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which has now reached an acute stage between Democracy and consolidated wealth. The result of this struggle will be the restoration of political powers to the people, and the complete control and regulation of all forms of corporate wealth devoted to public use.

I am not at all disturbed by the advent into public life of any of the remedial measures to which I have referred. They have purified in a large degree our party system, and have handed back to the people the power to select and elect their public officials, and to control their own government. They have broken the shackles which selfishness and greed have placed upon them. They have loosened the tongues of the voiceless people, and under capable and honest leadership the people will speak aright upon the great problems which confront them.

In the coming years he alone will be great who is brave enough, wise enough and strong enough to speak the truth, and direct the mighty current of public feeling and opinion within the chanels of constitutional law.

An unfettered Democracy, and that we have in most of the states, is able to redress its own grievances, and to deal with the problems which are pressing for solution upon principles of justice and fairness. It demands, not the destruction, but the control and restriction of capital in the interest of the public welfare. This restriction will manifest itself in many directions-in tariff laws for removal of unjust burdens upon the people; in the control of rates upon transportation lines; in the control of trusts and combinations in restraint of trade and commerce; in income and inheritance taxes, and in acts based upon the police power protecting the safety, the health and the morals of the people. Reduced to their last analysis, all the great questions which have occupied the attention of the people in the last twenty years have centered around the restriction and control of corporate wealth employed in public service and industrial corporations.

The power to deal with and solve these questions is undoubtedly vested in the states and in the National Government, and they will eventually be settled upon just principles, preserving to the public what is good and correcting the abuses which have flowed from unrestrained corporate power. When this is accomplished industrial peace will be assured, a better understanding between capital and labor will result, and the corporation, the necessary agent in the development of our commerce, industry and civilization, will be protected by public authority in the peaceful enjoyment of all its rights.

But if we would not see the subversion of the Government, we must set the metes and bounds of this rising tide of Democracy. Constitutional government in America precludes the idea of unrestrained and unlimited power in the people. "The theory of our government, state and national, is opposed to the deposit of unlimited power anywhere.' Neither by the people nor by the government can the humblest citizen be deprived of life, liberty or property without the authority of some existing law passed conformably to the Constitution authorizing such action. This limitation, both upon the people and the government, is the great safeguard of popular rights. It was incorporated in all our Constitutions as the effective barrier against the despotism most likely to follow the vesting of unlimited power either in the people or in the government.

From the history of England, where the unlimited sovereignty of the nation resided in the Parliament, and from that of Athens, where it resided in a pure democracy, we see the reason, as well as the wisdom, of the people placing restraints upon themselves, as well as upon their government. Except for these limitations, there is no adequate protection for the individual who has incurred the hatred of the government, or against whom the fury of the populace may be directed. I have referred to some instances in the history of Athens. I now take an example from the history of England.

In 1641 Thomas Wentforth, the Earl of Strafford, was impeached for the crime of high treason before the House of Lords, and put upon trial. After many days spent in the trial of his case, it was found that the evidence was insufficient to convict him, and it was evident to his enemies that he would be acquitted. They determined that he should not escape. He had incurred the hatred of the people, and they demanded his life, and for this purpose they resorted to a Bill of Attainder, under which he was put to death and his estate forfeited. The power of Parliament under which the Earl was convicted and put to death was thus stated by Lord Digby, who conducted the prosecution: "I know," he said, "there is in Parliament a double power of life and death. The one a judicial power, and the other a legislative power. The measure of one is what is legally just; of the other what is prudentially and politically fit for the good and preservation of the whole; but these two, under favor, are not to be confounded in judgment." It is evident that the leaders of the American Revolution, had they failed, would have readily fallen victims to this dread power. The case of Strafford stands as an impressive warning against reposing unchecked and unlimited power in any government, and the American people, instructed by many examples of its abuse in other countries, have wisely imposed limitations upon governmental action in many cases, and have expressly denied the power in the government to pass bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, or bills of pains and penalties.

But the provisions of the Constitution defining the power and limiting the action of government are not self-executing. Are mere constitutional declarations sufficient to restrain government or men within the lawful sphere of action? Suppose the legislative and the executive departments, yielding to popular clamor, or strong public opinion, should override the clear limitations of the Constitution? Suppose, for instance, they should establish a na

tional church, pass bills of attainder, take private property for public use without just compensation, abolish or usurp the functions of the judicial department of the government? If any of these things could be done without some effective power to control them, it is clear that constitutional government would rest upon an unsafe and insecure foundation, and would be liable to go to pieces at any moment. If the unchecked will of the majority is to rule in all matters, the life, liberty and property of the minority would be completely at its mercy.

But the framers of our government laid its foundations upon no such insecure basis. They builded for all timefor immortality, if such a term may be applied to the nation. They placed in the judiciary department the power, and they charged it with the duty of restraining the action of the other departments of the government within the limits of the Constitution. This power is essential to the existence of the government. It is the very heart of the Constitution which rash and misguided men would cut out. The framers of the government knew that it was necessary to place this power somewhere. They lodged it in the judiciary. The judges, unlike many of their critics, have never claimed the attribute of infallibility. They admit, being human, that they have in many cases made mistakes. But notwithstanding the hue and cry of a few men, so much wiser in their own conceits than the framers of the Constitution, I think the great majority of thoughtful Americans will agree that the judiciary has been, and is now, in an especial sense, the faithful guardian of their civil and religious liberty.

Early in the history of the general Government the Supreme Court of the United States, in a great opinion written by Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury vs. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, decided that an Act of Congress, passed in violation of the Constitution, was null and void, and that it was the duty of the judiciary to restrain its execution.

This decision, which declared the power and duty of the judiciary to nullify and restrain all unconstitutional acts, vitalized every provision of the Constitution, and established it in fact as the supreme law of the land.

The movement to cripple the judiciary in the exercise of its constitutional powers, and to render it subservient to popular clamor, or the passions of the hour, merely because some judges in some cases have made mistakes, seems to me to be the height of folly.

The opinion of Chief Justice Marshall contains a complete refutation of the objections of the new propaganda against this power of the judiciary, and one of the best services that could be rendered the people would be to put that opinion into their hands for reflection and study.

A great American lawyer, speaking of the soundness and value and far-reaching influence of that decision, said: "I do not know that I can point to one achievement in American statesmanship which can take rank for its consequences of good above that single decision of the Supreme Court which adjudged that an act of the Legislature contrary to the Constitution is void, and that the judicial department is clothed with the power to ascertain the repugnancy and pronounce the legal conclusion. That the framers of the Constitution intended this to be so is certain; but to have asserted it against Congress and the Executive, to have vindicated it by that easy, yet adamantine, demonstration, than which the reasonings of mathematics show nothing surer, to have inscribed this vast truth of conservatism upon the public mind, so that no demagogue, not in the last stage of intoxication, denies itthis is an achievement of statesmanship of which a thousand years may not exhaust or reveal all the good."

We must, of course, admit that in these latter days there are some few men who would have us believe that they are greater patriots than those who framed the Constitution; greater lawyers than John Marshall, and much wiser than all judges, past, present and to come. And there are

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