Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 2.djvu/369

Rh is thus time for temporary passions to cool and for excitements to pass away; it begets a conservative habit of mind, which of itself is of the highest value. Changes in government are to be feared unless the benefit is certain. As Montaigne says: "'All great mutations shake and disorder a State. Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, and a worse; as it happened to Caesar's killers, who brought the republic to such a pass that they had reason to repent their meddling with it."

V. But, as change in government is according to the order of nature, a good constitution should provide for safe growth and expansion. Here, again, it may be hastily concluded the unwritten has advantages. What growth can be better, it may be asked, than that which is going on from day to day, imperceptibly, and is finally officially and formally recognized when it is complete? But, on the other hand, this method of change is accompanied by dangers that may threaten the very existence of government. The settlement of the question is very likely to be a settlement at the point of the sword, as it was not only when the first great charter of English liberty was won, but again when general representation in parliament was secured; and still again when, after forty years of civil strife, it was settled by the revolution of i688, that the rule of the king of England was not by right divine, but was conditioned on observance of the fundamental law. An appeal to arms is almost necessarily the mode of settlement when the question at issue is one that touches the foundation principles upon which the civil state is based, and especially when it strikes at the roots of ideas and prejudices which are the inheritance of ages; so that all great questions of reform in government are likely to threaten public disorder. We have found the better way when we have agreed upon a method whereby the peaceful ballot may determine whether the time is ripe for a change, and, if so, what the change shall be, instead of leaving the question of change to the arbitrament of force. The choice of methods is thus between ballot and battle, with a reasonable certainty that the one, while it is peaceful, will truly express the actual public judgment; while the other, besides being destructive, may prove nothing beyond the fact that the fortune of war for the time being inclines to a particular party. The written constitution thus prepares the way for growth and expansion by steps which give security against public disorder and