Living over the great days of our forefathers, we now approach the greatest of all. It comes four years after the end of the Revolution. Not satisfied with a mere union of their states, the whole American people, in 1787, proposed to form the great nation of men, America. On June 21, 1788, it is created by them. On March 4, 1789, its only government, now also the government of the continued union of states, begins to function.

Between May 29, 1787, and March 4, 1789, the whole American people did their greatest work for individual liberty. That was their greatest day. Most Americans of this generation know nothing about that period. Still more is it to be regretted that our leaders in public life, even our most renowned lawyers, do not understand what was achieved therein for human freedom. It is of vital importance to the average American that he always know and understand and realize that achievement. That he do so, it is not in the slightest degree essential that he be learned in the law. It is only necessary that he know and understand a few simple facts. The experience of five years since 1917 teaches one lesson. It is that Americans, who have not the conviction that they are great constitutional thinkers, far more quickly than those who have that conviction, can grasp the full meaning of the greatest event in American history.

The reason is plain. Back in the ages, there was a time when scientific men “knew” that the earth was flat. Because they “knew” it, the rest of men assumed that it was so. And, because they “knew” it, it was most difficult to convince them that their “knowledge” was false “knowledge.”

In a similar way, our statesmen and constitutional thinkers came to the year 1917 with the “knowledge” that legislatures in America, if enough of them combined, had exactly the omnipotence over the individual freedom of the American which had been denied to the British Parliament by the early Americans. Naturally, it is difficult for them to understand that their “knowledge” is false “knowledge.” For us who have no false knowledge to overcome, it is comparatively simple to grasp what those other plain Americans of 1787 and 1788 meant to accomplish and did accomplish. Why should it not be simple for us? With those other plain Americans, we have just been through their strenuous years which immediately preceded their greatest days of 1787 and 1788. They were a simple people as are we average Americans of this generation. From living with them through those earlier days, we have come to know their dominant purpose. They sought to secure to themselves and to their posterity the greatest measure of protected enjoyment of human life, liberty and happiness against interference from outside America and against usurpation of power by any governments in America. Certainly, it ought not to be difficult for us to grasp accurately and quickly what they meant to do and what they did do in their last and greatest achievement in the quest of that protected enjoyment of human freedom. But, with all our happy predisposition accurately to understand the meaning of the facts in 1787 and 1788, that understanding cannot come until we know the facts themselves. Let us, therefore, live through those years with those other plain Americans of whom we are the posterity. Only then can we understand their legacy of secured liberty to us and keep it against usurpation by those who do not understand.

So long as the former subjects continued their Revolution, it was only natural that Americans should not realize how inadequately a mere federation of states would serve really to secure the protected enjoyment of individual human freedom. But, as soon as that war had ended, discerning men began quickly to realize that fact. Jealousies between nations, jealousies in abeyance while those nations were fighting a common war for independence, quickly had their marked effect upon the relations of these nations to one another and upon the respect which they showed to the commands of the government of the federation of which all those nations were members. As a matter of fact, those commands, because the governing powers of that government were wholly federal, were tantamount to nothing but requisitions. Those requisitions were honored largely by ignoring them. There was no way of enforcing respect for them or compelling observance of them. The plan of a purely federal union of nations permitted no method of enforcement save that of war upon whatever nation or nations might refuse obedience to a requisition. Such a war would have been repugnant to the mind of every patriotic American.

This was only one of the many defects coming from the fact that Americans, in spirit one people or nation, had no political existence as one nation and had no general national government, with general powers over all Americans, to command respect at home and abroad for the individual freedom of the American.

There is neither time nor necessity for dwelling further upon the fact, quickly brought home to the American people after the close of their Revolution, that a purely federal government of the states was no adequate security for their own freedom. Let the words of one of themselves, apologizing for the inadequacy of that government, attest their quick recognition that it was inadequate. They are the words of Jay in The Federalist of 1787. This is what he said: “A strong sense of the value and blessings of union induced the people, at a very early period, to institute a federal government to preserve and perpetuate it. They formed it almost as soon as they had a political existence; nay, at a time when their habitations were in flames, when many of their citizens were bleeding, and when the progress of hostility and desolation left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the formation of a wise and well-balanced government for a free people. It is not to be wondered at, that a government instituted in times so inauspicious, should on experiment be found greatly deficient and inadequate to the purpose it was intended to answer.” (Fed., No. 2.)