Note 14 — Chapter XII

"I reverence the Constitution," said Fisher Ames in debate, "and I readily admit that the frequent appeal to that as a standard proceeds from a respectful attachment to it. So far it is a source of agreeable reflection. But I feel very different emotions when I find it almost daily resorted to in questions of little importance. When by strained and fanciful constructions it is made an instrument of casuistry, it is to be feared it may lose something in our minds in point of certainty, and more in point of dignity."