The first question asked of any important legislative project, whether state or Federal, concerns its constitutionality; and the question of its wisdom is necessarily subordinate to these fundamental legal considerations.

The statesman, who is not a lawyer, suffers under many disadvantages--not the least of which is the suspicion wherewith he is regarded by his legal fellow-statesmen.

When they talk about a government by law, they really mean a government by lawyers; and they are by way of believing that government by anybody but lawyers is really unsafe.
The Constitution bestowed upon the American lawyer a constructive political function; and this function has been confirmed and even enlarged by American political custom and practice.

The work of finally interpreting the Federal Constitution has rarely been either conceived or executed in a merely negative spirit.

The construction, which successive generations of Supreme Court Justices have placed upon the instrument, has tended to enlarge its scope, and make it a legal garment, which was being better cut to fit the American political and economic organism.