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D - John Joseph Lalor, Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, vol. 1 Abdication-Duty [1881]Edition used:Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States by the best American and European Authors, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 1899). Vol 1 Abdication-Duty.
Part of: Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, 3 vols.
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DDAKOTADAKOTA, a territory of the United States, originally part of the Louisiana purchase (see ANNEXATIONS, I.), was organized by act of March 2, 1861. The portion of its present territory east of the Missouri was set off from Minnesota when the latter territory was erected into a state; the portion west of the Missouri was set off from the former territory, now state, of Nebraska. A large extent of territory to the west, formerly belonging to Dakota, now belongs to Wyoming and Montana. (See TERRITORIES.) A. J. DALLASDALLAS, George Mifflin, was born at Philadelphia, Penn., July 10, 1792, where he died, Dec. 31, 1864. He was graduated at Princeton, in 1810, was admitted to the bar, was United States senator (democrat) 1831-3, minister to Russia 1837-9, vice-president of the United States 1844-8, and minister to Great Britain Feb. 4-May 16, 1861. A. J. DAVISDAVIS, Henry Winter, was born at Annapolis, Md., Aug. 16, 1817, and died at Baltimore, Md., Dec. 20, 1865. He was a representative in congress 1855-61 and 1863-5. (See REPUBLICAN PARTY.) He was a speaker of uncommon force, and was one of the leaders of the radical wing of his party. —See Creswell's Speeches of Henry Winter Davis. A. J. DAVISDAVIS, Jefferson, was born in Christian county, Ky., June 3, 1808, was graduated at West Point in 1828, was a democratic representative from Mississippi 1845-6, but resigned to become colonel of the 1st Mississippi rifles in 1846. He was United States senator 1847-51 and 1857-61, and was secretary of war under Pierce. (See ADMINISTRATIONS.) He was the most prominent ultra southern leader after Calhoun's death, and was one of the "senatorial group" who, after secession had begun, forced the formation of a new government in the south. (See CONFEDERATE STATES). It is said that the presidency of the confederacy was intended for R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia; but Davis was chosen for it by the provisional congress, was inaugurated Feb. 18, 1861, and was again chosen president by popular vote in the following autumn. Before he was inaugurated the second time, Feb. 22, 1862, he had gradually concentrated almost all the power of the government in the executive. Southern historians generally agree in attributing most of the confederacy's disasters to Davis' perverseness, self-sufficiency and despotic favoritism. He was imprisoned for two years after the war, and then released on bail. —See Pollard's Life of Davis; Alfriend's Life of Davis; Craven's Prison Life of Davis; Davis' Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government; Schuckers' Life of Chase, 537. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DAYTONDAYTON, William Lewis, was born at Basking Ridge, N. J., Feb. 17, 1807, and died at Paris, France, Dec. 1, 1864. He was graduated at Princeton in 1825, was admitted to the bar in 1830, was United States senator 1842-51, was the candidate of the republican party for vice-president in 1856, and minister to France 1861-4. A. J. DEATH PENALTYDEATH PENALTY, The. The employment of this penalty has been universal. We find it among all peoples and in all ages. If it appears to have been more generally inflicted as nations emerged from their condition of barbarism, it is because barbarians were accustomed to take the law into their own hands. When governments undertook to punish all crimes, and thus do away with private vengeance, it seemed natural that society should avenge itself for crime by the death of the criminal; and when this public vindictiveness sought to restrain malefactors by intimidation, an endeavor was made to inspire horror by means of torture. It was not enough that nearly all crimes were punished by death; the penalty was aggravated by the most horrible torments. We shudder today when we read of the wheel, the stake, drawing and quartering, and all the frightful sufferings that the fertile imagination of man has invented. We shall not enumerate here the frightful list of these tortures. And yet may not a useful lesson be drawn from it, even at this day, happily so far removed from those ages, by the legislator, who is too much disposed, in one way or another, to seek a remedy for all disorder in intimidation? —Beccaria was the first publicist to raise a doubt as to the legitimacy of the death penalty and to propose its suppression. Indeed we can not ascertain that this grave question was ever seriously discussed before his time. If a few nations—the Egyptians and Romans, for instance—tried to restrain its application, it was from entirely different motives than those of humanity. Plato thought it ought to be inflicted only in cases where the culprit was incorrigible. Says he: "If the legislator sees that the criminal is irredeemable, what punishment should he mete out to him? Since he knows that for such persons life is not the most advantageous state, and that by their death they become of two-fold utility to others, their punishment being an example which prevents others from doing wrong, and at the same time rids the republic of dangerous subjects, he can hardly do otherwise than pronounce sentence of death upon such culprits. But except in such cases he ought not to employ this remedy." Quintilian takes the same view of the matter, and adds that if the guilty could be reclaimed, their regeneration would be more useful to the republic than their punishment by death. Thus the right to punish by death was not questioned, but only the social utility of the death penalty. At the beginning of the sixteenth century we