James Beck: “If it should perish to-morrow, it would yet have enjoyed a life and growth of which any nation or age might be justly…”

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.

It must champion the human soul in its God-given right to exercise freely the faculties of mind and body.

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

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.