The Constitution of the United States, as Modified in the Civil War

Abstract

The Constitution of the United States is one of the greatest monuments of human history. It was not a sudden creation, according to Mr. Gladstone's hasty generalization; for our scholars agree that it was a growth essentially. It is perhaps the greatest achievement recorded of compromise, which is the genius of political development. Cherishing theories of Aristotle and Montesquieu, nourished by the Common law and English political experience, strengthened by the steady progress of the colonies, the statesmen assembled in the convention of 1787 embodied the knowledge of their time. The serene Washington, the practised and facile Franklin, the far-seeing constructive Hamilton, with Madison, Wilson, Morris, Sherman and their fellows filing in; these makers of the constitution brought the largest capacity to the conformation of a written instrument, which embodied the widest experience in the art of government.The pregnant phrases of the Preamble—forged out by Hamilton and Madison—though they soon became important guides to the meaning of the whole instrument, do not appear to have attracted much attention or excited discussion.It may be instructive to consider the ideas of J. Randolph Tucker, expressed after the facts of the Civil War had illustrated the genius and force of the original Constitution. Liberty if the “gift of God!” and the body-politic is “man's trustee, not his master.” As the body-politic rests on rightful sovereignty, the de facto institution must be taken to be the sovereign power. His great authority, Bluntschli, says “each man is at the same time member of the sovereign and subject to the sovereign.”