James Beck: “It marked, on the part of millions of men, a portentous decay of belief in representative government and its chosen…”

Without that vision to restrain each succeeding generation of Americans from the tempting excesses of political power, the American Commonwealth, with its great heterogeneous democracy, would probably perish.

That vision will remain with them as long, and no longer, as there is in their hearts a conscious and willing acquiescence in its wisdom and justice.

The greatest and noblest purpose of the Constitution was not alone to hold in nicest equipose the relative powers of the nation and the States, but also to maintain in the scales of justice a true equilibrium between the rights of…

It did not believe that the State was omnipotent or infallible, and yet it proclaimed its authority within wise and just limits.