Arizona republican., 1907-12-24
KfNIUCKIANS ASSEMBLE
 IN HONOR OF HARLAN
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 court of the United States has again declared. upon full consideration, that d ,:nse anu firm union was essentia! to the liberty and happiness of the American people and that without the states in union there could be no such political body as the United States.
 if then the matchless government devised by the fathers and ordained by the people Of the United States is 10 be preserved and handed down in- tact to posterity. national power and state power must go hand in hand. in harmony with the constitution. IT those powers clash, the paramount au- thoTity of the union within it's pre- Scribed sphere of action must prevail. Such is the express mandate of the constitution. and such. our common sense and experience tell us. must all ways be the case. if liberty regulated by law is not to perish from our land. The nation is supreme within the sphere of it's action as defined by the constitution. and Irs authority, when legally exerted. binds every state as well as all individuals within the territory of the United States. The glory of the republic is that its affairs are regulated by a written constitution "a fundamental law which dis tributes the powers of government among three separate. co-equal and co-ordinate departments. each exert ing the authority, and only the au- thority. conferred upon it. and which law. until amended in the mode pre- scribed by itself. must be deemed su- preme oyer the congress. over the president. over ihe courts. over the states and over the people them selves
 The pessimist is misled by the declaration of some. happily few in number. who hold that. whatever the words of the constitution. that in ,strument should be so construed as to make it mean what a majority nf the people think at a given time, il should mean. He is also misled by the theory advanced by those who hold that congress must be permitted to exert any governmental power what soever. not expressly denied tO il. if that body deems that its exercise will promote the general welfare" But such theories of constitutional con st ction find no support in judicial decisions or in sound reason. least of all in the final judgments of that trib- unal whose greatest function if is to declare the meaning and scope or the fundamental law. The national gov ernment. it should ever be remember cd. is one of limited. delegated powers. and is moi a DlIre demoCracy in which the will of 9 popular majority. as ex- pressed at the polls. at particular time becomes immediately the su- preme law. It is a representative re- public. in which the will of the people IS to be ascertained in prescribed mode. and carried into effect only by appointed agents designated by the people themselves. in the manner in dicated by law. II would be a calaun- ity unSpeakable if our institutions and the sacred rights of life. liberty and property should be put at the mercy of a ma jority unresJrained by a writ len supreme law binding every de- partment Of government. even the indeed all-may take courage in the fact that it has become recognized rule Of construction that the consti- tuition Is to be taken as meaning what it's words in their natural. obvious sense import. and, if fhe people desire that it shall mean something different, that instrument must be amended Tn the manner. but only in the manner. prescribed by itself The disputes among statesmen has not been so much as 10 the soundness of the gem