The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-06-27

ton have made most of the country's
troubles 1t has reached a condition
where the thing is intolerable to Mr..
Churchill The states represent no
fact and their boundaries are negligi-
BILE except as they are maintained by
the fiction of state sovereignty" In
scores of states he thinks it would be
better if the legislatures never assem-
bled at al and the whole fabric of in
dependent states united for national
purposes is built wrong. Happily for
the nation, Mr.. Churchill recognizes
some limitations. He has not yet abOl-
ished all state lines, and he is willing
to concede a few legal barriers to the
perfect plan of a nation he has in
mind, which is very kind of so distin
guished an authority.
Naturally one hesitates to express a
difference of opinion with one who
speaks with such certainty of knowl-
edge Yet, with due timidity and re-
membering the presidential precedent
MIR. Churchill follows, one may venture
to suggest that neither Roosevelt, nor
Garfield, nor Churchill is a genuine
Hamiltonian in. fact, however much
each may fiatter himself in the posi-
ton he has taken.
1t is true Hamilton had no conf
dence in the ability of the American
people to govern themselves. He was
unwilling to trrst all the people all the
time with the responsibility of direct
ing their own affairs. He would have
prevented a genuine representative
system of government if he could have
done it; and he was perfectly frank in
his statement of reasons for his con-
victions. He was honest in his belief
that the nation could only be pre-
and centering political power in prop
erty interests. He had little sympathy
with what is known as the common
people, and his ideal of government
was a constitutional monarchy sup
ported by an aristocracy
Yet for all these beliefs, Hamilton
had a profound respect for constitu-
| tional obligations and limitations. He
was a broad cOnstructiOnist because he
| thought the government needed powers
which could be obtained only by the
utmost latitude in constituting its
powers under the constitution; but
Hamilton, like Washington and Jeffer-
son and the other founders of the re-
public, had no thought of urging viO-
lation of constitutional restrictions in
order to carry out his theory of gov
eminent. His generation for the letter
and spirit of the law was so profound
that he would have died rather than
| have INSTRUCTED the administration of
laws or have consented to their sus-
pension even if he believed the object
sought was desirable.
The difference between the present
federal idea" and HamiltOn's was the
difference between the respect for law
and the determination to achieve a
purpose, law or no law. Hamilton
fought some of the ideas finally adopt
ed in the constitution, but he accepted
the final decision of the people without
reservation The new plan is to re-
spect such laws as agree with an in
dividual opinion. suspend such others
as can be suspended where they con-
1ict with administration desire, and
strain the execution of others as far as
possible in order to carry out policies
that could not stand the test of sub
mission to the people under the pro-
visions of the nations charter