ou have got to get it yourselves.
(Applause). Now, let's see what you have got to do.

In the first place, you must elect a congress, and the congress does
not take its seat for a year after they are elected; and then they run
up against the United States senate, holding six year terms, and
one-third of them passing away each two years, none of them elected
upon the issue upon which congress were elected, mostly old men and
generally rich men--rich enough to get the job. (Laughter). Now you
have got to get the law through congress and through the senate both,
which is well nigh impossible, if it is a law of any consequence. And
then here comes a president, who is elected by the people for four
years, and he must sign it, and if congress and the senate or the
president refuses, then you can't do it. Excepting if the president
refuses then you have got to get two-thirds of both the houses, which
is impossible if the law amounts to anything, and then you have only
begun. If you should happen to get all these three at once, which we
never did and never will on anything very important because the claws
are all cut out of any bill before it ever gets very far,--then you
have only begun. Then here is this document, this sacred document
which came down from Mount Sinai one hundred and twenty-five years
ago, The Constitution, and you lay down the law beside the
Constitution and see whether it is unconstitutional or not and of
course you could not tell. You would not know anything about it.
Congress could not tell; the senate could not tell; the president
could not tell. There is only one tribunal that could tell, and that
is the Supreme Court. And while the Constitution fills about ten
pages, the interpretation of the Constitution will fill a hundred
volumes or more. (Laughter). And the Constitution is not what is
written in ten pages but it is what is written in the decisions of the
judges covering over a hundred years; and they don't always agree, at
that, which makes some of them right. If they all agreed probably none
of them would be right. (Laughter).

So if you should ever succeed in getting a law past congress with its
two year term, and the senate with its six, and the president with his
four, any one of whom may block it, and will, if it is important, then
you have got to pass it to these wise judges who are not elected at
all and who have no interests with the people because they are
holding their office for life an