with which the great structure of British
and American liberty has been built up generation after generation and
century after century. Through all the seven hundred years since Magna
Charta we have been shaping, adjusting, adapting our system to the new
conditions of life as they have arisen, but we have always held on to
everything essentially good that we have ever had in the system. We have
never undertaken to begin over again and build up a new system under the
idea that we could do it better. We have never let go of Magna Charta or
the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
When we take account of all that governments have sought to do and have
failed to do in this selfish and sinful world, we find that as a rule the
application of new theories of government, though devised by the most
brilliant constructive genius, have availed but little to preserve the
people of any considerable regions of the earth for any long periods from
the evils of despotism on the one hand or of anarchy on the other, or
to raise any considerable portion of the mass of mankind above the hard
conditions of oppression and misery. And we find that our system of
government which has been built up in this practical way through so many
centuries, and the whole history of which is potent in the provisions of
our Constitution, has done more to preserve liberty, justice, security, and
freedom of opportunity for many people for a long period and over a great
portion of the earth, than any other system of government ever devised by
man. Human nature does not change very much. The forces of evil are hard
to control now as they always have been. It is easy to fail and hard
to succeed in reconciling liberty and order. In dealing with this most
successful body of governmental institutions the question should not be
what sort of government do you or I think we should have. What you and I
think on such a subject is of very little value indeed. The question should
be:

How can we adapt our laws and the workings of our government to the new
conditions which confront us without sacrificing any essential element of
this system of government which has so nobly stood the test of time and
without abandoning the political principles which have inspired the growth
of its institutions? For there are political principles, and nothing can
be more fatal to self-government than to lose sight of them under the
influence of apparent expedie