58 CONSTITUTIONAL SOLUTION. 



and tyranny, and permits independence without arrogance while 

 counselling obedience without servility. 



The form of the government of the United States and the powers 

 of the same are to be found only in the ordained Constitution, and 

 should be sought nowhere else. That Constitution has borrowed no 

 essential features from ancient or modern or recent civil politics ; but 

 its authors may have had before them the French apothegm : 



"A barbe de fou, on apprend a r'aire." 



Men learn to shave on a fool's beard. 



It is as native as the Indian corn for our sustenance or tobacco for 

 our entertainment. DeTocqueville writes of the convention which 

 was immortalized by its authorship, sitting between April and Sep- 

 tember 17th, 1787, " but George Washington was its president, and 

 it contained the choicest talents and noblest hearts which had 

 ever appeared in the new world." This sacred instrument was 

 adopted by the several states by conventions authoritatively called 

 for its special consideration after mature deliberation. It has been 

 expounded by Marshall and Webster with the aid of the profoundest 

 arguments inspired by the pure purpose of making manifest in this 

 organic law a National government adequate "to form a more perfect 

 union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the 

 common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the 

 blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" — for Madison 

 and Hamilton were among the luminaries of the thirty-nine signa- 

 tures. I would therefore admonish the vain theosophist or shallow 

 political sciolist who wished to disturb this masterpiece of polity by 

 amendment or otherwise, 



"Alium quercum excute." 



Shake some other oak. 



The provisions of this Constitution pertinent to how a President 

 shall be made, are in article II, §1, viz : " Each state shall appoint, in 

 such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of elec- 

 tors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives, to 

 which the state may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or 

 representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the 

 United States, shall be appointed an elector." 

 Aud in article twelve, viz : 



