by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a
country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis
and opinion, exposes to perpetual changes, from the endless variety of
hypothesis and opinion."

While, in the nature of things, each generation must assume the task of
adapting the working of its government to new conditions of life as they
arise, it would be the folly of ignorant conceit for any generation to
assume that it can lightly and easily improve upon the work of the founders
in those matters which are, by their nature, of universal application to
the permanent relations of men in civil society.

Religion, the philosophy of morals, the teaching of history, the experience
of every human life, point to the same conclusion--that in the practical
conduct of life the most difficult and the most necessary virtue is
self-restraint. It is the first lesson of childhood; it is the quality for
which great monarchs are most highly praised; the man who has it not is
feared and shunned; it is needed most where power is greatest; it is needed
more by men acting in a mass than by individuals, because men in the mass
are more irresponsible and difficult of control than individuals. The
makers of our constitution, wise and earnest students of history and
of life, discerned the great truth that self-restraint is the supreme
necessity and the supreme virtue of a democracy. The people of the United
States have exercised that virtue by the establishment of rules of right
action in what we call the limitations of the constitution, and until
this day they have rigidly observed those rules. The general judgment of
students of government is that the success and permanency of the American
system of government are due to the establishment and observance of
such general rules of conduct. Let us change and adapt our laws as the
shifting-conditions of the times require, but let us never abandon or
weaken this fundamental and essential characteristic of our ordered
liberty.

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

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