Eighteen Or Twenty
Millions Of People Who Have Lived Under It, - In What Way Do They
Regard It?
Is not that the best evidence that can be had respecting
it?
Is it to them an old woman's story, a useless parchment, a
thing of old words at which all must now smile? Heaven mend them,
if they reverence it more, as I fear they do, than they reverence
their Bible. For them, after seventy-five years of trial, it has
almost the weight of inspiration. In this respect, with reference
to this worship of the work of their forefathers, they may be in
error. But that very error goes far to prove the excellence of the
code. When a man has walked for six months over stony ways in the
same boots, he will be believed when he says that his boots are good
boots. No assertion to the contrary from any by-stander will
receive credence, even though it be shown that a stitch or two has
come undone, and that some required purpose has not effectually been
carried out. The boots have carried the man over his stony roads
for six months, and they must be good boots. And so I say that the
Constitution must be a good constitution.
As to that positive breach of the Constitution which has, as I
maintain, been committed by the present government, although I have
been at some trouble to prove it, I must own that I do not think
very much of it.
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