“In spite of its supposed precision, and its subjection to judicial construction, our constitution has always been indirectly made to serve the turn of that sort of legislation which its friends call progressive, and its enemies call revolutionary, quite as effectively as though Congress had the omnipotence of parliament. The theory of the latent powers to carry out those granted has been found elastic enough to satisfy almost any party demands in time of peace, to say nothing of its enormous extensions in time of war.”—_The Nation_, November 7, 1872, No. 384, p. 300. “Our fathers by an almost divine prescience, struck the golden mean.”—Pomeroy’s _An Introduction to the Constitutional History of the United States_, p. 102. “It (the United States Constitution) ranks above every other written Constitution for the intrinsic excellence of its scheme, its adaptation to the circumstances of the people, the simplicity, brevity and precision of its language, its judicious mixture of definition in principle with elasticity in details. One is induced to ask, to what causes, over and above the capacity of its authors and the patient toil they bestowed upon it, these merits are due, or in other words, what were the materials at the command of the Philadelphia Convention for the achievement of so great an enterprise as the creation of a nation by means of an instrument of government. The American Constitution is no exception to the rule that everything which has power to win the obedience and respect of men must have its roots deep in the past, and that the more slowly every institution has grown, so much the more enduring it is likely to prove. There is little in this Constitution that is absolutely new. There is much that is as old as Magna Charta.”—James Bryce, author of _The American Commonwealth_. “Let reverence for the law be breathed by every mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, seminaries, and colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books and almanacs; let it be preached from pulpits, and proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice; let it become the political religion of the nation.”—Abraham Lincoln.