Show I The Federal Constitution Kate Holladay Claghorn in the July Atlantic Our constitution has been amply shown oy numerous modern commentators to be in its substance as much the embodiment of actual experience ex-perience as is the English constitution itself We suffer indeed from an embarrassment em-barrassment of riches in sources of practice American English or Dutch for its various formal provisions And yet while the substance and matter of the federal constitution may be old there is enoagh in it that was new inform in-form at the tune of its construction to distract attention from more familiar features For example popular thought could not take in without difficulty dif-ficulty the idea of a political society made up of states Chat were independent indepen-dent and at the same time under central control nod could it understand under-stand a central control except under the old form of king and standing army Furthermore the circumstances circum-stances attending the forming and adoption of the constitution were such i as to rcake it appear a new construction construc-tion The meeting of a body of men representing a nation with the deliberate deliber-ate intention of framing a fundamental law covering the entire field of government govern-ment was a new event in political experience ex-perience Although much might be said in the convention about English practice and the English constitution the fact of choice of freedom to adopt or reject made even the following follow-ing of custom in some sort an act of voluntary creation This aspect of the conventions work at any rate was the aspect that impressed the imagination of the time most forcibly and has continued con-tinued to impress the imagination of succeeding generations until within very recent years |