lled opinions. But we merely meant to refer to facts
which are a part of the history of the country. They go to show, that
constitutional doubts and difficulties are continually increasing, not
only from the new positions and aspects of things in the endless
vicissitudes of human affairs, but also by the progress of refinement in
reasoning; because much is now considered unconstitutional that was not
deemed so formerly.

If this doubting, disputatious spirit--this habit of questioning every
thing whenever a quibble can be raised--should continue to advance,
where is the law, which, after fighting its way through both houses of
the legislature, and, perhaps, escaping the veto, may not be eventually
contested and defeated? We know that in many of the states there are
_Bills of Rights_, which are considered to have equal authority with
their constitutions. Some, indeed, regard them as settling the
principles of primordial law, which the constitution itself cannot
countervail. These, then, may also be appealed to for the purpose of
proving the unconstitutionality of a state law; and in the inferences
which ingenuity, or even stupidity, may draw from such broad and
indefinite principles, the clearest right may be disputed, and the most
atrocious crime defended. The right of a community to take the life of
any one of its citizens has been gravely denied, and the argument rests
for its support on the imprescriptible and immutable rights of man. If
the net-work of the laws shall be thus chafed and frittered away, little
fish, as well as big ones, may break through it when and where they
please.

We are aware, that, in the ordinary concerns of life, nature and reason
will often assert their empire. They cannot be altogether cheated out of
their rights by sophisms and quibbling. But the latter will but too
often prevail. They have prevailed, are yet prevailing; and, if a
barrier is to be presented to their further progress, it must be by the
common sense of the nation, frowning into contempt this constitutional
casuistry, which would degrade our legislative halls into schools of
sophists--would employ the best powers of the human mind, not in
clearing up doubts, but in creating them--which considers that the most
obvious and direct meaning of the constitution is always the wrong one,
and that what the convention made the people say by that instrument, can
be understood but by one man in ten thousand, who cannot show he is
right