witness a movement of the human conscience tending to restrict the cases in which this penalty should be inflicted. Alphonse de Castro, for example, maintained at this time that judges could only inflict the death penalty in cases in which God himself had authorized its infliction. Jean Bodin tells us of the public discussion of the question "Can judges pronounce sentence of death except in cases in which the edicts had decreed it?" "This question," says he, "was discussed by Lothair and Azo, the two greatest jurisconsults of their time, and they chose for arbiter the emperor Henry VII. while he was at Boulogne-la Grasse, and they agreed that whichever of them the emperor decided against should give the other a horse. Lothair, who maintained that the right of capital punishment belonged only to the sovereign, carried off the prize; but nearly all jurisconsults held, with Azo, that the judges had the same power, saying that Lothair equum tulerat, sed Azo æquum. Grotius only treats of capital punishment from a religious point of view, and decides it in the affirmative, basing his argument on the laws of Moses and the texts of Holy Writ. Puffendorf accords without hesitation the right of life and death over his subjects to the sovereign. Montesquieu only touches on the question, but does not hesitate to declare capital punishment to be necessary. The death penalty is, according to him, "a sort of retaliation by which society refuses security to a citizen who has deprived another of it, or has tried to do so. This penalty is based upon the very nature of things, upon reason, and upon the sources of good and evil. A citizen merits death when he has so violated public security as to take another's life, or try to do so. The death penalty is the medicine of diseased society." —Finally, J. J. Rousseau, following the doctrine of Hobbes, placed it upon still another basis. "Every criminal who attacks the rights of society becomes by his deeds a rebel and a traitor to his country; he ceases to be a citizen of it by violating its laws, and even levies war against it. In such a case, the preservation of the state is incompatible with his own; one or the other must perish, and in putting the guilty one to death, he is so treated less as a citizen than as an enemy. The proceedings and the sentence are the proofs and declaration that he has broken the social treaty, and that consequently he is no longer a member of the state. Hence, if he is recognized as such by reason of his stay he should be removed by exile, as a violator of the social agreement, or as a public enemy, by death." Such was the state of the question when Beccaria wrote. It needed some courage to declare, in the face of history, which recorded the infliction of the death penalty in all times and among all peoples, and in the face of the philosophers, who were astounded at his audacity and who discountenanced it, the illegitimateness of this penalty, and to say that legislators, in adopting it, were usurping a right which did not belong to society. Beccaria maintains, in the first place, that no such right exists, because no member of society could consent to the sacrifice of life when he enters into the social contract. Locke had, however, already established, in his treatise "On Civil Government," that man, even in a state of nature, may punish the slightest violation of its laws. He asks: Can he punish such violation by death? And he answers that for every misdeed punishment may be inflicted of a degree of severity sufficient to bring repentance to the criminal, and to strike fear into others to such an extent that they will have no desire to commit the same misdeed. Filangieri afterward wrote: "Man, in his state of natural independence, has a right to life, and can not renounce this right. But can he lose it? Can he be deprived of it without renouncing it? Have I the right to kill the bad man who attacks me? No one has any doubts on this subject. If I have the right to kill him, he has lost the right to live, for it would be extraordinary that two rights opposed to each other should exist at the same time. Now, in society, it is not one single individual who arms himself against another individual, for the purpose of punishing him for crime, but society entire. The depositary of public power exercises this general right which each individual has transferred to society as a body." Kant replies to this: "This proof proves too much, since for the same reason no one would be bound to expose his life in defense of his country. Moreover it is sophistry and a poor interpretation of right, since nobody is made to suffer punishment because he consented to it beforehand, but because he consented to commit a crime. By the social contract each one submits beforehand to every law necessary to the maintenance of society, and consequently, also, to the penal law." (Metaphysik der Sitten, §§ 44, 45.) The best answer is, that we must put aside this fiction of a social contract, upon which the publicists of the eighteenth century based their arguments, and seek the rights of man, not in a state of nature which has never existed, but in the social state, which is his natural state. —The question has been carried to a higher plane; the right of society has been contested, not because of a lack of consent on the part of its members, but because man's life, legitimate defense aside, is inviolable and beyond all human power. The inviolability of the life of man, it has been said, is not a self-evident axiom, but a principle capable of demonstration. Nowhere in this world is there a power over existence, for such belongs to God, who gave it, and who alone can take it away. There is and can be no power over existence upon this earth, except that of the individual who has received it (existence). The life of man is inviolable in principle because the right to exist, which God alone has given, is an equal right for all men. Each has an equal right to preserve his own life, without pretending to