The whole conception of government
when the United States became a Nation was a mechanical conception of
government, and the mechanical conception of government which underlay
it was the Newtonian theory of the universe. If you pick up the
Federalist, some parts of it read like a treatise on astronomy instead
of a treatise on government. They speak of the centrifugal and the
centripetal forces, and locate the President somewhere in a rotating
system. The whole thing is a calculation of power and an adjustment of
parts. There was a time when nobody but a lawyer could know enough to
run the Government of the United States, and a distinguished English
publicist once remarked, speaking of the complexity of the American
Government, that it was no proof of the excellence of the American
Constitution that it had been successfully operated, because the
Americans could run any constitution. But there have been a great many
technical difficulties in running it.
And then something happened. A great question arose in this country
which, though complicated with legal elements, was at bottom a human
question, and nothing but a question of humanity.
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