This was written more than sixty years ago before the present French Republic and the present German Empire, and Lieber would doubtless have modified his conclusions in view of those great achievements in government if he were writing to-day.  But he does correctly indicate the differences of method and the dangers avoided by the practical course which he ascribes to the English, and in accordance with which the great structure of British and American liberty has been built up generation after generation and century after century.  Through all the seven hundred years since Magna Charta we have been shaping, adjusting, adapting our system to the new conditions of life as they have arisen, but we have always held on to everything essentially good that we have ever had in the system.  We have never undertaken to begin over again and build up a new system under the idea that we could do it better.  We have never let go of Magna Charta or the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.  When we take account of all that governments have sought to do and have failed to do in this selfish and sinful world, we find that as a rule the application of new theories of government, though devised by the most brilliant constructive genius, have availed but little to preserve the people of any considerable regions of the earth for any long periods from the evils of despotism on the one hand or of anarchy on the other, or to raise any considerable portion of the mass of mankind above the hard conditions of oppression and misery.  And we find that our system of government which has been built up in this practical way through so many centuries, and the whole history of which is potent in the provisions of our Constitution, has done more to preserve liberty, justice, security, and freedom of opportunity for many people for a long period and over a great portion of the earth, than any other system of government ever devised by man.  Human nature does not change very much.  The forces of evil are hard to control now as they always have been.  It is easy to fail and hard to succeed in reconciling liberty and order.  In dealing with this most successful body of governmental institutions the question should not be what sort of government do you or I think we should have.  What you and I think on such a subject is of very little value indeed.  The question should be: 

How can we adapt our laws and the workings of our government to the new conditions which confront us without sacrificing any essential element of this system of government which has so nobly stood the test of time and without abandoning the political principles which have inspired the growth of its institutions?  For there are political principles, and nothing can be more fatal to self-government than to lose sight of them under the influence of apparent expediency.