Page:Back to the Republic.djvu/68

 in the creation of political institutions. They were thinking of liberty, of representative government, of protection against tyranny and spoliation, and of ways and means by which public opinion might, in orderly fashion, express itself in statute laws, in judicial judgments and in executive acts. The task of the founders was a political task, and with what almost superhuman wisdom, foresight and skill they accomplished it, is recorded history. . . . It is a noteworthy and singular characteristic of our American government that the Constitution provides a means for protecting individual liberty from invasion by the powers of government itself, as well as from invasion by others more powerful and less scrupulous than ourselves. The principles underlying our civil and political liberty are indelibly written into the Constitution of the United States, and the nation's courts are instituted for their protection. . . . "The representative republic erected on the American continent under the Constitution of the United States is a more advanced, a more just and a wiser form of government than the socialistic and direct democracy which it is now proposed to substitute for it. . . . To put the matter bluntly, there is under way in the United States at the present time a definite and