Our Changing Constitution

of man." The casual reader of the Constitution will be at a loss to account for such adulation. It will seem to him a businesslike document, outlining a scheme of government in terse and well-chose

This task, however, was decided to be hopeless, and with great boldness the convention proceeded to disregard instructions and prepare a wholly new Constitution constructed on a plan radically different from that of the Articles of Confederation. The contents of the Constitution, as finally drafted and submitted for ratification, may be described in few words. It created a legislative department consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, an executive department headed by a President, and a judicial department headed by a Supreme Court, and prescribed in general terms the qualifications, powers, and functions of each. I

titutional scheme was none of these. It was something new, and its novel features were relied upon as a protection from the evils which had developed under the other plans. The greatness of the Constitution lay in its nice adjustment of the powers of government, notably the division of powers which it effected between the National Government and the states. The powers conferred on the National Government were clearly set forth. All were of a stri

o count in the apportionment of representatives. (The number of a state's representatives was to be determined "by adding to the whole number of free persons ... three-fifths of all other persons.") Another was the provision that direct taxes should be apportioned among the states according to population. With all its compromises, however, the Constitution embodied a great governmental principle, full of

ten brief amendments were proposed and speedily ratified. Another amendment (No. XI) was soon afterward adopted for the purpose of doing away with the effect of a Supreme Court decision. Thereafter, save for a change in the manner of electing the President and Vice-president, the Constitution was not again amended until after the close of the Civil War, when Amendments XIII, XIV, and XV, havin

ople. These instances demonstrate the possibility of a recall of judicial decisions by constitutional methods, and tend to refute impatient reformers who preach the necessity of a more summary procedure. Such questions, however, lie outside the scope of this book. We emphasize here the fact that the great achievement of the Const

e Critical Period of Am

portance of preserving the constitutional eq

n, and when the self-government of the states shall have been so far lost as that of the departments of France, or even so far as that of the counties of England-on that day the progress

e 1: Id.

of statement, these words will serve as a fitti