"If this statement by Judge Cooley is true, and the authority for it is unimpeachable, then the theory that the Constitution is a written document is a legal fiction. The idea that it can be understood by a study of its language and the history of its past development is equally mythical. It is what the Government and the people who count in public affairs recognize and respect as such, what they think it is. More than this. It is not merely what it has been, or what it is today. It is always becoming something else and those who criticize it and the acts done under it, as well as those who praise, help to make it what it will be tomorrow."
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Activists from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesAnti-war activistsPeople from IndianaColumbia University alumni
Original Language: English
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The American Leviathan: The Republic in the Machine Age (1931) co-written with William Beard, p. 39
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_A._Beard
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Charles A. Beard
Charles Austin Beard (27 November 1874 – 1 September 1948) was an influential American historian. He stressed the importance of economic factors in American constitutional history. His partner was the historian Mary Ritter Beard
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