The Project Gutenberg eBook, Experiments in Government and the Essentials
of the Constitution, by Elihu Root

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Title: Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution

Author: Elihu Root

Release Date: December 17, 2003 [eBook #10485]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT AND THE
ESSENTIALS OF THE CONSTITUTION***

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EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT AND THE ESSENTIALS OF THE CONSTITUTION

BY

ELIHU ROOT

1913

PREFACE

The familiar saying that nothing is settled until it is settled right
expresses only a half truth. Questions of general and permanent importance
are seldom finally settled. A very wise man has said that "short of the
multiplication table there is no truth and no fact which must not be proved
over again as if it had never been proved, from time to time." Conceptions
of social rights and obligations and the institutions based upon them
continue unquestioned for long periods as postulates in all discussions
upon questions of government. Whatever conduct conforms to them is assumed
to be right. Whatever is at variance with them is assumed to be wrong.
Then a time comes when, with apparent suddenness, the ground of discussion
shifts and the postulates are denied. They cease to be accepted without
proof and the whole controversy in which they were originally established
is fought over again.

The people of the United States appear now to have entered upon such a
period of re-examination of their system of government. Not only are
political parties denouncing old abuses and demanding new laws, but
essential principles embodied in the Federal Constitution of 1787, and long
followed in the constitutions of all the states, are questioned and denied.
The wisdom of the founders of the Republic is disputed and the political
ideas which they repudiated are urged for approval.

I wish in these lectures to present some observations which may have a
useful application in the course of this process.

I

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