and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend."

If it be objected that the process for amendment is too slow for this lightning age, the answer is that it was so made, that the Constitution might not rest upon the unstable and ever shifting ground of spasmodic public opinion. The present Chief Justice, speaking of amending the Constitution, said:

"The ultimate sovereignty may be thus called into play by a slow and deliberate process, which gives time for mere hypothesis and opinion to exhaust themselves, and for the sober second thought of every part of the country to be asserted." (Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U. S. 601, 635.)

To say that the very forces that make the exigency for an extension of the power of the national government, will be corrupt enough and strong enough to prevent the adoption of proper amendments, is an impeachment of both the courage and honesty of the American people. If it has come to that, can a government resting upon a citizenship so degraded and cowardly, be saved by a usurping judiciary?

The judiciary, controlling neither the purse nor the sword, and endowed with no initiative, though in its potentiality for the exercise of direct power; the weakest department of our government, is of all forces the greatest for its conservation. Its strength is moral, and comes from the confidence of the people, that the Court is a sacred temple of an inviolable justice. Though judges may be assailed by popular clamor, and official protest,

for righteous deliverances that check the desires of the hour, yet, so long as we are fit to survive as a republic, justice though tardy, will vindicate them. If they ever descend from that high and pure region where judgment should maintain its seat, to the lower range where the storm and stress of politics, and passions, hold sway, if they cease to maintain that virtue of which it can be affirmed:

"Her robes she keeps unsullied still,
Nor takes nor quits her curule chair
To please a people's veering will,"

they will betray the highest trust ever confided to any human institution, "float wildly backwards and forwards on the irregular and impetuous tides of party and faction," and hasten the end of stable and constitutional government.

When I was a boy in Tennessee, I heard an ex-President of the United States, in a speech of two hours' duration, before an assembly of more than a thousand people standing unsheltered from the intense rays of a summer sun, expound our Constitution. When I now regard the flippancy with which it is often referred to, illustrated by the saying, "What is the Constitution between friends," jocularly quoted, and yet profoundly startling, because it is unfortunately a truthful exposition of a too prevalent spirit of the times, my mind turns with a sense of awe to that picture impressed upon my youthful memory, and it comes back to me now in an aspect that is almost sublime.

The great orators of Greece, no matter what was their theme, generally in their orations passed in review the nature and development of their institutions, the principles that animated the national life, the ways in which their greatness had been achieved.

There should be a general revival all over this land of a knowledge of the Constitution and the theory of our government. There is too much of iconoclasm in religion and law, too much of the spirit of expediency and opportunism, too little of reverence for institutions both human and divine!

We have had one fearful lesson of how, through differences in respect of constitutional rights, we may rush into a political cataclysm, and we should profit by the example.

That a movement has been started that may gain such headway as will profoundly stir the depths of our national life, no thoughtful observer of public events can doubt. It will be a curse to the country if it shall become a party issue. While no true and enlightened patriot will upon such a fundamental question, through party fealty, espouse a doctrine obnoxious to his convictions, or fail to oppose one that his conscience condemns, there will be many who will accept party action as a final adjudication.

For a truly patriotic championship of the integrity of the Constitution, we must look to an enlightened press, to those public men who can put country above party, to the American lawyers who by training and tradition are the defenders of liberty and justice under the established law. (Applause.)

William B. Hornblower, of New York:

Mr. President, I move that the thanks of the New York State Bar Association be extended to the orator of the evening for his very able, eloquent and instructive address, and that he be elected an honorary member of the. Association.

The motion was carried unanimously.

The President:

I have the honor of greeting Judge Dickinson as an honorary member of the Association.

Judge Dickinson:

Gentlemen, I esteem the honor very highly and thank you for it.

The President:

I now declare this meeting adjourned until to-morrow morning at ten o'clock.

The members of the Association, at the invitation of Governor and Mrs. Hughes, afterwards attended the reception given to the members of the legislature and the judiciary at the Executive Mansion.

MORNING SESSION.

WEDNESDAY, January 16, 1907.

The Association met in the Common Council Chamber.

The President:

The Association will please come to order. Is the Chairman of the Committee on Law Reform ready to report? The report was made a special order for this morning.

Simon Fleischmann, of Buffalo:

I was told we would probably have to wait until this afternoon. We worked on it last night.

The President:

I's the Special Committee on Judicial Nominations ready to report?

Elbridge L. Adams, of Rochester:

Mr. President, I have that report, but I should prefer to delay its presentation for a few moments until I can confer with one of the other members of the committee whom I have not seen, if it is agreeable.

The President:

Certainly. We might take up the subject for general discussion and suspend it when Mr. Page arrives for his address. Are there any amendments to the Constitution or By-laws pending?

The Secretary:

There are amendments to be offered but action on them was to follow the discussion and report which Mr. Adams is to make upon the subject of these amendments.

Simon Fleischmann, of Buffalo:

Mr. President, I desire to move that this Association. extend a vote of thanks to his excellency Governor Hughes, for his kind invitation to the members of this Association to attend last night's reception at the executive mansion.

The motion was duly seconded and carried unanimously.

The President:

I think it would be well if the Association should consider for a few minutes the subject of having our next meeting in the city of New York. I don't know whether anybody is disposed to move any such thing or not.