This defect has not hitherto had very many practical inconveniences, but it is an absolute violation of the theory and the spirit of American democratic institutions.

The time may come when the fulfillment of a justifiable democratic purpose may demand the limitation of certain rights, to which the Constitution affords such absolute guarantees; and in that case the American democracy might be forced to seek by revolutionary means the accomplishment of a result which should be attainable under the law.
It was, none the less, a great good thing that the Union under the new Constitution triumphed.

Americans have more reason to be proud of its triumph than of any other event in their national history.

The formation of an effective nation out of the thirteen original colonies was a political achievement for which there was no historical precedent.

Up to that time large countries had been brought, if not held, together by military force or by a long process of gradually closer historical association.