dispose of that of others, for existence is of divine origin. Such is the principle of its inviolability. But now comes the deed of a criminal who seeks the life of a fellow-creature. In this case the right of legitimate defense is exercised, which is only a consequence of the inviolability of the life of man, since such right exists only in the case of danger from aggression. Now, whether individuals or society be concerned, the right to exist changes neither in its nature, nor in the legitimate condition of its exercise. It is not a collective, but a personal right, and is the most inviolable and sacred gift that man has received. It may be objected, that liberty is a gift just as life is, and that if society be permitted to take away the one, it would not be consistent to contest its right to deprive one of the other. The answer is, that the right of self-preservation, exercised by society, does not justify the death penalty when the danger has ceased, but that it justifies, on the contrary, detention, if the will to do evil has survived the crime, and if there be reason to presume, consequently, that this perverse will, again set free, shall again begin to work harm. At any rate, the sacrifice of life is illegitimate if the sacrifice of a man's liberty is sufficient for the defense of society. And then, finally, if this life is given to man as a probation and preparation for another life, has any one the right to deprive him of a single one of the moments accorded him for the regeneration of his soul, and in which to atone for his misdeeds by good ones? All these reasons are grave ones. The conscience meditating upon them grows restless, and is calmed only by turning to the history of the human race. Legislators of all times and countries have not hesitated to inflict the penalty of death. Man's life is inviolable and sacred! Does that mean that it is so in all cases indiscriminately? What becomes then of the right of defense? And of the right of war? Is it peril which creates right? It is precisely because it believes itself menaced, and because the death penalty, being a preventive of the repetition of crime and by the fear it inspires, seems in keeping with the gravity of the attempts against it, that society intends to maintain it. If social power is bound to look upon natural rights as sacred, if it should intervene only to guarantee the exercise of these rights, it is clear that capital punishment must take cognizance of these same rights, when a person has rendered himself unworthy to exercise them; they can be suspended or annihilated so far as his person is concerned. Finally, if man is forbidden to shorten the life of his fellow-man, as some maintain, for fear of cutting him off before repentance, the same rule prevents us from firing upon the enemy and killing the brigand who attacks us. For if the right of self-defense authorizes us not to take into account at all the future lot of our assailant in eternity, why should not social right be endowed with the same power? —The most powerful argument against the death penalty is the examination into its necessity. Beccaria himself, promptly abandoning his first thesis, maintained (and it is the principal basis of his opinion) that the death penalty had ceased to be necessary. And he even makes this remarkable concession, that this penalty seems to him to be necessary whenever there is no other way of deterring from crime: Quando fesso il vero e unico freno per distogliere gli attri dal commettere delitti, (when the true and only means of deterring others from the commission of crime is gone). Thus he does not radically uphold its abolition; he maintains that it is nearly always inefficacious, impotent and useless. It has since been said, following out his idea: "We do not think that society never had the power of life and death over man, we simply believe that it has such a right no longer. Society, being necessary, has, we think, all the rights necessary to its existence; and if at the commencement of its existence, in the imperfection of its primitive organization, in its scarcity of repressive means, it looked upon the right to smite the guilty as its supreme right, its only means of self-preservation, it could smite without committing crime, and inflict death in all conscience. Is it the same to-day? And in the actual condition of a society armed with sufficient force to substitute moral punishment, corrective punishment for murderous punishment, can such a society remain a homicide?" Thus formulated, the question becomes one of fact. We have only to examine whether society, in the actual state of civilization, with its material and moral forces, is surrounded with enough guarantees to enable it to do without this supreme penalty. M. Rossi consequently resumes the controversy as follows: "The death penalty is a means of justice which is extreme, dangerous, which ought to be employed only with the greatest reserve in cases of real necessity, which we all ought to desire to see suppressed, and toward the abolition of which duty commands us to direct our efforts, by preparing a state of things which shall render its abolition compatible with public and private welfare." —This opinion, which tends to the gradual abolition of capital punishment, is perceptibly gaining ground. It is remarkable that this great question, far from fatiguing the human mind and of being lost sight of entirely, like so many other questions concerning which controversy has cooled, remains active and, so to speak, always on the offensive. Attacks and dissertations do not cease. The partisans of the abolition of the death penalty multiply. Legislation is beginning to weaken on the subject; some states diminish more and more the cases of its infliction; others go still further and do not extend it to women, minors and old men; a few even advocate its entire suppression. —There is one point in this matter settled for all time, namely, its suppression in the case of political offenses. This is not the