realities of life, it can be profitably commended to all nations which
may attempt a similar task.

While the Constitution apparently only deals with the practical and
essential details of government, yet underlying these simply but
wonderfully phrased delegations of power is a broad and accurate
political philosophy, which goes far to state the "law and the
prophets" of free government.

These essential principles of the Constitution may be briefly summarized
as follows:



1.


_The first is representative government_.

Nothing is more striking in the debates of the convention than the
distrust of its members, with few exceptions, of what they called
"democracy." By this term they meant the power of the people to
legislate directly and without the intervention of chosen
representatives. They believed that the utmost concession that could be
safely made to democracy was the power to select suitable men to
legislate for the common good, and nothing is more striking in the
Constitution than the care with which they sought to remove the powers
of legislation from the _direct_ action of the people. Nowhere in the
instrument is there a suggestion of the initiative or referendum.