The opening of Preface
By Honorable Alexander Wiley
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
To the Members and Committees of the Congress, the Constitution is more than a revered abstraction; it is an everyday companion and counsellor. Into it, the Founding Fathers breathed the spirit of life; through every subsequent generation, that spirit has remained vital.
In more than a century and a half of cataclysmic events, the Constitution has successfully withstood test after test. No crisis--foreign or domestic--has impaired its vitality. The system of checks and balances which it sets up has enabled the growing nation to adapt itself to every need and at the same time to checkrein every bid for arbitrary power.
And meantime America itself has evolved dynamically and dramatically. The humble 13 colonies, carved out of the wilderness in the 18th Century, emerged in the 20th Century as leader of earth--industrial--military--political--economic--psychological. Yet the broad outline of the Supreme Law remains today fundamentally intact.