proper place to define political offenses; we shall only say that under this name are included, in general, crimes which are directed against the variable institutions of every nation. Guizot has demonstrated, in an eloquent book (De la peine de mort en matière politique) that this penalty has lost its efficacy in the case of political crimes, because it no longer, as of old, has the effect of crushing a party in the person of its chief, and because no leader of our days is upon so lofty an eminence as to drag with him in his fall all the members of the same party; because capital punishment to-day, in political affairs, appeals only to the passions and to ideas, and punishment has never modified ideas nor disarmed the passions; and finally, because the public conscience repudiates the infliction of this penalty for acts purely political, and that a penalty which has not the sanction of public opinion is more dangerous than useful. We may add that acts of this nature, supposing more of audacity than perversity, more restlessness of mind than corruption of heart, more of fanaticism than of vice, imprisonment for life, it would seem, ought to be sufficient for the end society has in view, namely, the assuring of its own security. Changing circumstances, cooling passions, dissolving factions, everything tends to diminish the importance of a sentenced political offender, and to render his existence a very slight danger. Would not society have to reproach itself subsequently with blood uselessly spilt? Need we go very far back in French annals to find examples of these fatal executions, and of the lasting remorse which followed them? —One of the glories of the revolution of 1830 is, that it declared as a principle the abolition of the death penalty in the case of political offenses. Capital punishment has not been inflicted in France since that time for purely political reasons. In truth, however, this principle, although respected, was not a law. It was the work of the revolution of Feb. 24. The French constitution of Nov. 4, 1848, declares, in article 5, that "The death penalty is abolished in matters political." And the law of June 8, 1850, a consequence of this abolition, says, "In all cases in which the death penalty is abolished by article 5 of the constitution, it is replaced by exile to a fortified place, designated by law, outside of the continental territory of the republic." We are only speaking now of crimes essentially political, and which have no connection with ordinary crimes. Complex crimes, which are both a political and a common law crime, should be visited with the ordinary punishments. It would not do to admit that attempts against individuals should be punished less severely because undertaken with a political end, for this would be acknowledging that such an end is, in itself, a mitigating circumstance in the case of all crimes. —There remains one observation on all cases in which a person is sentenced to capital punishment, namely, that this penalty is replaced by hard labor for life, or labor for a term of years, if the jury decides that there are mitigating circumstances. We are here, of course, speaking of France. The person charged with the drawing up of the law of April 28, 1832, who introduced this clause in article 463 of the French penal code, said that "The interests of this sacred cause (abolition of capital punishment) which the ill success of a hazardous experiment might compromise; the interests of society, which can not be deprived of its most salutary protection without assuring to it some other not less energetic, if less sanguinary; the state of the country and of public opinion, concerning which the legislatures render a unanimous testimony; everything forces us to the conclusion that a gradual abolition only is reasonable and possible, and we believe that we have advanced far enough upon this way by the admission of mitigating circumstances." Thus the law abdicates its power, the legislator declares himself incompetent to solve this great social problem. It is therefore to the jury in criminal cases that we must leave this tremendous political and philosophical question. Has not this solution some drawbacks? Will the mighty power which the legislator abandons always fall into good hands? Are juries on a sufficiently high plane to judge of general questions, which are pregnant with interest to the future of society? Can they lose sight of the facts of the case, to judge of the utility and effects of punishment? Is it proper that it should be left to them to choose between light and heavy, humane and barbarous penalties? Does equality exist when this choice is made by prejudiced minds, influenced by different opinions, by notions more or less exact, and finally by political passion? Is it not a result of all this that the infliction of the death penalty in cases in which the facts are the same, has no longer any fixed rule? Besides, it depends upon the jury to practically abolish it, where they are the judges when it shall be inflicted; and in these few words may be summed up the solution of this great question. FAUSTIN HÉLIE. DEBTDEBT, Imprisonment for, the right granted to a creditor to have his debtor arrested and imprisoned in order to force him to pay his debt. In another sense it is the mere act of arrest and imprisonment for debt. —It is frequently supposed that the custom of imprisoning men for debt is very ancient. It is traced back, at the very least, to the law of the twelve tables which granted to the creditor an absolute right over the person and the property of his debtor. But the entirely different character of these two things, apparently similar, has not been sufficiently recognized. What the Roman law and the laws of the majority of nations of antiquity granted to the creditor was, a positive right against the person of the debtor; while modern law never accorded him more than a means of constraint, supposed necessary in certain cases to insure to him the recovery of what