But this reenforcement of the substance of American national life has, until recently, found an adequate expression in the increasing scope and efficiency of the Federal government.

The Federalists had the insight to anticipate the kind of government which their country needed; and this was a great and a rare achievement--all the more so because they were obliged in a measure to impose it on their fellow-countrymen.
There is, however, another face to the shield.

The Constitution was the expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears.
It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the bulwark of certain individual and local rights.

The Federalists sought to surround private property, freedom of contract, and personal liberty with an impregnable legal fortress; and they were forced by their opponents to amend the original draft of the Constitution in order to include a still more stringent bill of individual and state rights.

Now I am far from pretending that these legal restrictions have not had their value in American national history, and were not the expression of an essential element in the composition and the ideal of the American nation.