such rulers
as the demagogues point out? Do not the few rule, even in a
Congregational church? If some commanding genius, unscrupulous or wise
or eloquent or full of tricks, controls elections with us, much more
easily could such a man as Savonarola rule in Florence, where there were
no political organizations, no caucuses, no wirepullers, no other man of
commanding ability. The only opinion-maker was this preacher, who
indicated the general policy to be pursued. He left elections to the
people; and when these proved a failure, a new constitution became a
necessity. But where were the men capable of framing a constitution for
the republic? Two generations of political slavery had destroyed
political experience. The citizens were as incapable of framing a new
constitution as the legislators of France after they had decimated the
nobility, confiscated the Church lands, and cut off the head of the
king. The lawyers disputed in the town hall, but accomplished nothing.

Their science amounted only to an analysis of human passion. All wanted
a government entirely free from tyranny; all expected impossibilities.
Some were in favor of a Venetian aristocracy, and others of a pure
democracy; yet none would yield to compromise, without which no
permanent political institution can ever be framed. How could the
inexperienced citizens of Florence comprehend the complicated relations
of governments? To make a constitution that the world respects requires
the highest maturity of human wisdom. It is the supremest labor of great
men. It took the ablest man ever born among the Jews to give to them a
national polity. The Roman constitution was the fruit of five hundred
years' experience. Our constitution was made by the wisest, most
dignified, most enlightened body of statesmen that this country has yet
seen, and even they could not have made it without great mutual
concessions. No _one_ man could have made a constitution, however great
his talents and experience,--not even a Jefferson or a Hamilton,--which
the nation would have accepted. It would have been as full of defects as