was due him. —When slavery existed, man was considered in some respects as a thing, a transmissible value; for in becoming a slave he was liable to be bought and sold. Consequently the person of a debtor might be considered as forming a part of his property, against which the creditor might assert certain rights. It is acting on this principle, that, when the goods of a man were not sufficient to pay his debts, his person was delivered to his creditor. And this was a real taking of possession by the creditor, granted him for the payment of the debt due him; so much so that he was not only empowered to seize his debtor but also to sell him. Roman legislation on this subject was modified several times, now in a severer and now in a more lenient way; but it always remained, as far as we can see, faithful to the same principle. It is also in this sense, we think, that the laws on imprisonment for debt which were in force in France during the first centuries of the French monarchy must be interpreted. —Still, nothing similar can have existed in Europe since the abolition of slavery. At the present time the creditor has no right except against the goods of his debtor; he has no right against his person. When, in certain cases, the creditor is authorized to have his debtor arrested, the object is merely to force the debtor to employ all the means possible to discharge the debt he owes. Probably imprisonment for debt as practiced in certain countries in our days, is connected by tradition with the custom of antiquity we have just mentioned, and it may be a sort of imitation of it; but it is none the less true that it essentially differs from the ancient law, both in its nature and in its object. —The question is often asked whether imprisonment for debt, such as is practiced in modern times, is a good and useful measure; whether it be conformable to sound morals, and whether the true interests of society demand it; in a word, whether it should be continued. Opinion on this question has been and still is divided. It is contended, on the one hand, in favor of imprisonment for debt, that not the interest of creditors only, but the interest of commerce in general, demands it, so that credit away be strengthened by granting creditors every possible means of having the debts due them paid. On the other hand, the rights of humanity are appealed to, as well as the interest of public morality, which do not allow that a man should be arrested and imprisoned at the good pleasure of another man, nor that the liberty of the former should be sacrificed to the pecuniary interests of the latter—Unfortunately, political economy does not furnish any principle from which the absolute solution of the question can be drawn, which is more a question of morals and of fact than of political economy Political economy says merely that it is of importance to society that the payment of debts be guaranteed; that this concerns lenders less than borrowers, who would soon find all doors closed against them the moment lenders could no longer rely upon being paid. But should care for this go so far as to sacrifice men's liberty? And, on the other hand, is imprisonment for debt really as good a means to guarantee the payment of debts as is supposed? These are questions which political economy does not solve. —On this latter point many facts have been alleged, and many contradictory arguments have been produced, without satisfactory results. It has been argued, on the one hand, that the mere threat of imprisonment for debt has often resulted in the debtor's discharging a debt, who without this threat would never have paid it; and this seems to be unquestionable. But it has been objected, and not without reason, that imprisonment for debt has often enabled the hardest creditor to obtain payment, to the detriment of all other creditors, because the imprisonment to which he had recourse compelled his debtor to employ his last resources to satisfy him, while it thus made it impossible for him to discharge his debts to others. Another and apparently still more forcible objection has been raised; it is that imprisonment for debt is, in fact, very rarely resorted to in really commercial matters. When a merchant, it is said, can no longer meet his engagements, he is declared a bankrupt, and he makes an assignment. In such a case, if he has been detected in fraud or bad faith, in France, for instance, he is not subjected to imprisonment for debt, but he is punished according to the bankrupt penal code. If, on the contrary, the bankruptcy is only the result of unfortunate operations, an arrangement is made which frees the debtor, or which gives him time to discharge his debts. In all cases he escapes imprisonment for debt. It is therefore only against non-commercial people that the mode of coercion should be employed. This would answer very imperfectly to the object the law has in view, viz., to render commercial relations more safe, and to favor the development of credit. —In France, for instance, the question which occupies us has been solved in different ways, according to the times: but never, as it seems to us, with a perfect maturity of investigation. The convention had abolished imprisonment for debt by a decree of March 9, 1793; but it was re-introduced in the year V., by a resolution of the council of the five hundred, and confirmed soon after by the conseil des anciens. It was again abolished, in 1848, under the provisional government; but re established once more in the course of the same year, by the constituent assembly. Those who point to these contradictory solutions do not fail to say, when in favor of imprisonment for debt, that experience at once showed the evil effects of the abolition of imprisonment for debt. The fact is, that experience had been consulted neither in the case of its abolition nor in that of its restoration. In both cases enthusiasm and passion had operated as incentives to action, rather than solid motives. —In our opinion the question of the