Sir, what do we see? Bankrupts,--branded bankrupts,--giving great dinners, sending their children to the most expensive schools, giving grand parties, and just as well received as anybody in society! I say that, in such a state of things, the old Constitution was too good for them,--they could not bear it. No, Sir; they could not bear a freehold suffrage, and a property representation. I have always endeavored to do the People justice; but I will not flatter them,--I will not pander to their appetite for change. I will do nothing to provide for change. I will not agree to any rule of future apportionment, or to any provision for future changes, called amendments to the Constitution. Those who love change,--who delight in public confusion, who wish to feed the cauldron, and make it bubble,--may vote if they please for future changes. But by what spell, by what formula, are you going to bind the People to all future time? The days of Lycurgus are gone by, when we could swear the People not to alter the Constitution until he should return. You may make what entries on parchment you please; give me a Constitution that will last for half a century; that is all I wish for. No Constitution that you can make will last the one-half of half a century. Sir, I will stake anything, short of my salvation, that those who are malcontent now, will be more malcontent, three years hence, than they are at this day. I have no favor for this Constitution. I shall vote against its adoption, and I shall advise all the people of my district to set their faces, aye, and their shoulders, too, against it. * * * * * From "Letters to a young Relative." =_75._= THE ERROR OF DECAYED FAMILIES. One of the best and wisest men I ever knew has often said to me that a decayed family could never recover its loss of rank in the world, until the members of it left off talking and dwelling upon its former opulence. This remark, founded in a long and clear observation of mankind, I have seen verified in numerous instances in my own connections, who, to use the words of my oracle, will never thrive until they can become poor folks. He added, they may make some struggles, and with apparent success, to recover lost ground; they may, and sometimes do, get half way up again; but they are sure to fall back, unless, reconciling themselves to circumstances, they become in form, as well as in fact, poor folks. * * * * * =_James Kent, 1763-1847._= (Manual, pp. 488, 504.) From "Commentaries on American Law." =_76._= LAW OF THE STATES.