Our National Constitution as Related to National Growth

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Excerpt from Our National Constitution as Related to National Growth: A Consideration of Certain Aspects of the War With Spain Not only are we unable at this time to count the cost Of the war, but we cannot foresee its consequences. Certain things we may feel sure are predetermined. Spain in the end must lose her colonies. The people Of the United States will perceive within themselves the growth Of a new national spirit. They will learn to hate the cancer-spots upon our political system. They will learn by experience that only those departments of the government that are administered upon a civil-service basis Of merit can stand the test Of a great crisis, that effective work cannot be done with ¿at currency or fiat military Officials that it takes more than a mint mark to make a dollar and more than a commission to make a major-general. We shall find ourselves embarked on a new era Of national life. We shall be compelled to solve new problems, economic, diplomatic, constitutional. We can perceive already what some Of them will be. All Of them are full Of entrancing interest. I invite your attention for a few minutes to one of them - a problem Of constitutional development How Wlll our national Constitution stand the strain to which it will be sub jected by the changed conditions Of national existence P Such a question sounds strangely in our ears. We love to think Of our Constitution as immortal. It has withstood the rude shocks Of its early years. It has witnessed, unmoved, the era Of foreign and domestic strife. The period Of reconstruction left it unshaken. It has survived many a great financial crisis. Compare its majestic stability with the ¿eeting life Of the constitutions Of France. Our Constitution has stood unchanged throughout an era during which the unwritten constitution Of England has been transformed. How will it stand the strain P You reply, It will never feel the strain. It will stand unmoved and immovable as the everlasting hills. I trust that you are right. I believe that you are. At the same time I fancy that I can discern in our constitutional development tendencies that are fraught with danger to the Republic. Perhaps at such a time as this it is permissible to substitute for frantic boasts an earnest and dispassionate review Of the situation in which we find ourselves. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.