Hardy Murfree Ray — Oration on the Constitution

(Delivered at the National Intercollegiate Oratorical Contest on the Constitution, Nashville, May 18, 1929)

The following oration was delivered by Hardy Murfree Ray, Junior at State College, as the representative of North Carolina in the National Intercollegiate Oratorical Contest on the Constitution, held under the auspices of the Better America Federation of California in Nashville on May 18, 1929.
Mr. Ray was the son of the late John E. Ray of Raleigh.

The Oration

A few weeks ago there was published for the first time a letter written by Robert E. Lee on the fifteenth of December, 1858.
A sentence from this epistle arrests our attention:
“I trust that the Constitution may undergo no change, but that it may be handed down to succeeding generations as we received it from our forefathers.”

Proud I am to follow in the footsteps of this greatest of all Southern men and to appear as a Southerner to contribute my portion—small though it be—toward re-awakening my fellow-countrymen to the fundamental principles upon which our government was founded and our nation established.
I make no apology for challenging you to consider with me our duties and responsibilities toward our Constitution.

What is this Constitution?
If you would apprehend completely the answer to that question, peer diligently backward through the mists and storms of human history.
Note the figures of the political philosophers who steadfastly maintained that it would be possible to dispel the chaos of warring desires and conflicting creeds without permitting any class or any person, noble or commoner, king or demagogue, to hold dominion with despotic power.
Perceive in the shadow the great masses of humankind murmuring the prayer:

“When wilt Thou save the people,
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!”

To philosopher and to common man, the Constitution of the United States came as an embodiment of that ideal and as an answer to that prayer.
Well does that document deserve the glorious title “The Citadel of Freedom”, for—as Randolph Leigh points out—the plan of government formulated in its few short pages is one in which “men of the highest ability would be called to power and would be given the greatest possible latitude of operation so as to encourage the fullest use of their talents; but would be sufficiently answerable for their deeds to prevent them from yielding to the temptation to disregard the general welfare and serve selfish ends.”

Here, then, is what the founding fathers wrought:
first, a representative government—a republic of republics—with separate powers wisely distributed so as to secure national cohesion without destroying local autonomy;
second, partitioned systems of jurisdiction and operation—a legislative, an executive, a judicial—each with functions and powers well defined, and not intended to encroach one upon another;
third, a stronghold of individual rights and privileges, grounded on the solid rocks of ownership of private property and personal equality before the law;
and fourth, a free, emboldened citizenry in whose existence and for whose service all else finds its justification and its rights to be.

But our Constitution is more than a mere plan of government—more than mere words set down in cold ink upon unfeeling paper.
It throbs and pulsates with the very heart’s blood of noble men.
Washington the Founder, Hamilton the Builder, Marshall the Interpreter, Webster the Defender, Lincoln the Humanizer—these and many more have brought to it the devotion of their passionate yet sane patriotism, until there is in it a veritable life-force that can, and should, be used for the healing of the nations.

Yes, our Constitution is precious because of its intrinsic character as an ideal of government and because it is a monument to the life work of our noblest men.
More than that! Today, in the one hundred and forty-ninth year of our existence as a nation, the charter of our liberties becomes even more precious to us.
This, because it is threatened by an insidious, creeping, growing counter-tendency in political and economic life.
What George Lippard said of this tendency: “It is a crawling thing, half-snake, half-ape.”

See it pursue its tortuous course away from the first ideal of the founding fathers—a government by representatives, a republic.
Its name is Direct Democracy. Several crawling things comprise its brood to date.
There is the demand for the more speedy process of amending the Constitution, so that the fickle wishes of a mere majority—conceived, perchance, by hate or bigotry or intolerance—may be graven deep in stone in the temple of our fundamental rights.
It would make of our Constitution a mere policeman and spy, and would lower our Federal judges to the plane of ward magistrates.
If any of that brood already spew their venom throughout the land, they are merely scotched!
Brother to that, and born of the same reptile spawn, is the demand for initiative and referendum measures.

