To remove those causes of estrangement, to avoid a fateful catastrophe, in other words, to bring about a cordial understanding with America, the first condition must be an understanding of America.

It is indeed passing strange that in these days of cheap books and free education, America should be almost a 'terra incognita,' that we should know next to nothing of American history, of the American Constitution, of American practical…

Even such masters of classical prose as Francis Parkman, perhaps the greatest historian who has used the English language as his vehicle, are almost unknown to the average reader.

I do so, because it has a direct bearing on the decay of the spirit of constitutionalism both in America and elsewhere.

It discusses a great malaise of our age, for which, I fear, no written Constitution, however wise, is an adequate remedy.

I only mention the subject to suggest that the reader of these lectures will better understand why the American people take the written obligations of the League so seriously and literally.

We have been trained for nearly a century and a half to measure the validity and obligations of laws and executive acts in Courts of Justice and to apply the plain import of the Constitution.

Are we prepared to say that in the event of a war or threatened danger of war, the Supreme Council of the League may take any action it deems wise and effectual to maintain peace?

Other nations may not take it so literally, but with our life-long adherence to a written Constitution as a solemn contractual obligation, we do.

The men who framed the Covenant of the League tried to do, under more difficult, but not dissimilar, conditions, what the framers of the American Constitution did in 1787.

Those Americans who, for the reasons stated, are not in sympathy with the structural form and political objectives of the League, are not lacking in sympathy for its admirable administrative work in co-ordinating the activities of…

In any study of a World Constitution, the example of those who framed the American Constitution can be studied with profit.

If England and America are to act together in the coming time--and the destinies of the world are, to a very large extent, in their keeping, then they must know each other better, and, to this end, they must take a greater interest in each…

Americans have never lacked interest in English history; for however broad the stream of our national life, how could we ignore its chief source?

The conditions of colonial development had profoundly stimulated in these English pioneers the sense and genius for constitutionalism.

In other countries the people, more simple and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the…

While the Constitution of the United States was very much more than an adaptation of the British Constitution, yet its underlying spirit was that of the English speaking race and the Common Law.

Behind the framers of the Constitution, as they entered upon their momentous task, were the mighty shades of Simon de Montfort, Coke, Sandys, Bacon, Eliot, Hampden, Lilburne, Milton, Shaftesbury and Locke.

Remember that Our Lady, the Common Law, is not a task-mistress, but a bountiful sovereign, whose service is freedom.

The thirteen colonies in 1787, while small and relatively unimportant, were, however, a little world in themselves, and, relatively to their numbers and resources, this problem, which they confronted and solved, differed in degree but not…

Let it be emphasized that they did this, not by seeking more power, but by imposing restraints upon themselves.

That spirit of self-restraint is the essence of the American Constitution.

So enduring was their achievement that to-day the Constitution of the United States is the oldest comprehensive written form of government now existing in the world.

Few, if any, forms of government have better withstood the mad spirit of innovation, or more effectively proved their merit by the "arduous greatness of things done.

The consequence is that again and again we are running the risk of perpetrating the most grotesque errors of judgment, of committing the most serious political blunders, in defiance of American public opinion.