The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-08-20


In England we have an old constitu-
ton under which we are accustomed to
fixed modes of legislation, and when at
last we accent a new development of
International law, we look to those
methods to give effect to it. Indeed,
that habit of looking to legislation to
meet new needs and developments, even
in internal concerns, a habit confirmed
and strengthened in the current cen
tury, has done much to restrain the
judges from the bold expansion of prin-
cipie to meet new cases which, when
legislation was less active, marked Ju-
dicial utIeranceS.
On the other hand, things with you
are materially different Your cOnsti-
tuition is still so modern that equally
fixed habits of looking to legislation
have not had time to grow up Mean
while that modern constitution is, from
time to time, ,assailed by still more mod
ern necessities, and the methods for its
amendment are not so swift or easy
The structure has not become complete
ly Ossified. Hence has arisen what I
may call fieXibility of Interpretation,
applied to the constitution of the Unit
ed States, for which 1 know no parallel
in English judicature, and which seems
to me to exceed the latitude of inter
probation observed by your judges in
relation to acts of congress refer,
as examples to the emancipation of the
slaves by President Lincoln during the
civil war which was justified as an act
covered by the necessities of the case
and within the war power conferred
on the executive by the constitution;
and, also, to the judicial declaration by
the supreme court of the validity of the
act of congress making greenbacks
legal tender. on the ground that certain
express powers as to currency, being
vested in congress by the constitution,
the power of giving forced circulate
to paper flowed from them as desir-
able, if not a necessary, implication
With US no such difficulties arise. Our
Is lPGriE-
lature is OmnipOtent. With you, the
constitution is written and the judicial
power ineTpretS it, and may declare the
highest act of congress null and void
as unconstitutional With US there
can, in the strict sense of the words be
no such unconstitutional act of parlia
ment-
But are we thence to conclude that
the millennium of peace has arrived
that the dove has returned to the ark
sure sign that the waters of interna-
tiOnal strife have permanently subsid-
ed2
I am not sanguine enough to lay this
f1attering JUNCTION to my soul Unbrid-
led ambition-thirst for wide dominion
pride of power still hold sway, al
though I believe with lessened force
and in some sort under the restraint
of the healthier opinion of the world.
But further. friend as am of peace,
I would yet affirm that there may be
even greater calamities than war-the
dishonOr of a nation, the triumph Of
an unrighteOus cause, the perpetuatiOn
of hopeless and debasing tyranny:
War is honorable.
In those who do their native rights
maintain;
In those whose swords an iron barrier
are,
Between the lawless spoiler and the
weak;
But is. in those who draw tn often
sive blade
For added power OF gain, sordid and
despicable.'
It behooves then all who are friends
OF peace and advocates of arbitration
to recognize the difficulties of the
question, to examine and meet these
dlfhcult1es, and to discriminate be
tween the cases in which friendly arbi-
tration is, and in which it may not be,
practically possible
But there are differences to which,
even as between individuals, arbitra-
ton is pIcable-subiects which
find their counterpart in the affairs of
nations Men do not arbitrate where
character is at stake. nor, will any
self respecting nation readily arbitrate
on questions touching its national in
dependence or affecting its honor
Again, a nation may agree to arbi-
trate and then repudiate its agreement
Who is to coerce it2 Or, having gone
TO arbitration and been worsted it may
decline to be bound by the award Who
is to compel it?
Are we then to conclude that force
IS sun the only power that rules the
world? Must we then say that the
sphere of arbitration is a narrow and
contracted one?
By no means. The sanctions which
restrain the wrong doer-the breaker
OF public faith-the disturber of the
peace or the world, are not weak, and,
year by year they wax stronger. Pub
lie opinion is a force which makes itself