legitimacy or the utility of imprisonment for debt is still an open one. Perhaps it will never be solved in a proper manner until a serious inquiry shall have proved exactly how this means has ordinarily been employed, and what have been its effects. The facts which have been gathered up to the present are not in favor of the measure. It results, in fact, from a statistical investigation in the city of Paris undertaken during the administration of M. de Chabrol, that, from 1817 to 1827, almost all the individuals detained for debt in the prison of Sainte-Pélagie, were not merchants, and, moreover, that the greater portion of them had been incarcerated for very small amounts. Parliamentary documents show a similar state of facts for the city of London. It always remains to be discovered, it is true, whether, even with regard to non-commercial persons, the preservation of imprisonment for debt is at all useful; but it will be admitted, at least, that the question is one deserving of a serious examination. CHARLES COQUELIN. DEBTSDEBTS, National, State and Local. The history of the national debt of the United States may be fairly divided into five periods, the first of these extending from Sept. 5, 1774, to March 4, 1789. By various resolutions of the continental congress from June 22, 1775, to Nov. 29, 1779, inclusive, the several issues of paper money amounted, in the aggregate, to $241,552,780. In addition to a subsidy of $1,815,000, given to the colonies by the king of France, three loans were made from the same source, amounting to $6,352,500, inclusive of $181,500 secured from the French farmers-general to be paid for in tobacco. In addition to a subsidy of $181,500 from the king of Spain, small loans were obtained from private bankers, amounting to $174,017,13. Four loans were made in Holland through the agency of John Adams, amounting to $3,600,000. Included in this period should be the certificates of indebtedness given to the French officers who served in the American army. These certificates, amounting to $186,988.78, were to bear interest at 6 per cent. from Jan. 1, 1784. —The second period extends from March, 1789, to Jan. 1, 1812. During this period the whole amount of loans made by the government amounted, in the aggregate, to $109,450,183.71, divided as follows:
—From January, 1812, to Jan. 1.1837, may be considered the third period, during which the whole amount of loans amounted to $153,565,315.70, divided as follows:
—In the fourth period, from Jan. 1, 1837, to March 1, 1861, the whole amount of loans negotiated amounted to $232,024,592.63, embracing:
—The fifth period began with the outbreak of the war and continues to the present time, though for convenience I have placed the date from March 1, 1861, to June 30, 1880. During this period the following loans were contracted:
—To briefly summarize the ground covered, the following table has been prepared:
—The fluctuations of the national debt, from the first period to the close of the fifth period, are full of historic interest. Its tremendous rise during the war until Aug. 31, 1865, when the principal reached its highest point ($2,844,649,626), and then the steady decrease until, to-day, it is less than $2,000,000,000, and the gigantic transactions by which this was accomplished, form a rich field of study alike for the exact statistician, the financier and the political economist. The following carefully prepared table shows the fluctuation of the debt from 1791 to the present day:
—The interest-bearing debt has decreased from $2,381,530,294, in 1865, to $1,621,111,000, and the annual interest charge from $150,977,697, in 1865, to $69,461,244, at the present time. Here we have an annual rate of decrease of $51,000,000. But this, as Mr. H. C. Adams has recently pointed out, does not adequately represent the rapidity with which this portion of the debt was extinguished, while it alone received the attention of congress. Previous to July, 1876, the annual payments amounted to $61,000,000. —The years 1877 and 1878 were devoted to preparation for the resumption of specie payments, which was successfully accomplished in 1879. It would not be quite accurate to say that resumption had effected a practical payment of the non-interest-bearing portion of the debt although, maintained as it is by reserve, it has provided for this debt and taken it out of the domain of changing politics. —It must also be borne in mind that the volume of United States notes outstanding has, since our national debt reached its highest, been reduced about $82,000,000, and $26,000,000 of fractional currency have been withdrawn from circulation. —In 1865 the per capita debt of the United States—the total debt less cash in the treasury—was $78.25. The rapid increase of the population and the reduction of the debt decreased the per capita to $37.74 in 1880. Great as this reduction has been, it can hardly be said it has been accomplished by excessive taxation. —OWNERSHIP. In 1803 the national debt was about $70,000,000, and an inquiry into the ownership of the stocks, according to Seybert's Statistical Annals of the United States, shows that it was distributed among 14,236 owners—an average per capita of less than $5,000, or half the present per capita. The inquiry which I have recently completed for the census office shows that $825,917,150 registered bonds were owned by 80,802 individuals and corporations, an average per capita of about $10,221. The debt in 1803 was distributed as follows:  —Seventy-seven years later I find the 4, 4½ and 5 per cent. registered bonds distributed as follows in the several states:  Seventy-seven years has not changed the position of Massachusetts. In 1803 that state had more bondholders than any other state. To-day it has 23 4/10 of all the bondholders in the United States, while New York has but 20 24/100. But New York has 32 6/10 of the aggregate amount held, while Massachusetts can not boast of quite 7 per cent. —In 1803 Pennsylvania held a larger amount of bonds