Constitution, prophetically said that it would be
the admiration of the future ages and the pattern for future
constitution building. Time has verified his prediction, for
constitution making has been, since the American Constitution was
adopted, a continuous industry. The American Constitution has been the
classic model for the federated State. Lieber estimated that three
hundred and fifty constitutions were made in the first sixty years of
the nineteenth century, and, in the constituent States of the American
Union, one hundred and three new Constitutions were promulgated in the
first century of the United States.

"Have you a copy of the French Constitution?" was asked of a bookseller
during the second French Empire, and the characteristically witty Gallic
reply was: "We do not deal in periodical literature."

Constitutions, as governmental panaceas, have come and gone; but it can
be said of the American Constitution, paraphrasing the noble tribute of
Dr. Johnson to the immortal fame of Shakespeare, that the stream of
time, which has washed away the dissoluble fabric of many other paper
constitutions has left almost untouched its adamantine strength.
Excepting the first ten amendments, which were virtually a part of the
original charter, only nine others have been adopted in more than one
hundred and thirty years.

A constitution, while primarily for the distribution of governmental
powers, is, in its last analysis, a formal expression of adherence to
that which in modern times has been called the higher law, and which in
ancient times was called natural law. The jurisprudence of every nation
has, with more or less clearness, recognized the existence of certain
primal and fundamental laws which are superior to the laws, statutes, or
conventions of living generations. The original use of the term was to
import the superiority of the Imperial edict to the laws of the Comitia.
All nations have recognized this higher law to a greater or less extent.
If we turn to the writings of the most intellectual race in ancient
time and possibly in recorded history--the Greeks--we shall see the
higher law vindicated with incomparable power in the moral philosophy of
its three greatest dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. How
was it better expressed than by Antigone when she was asked whether she
had transgressed the laws of the state and replied:

"Yes, for that law was not from Zeus, nor did Justice, dweller wit