But this method has the disadvantage, that it belittles the Constitution by making it an obstacle to progress.
Running through much political controversy in the United States is the argument that, even granting that a proposal has all the merit claimed for it, nevertheless it cannot be adopted because the Constitution is against it.

By strict logical inference the rejoinder then comes that, if so, the Constitution is no longer an instrument of national advantage.

The traditional attachment of the American people to the Constitution has indeed been so strong that they have been loath to accept the inference that the Constitution is out of date, although the quality of legislation at Washington kept persistently suggesting that view of the case.
The failures and disappointments resulting from the series of national elections from 1874 to 1884, at last, made an opening for party movements voicing the popular discontent and openly antagonistic to the traditional Constitution.

The Socialist Labor party held its first national convention in 1877.

Its membership was mostly foreign; of twenty-four periodical publications then carried on in the party interest, only eight were in the English language; and this polyglot press gave justification to the remark that the movement was in the hands of people who proposed to remodel the institutions of the country before they had acquired its language.