"The happiness of this Country depend much upon the deliberations of the federal Convention which is now sitting."

"It, however, can only lay the foundation — the community at large must raise the edifice."

So wrote George Washington in 1787, from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, in a letter, found just recently, that had been pasted into a young girl's scrapbook in 1826. Very nice. The words evoke the notion of a living Constitution.