A constitution, while primarily for the distribution of governmental powers, is, in its last analysis, a formal expression of adherence to that which in modern times has been called the higher law, and which in ancient times was called…

The jurisprudence of every nation has, with more or less clearness, recognized the existence of certain primal and fundamental laws which are superior to the laws, statutes, or conventions of living generations.

If we turn to the writings of the most intellectual race in ancient time and possibly in recorded history--the Greeks--we shall see the higher law vindicated with incomparable power in the moral philosophy of its three greatest dramatists…

Yes, for that law was not from Zeus, nor did Justice, dweller with the gods below, establish it among men; nor deemed I that thy decree--mere mortal that thou art--could override those unwritten and unfailing mandates, which are not of…

Five centuries later the greatest of the Roman lawyers and orators, Cicero, spoke in the same terms of a higher law, "which was never written and which we are never taught, which we never team by reading, but which was drawn by nature…

Thus, the idea of a higher law transcending the power of a living generation, and therefore eternal as justice itself--became lodged in our system of jurisprudence.

This view as to the limitation of government and the denial of its omnipotence was powerfully accentuated in America by the very conditions of its colonization.

As early as 1613, he had boldly declared in Parliament that even the King's authority rested upon the clear understanding that there were reciprocal conditions which neither ruler nor subject could violate with impunity.

And certainly it is with the kingdoms on earth as it is in the kingdom of heaven, sometimes a grain of mustard seed proves a great tree.

Truly the mustard seed of Virginia did become a great tree in the American Commonwealth.

Thus was established, not only the beginning of England's colonial Empire--still one of the most beneficent forces in the world--but also the principle of local self-government, which, in the Western World, was destined to develop the…

Bacon, Sandys, Southampton and the Liberal leaders of the House of Commons had implanted in the ideas of the colonists the spirit of constitutionalism, which was destined to influence profoundly the whole development of the American…

Thus arose the spirit in America, which treated constitutional rights, not so much as special privileges granted by plenary Sovereignty, but as contractual obligations which could be enforced in the Courts against the Sovereign.

The Constitution was the reflex action of two opposing tendencies, the one the imperative need of an efficient central government, and the other the passionate attachment to local self-rule.

Obviously, a working government could not easily be constituted between peoples of different religions, races, and economic interests, who, for the most part, never met each other face to face and with whom frequent communication was…

The differences between the colonies and the mother-country with respect to internal taxation slowly developed into an issue of constitutionalism rather than of legislative policy.

To say the parliament is absolute and arbitrary is a contradiction.

Parliaments are in all cases to declare what is for the good of the whole; but it is not the declaration of parliament that makes it so: there must be in every instance a higher authority, viz., GOD.

Should an Act of Parliament be against any of His natural laws, which are immutably true, their declaration would be contrary to eternal truth, equity and justice, and consequently void; and so it would be adjudged by the Parliament…

As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off, at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.

This assumes that the Constitution sprang, like Minerva, armed cap-à-pie, from the brain of the American people, whereas it was as much the result of a slow, laborious, and painful evolution as was the British Constitution.

For want of an efficient central government, the civil administration of the infant nation was marked by a weakness and incapacity that defeated Washington's plans and nearly broke his spirit.

Washington's little army was the victim of the gross incapacity of an impotent government.

As the result proved, they marked only a very small advance over the existing de facto government, for the constituent States were still too jealous of each other and too hostile to the creation of a central government to form a truly…

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.