I do not presume to read the constitution of the United States for this or any other audience--that is a work beyond my powers, and, I apprehend, beyond those of many who consider themselves of the "constitutional party." But there may be instruction in recalling a few of the instances in our history in which the constitutionally impossible has been nevertheless accomplished, and that, too, without harm to the Republic. Thomas Jefferson, being a democrat and "strict constructionist," demanded an amendment to the constitution to confirm the Louisiana purchase; but not, it will be remembered, until after the purchase had been made, constitution or no constitution. Andrew Jackson, another democrat, has never been rebuked by posterity for marching into Florida, arresting and hanging Ambuster and his fellow spies on what was then Spanish territory; yet in so doing President Jackson thrust his hob-nailed Tennessee boots clean through the sacred parchment. It has been well said that success is an unwritten law seldom reversed by the courts. Certainly neither the courts nor Jackson's fellow strict-constructionists have ever rebuked him for the "unconstitutional act." Passing over the Mexican war and the acquisition of Texas, California and New Mexico, a series of acts very damaging to the dignity of the constitution, let us come at one step to the most conspicuous breach of the constitution in all our history--the War of the Rebellion. There is not a line in the constitution expressly permitting the secession of a state, though so eminent an authority as the late Judge Thomas M. Cooley, himself a Northerner and a Union man of undoubted loyalty, plainly intimates in his "Constitutional Limitations" that at least historical precedent was on the side of secession. But neither is there authority in the constitution for the invasion of a state by the federal army, unless at the request of the state authorities; yet the Southern states seceded, and President Lincoln marched the Northern armies whithersoever secession and rebellion showed their heads. Still more recently, President Cleveland sent federal troops into Illinois to quell riotous strikers, against the protest of the Governor; yet posterity sustains both presidents in their acts--perhaps even thanks them for the precedent--whatever the cost to the constitution. As for the repression of the rebellion, posterity, including many of the seceding "strict constructionists," now concede that equity, common sense and the instinct of self-preservation amply justified any possible breach of the constitution committed for the preservation of the Union. A federation of states holding together only at the will of all its component parts would hardly have been worth saving; so that if the constitution was on the side of the seceders, why--so much the worse for the constitution.