ess
efficient as the national political organ of the American people. Almost
from the start American life has grown more and more national in
substance, in such wise that a rigid constitution which could not have
been developed in a national direction would have been an increasing
source of irritation and protest. But this reenforcement of the
substance of American national life has, until recently, found an
adequate expression in the increasing scope and efficiency of the
Federal government. The Federalists had the insight to anticipate the
kind of government which their country needed; and this was a great and
a rare achievement--all the more so because they were obliged in a
measure to impose it on their fellow-countrymen.

There is, however, another face to the shield. The Constitution was the
expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears.
It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the
bulwark of certain individual and local rights. The Federalists sought
to surround private property, freedom of contract, and personal liberty
with an impregnable legal fortress; and they were forced by their
opponents to amend the original draft of the Constitution in order to
include a still more stringent bill of individual and state rights. Now
I am far from pretending that these legal restrictions have not had
their value in American national history, and were not the expression of
an essential element in the composition and the ideal of the American
nation. The security of private property and personal liberty, and a
proper distribution of activity between the local and the central
governments, demanded at that time, and within limits still demand,
adequate legal guarantees. It remains none the less true, however, that
every popular government should in the end, and after a necessarily
prolonged deliberation, possess the power of taking any action, which,
in the opinion of a decisive majority of the people, is demanded by the
public welfare. Such is not the case with the government organized
under the Federal Constitution. In respect to certain fundamental
provisions, which necessarily receive the most rigid interpretation on
the part of the courts, it is practically unmodifiable. A very small
percentage of the American people can in this respect permanently thwart
the will of an enormous majority, and there can be no justification for
such a condition on any possible theory of popul