134 Stoux City Academy of Science and Letters. 
Revolution is a hard word, and one to the use of 
which we are very properly more averse than are our 
Latin brethren. I have pointed out the extreme diffi- 
culty of change in our constitution, and have raised the 
question as to its possibility. Whichever way that ques- 
tion is resolved, I cannot do better in conclusion than to 
make my own, the language of the great Judge Story, 
whose Commentaries on the Constitution have been 
studied by every American lawyer. “A government,” 
says he, ‘which in its own organization, provides no 
means of change, but assumes to be fixed and unalter- 
able, must, after a while, become wholly unsuited to the 
circumstances of the nation; and it will either degener- 
ate into a despotism, or, by the pressure of its inequali- 
ties, bring on a revolution. It is wise, therefore, in every 
government, and especially in a republic, to provide 
means for altering and improving the fabric of govern- 
ment, as time and experience, or the new phases of 
human affairs, may render proper to promote the happi- 
ness and safety of the people. The great principle to be 
sought is to make the changes practicable, but not too 
easy; to secure due deliberation and caution; and to fol- 
low experience, rather than to open the way for experi- 
ments suggested by mere speculation and theory.” 
