reply was: "We do not deal in periodical literature."

Constitutions, as governmental panaceas, have come and gone; but it can
be said of the American Constitution, paraphrasing the noble tribute of
Dr. Johnson to the immortal fame of Shakespeare, that the stream of
time, which has washed away the dissoluble fabric of many other paper
constitutions has left almost untouched its adamantine strength.
Excepting the first ten amendments, which were virtually a part of the
original charter, only nine others have been adopted in more than one
hundred and thirty years.

A constitution, while primarily for the distribution of governmental
powers, is, in its last analysis, a formal expression of adherence to
that which in modern times has been called the higher law, and which in
ancient times was called natural law. The jurisprudence of every nation
has, with more or less clearness, recognized the existence of certain
primal and fundamental laws which are superior to the laws, statutes, or
conventions of living generations. The original use of the term was to
import the superiority of the Imperial edict to the laws of the Comitia.
All nations have recognized this higher law to a greater or less extent.
If we turn to the writings of the most intellectual race in ancient
time and possibly in recorded history--the Greeks--we shall see the
higher law vindicated with incomparable power in the moral philosophy of
its three greatest dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. How
was it better expressed than by Antigone when she was asked whether she
had transgressed the laws of the state and replied:

"Yes, for that law was not from Zeus, nor did Justice, dweller with
the gods below, establish it among men; nor deemed I that thy
decree--mere mortal that thou art--could override those unwritten