SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.III   September, 1925   No.9

GREAT CORNER STONE

by: Unknown

CONSTITUTION DAY - SEPTEMBER 17, 1925
Mr. Brethren, as you well know, a corner stone unites two walls and 
gives unity and solidity to a building, by joining and sustaining its 
many parts.  It is the keystone of the foundation.  Everything 
depends upon it; everything proceeds from it.  If the corner stone is 
faulty the structure is frail.  Unless the corner stone is well and 
truly laid upon a solid base, the house will not be stable.

The Constitution of our Republic is the great corner stone of liberty 
and law in our nation.  It was wrought out and laid down upon bedrock 
of righteousness by wise and just men.  Everything rests upon it.  By 
it all liberty is regulated, all law tested.  It unites many states 
into one nation, yet keeps the integrity of each.  Truly it is the 
written Will of God for our country, at once its foundation and its 
security.

Good work, true work, square work went into the making and laying of 
the great corner stone of liberty.  It is square with the order of 
the world, in which liberty and obedience, justice and mercy, join, 
or neither is safe.  It is true to the needs, duties and hopes of 
man, giving to each the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness, and the duty of allowing to others the same rights.  Under 
its wise and benign power all may live, and live well, uniting 
individual initiative and social obligation.

As such it is a bulwark against autocracy and anarchy alike, against 
rule by the few and ruin by the mob.  By its wise poise of power, 
representative but not ruthless, we have advanced thus far along the 
path of our history.  Under its calm wisdom we map our history.  
Under its calm wisdom we map our path into the future, yet keep the 
treasure of a time-tried past.  Upon it is built a "Government of the 
People, by the People, and for the People," which "Shall Not Perish 
From The Earth."  It unites the dead, the living and those yet unborn 
into a community of memory, service and hope.

Gladstone said that our Constitution was the most wonderful work ever 
struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.  But it 
was not struck off.  Back of it lay ages of experience, in which the 
race struggled for the rights of man.  Out of that mountain of 
history, as out of a quarry, our Constitution was slowly wrought, in 
the face of difficulties and deviances which only a divine aspiration 
and determination in the heart of the race could have overcome.  
Faith cut it, truth shaped it, time polished it, making a chief 
corner stone ready for the builders.

To put it in our own imagery, the Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, 
and the Habeas Corpus Act were like the entered Apprentice Degree in 
the great initiation into free government.  The Bill of rights and 
Constitution framed by various Colonies, and even the Declaration of 
Independence, may be called the Second degree, in which Fellows in 
the sublime Craft of Freedom wrought brilliantly.  At last, as the 
Master Degree, after the shadow of the War, with its blood and fire 
and tears, came the constitution, the final expression in a single 
document, in permanent and definite form, of the will of a Free 
People . . .  an august instrument such as man had never known 
before; no vain declamation but a grand affirmation, clear, concise, 
comprehensive; of the principles of organized liberty and just and 
wise law.

No wonder it has won the homage of mankind as the "Last Best Hope of 
Earth."  It divided history into before and after, opening a new era.  

Washington wrote: "I can almost trace the finger of Divine Providence 
through those dark and mysterious days, which first led the colonists 
to assemble a convention, thereby laying the foundation for peace and 
prosperity." Hamilton, also a member of the Craft, was no less 
explicit:  "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for 
among old parchments or musty records.  They are written as with a 
sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity 
itself.  The establishment of a Constitution in time of profound 
peace by the voluntary action of all the people is a prodigy."  With 
which agree all the great voices that echo through our history.
Like all true wisdom, our Constitution was, and is a compromise 
between two widely different ideas of government, a balance between 
the extremes of oligarchy and democracy.  Our fathers dreaded the 
madness of the many as much as the arts of the few.  They were 
equally afraid of the despot and the mob.  Their problem was to guard 
the rights of the states, and yet give the Federal Government 
adequate power.  The negotiations were often difficult, and were more 
than once saved from wreck by the tact, patience and wisdom of 
Franklin, Dickinson, Sherman and most of all Madison; who was called 
"The Father of the Constitution."  Two ideas were ever present in 
their minds, one that the people should rule, and the other that the 
will of the people should be carefully and deliberately expressed, 
not swayed by gusts of popular passion.  As Madison put it, though 
every member of the Athenian Assembly had been a Socrates, the 
aggregate body would have been a mob.

