Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/258

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the certain ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from — will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake ? All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Con- stitution has ever been denied. If, by the mere force of numbers, a majority should derive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, jus- tify revolution — certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guarantees and prohibitions in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically appli- cable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can an- ticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible 248