If Senator Borah and Representative Tinkham have their way, all the fire works of nullification, states fights et al will be revived after an unbroken, if often troubled, slumber of nearly a century. Andrew Jackson's spirit doubtless smiles faintly, as it observes the dismay that spreads cloudlike over the visages of presidential candidates cornered by these two assiduous members of Congress. To be asked about the Eighteenth Amendment was bad enough, but with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, never mentioned except in the appendices of school histories, unearthed and held as a mirror to the poor candidate, one ceases to wonder at the nervousness of men in public life.

Sad, indeed, is the lot of the present-day politician. His campaign is supervised, albeit not very carefully, from start to finish; his funds are investigated, and then re-investigated; even when he has been elected he may find the door of his office rudely slammed in his face. But this last independence of the candidate has never been tampered with; his privilege of saying anything or nothing has always stood; and if he has recently preferred to say nothing, who has there been to forbid him? Even this right is at last being undermined; and, although no one troubles himself to answer the inquisitive Congressmen, there must be a little stir of uneasiness, foreboding the time when the voters themselves may ask this sort of question, and expect to be answered.