While George W. Carey (Opinions, April 1991) reached the right conclusion (“the Constitution of which he [Russell Kirk] writes in this book is, in fact, dead”), referring to Kirk’s The Conservative Constitution, the headline writer could have done better than quoting only the first sentence—”Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor”—of the paragraph from Macaulay’s letter to H.S. Randall (May 23, 1857), which stated why he, Macaulay, felt our Constitution would die.

The important statement that Macaulay made was: “Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand; or your republic will be fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth; with this difference, that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from without, and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions.”

        —Richard L. Barkley
Palo Alto, CA