They can never be arbitrarily imposed, or created full grown. They come with time, and adapt themselves to the soil upon which they arise. That a system has been fortunate in one country is but an indifferent argument in favor of an attempt to engraft it upon another. Transfusion of blood is a questionable expedient, and the indigenous tree flourishes where the exotic perishes.

I have referred to the American experiment in this feature of government rather as an illustration than as an example. It certainly has the advantage of removing from the sphere of political controversy and from the action of popular caprice, and of placing under the uniform and permanent rules of jurisprudence, the preservation of those fundamental personal rights which, under all political changes and chances, remain the same. American experience has thus far shown that the assumption of arbitrary power by the executive has not proved the danger to free institutions which theorists anticipated. The concentration of power has tended steadily towards the legislative branch of the government. It is from that branch, not from the executive, that protection has been principally found necessary. What might have occurred in that country in some periods of its short history, if the constitutional restriction I have quoted had not existed, is only a subject of speculation. The frequency with which it has been invoked has demonstrated its importance.

But no system, however elaborate, and no contrivance, however ingenious, can be finally effectual for the preservation of personal liberty without the constant assistance of an enlightened, healthy, and

vigorous public sentiment. Law, however fundamental, is but the reflex of public opinion, and in the long run in a free country must be maintained by that opinion or must perish. Constitutions, however guarded, cannot provide for their own immortality. The principles of civil liberty had their origin in the convictions of mankind, and have been brought to perfection by the devotion of the race in which they started. Under them the Anglo-Saxon people has become what it is, and by that people they have been made what they are. It is a hackneyed saying, but hackneyed because it is constantly true, that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." But vigilance, to be of any avail, must be intelligent as well as active. From whom is it required? From whom is it to be reasonably expected? Who are the true and natural guardians of the law of the land? Manifestly those who are best qualified to understand it, and best capable of patriotic and disinterested conduct. It was the barons of England who obtained Magna Charta. It has been the best life of Great Britain that, from century to century, from generation to generation, in many a crisis, by many a victory, not less of peace than of war, has maintained inviolate its great principles. No demagogue, no self-seeker, no man who "follows for a reward," has ever struck an effectual blow for liberty or has advanced the cause of human freedom a single step. The name of liberty is always in the mouths of such men, but they are its enemies, not its friends. They have retarded and disgraced it, but they have never done it any good. They are only camp followers, not soldiers, in the great march, destined, we hope, to overcome the world. Liberty, every

where and always, has been maintained by the best class of its subjects. I use the term in no conventional sense. I understand the best class to be that which is composed of the best people. They may be found in the peerage; they may rise from humble life; their distinction is in quality, not in rank. It was the best class of Americans who took up the great quarrel on the far side of the Atlantic, carried through the American Revolution, ordained and set fast the Constitution of the United States, and have upheld it ever since. It is in that class everywhere, in all countries, under all free systems of government, that the law of the land, which is liberty, must find its defenders. Not only against its enemies, but against being wounded in the house of its friends. Friends too ignorant sometimes to perceive that a blow aimed at the head is equally a blow at the heart; that liberty is equality of rights, which no man is too high and no man too low to share in; and that when that equality is invaded, from whatever specious motive, or upon whatever promise of temporary advantage, liberty comes to an end; and the old story of the strong against the weak, of which the world was so long weary, begins to be rehearsed again.

For the maintenance of ancient and honest constitutional principles there is necessary the attainment by intelligent and thoughtful men of a clear comprehension of the real nature, extent, and value of those principles. A comprehension capable of penetrating all the forms of sophistry and of subterfuge under which they are assailed, and all the plausible excuses by which the movement is concealed. Where there is one man who is willing to lead such an attack

there are ten who are unable to perceive that it is taking place.

A true understanding of the scope of constitutional law excludes it altogether from the field of political contention. There always will be, and there always should be, political parties in a free country. There will never fail to be found room enough for a wide and sincere difference of opinion on the questions arising between them. But the law of the land is not the property of a party, nor the just subject of party dispute. All parties meet on it and start from it as a common ground, and all are equally interested in its preservation. What free government should do in the various exigencies and emergencies of the national life is often a grave question. Whether free govern

ment shall continue to exist, can never be a question in the British or American mind.

Nothing likely to occur at this day in any such government is so much to be dreaded, and so necessary to be resisted, as movements like those I have referred to, towards the organization of parties upon the lines of personal condition and the marshalling of one class to make war upon another. Political parties have been hitherto composed of all classes. Divisions have been upon the lines of opinion, and not upon those of social distinction. It is only recently that these movements have been seriously set on foot in various directions, and especially in America. If started in one free country, they endanger all. I have tried to point out how dangerous to free government such a warfare must be, if allowed to go on to its legitimate conclusion. It is not merely the fortune of the conflict that is to be feared, it is the conflict itself. It is

the shortest and most direct road to the resumption of the reign of arbitrary power. The man who inaugurates or encourages such a warfare is a greater, because a more efficient, enemy to liberty than if he attempted to set up the worst form of despotism with which humanity was ever afflicted.

It needs to be brought home clearly to those to whom ignorance and distress make such proposals attractive how cruel is the wrong to themselves that the success of them would bring to pass. How inevitably they must be the sufferers, when the hands of one class are thus turned against another, and what should be a community of interest is divided against itself. How certainly such schemes paralyze the industries and business upon which all self-supporting men depend. They are capable of understanding this, if it is set before them in the right way.

But the adjuration against a conflict of classes does not address itself, as too many seem to suppose, to the less fortunate class alone. It appeals to them undoubtedly; but it appeals with greater force to the higher and better educated order in society. To avert an impending war, concessions from both sides are generally necessary. But they come, in the first instance, with a better grace and a stronger force from the side that can best afford them. It is easier sometimes to disarm the demagogue by mitigating the grievances that make up his material than it is to refute him before the audiences where he has sway. The common law has its letter as well as its spirit. The one gives, as we have seen, an absolute protection to absolute rights. The other teaches that such protection is a weapon of defence, not of aggression, most