Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/377

Rh modifications or adaptations which represented the reforms adopted or the progress realized. The people on each occasion issued the whole Constitution for greater convenience, naming it after the year in which the change was made; and this has given the impression that each Constitution was an entirely new one, differing essentially from all those which had previously been in force. But even if Haiti, like France, had enacted almost twelve Constitutions during the first eighty-four years of her existence, this should not be brought forward as an evidence of her incapacity for self-government, which her maligners lead others into believing. These changes would rather indicate a strong desire of bettering such institutions as were found to be inadequate or unsuitable to actual circumstances. It is surely pardonable in so young a nation as Haiti not to have succeeded from the very first in establishing and maintaining the best form of government, when older nations, like Russia for example, are still seeking after a proper political organization.