Editor's Table [pp. 182-186]

EDITOR'S TABLE.183
people of all the States acting together," is the picture drawn by the "Post," but no such thing ever occurred, no such thing can occur, under the arrangement which makes us a Union. The several peoples
of the several States acted, not together, but each
community for itself, and each acted in view of the
concessions and declarations made by the rest. The
people of Rhode Island did not act with the people
of New York; they acted separately, at a later date,
and their decision referred solely to the attitude of
their own State, although governed by the attitude
of the peoples of other States. This special feature
gives a special characteristic to the affair. Generalizations in a matter like our Constitution will never
do. Being a product of concessions and compromises, broad statements about "sovereign capacity"
and the "will of the people" are peculiarly misleading. The complex system by which the States are
bound together must be considered in all its fullness. How unsafe it is to rest upon any generalization is well illustrated by the fact that the first sentence of the preamble to the Constitution and the
last clause of the document distinctly contradict each
other: the first affirming that the people "ordain
and establish "; the other, in referring the instrument to the States for ratification, showing that they
did no such thing.
There is one other point. Three fourths of the
States have such power as numbers confer to amend
the Constitution as they may determine, but every
amendment should, in justice, and in the spirit of
the Constitution, bear upon all parts of the Union
alike. There is no way to enforce this principle,
but it is a principle nevertheless. An amendment
that established proportional representation in the
Senate would be an amendment that operated specially upon the smaller States: while nominally applying to all equally, it would really be an amendment discriminating against certain parts of the
Union, thus operating specially and not generally.
So long as amendments to the Constitution concern
all the States equally, no great harm can come of
them; but, if a three-fourths majority can inflict
disabilities upon a one-fourth minority, the Union
becomes a danger and a threat, rather than a protection and a guarantee. A little reflection will show
that this theory of an absolute right to make the
Constitution that which the majority elect it to be,
is fraught with startling possibilities. According to
this doctrine, if the people of three fourths of the
States become Roman Catholic, the Constitution at
their behest can be so amended as to make the Roman Catholic religion compulsory upon the people
of all the States. The guarantees in the Constitution
of religious liberty, just like all its other guarantees,
must go for nothing if at any time there arises a
majority sufficiently large which at its pleasure may
overthrow them. It is obvious that the guarantees
of the Constitution must be regarded as sacred.
Whatever amendments or changes may be necessary to secure its harmonious working are proper
things to be brought about; but all amendments
or changes that strike at its elementary principles,
that do violence to the pledges and assurances that
it utters or implies, should be resisted to the last
-should be stamped as nothing less than perfidy.
THE NUDE IN ART.
CERTAIN literary and art folk have so prompt
and arrogant a fashion of stigmatizing everybody as
a Philistine whose opinions differ from theirs that
not a few people shrink from controversy with them.
Perhaps this dread of being classed among the Philistines arises from a vague and apprehensive idea as
to what a Philistine is, and what it is that really constitutes Philistinism. These persons are much like
the market-woman in the oft-quoted anecdote, who
burst into tears upon being called an hypotenuse.
That a Philistine is a person whom artists and poets
cover with intense scorn, they readily see; but how
to avoid being a Philistine, how to discover the
mark by which a Philistine is known, how to escape
the damaging epithet, are ceaseless puzzles and perplexities. And yet with all the care in the world few
can escape the offensive classification, for what layman can assent to all the notions and wild theories
that obtain in the studios and in the Bohemian circles
of the beer-gardens? To take a literary view of art
-which means, we believe, to judge of a picture by
its motive and story rather than by its techniaueis to be a Philistine; to assume that art and poetry
are not the highest things in life is to utter rank Philistinism; to intimate that morality should be a force
and a factor in the arts is to show one's self wholly
incapable of discerning the high purpose of aesthetics, and as a consequence to merit being cast into
the darkness and dreariness of Philistinism for ever.
No art topic is so dangerous in this way to laymen
as that of the propriety of nudity in art. The dictum of the studios is that not only is it proper to depict the human figure "as God made it," but that
he who shrinks from displays of this kind, who questions their righteousness, who believes or fears that
they do not exercise a good influence upon the imaginations of impressible people, is not only a Philistine, but a prurient one; he is a person whose
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