have its roots deep in the past, and that the more slowly every institution has grown, so much the more enduring is it likely to prove. There is little in this Constitution that is absolutely new. There is much that is as old as Magna Charta.

JAMES BRYCE, American Commonwealth.1

13-14.

THORPE (1898)

The State has been conserved, and the purposes for which the constitutions were framed - typically set forth in the preamble to the national Constitution - have been fairly well realized. Statesmen of the eighteenth century would impute this to the efficacy of the system of checks and balances. By this they meant the distinct functions of the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary; the different ways in which they are chosen; the different times when they hand over their power to their successors; the peculiar combination of the legislative and the executive in the administration of government, and the ultimate responsibility of all public servants to the electors. This correlation of parts and functions is the peculiarity of the American system. Though arbitrary and ever subject to modification at the will of the people, the system has been tried with success, has never departed from the principles on which it was founded, and has strengthened the conservatism which ever underlies American politics. One commenting on government in America to-day would not be likely to call attention to, much less to emphasize, the system of checks and balances. He would attribute the virtue of our institutions to economic and sociological causes. He would dwell on the people, not on the system. He would analyze political parties, public opinion, and our social institutions. He would not be likely even to use the terms checks and balances. In the eighteenth century government was conceived as a device; in our times it is thought of rather as an organism. It is the content, not the language, of the Constitution that has changed. The supreme law, as time goes on, is given more and more an economic interpretation. If adapted to the wants of the country, such interpretation becomes a party doctrine, and if adopted by the majority, it becomes an administrative measure. If it is believed to in

1 Copyright, 1896, by the Macmillan Co.

volve essential rights, it may become a part of a revised constitution. Thus, at last, the constitutions become the depository of settled politics and the register of the growth of the State. FRANCIS N. THORPE, A Constitutional History of the American People.1 46, 47.

MCLAUGHLIN (1900)

It has seemed to me, however, that sufficient attention is not commonly paid to the influence and bearing of these basic principles of political philosophy in the period succeeding the Revolution. The foundation doctrines everywhere current during the Revolutionary time were not likely to disappear at once, for on them rested the right of rebellion, through them came independence, upon them was founded national existence. We might be willing to assert without investigation, that the ideas which men cherished and the philosophy upon which they acted would be sure to affect the thoughts and activities of public men during the early constitutional period and for many years after the establishment of the United States. It is certainly important for us to understand the ideas which men held concerning the nature and origin of the state and society, and to know the foundations upon which they believed government to

rest.

When the constitution of the United States was being made, men did not speak or think in the terms of the organic philosophy. Some of them, it is true, were more or less distinctly conscious of the essential oneness of the American people; some of them believed that the states never had been sovereign; some of them, seeing the fact of nationality, demanded that political organization should be in keeping with this fact. But the organic philosophy was developed in the next century, and like all philosophy it came not from the thinking of the closeted philosopher, but from the actual development of society.

I mean simply to assert that if we seek to follow out historically the interpretation of the Constitution or to find out what men thought of it at the beginning, we must get into their attitude of mind and understand their method of thinking.

The constitutional history of the United States is in no 1 Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers.

small degree taken up with tracing opinion and assertion as to the actual character of the Union; and the historian is compelled to notice the change which took place in the opinions, words and thoughts of statesmen as they were influenced by the change in society and by the prevalence or growth of doctrines as to the origin and nature of the State.

My purpose in this paper has been to show: (1) That the men of one hundred and twenty-five years ago thought within the limits of the compact philosophy; (2) That they carried the compact idea so far that they actually spoke of the Constitution as a social compact; (3) That it is necessary for us to remember their fundamental ideas and to interpret their words and conscious acts in the light of their methods of thought; (4) That in the development of modern organic philosophy new ideas were introduced and new meanings assigned to terms; (5) That from this latter fact, from the inability to agree on fundamental conceptions, arose confusion; (6) That the doctrine of state sovereignty as it has been developed rests on philosophic presuppositions almost if not entirely unknown to the framers of the Constitution; (7) That if we use the terms and insist on the ideas of the organic philosophy, we are entitled to seek the realities lying behind the words of men.

ANDREW MCLAUGHLIN, Social Compact and Constitutional Construction, in American Historical Review, April, 1900. 468-490.

CHAPTER XVIII

WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS

SUGGESTIONS

THIS document was addressed to the People of the United States as a final word of parting from the President. Its date the 17th of September, indicates the day of its publication, but during the previous summer Washington, with the advice of Madison and Hamilton, had been at work upon the address. Its text contains the personal point of view which the Father of Our Country assumed towards the government. It sets forth his policy in domestic and foreign relations; it abounds in wholesome advice in regard to affairs of state; and it is reminiscent of his own share in the building up of a government to the organization and administration of which he had contributed so great a part.

The instruction given in this document to the American people has been followed until the present decade with much faithfulness. In the study of this final declaration we should note the doctrines of the Constitutional Convention, the principles of Washington's administration, and the fear which he felt of a division resulting from sectional partisanship.

In reading the Farewell Address, one is compelled to dwell upon the noble spirit, the unselfish motives, and exalted ideal of its author, whose chief aim had been to bind the separate states together in a lasting union.

For Outlines and Analysis, see Appendix B, § 5.

DOCUMENT

Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States (September 17th, 1796)

George

FRIENDS, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS, The period for Washington. a new election of a Citizen, to administer the Executive Government of the United States, being not

Works, xiii.

277-325.

far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprize you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those, out of whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured, that this resolution has not been taken, without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation, which binds a dutiful citizen to his country- and that, in withdrawing the tender of service which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness; but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.

dition is em

ton's deter

end of the second term.

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, The "Third the office to which your suffrages have twice called Term" trame, have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to phasized by the opinion of duty, and to a deference for what Washingappeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped, mination to that it would have been much earlier in my power, retire at the consistently with motives, which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement, from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign Nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea..

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty,