The security of private property and personal liberty, and a
proper distribution of activity between the local and the central
governments, demanded at that time, and within limits still demand,
adequate legal guarantees. It remains none the less true, however, that
every popular government should in the end, and after a necessarily
prolonged deliberation, possess the power of taking any action, which,
in the opinion of a decisive majority of the people, is demanded by the
public welfare. Such is not the case with the government organized
under the Federal Constitution. In respect to certain fundamental
provisions, which necessarily receive the most rigid interpretation on
the part of the courts, it is practically unmodifiable. A very small
percentage of the American people can in this respect permanently thwart
the will of an enormous majority, and there can be no justification for
such a condition on any possible theory of popular Sovereignty. This
defect has not hitherto had very many practical inconveniences, but it
is an absolute violation of the theory and the spirit of American
democratic institutions.
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