The Peril of the Republic of the United States of America - Percy T. Magan

people it is possible to demoralize the
constitutional system, and to infuse a dangerous
element of arbitrary power into the government
without making it a monarchy in form and name.
One of the most necessary conservative agencies in
a democratic republic is general respect for
constitutional principles, and faithful observance of
constitutional forms; and nothing is more apt to
undermine that respect and to foster disregard of
those forms than warlike excitements, which at the
same time give to the armed forces an importance
and a prestige which they otherwise would not
possess.
“No candid observer of current events will
deny that even to-day the spirit of the new policy
awakened by the victories and conquests achieved
in the Spanish war, and by the occurrences in the
Philippines, has moved even otherwise soberminded
persons to speak of the constitutional
limitations of governmental power with a levity
which a year ago would have provoked serious
alarm and stern rebuke. We are loudly told by the
advocates of the new policy that the Constitution
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