The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1896-10-06
from American Law Review.1
"IF SILVER WINS"
Constitutional Changes Which Are Fore
Swallowed.
BY JUSTICE WALTER CLARK. IL. D.

In the Revolutionary struggle, the
stamp act was the occasion, but the
full breadth of the question to be set
tied was whether the colonies should
be governed by themselves or by Eng
land. So, in the struggle which is en-
gaging the attention of the country
this year, the gold standard and the
financial question generally is the e.
citing occasion, but the real issue is far
more comprehensive and Is, IN truth,
whether the governing power shall
abide with consolidated capital in it's
various shapes, or whether it shall be
transferred to the people at large. AS
the issue is sometimes tersely expressed,
it is a contest between the masses and
the classes. If the former win, the
victors. as in all such contests will de-
mand guarantees, and taking the utter
ances of the leaders these guarantees
will be imbeded in the Constitution as
amendments. After the Civil War its
results were thus safeguarded by be
ing incorporated as amendments in the
organic law.
An American Minister to Russia, while
walking one day in the palace grounds
with the Gar, observed a sentinel in
the centre of a grass plot. To his prac
tical mind there was no need of a sen
tinel at that place and with American
&-,olN-o In n0HoI tho aaII1o II hnH
never before occurred to the Gar to
consider the cause, but it striking him,
on ref 9ction, as singular, he asked the
Chief of Staff. He, in turn, could not
answer and consulted his subordinates;
they knew nothing, except that there
had GLlUdys been a sentinel posted at that
place. The archives were consulted
but threw no light on the matter. FL
nally a very old lackey was found who
remembered that his father, also a pal
ace attache, had told him long years
before that an old soldier had told him
that in the soldier youth the Empress
Catherine one day had found a flower
at that spot and had caused a soldier
to be posted there to guard it from be
ing plucked; no orders had subse
quently come for his removal, and so
for more than one hundred and fifty
years, without question or inquiry, a
soldier of the Russian Imperial Guard
had been posted at that spot.
There are many things in the com
mon law, as it has been handed down
to US which have had no better reason
for thier origin or their long continu
Some judge, in i'll humor, or sick,
or overworked, or in a haste to get off to
his pleasures, or possibly prejudiced
against a party, Dr. booty (and such
have been KENNEDY has made a decis,
ion, another Judge followed the pre-,
cedent and then another till it stiffened
into the law Of the realm ard became
praised as part of a system which those
who pro6ted by exploiting its mystic
ries styled the perfection OF reason"
To a Lesser extent the same is true of
our Federal Constitution. Features
were adopted, as the election of Sena-
tors by the State Legislatures, merely
because it happened to be the custom
of the day to elect G jvernors by that
body; or the appointment Of judges
by the executive for the same reason
though both these matters have long
since been changed in the several State
Constitutions. Other provisions were
inc 9rfoH ho0oy11n %hnv "orn rnFJ1rol -, |
the environments of a hundred years
ago; others because the Constitution |
was planned for a comparatively poor
people of three millions and without
anticipation of the enormous growth
since in civilization, wealth and popu
lation and IN the power Of corpora
ton; other features still were inserted
by compromise and some almost by
accident. The Constitution has be-
come in many respects q misft, not
w~ithstRnding its notifications by fit
teen amendments. It is very certain
that if the Constitution was to be made
at this time, in the light of the pres
ent conditions and with the knowledge
Of the dangers now to be feared, it
would be materially different from the
instrument adopted at Philadelphia in
1857.
The men who made the Constitution
were aware that experience and de
would require changes and
they provided for their being made
either by a general convention of the
States on the application of two thirds
of the legislatures of the several