The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-05-15

unerenr instrument from the constitution OF 1852
Its authors would not know it. They made it for
specific purposes, not for the object of enabling
country lawyers to devise deilnitioEs not for the
purpose of interposing barriers and otss>cIes to
the will of tho people of the United States Tss
constitution was made, not by the states, but by
the people OF the United States in order to form
a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure
domestic tranquility. provide for the common de-
Tense. promote the general welfare and secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
This constitution is perpetually invoked
by the narrow, rigid and illiberal construc-
! tionists to interpose an insuperable barrier
against every effort to better the condition Of
the people. The people of the United States
| do not regard the constitution with supersti-
ton OF awe. They know that there are some
things more venerable than charters, more
sacred than constitutions and those are the
rights and the privileges which charters and
constitutions were ordained to establish and
to maintain. At every stage of national
growth and progress we have been met by
the interposition of these minute and insec-
tiverous propositions that the constitution
was q barrier against the determined and res
olute willo of the people. recollect that there
was great demonstration that there was no
power in the constitution to coerce a state
which saw fit to go out of the Union. But
we found it. We found it somewhere in its
latent recesses-'public welfare blessings of
liberty Wherever it might be we found it.
We are told that the abolition of slavery was
without warrant in the constitution, but we
found the warrant, and when we found it
could not be done in tho letter it was amend
| ed by the sword. 1t is fair warning TO
those who attempt to insist upon the verbal
and lingual interpretations against the will
of the people that whenever the elasticity,
the capacity to carry out the wishes and the
will of the people is not sufficient there will
always be found a way to amend it"
Although he does not say SO himself, it is
pretty certain that the speech which gave the
senator more solid comfort than any other he
| ever delivered was his celebrated one of March
rs, 1856, in which, while indulging in his IA
vorite pastime of abusing Mr.. Cleveland, he
gave the Mugwumps furious flashing. As
he still stands by the sentiment then e1-
pressed, he did not consider it necessary to
give the interviewer any new expressions of
his estimate of civil service reform
'sWhat is the greatest book in the English
language9" Senator ingalls, was asked.
The senator reflected a moment, then
stepped over to bookcase and, taking down
a small Bible, turned over few pages.
1.-The book Of job" he said, sis the oldest
and, in my judgment, the highest production
of the human intellect. 1t is specially inter
esting because it shows that humanity at the
dawn of history was engaged in considering
the same problems that perplex us now-im-
mortality, the existence of evil, the Affections
and misfortunes of the good in this world and
the prosperity of the wicked. We have made
70 progress in solving these problems The
| barriers are insurmountabe. The centuries
are silent The soul struggles, aspires, beats
its wings against the bars, futters and disap-
pears.
Ills it within the capacity of craftsmanship
to give the poor better chance and to make
a more equal distribution Of wealth. Is the
world better than it was! Are tine people
happierl Is religion growing or declining
viii poverty ever be extinguisheda
This has been the great problem of gov.
eminent since history began. The differences
between men are inherent. Some are thrifty,
sagaciouS, Industrious, sober, enterpriSing;
others are dull, lazy, dissolute and careless
| Then we must admit there is something which
for want of q better name we call luck, SO
that the dish is always right side up when it
rains. All men cannot be rich, famous and
happy. There is not enough to go round
But the discontinued, the unfortunate and the
wretched attribute their calamities to every
thing else rather than to themselves They
blame society and government for their fail
ure and attribute the success of their COM
petitors to the I'M ustice of statutes All that
legislation can do is to protect the weak from
the oppression of the strong, the poor against
the exactions of the rich; give all equal OPP
portunity, equal privilege and an equal chance
IN the race of life. The world is steadily i'm
proving. The boundaries of human happiness
nre enlargiDg. The poorest artisan now has op-
portunities for enjoyment, for improvement,
for study, for cure in sickness, for the preser-
vation OF health, for the joy of living that
1--WE centuries ago We're beyond the reach of
kings
Poverty will never be abolished, nor mis-
cry, nor pain, nor disease. They are insepa-
rable from the state of humanity. Were all
: men contented and secure progress would
cease and the race would expire. The age is
essentially devout and religious. The mind
has been largely en1ancipated from supersti-
ton and from creeds, and has entered upon
ain excursion that cannot be foretold, but that
of the church has undoubtedly been greatly
weakened and impaired but this does not
imply that religion is retrograding As the
race advances it clothes God with higher at
; tributes and dgnifies him with more lofty
functions, because it is capable of nober COLI
captions. The gloomy and inexorable God of
the Puritans has disappeared. He has been
succeeded by Supreme Being of infinite
mercy, tenderness and goodness; ruler, a
lawmaker, a legislator, subject to limitations
and restraints imposed by his own perfec-
tions.
"There was profound truth in the cleclara.
tion of Voltaire that If there were no God
it would be necessary for man to invent one.
This was aippant and irrevcrent, perhaps
but true. God is indispensable. Man per-
ceives this, and the higher his development
the more distant is his perception. The popu.
larity of Ingersoll and his schoo! is not an in
dicaticn of infdelity, but is rather the strong.
est evidence of the religious spirit of the
times, its receptivity, its cagerness for instruc.
ton, its hunger and thirst FOR knowledge
about what can never be known No age has
ever been so profoundly moved by the con.
sderation of the problems of the here
after as this. and | have no doubt that in re-
Spouse to the search for thermal truth another
Christ will come and another revelation be
made"
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