the other is altogether uncertain; and, that they who come after you may have the full advantage of your labors, I would suggest that it would be your wiser course to prepare a work upon the subject of the Amendments. Present and future generations would thus be afforded the opportunity of viewing the questions relating thereto in the light in which they have presented themselves to a foreign jurist. In my opinion, it might be well for you to dedicate your labors to the judicial and political authorities of America, its clergy and public press. I must remind you, however, at the start, that this grave duty may in the end prove a cold, stern, uninviting thing, but it is one of those duties which are unavoidable and unimpeachable. It is an undertaking, also, which requires, as Lord Bacon once said, 'no patrons but Truth and Reason.' I need not warn you, for every man of wit perceives, that of all creatures in the universe the public is the most fickle and ungrateful. I most earnestly hope you will immediately set about your labors. Reform is the work of time. It required in free and enlightened America a violent, bloody revolution to eradicate the national error and deep-seated abuses of slavery. At the close of the Civil War the nation immediately embodied in the Constitution these very amendments, the proudest work of her power and wisdom. A quarter of a century has scarcely elapsed since their adoption, and yet some of our citizens, in the pride and narrowness of their understandings, stand ready to trample beneath their feet these manifold titles of the country's glory. Pardon my freedom in making another suggestion. The oracular, ex-cathedra style of discussion will not prove acceptable to Americans. Our public is used to severe analysis and solid argumentation. The majority of our citizens entertain no opinions which they would not at any time willingly exchange for exact knowledge and wise counsel, which they well know converge the rays of truth as lenses collect the scattered force of the solar beams. And yet you may fairly anticipate for your work at the outset an unfavorable reception. Innovations upon received customs and modes of thinking are always unpopular. They are regarded by many politicians as the visionary speculations of impractical theorists, and are always the lawful prey of those critics whose
