“The Constitution, which may at first be confounded with the Federal Constitutions which have preceded it, rests in truth upon a wholly novel theory—a great discovery in modern political science. In all the Confederations which have preceded the American Constitution of 1787, the Allied States ... agreed to obey the injunctions of a federal government; but they reserved to themselves the right of ordaining and enforcing the laws of the Union....” (The American government, he explains, claims directly the allegiance of every citizen, and acts upon each directly through its own courts and officers.) “This difference has produced the most momentous consequences.”—Tocqueville’s _Democracy in America_. “It will be the wonder and admiration of all future generations and the model of all future constitutions.”—William Pitt, after reading the Constitution of the United States. “The Constitution of the United States is by far the most important production of its kind in human history. It created, without historic precedent, a federal-national government It combined national strength with individual liberty in a degree so remarkable as to attract the world’s admiration. Never before in the history of man had a government struck so fine a balance between liberty and union, between state rights national sovereignty. The world had labored for ages to solve this greatest of all governmental problems, but it had labored in vain. Greece in her mad clamor for liberty had forgotten the need of the strength that union brings, and she perished. Rome fostered union, nationality, for its strength, until it became a tyrant and strangled the child liberty. It was left for our own Revolutionary fathers to strike the balance between these opposing forces to join them in a perpetual wedlock in such a way as to secure the benefits of both. They selected the best things that had been tried and proved. Hence their great success, hence the fact that 132 years after its signing, this same Constitution is still the supreme law of the land and more deeply imbedded in the American heart than ever.”—Henry William Elson. “The Constitution is not an arbitrary, unchangeable document, but can be adapted to meet new conditions whenever the people decide. It should be upheld because under its wise provisions the United States has developed into a great nation of happy and prosperous people; because it contains sacred guarantees of protection for the individual; and because it affords freedom and opportunity for every citizen, whether native-born or naturalized. American citizenship securely rests upon its firm foundation.”—Henry Litchfield West.