Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 197, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1917 — No Sanctified Constitutions. [ARTICLE]

No Sanctified Constitutions.

“Some men,” wrote Jefferson in his old age, “look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant—too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of Its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present. . v . I am certainly not an advocate of frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. . . . But J know also that laws and constitutions must go hand In hand with the progress of the human mind.” —New Republic.