In concluding, I cannot refrain from again reminding you that this consummate work of statecraft was the work of the English-speaking race, and that your people can therefore justly share in the pride which it awakens. It is not only one of the great achievements of that _gens aeterna_, but also one of the great monuments of human progress. It illustrates the possibilities of true democracy in its best estate. When the moral anarchy out of which it was born is called to mind, it can be truly said that while "sown in weakness, it was raised in power." To the succeeding ages, it will be a flaming beacon, and everywhere men, who are confronted with the acute problems of this complex age, can take encouragement from the fact that a small and weak people, when confronted with similar problems, had the strength and will to impose restraint upon themselves by peacefully proclaiming in the simple words of the noble preamble to the Constitution: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Note the words "ordain and establish." They imply perpetuity. They make no provision for the secession of any State, even if it deems itself aggrieved by federal action. And yet the right to secede was urged for many years, but Lincoln completed the work of Washington, Franklin, Madison and Hamilton by establishing that "a government for the people, by the people and of the people should not perish from the earth." _IV. The Revolt Against Authority_ "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." PROVERBS xxix. 18. One of the most quoted--and also mis-quoted--proverbs of the wise Solomon says, as translated in the authorized version: "Where there is no vision, the people perish." What Solomon actually said was: "Where there is no vision, the people _cast off restraint_." The translator thus confused an effect with a cause. What was the vision to which the Wise Man referred? The rest of the proverb, which is rarely quoted, explains: "Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint: _but he that keepeth the law, happy is he_." The vision, then, is the authority of law, and Solomon's warning is that to which the great and noble founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, many centuries later gave utterance, when he said: "That government is free to the people under it, where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws; and all the rest is tyranny, oligarchy and confusion."