One can say of this document as Dr. Furness, in his variorum edition of Hamlet, says of the words of that character: 

    “No words by him let fall, no syllable by him uttered, but has been
    caught up and pondered, as no words except those of Holy Writ.”

But what of its future and how long will the Constitution wholly resist the washing of time and circumstance?  Lord Macaulay once ventured the prediction that the Constitution would prove unworkable as soon as there were no longer large areas of undeveloped land and when the United States became a nation of great cities.  That period of development has arrived.  In 1880 only 15 per cent. of the American population lived in the cities and the remainder were still on the farms.  To-day over 52 per cent, are crowded in one hundred great cities.  Lord Macaulay added: 

“I believe America’s fate is only deferred by physical causes.  Institutions purely democratic will sooner or later destroy liberty or civilization, or both....  The American Constitution is all sail and no anchor.”

In this last commentary Lord Macaulay was clearly mistaken.  As I have shown, the Constitution is not “purely democratic.”  It is amazing that so great a mind should have so little understood that more than any other Constitution, that of America imposes powerful restraints on democracy.  The experience of a century and a quarter has shown that while the anchor may at times drag, yet it measurably holds the ship of state to its ancient moorings.  The American Constitution still remains in its essential principles and still enjoys not only the confidence but the affection of the great and varied people whom it rules.  To the latter this remarkable achievement must be attributed rather than to any inherent strength in parchment or red seals, for in a democracy the living soul of any Constitution must be such belief of the people in its wisdom and justice.  If it should perish to-morrow, it would yet have enjoyed a life and growth of which any nation or age might be justly proud.  Moreover, it could claim with truth, if it finally perished, that it had been subjected to conditions for which it was never intended and that some of its essential principles had been ignored.

The Constitution is something more than a written formula of government—­it is a great spirit.  It is a high and noble assertion, and, indeed, vindication, of the morality of government.  It “renders unto Caesar [the political state] the things that are Caesar’s,” but in safeguarding the fundamental moral rights of the people, it “renders unto God the things that are God’s.”

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.”