scheme of initiative and referendum are fixed, and put before the voters without the advantage of the examination, discussion, and debate which have been, throughout the whole history of Englishspeaking peoples, the crucible in which legislative projects have been tried out before enactment into law. It is an abuse of language to call such a scheme of government "popular. It is an attempt to create a government of all the people, by a minority of the people, for a small minority of the people. To adopt it, would be to substitute for the institutions which are the growth and evolution of centuries of English and American experience, the devices of French revolution and Swiss socialism.

XIII

THE THEORY OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN 1787 AND IN 19121

N December 12, 1787, by the decisive vote of 46 to 23, Pennsylvania, the second of the States to take such action, solemnly expressed its concurrence in the new charter, which created a nation of what theretofore had been a mere confederation of separate sovereignties. Immediately after the result was known, as the chronicle of the time tells us,

the convention (accompanied by his excellency the President, the Vice-President, and the members of the Supreme Executive Council; also by several members of Congress, the faculty of the University, the magistrates and militia officers of the City) went in procession to the Court House, where the ratification of the Constitution of the United States was read, amidst the acclamations of a great concourse of citizens. A detachment of the militia train of artillery (in uniform) fired a federal salute, and the bells of Christ Church were rung on this joyful occasion;

1 Address at the Annual Banquet of the Pennsylvania Society in the city of New York, December 14, 1912.

after this, the Convention returned to the State House and subscribed the two copies of the ratification. At three o'clock they met and dined with the members of the Supreme Executive Council, several members of Congress and a number of citizens, at Mr. Epple's tavern; where the remainder of the day was spent in mutual congratulations upon the happy prospect of enjoying once more, order, justice and good government in the United States.

The lead of Pennsylvania was rapidly followed by the other States, and more than the requisite number having ratified the Constitution, on July 4, 1788, the twelfth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the good citizens of Pennsylvania celebrated with joyful hearts the adoption of that Constitution which they believed would "form a more perfect union" than the Confederation of the States had been, and would "establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure secure the blessings of liberty" to the people of the United States and their posterity.

The new charter of government was not adopted without opposition. In Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, there was a considerable minority who fought against it until the last moment. Their objections were, in effect, first that the consolidation of powers in the new government would be destructive of the States; second, that the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers

of government was not complete; and, third, and above all, that the Constitution contained no bill of rights. The fifteen amendments proposed in the Pennsylvania convention by Mr. Whitehill contained in substance those which were subsequently formulated and proposed to the legislatures of the several States by the first Congress, and which, having been ratified by the requisite number of States between September, 1789, and December, 1791, became the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Their adoption removed practically every serious objection which had been urged against the Constitution, and left it as the expression of the will of the whole people. With the exception of the IIth Amendment, which became effective January 8, 1798, adopted to relieve the wounded susceptibilities of the States, following the decision in the case of Chisholm against the State of Georgia, that the Federal courts had jurisdiction under the Constitution of suits by citizens against the States; and the 12th Amendment, which took effect September, 1804, modifying the provisions of Article II. so as to provide for specific and separate votes for President and Vice-President in the Electoral College and in the Congress, no amendments to the Constitution were adopted until the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments which followed the Civil War, and which embodied the results of a contest respecting slavery, which, admittedly, had been left unsettled by the framers of the Constitution, because then

incapable of solution, and which could only be settled by the arbitrament of war.

Of the government under this Constitution, Daniel Webster said, in 1850:

We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole people. No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever.

It did survive one of the greatest internecine struggles recorded in history. The war amendments to it, perpetuated the removal of slavery from the permissible domestic institutions of the States, and imposed restrictions upon State action concerning individuals, which, in effect, extended as limitations upon the powers of the States, some of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, which the first ten amendments had made restrictive upon the national legislature.

The establishment of this Constitution and the growth and development of the national government under it, for a century commanded the pride of Americans and the admiration of the world. Every new citizen was required by law, as he still is, to declare his attachment to its principles; every officer of the government to swear that he