The First Constitution of New York. 



51 



and picked and pounded, tinkered by experimentalists, denounced by 

 professional agitators, degraded by cranks, and thrown back at us, a 

 soiled and trampled thing ? 



I am not claiming that our present Constitution is a perfect instru- 

 ment; I am protesting against a vicious method of modification, and 

 I am also insisting that, remembering its history and recalling the 

 gauntlets it has run in the century of its existence, we are justified in 

 congratulating ourselves that it is as good as it is. Like apiece of 

 genuine metal, it has been hammered by many hands into every 

 shape; but it is the genuine metal still, with texture and fiber still 

 perfect. It is the same Constitution, just as a man is the same man, 

 after the growth of years has changed every particle in his physical 

 organism. It has not withered under the touch of the demogogue or 

 the breath of popular clamor, or the poison of official corruption, or 

 the strain of political intrigue. It has been the shield of bad men, the 

 cloak of bad schemes; but it is still the safeguard of the greatest com- 

 monwealth in the Union. The statesmen who pondered long over its 

 first draft, would be amazed and panic-stricken, if they could now 

 behold the work of their hands. The things they sought most earn- 

 estly to avoid, are securely imbedded in the organic law. But with 

 these things have come other changes, and the greatest security of 

 Xew York's present Constitution is one they forgot to ensure to their 

 descendants — the perpetual provision for the education of the masses 

 at the expense of the State. 



