formula, are you going to bind the
People to all future time? The days of Lycurgus are gone by, when we
could swear the People not to alter the Constitution until he should
return. You may make what entries on parchment you please; give me a
Constitution that will last for half a century; that is all I wish for.
No Constitution that you can make will last the one-half of half a
century. Sir, I will stake anything, short of my salvation, that those
who are malcontent now, will be more malcontent, three years hence, than
they are at this day. I have no favor for this Constitution. I shall
vote against its adoption, and I shall advise all the people of my
district to set their faces, aye, and their shoulders, too, against it.

* * * * *

From "Letters to a young Relative."

=_75._= THE ERROR OF DECAYED FAMILIES.

One of the best and wisest men I ever knew has often said to me that a
decayed family could never recover its loss of rank in the world,
until the members of it left off talking and dwelling upon its former
opulence. This remark, founded in a long and clear observation
of mankind, I have seen verified in numerous instances in my own
connections, who, to use the words of my oracle, will never thrive until
they can become poor folks. He added, they may make some struggles, and
with apparent success, to recover lost ground; they may, and sometimes
do, get half way up again; but they are sure to fall back, unless,
reconciling themselves to circumstances, they become in form, as well as
in fact, poor folks.

* * * * *

=_James Kent, 1763-1847._= (Manual, pp. 488, 504.)

From "Commentaries on American Law."

=_76._= LAW OF THE STATES.

The judicial power of the United States is necessarily limited to
national objects. The vast field of the law of property, the very
extensive head of equity jurisdiction, and the principal rights and
duties which flow from our civil and domestic relations, fall within the
control, and we might almost say the exclusive cognizance, of the state
governments. We look essentially to the state courts for protection to
all these momentous interests. They touch, in their operation, every
chord of human sympathy, and control our best destinies. It is their
province to reward and to punish. Their blessings and their terrors will
accompany us to the fireside, and "be in constant activity before the
public eye." The elementary