have been meticulously examined through intellectual microscopes in
judicial opinions, textbooks, and other commentaries which are as "thick
as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa."

One can say of this document as Dr. Furness, in his variorum edition of
_Hamlet_, says of the words of that character:

"No words by him let fall, no syllable by him uttered, but has been
caught up and pondered, as no words except those of Holy Writ."

But what of its future and how long will the Constitution wholly resist
the washing of time and circumstance? Lord Macaulay once ventured the
prediction that the Constitution would prove unworkable as soon as there
were no longer large areas of undeveloped land and when the United
States became a nation of great cities. That period of development has
arrived. In 1880 only 15 per cent. of the American population lived in
the cities and the remainder were still on the farms. To-day over 52 per
cent, are crowded in one hundred great cities. Lord Macaulay added:

"I believe America's fate is only deferred by physical causes.
Institutions purely democratic will sooner or later destroy liberty
or civilization, or both.... The American Constitution is all sail
and no anchor."

In this last commentary Lord Macaulay was clearly mistaken. As I have
shown, the Constitution is not "purely democratic." It is amazing that
so great a mind should have so little understood that more than any
other Constitution, that of America imposes powerful restraints on
democracy. The experience of a century and a quarter has shown that
while the anchor may at times drag, yet it measurably holds the ship of
state to its ancient moorings. The American Constitution still remains
in its essential principles and still enjoys not only the confidence but
the affection of the great and varied people whom it rules. To the
latter this remarkable achievement must be attributed rather than to any
inherent strength in parchment or red seals, for in a democracy the
living soul of any Constitution must be such belief of the people in its
wisdom and justice. If it should perish to-morrow, it would yet have
enjoyed a life and growth of which any nation or age might be justly
proud. Moreover, it could claim with truth, if it finally perished, that
it had been subjected to conditions for which it was never intended and
that some of its essential principles had been ignored.

The Constitution i