The result of their labors was a Republic, not a democracy; as too 
few seemed to realize.  In a democracy, such as we see in 
Switzerland, the people make and administer the laws, which may be 
possible in a small country of intelligent and homogeneous 
population.  What it means in a large country of mixed races has been 
shown us of late in Russia, where pure democracy ended in the worst 
kind of autocracy.  In a Republic, what Washington called "The 
Delegated Will of the People," is vested in representatives elected 
by the people.  The rank and mass of the people will not be bothered 
with the details of state, even when they are capable of dealing with 
them, as is shown in our time by the amazing neglect of the ballot.  
The wisdom of our fathers has been justified in ways too many to 
name.

Ours is representative government, not a pure democracy, as we need 
to keep in mind, if only because in recent years the tendency has 
turned more and more toward democracy.  As such it is hedged about 
with every kind of device to avoid hasty and ill-judged action, in 
order to protect people from themselves, and yet to give expression 
to their real and considered will.  As we look back over our history 
we see this wise balance of power tipping now toward one extreme, and 
then toward another, always with bad results; and it behooves us to 
keep the poise, if we would keep our sanity which is our safety.
Of the Constitution Convention, it may truly be said that a more 
remarkable assembly of men has never been forgathered in history, 
anywhere or at any time.  They were young men, for the most part, 
though men were deemed old earlier in those days than they are today.  
Madison was only thirty-six; Dayton of New Jersey twenty-one.  As 
Masons. we have a right to be proud of the number and quality of the 
men of our Craft who sat in that conclave of the great.  Washington, 
who presided, was one of our Craft; Franklin, whose quaint humor 
saved many a tense hour; and Hamilton, in whom genius and wisdom 
joined; as well as others.   Indeed, it has been said that with very 
few men out of the room, the convention could have been opened on the 
Third degree of Masonry.

Thus Freemasonry, in the  formative days as in all the years of its 
story, influenced profoundly, creatively the organic law of the 
Republic.  How well they wrought is shown by the fact that for sixty-
one years, from 1804 to 1865, not a single amendment was added.  In 
the five years following the Civil War, the 13th, 14th and 15th 
amendments were ratified.  Then for forty-three years no other 
amendments were adopted; when a movement, vast as a flowing tide, to 
extend an idea and spirit of democracy found expression in the 16th, 
17th, 18th and 19th amendments.  Just now the tide is ebbing, but it 
will no doubt return, in obedience to law of ebb and flow.  If we are 
true to our history and genius of our Republic, we shall have a care 
to do nothing in haste, lest we injure a wise plan in order to make 
in immediate gain.

Let me tell a story, a true story, in order to point a moral.  In a 
lumber camp in the West, a group of radical lumber-jacks - men from 
the ends of the land - were one evening discussing the sad state of 
the world, and especially the wickedness of the Government.  They 
agreed, unanimously, that our Government is all wrong, if not 
actually rotten, a dirty, capitalistic conspiracy against the rights 
of the man who works.  They said that it ought to be torn to pieces 
and made over again.  Among them was a young minister, a missionary, 
who listened to their talk, and even drew it out at full length by 
the questions he asked.  Finally, pretending to agree with the 
radical ideas, he wrote on a piece of paper the following which he 
proposed as a basis of a just state:

"We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish 
justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common 
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this 
Constitution."

"That's the stuff!  Hit 'em again ," they yelled.  "If we had a 
Government built on that dope, every feller would have a square deal, 
and a chance to live a bit.  Some head you got Padre; go on, give us 
more."

"Listen boys," said the Padre; "What I read is the Preamble to the 
Constitution of the United States.  If we tore everything to pieces 
and set out to make it all over, do you think we could do a better 
job?"

The missionary himself told me the story, adding that as he listened 
to the talk of the evening - earnest, passionate and bitter - he 
himself was inclined to agree with much of it, until he began to 
consider how a better state could be constructed.  This led him to 
think of the Constitution, its wisdom and poise and justice; and the 
wonder of it dawned on him like a revelation.  He remembered the 
saying of Hamilton, that it is of great importance, not only to guard 
against the oppression of rulers, but also to protect one part of 
society from the injustices of another part.  He recalled his very 
words:

"Justice is the end of Government.  It is the end of civil society.  
It ever has been, and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or 
until liberty be lost in the pursuit."

As Lincoln put it, between those who will "Let Nothing Alone" and 
those who will allow no change at all, there is a middle way of wise 
and cautious advance.  He approved the praise of Burke for those men 
in Public life who have "Disposition to conserve and the ability to 
improve," adding that we must have not only the wish but the ability 
to improve, else we shall lose what we have while blunderingly trying 
to get what we want.

To defend, preserve and obey the Constitution of our Republic is the 
first obligation of every citizen, as it is the first oath of every 
officer.  To teach its history and meaning is the duty of school and 
church and lodge - making it the Bible of our Political Religion; and 
to observe its birthday ought to be a universal festival from end to 
end of the land.



