ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the government of the United States as a constitutional system as simply and directly as possible. It explores the nature of the constitutional government in its simplest form. The immortal service of Magna Carta was its formulation of the liberties of the individual in their adjustment to the law. A constitutional government, being an instrumentality for the maintenance of liberty, is an instrumentality for the maintenance of a right adjustment, and must have a machinery of constant adaptation. No constitutional government has been without explicit written statements of the terms of the understanding such as one contained in Magna Carta. The underlying understandings of a constitutional system are modified from age to age by changes of life and circumstance and corresponding alterations of opinion. It is of the essence of a constitutional system that its people should think straight, maintain a consistent purpose, look before and after, and make their lives the image of their thoughts.
