A Catechism of the Constitution of the United States of America

Excerpt from A Catechism of the Constitution of the United States of America

Napoleon the Third proclaimed, "The Empire is Peace." The empire was war until it went down in the red sunset of Sedan.

Melville W. Fuller, on the eve of his nomination to the Chief-Justiceship of the United States, said, in his eulogy on Stephen A. Douglas: "The Republic is Opportunity." He ought to have said that this extended confederation of States was meant to be Opportunity.

In the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, Charles Pinckney declared, "In the United States there is but one order." Is that true to-day? Is there not the growing aristocracy of wealth?

In the same convention Alexander Hamilton declared that, "As long as office is open to all men and no constitutional rank is established, it is true republicanism." Is that true to-day? Is genius or moral merit or political knowledge rewarded by even so slight a thing as acknowledgment? Is it not a crime to be poor, however gifted?

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