A Foreshadowing of the Supreme Court Decision

REGULAR readers of the Atlantic will doubtless recall the brilliant essay by Woodrow Wilson which introduced, last January, the series of papers devoted to the Reconstruction Period. Certain passages of the essay, setting forth the far-reaching changes wrought by Reconstruction, gain a fresh significance if re - read in the light of the late decision of the Supreme Court in the Porto Rican cases. None of our historians have grasped more philosophically or phrased more deftly the fact, evident enough to everybody now, that the national will, as expressed through the Congress, is certain to discover or create constitutional warrant for its actions.

Here are a few sentences from the essay. Their application to the problems arising out of our new possessions is one more illustration of the vital relation between “past politics” and the history that is making before our eyes.

“ First of all, it is clear to every one who looks straight upon the facts, every veil of theory withdrawn, and the naked body of affairs uncovered to meet the direct question of the eye, that civil war discovered the foundations of our government to be in fact unwritten ; set deep in a sentiment which constitutions can neither originate nor limit. The law of the Constitution reigned until war came. Then the stage was cleared, and the forces of a mighty sentiment, hitherto unorganized, deployed upon it. A thing had happened for which the Constitution had made no provision. . . . When the war came, therefore, and questions were broached to which it gave no answer, the ultimate foundation of the structure was laid bare : physical force, sustained by the stern loves and rooted predilections of masses of men, the strong ingrained prejudices which are the fibre of every system of government. ... It unmistakably uncovered the foundations of force upon which the Union rested.

“ It did more. The sentiment of union and nationality, never before aroused to full consciousness or knowledge of its own thought and aspirations, was henceforth a new thing, aggressive and aware of a sort of conquest. It had seen its legions and felt its might in the field. It saw the very Constitution, for whose maintenance and defense it had acquired the discipline of arms, itself subordinated for a time to the practical emergencies of war, in order that the triumph might be the more unimpeded and complete ; and it naturally deemed nationality henceforth a thing above law. . . . The Constitution knew no such process as this of Reconstruction, and could furnish no rules for it. . . . It is marvelous what healing and oblivion peace has wrought, how the traces of Reconstruction have worn away. But a certain deep effect abides. It is within, not upon the surface. It is of the spirit, not of the body. . . . The real change was the change of air, — a change of conception with regard to the power of Congress, the guiding and compulsive efficacy of national legislation, the relation of the life of the land to the supremacy of the national lawmaking body. All policy thenceforth wore a different aspect.

“ We realize it now, in the presence of novel enterprises, at the threshold of an unlooked-for future. It is evident that empire is an affair of strong government, and not of the nice and somewhat artificial poise or of the delicate compromises of structure and authority characteristic of a mere federal partnership. Undoubtedly, the impulse of expansion is the natural and wholesome impulse which comes with a consciousness of matured strength; but it is also a direct result of that national spirit which the war between the states cried so wide awake, and to which the processes of Reconstruction gave the subtle assurance of practically unimpeded sway and a free choice of means.”