They knew that no government could be efficient unless its powers equaled its responsibilities.

They were willing to trust to such a government the security and the welfare of the American people.

The Constitution has proved capable of development chiefly as the instrument of these positive political ideas.

Thanks to the theory of implied powers, to the liberal construction of the Supreme Court during the first forty years of its existence, and to the results of the Civil War the Federal government has, on the whole, become more rather than less efficient as the national political organ of the American people.

Almost from the start American life has grown more and more national in substance, in such wise that a rigid constitution which could not have been developed in a national direction would have been an increasing source of irritation and protest.