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In closing his great commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Mr. Justice Story admonished the American people that, although the whole structure of our constitutional liberty was erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity, with its defences impregnable from without, it might nevertheless perish in an hour by the folly or corruption or negligence of its only keepers, the people. It cannot, indeed, be too often declared that, if constitutional government and fundamental rights are to endure, they must be maintained and preserved by competent leaders and representatives of the people constantly teaching the value of the traditions of Magna Carta and the necessity of adhering to constitutional principles and observing constitutional morality. The members of this Convention are not likely to disregard the living spirit of the Great Charter of English Liberties and its enduring value to Americans. It was Lincoln who said that "as a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide." But we shall perpetuate free government and civil liberty only as we adhere to two essential conditions: the one, that our fundamental rights shall continue to be inviolable by the state, the other, that they shall be equal. "If not inviolable, they are not rights, but only enjoyments on sufferance; if not equal, they are but the privileges of a class, whatever that class may be."ssss1