than either New York or Massachusetts, but it was then, as New York is now, second to the great New England state in the number of its bondholders. At the beginning of the century South Carolina ranked fourth as a bondholding state; to-day it is twenty-ninth, and owns $2,000,000 less bonds than it did nearly 80 years ago—It is not at all probable that over $220,000,000 of our national debt is now held abroad; this would leave about $1,400,000,000 of the registered and coupon interest-bearing debt distributed throughout the country among individual holders and corporations, and deposited with the comptroller of the currency to secure the circulation of national banks. It is probable that while 36 per cent. of the holders reside in the New England states, not more than 11 per cent. of the aggregate amount of bonds can be credited to New England. On the other hand, over 42 per cent. of the holders have their residence in the middle states, and upward of 43 per cent. of the aggregate amount of bonds is held in that section. Over 3½ per cent. of the holders reside in the southern states, and about 2 per cent. of the bonds are owned there. In the western states are 15 per cent. of the holders, and nearly 8½ per cent. of the bonds. The banks, insurance companies, and other corporations, representing in number only 2 per cent., own about 35 per cent. of the bonds. Massachusetts, with only 3½ per cent. of the total population of the country, has 23 per cent. of the total number of bondholders; while New York, with over 10 per cent. of the total population, has 20 per cent. of the bondholders. Ohio has over 6 per cent. of the total population, and 5½ per cent. of the bondholders. Illinois and New Hampshire each has over 4 per cent. of the bondholders, while the former state has over 6 per cent. of the total population of the country, and the latter has only 6/10 of 1 per cent. Oregon has the least number of holders (14), and Massachusetts the highest (16,855). —STATE DEBTS. One of the first questions agitated in the first congress was that of the assumption of the state debts. As early as 1790 a senate committee reported that it would be greatly conducive "to an orderly, economical and effectual arrangement of the public finance," should an equal distribution be made of the burdens of the several states among the citizens of the United States. Such a course, it was said, would not only promote more general justice to the different classes of public creditors, but would also serve to give stability to public credit. The justice of this assumption was also strongly urged, on the ground that the debts were essentially contracted in the prosecution of the revolutionary war, and that it was just that such a provision should be made. The following statement shows the amount authorized to be assumed in the redemption of the debt of each state and the amount actually assumed by the federal government:  This was the beginning of state debts in the United States. —The states seem to have incurred no liabilities to speak of, if we except some loans to assist the federal government in the war of 1812, until 1820, between which latter period and 1825 the indebtedness increased, until, at the close of 1825, it reached $12,790,728. The next five years $13,679,689 more stock was issued, and from 1830 to 1835 $40,012,769 additional and so rapidly had the debt-creating mania developed; that in the three years following 1835 no less than $107,823,808 of state stock was issued, and in 1838 the debts of the several states had reached $174,306,994. By 1840 the indebtedness of these states had reached $200,000,000. The two principal causes which led to the contracting of the debt were undoubtedly an improved credit abroad and an ardent desire at home to push improvements even beyond the wants of population. —In 1834 the last installment of the national debt was paid. This fact had a tendency to raise the spirits of the people at home and increase the confidence of foreigners in American securities. Most of this enormous aggregate of state debts was contracted for the purpose of covering the expense of important works of public improvements. "New communications," said one writer, when commenting on the financial embarrassments of 1840, "have been opened by railroads and canals between different parts of the country, generally at points where they were really wanted, and will be of important service. In some few cases the rage for speculation and facility for obtaining loans which characterized the period when the debts were contracted may have given rise to projects not precisely of this character. But the worst that can be said of them is, that they are premature." But at that time the population and business of the country were rapidly growing up to these improvements, and as subsequent events have shown, many of the enterprises which at that period of our history seemed to bid fair to bankrupt the states that had promoted them, now are profitable investments. The most embarrassed states at this time were Pennsylvania, Maryland, Mississippi, Michigan, Louisiana, Indiana and Illinois. Some had defaulted in interest, some refused to pay the principal, and some could not pay either the one or the other. —Early in 1840 the question of the United States assuming the states' debts contracted during the period described, was agitated in congress. The first figures that bear evidence of authenticity as showing the amount and the purposes for which the state debts had been contracted, appear in the speech of senator Benton, made before the senate in January, 1840, and which he borrowed from Mr. Flagg, the comptroller of the state of New York. From these tables it seems that $170,000,000 of debt had actually been contracted or authorized by the 18 states previous to 1840, without counting the $28,101,644.91 received from the surplus revenue funds of the federal government. Taking into the calculation the amount probably incurred in the period between the report of