This veneration is nothing new. As long ago as 1889, one Harvard professor called the Constitution the object of "fetish worship ... regarded as something peculiarly sacred, and receiving an unquestioned homage for reasons quite apart from any virtues of its own. The Constitution was to us what a king has often been to other nations. It was the symbol and pledge of our national existence and the only object on which the people could expend their newborn loyalty."