"History does not furnish Maine, as it furnished Acton, with any guiding thread of growing freedom; and the process towards contract does not appear in the issue to be a process towards liberty. What History proves is the rarity and fragility of democracy. History has with Maine, what it tends to have with many of us, a way of numbing generous emotions. All things have happened already; nothing much came of them before; and nothing much can be expected of them now."