beginning to think about public questions, and not at all as matter of
controversy or doubt. The last sentence, to be sure, requires
amplification; Mr. Nordhoff certainly did not intend his young readers
to infer that such tyranny as he describes is either sure to occur in
the absence of a Constitution or sure to be prevented by it. The
primary defense against it is in the people's own recognition of the
proper limits of majority power; what Mr. Nordhoff wished to impress
upon his readers is the part played by a Constitution in fixing that
recognition in a strong and enduring form. The quotation I have in
mind, however, from one of the highest of legal authorities, has no
reference to the United States Constitution or to any Constitution. It
deals with the essential principles of law and of government. It is
from a book by the late James C. Carter, who was beyond challenge the
leader of the bar of New York, and was also one of the foremost
leaders in movements for civic improvement. The book bears the title
"Law: its Origin, Growth and Function," and consists of a course of
lectures prepared for delivery to the law school of Harvard University
seventeen years ago; which, it is to be noted, was before the movement
for National Prohibition had got under way. Mr. Carter was not arguing
for any specific object, but was impressing upon the young men general
truths that had the sanction of ages of experience, and were the
embodiment of the wisest thought of generations. Let us hear a few of
these truths as he laid them down:

Nothing is more attractive to the benevolent vanity of men than the
notion that they can effect great improvement in society by the
simple process of forbidding all wrong conduct, or conduct which
they think is wrong, by law, and of enjoining all good conduct by
the same means. (p. 221 )