It has already crept into several States and is being quietly advocated and promoted for our national government.
It would lodge complete power immediately in the hands of the people and would in time lead to mobocracy.
In distorted form it finds expression in the cry for recall of judges and judicial decisions—a cry which, if our ears were rightly attuned, would sound very much like a serpent’s hiss.

In its second, ape-like character, this tendency would throw down, in thoughtless mood, those solid stones of separation of powers and surety of rights.
“Thoughtless,” I say, because I find it hard to believe that those who advocate before Congress that it should be given power to override a Supreme Court decision really realize the significance of that proposal.
But, my fellow Americans, if that is ever legalized, it will complete the frustration of fundamental constitutional guarantees.

An irresponsible Congress, drunk with power, could violate them.
“But,” you say, “the Courts would not do so. They would not dare to go to such extremes.”
Are you optimistic—worse, you are foolish.
Read your history carefully, and you will learn that Congress has more than once done these very things; interfered with judicial and police powers, encroached upon the functions of other organs of government, made a veritable raid upon personal, individual rights and privacy.

“These actions came to naught,” you say—yes—but why?
Because the United States Supreme Court, in such cases as the Boyd, Garland, Wong Wing and the Civil Rights Bill, has stood as an impassable barrier in the path of such attacks upon our Constitution.
Were this barrier gone, with the Supreme Court no longer supreme, who is there to foretell whither we might go?

Not to ourselves alone, however, do we owe the supreme duty of preserving and protecting our Constitution against its insidious foes.
The world is today in political upheaval and chaos.
Our road is in the midst of perils.
On one side is the morass of Bolshevism, with its quicksands of class rule by the proletariat; on the other side are the jagged rocks of Fascism, with the steel teeth of military power.
Between these two we are safe if we hold true to our course—if we follow cautiously the path marked by our Federal Constitution.
To those who are now struggling in the swamp of Bolshevism, we should shout:

“Here is the road. Our American Constitution gives you the right to labor and to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
But you are not a child to be favored and dandled. You must not wantonly destroy.”

To those crawling over the rocks of military dictatorship—to those who dream of a kingdom or a despotism—we should cry:

“Here is the way for you, too. Our Constitution gives you an opportunity to become great and powerful, but not at the expense of the happiness of your fellowmen.
You must not enslave or rule by might.”

The time has come for America to catch that spirit and to proclaim that freedom and justice and right shall rule.
How shall that be done?
By proper use of the fourth great factor of our Constitution—the power of an aroused and embattled citizenry.

Vote your will, and let it be so tilled, and the American Constitution shall be upheld!
Go to the polls not as party members or as the followers of any economic system.
Vote as upholders of the Constitution—for that party or that candidate who is best qualified to preserve and enforce the fundamental law of our land.
Then, and then only, will America play that part among the nations which the founding fathers intended she should play.

Then shall we see the true America as Henry W. Grady saw it when he said:

“I catch the vision of the republic—its mighty forces in balance, its unspeakable glory falling on all its children—working out its mission under God’s approving eye, until the dark continents are opened, and the highways of the earth established, and the shadows lifted, and the jargon of nations at the dispersed under the Tower of Babel straightened; and one language, one liberty and one God, reigning in the nations of the world, henceforth according to the American drum-beat and girding up their loins, shall march amid the breaking of the Millennial dawn into the paths of righteousness and of peace.”

Biographical Information

Hardy Murfree Ray was a promising North Carolina orator who represented his state at the National Intercollegiate Oratorical Contest on the Constitution, held in Nashville on May 18. He was a junior at State College in Raleigh at the time, chosen to speak as the representative of North Carolina. He was the son of John E. Ray of Raleigh. His oration draws on a deep reverence for the American Constitution, the role of citizen-engagement, and the historical traditions of constitutional government. His performance at the contest reflects both academic achievement and participation in the civic and rhetorical culture of his time.

Citation

Ray, Hardy Murfree. “Hardy Murfree Ray Will Speak in Regional Contest at Nashville.” The News & Observer [Raleigh, N.C.], Sunday, May 10, 1925.