Our Constitution

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 28, 1913

The Constitution of the United States, which so many of our National Reformers are endeavouring to tinker, and so many of them condemn as utterly out of date, is not so considered by some of the great men of earth. For instance, the Hon. James Bryce, British ambassador to the United States for so long, author of “The American Commonwealth,” “The Holy Roman Empire,” and other noted works, said on December 14 in New York:

“The Constitution was the work of an extraordinary group of men, such as has seldom been seen living at the same time in any country, and such as had never been brought together in any other country, to undertake the immensely difficult task of framing a fundamental instrument of government for a nation. The nation was then a small one; and it is one of the most striking tributes to the genius and foresight of the men who designed that form of government for 3,000,000 people, that it should have proved fitting to serve the needs of 93,000,000.”

“The whole of your history since 1789 is a record of the services which the Constitution has rendered to you.”

“It [the Constitution] taught you to recognize that a free government must be founded upon a sense of right, upon the respect of every man and community for the rights of every other man and community, to the exclusion of all violence.”

But our religious reformers would change all this, discriminate between classes, and would make the fundamental law of the land an agent in oppression. Instead of the Constitution being “a vitalizing force in the world,” as Mr. Bryce phrases it, it would be a veritable instrument of tyranny. God overruled in those days which tried men’s souls. That ought to be seen now.