Mr. Flagg and the report of senator Benton, together with the Florida debt of $5,000,000, (and making allowance for possible omissions from Mr. Flagg's tables), the whole debt was estimated at more than $200,000,000. The aggregate as ascertained by Mr. Flagg ($170,806,177), was distributed about the states of Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas and Michigan. Eight of the states of the Union at that time, viz, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, North Carolina and Georgia, enjoyed the distinction of not finding their names on the list. Maine and Missouri were only nominally in debt, the former having created but $500,000 of debt. —Of this $170,000,000, $52,640,000, or about 31 per cent., had been incurred in aiding state banks; $60,201,551, or about 35 per cent., in building canals; $42,871,084, or about 25 per cent., for railroad aid; $6,618,958, or about 4 per cent., for turnpikes and macadamized roads; and for miscellaneous objects, $8,474,684. Thus it will be seen that nearly $103,000,000, or about 60 per cent., of this entire amount, was expended for improvement of the system of internal transportation. —On July 9, 1842, Mr. William Cost Johnson, of Maryland, made his first move in congress, with a view of having the national government assume the state debts. In his resolution he set forth the fact that the states not foreseeing the embarrassments which now beset them, had, with a laudable desire to advance their interests, to develop their resources, and by multiplying the means and facilties of intercommunication, to bring into active operation and value much of their otherwise dormant wealth, had involved their credit and incurred heavy debts in the prosecution of works which are calculated to strengthen the bonds of union, multiply the avenues of commerce, and augment the defenses from foreign aggression. That these debts, contracted in times of prosperity, when capital was more plenty, and confidence more stable, have now become onerous upon the people, and provisions for the annual interest, and final payment of the principal, would undoubtedly lead to a system of taxation which would still further depreciate the value of property, and become an unbearable burden to the taxpayer. The resolutions admitted that many of the obligations were improvident, but that they were not the less binding, and the idea of legal and honorable debts being repudiated, must be repugnant to an honest people; and that any inconvenience ought to be endured rather than that a nation's or a state's honor should be tarnished. The matter was brought up several times, and a good deal of opposition was exhibited against paying the state debts in this manner. —In December of the same year, however, the question was referred to a select committee, who filed their report in March, 1843. The tables which accompanied the report of the select committee contain the first official information relative to state debts. They show that the total amount of the debts of the states was $207,894,613.35, and that the amount of the interest paid or due annually was $10,394,730.64. Many of the states had omitted to pay the interest as it accrued, consequently greatly increasing their debt, while the gradual but general depreciation of property in such states continued to render the payment of accruing interest, and the final liquidation of the principal, more and more difficult and doubtful with every delay. The main objection to the report of the committee, set up by those who were opposed to the proposition, was, that the plan contemplated the assumption of the debts of the indebted states, without extending any benefit to the nonindebted states, and that the latter would be responsible for the debts of the former; that if the states were intrusted with the stock or bonds of the general government, they might apply them to other uses than the payment of their debts; that if the states were relieved from their present difficulties and embarrassments, they would, in all probability, get heavily into debt again; and finally, that, although the states might be relieved, the issue of the amount of stock proposed would greatly embarrass the general government. To meet these objections a plan of distributing the stock equally among all states was adopted, and other amendments made, but the project fell through. —Ever since 1830 efforts had been periodically made to distribute the land revenue, or surplus revenue, or to induce the government to assume the stocks of indebted states. The public appetite for this sort of thing was undoubtedly stimulated by the distribution among the several states, of what was termed the surplus revenue fund. The fund originally proposed to be distributed among the states was $36,000,000, and $28,101,644.91 was distributed in three quarterly installments among the various states, the first amount transferred being under date of February, 1837, the second amount in April, and the third amount in July of the same year. The fourth and last installment, however, was not paid. A series of disasters, culminating in the panic of 1837, so disordered the finances of the general government, before the distribution had been completed, that after the first three payments had been made to the different states, it became necessary to have recourse to a new act of congress, which was passed on Oct. 2, to direct the postponement of the transfer of the remaining fourth until Jan. 1, 1839. A subsequent act was passed, postponing the payment indefinitely. This last law further provided that the amount deposited should remain with the states until otherwise directed by congress. Here the matter has rested for forty years. —Undoubtedly this distribution of national funds tended to stimulate improvident undertakings, and at the first signs of embarrassment it was not unnatural that the state should turn to the national government for succor and relief from their financial burdens. —The increase and decrease of state debts in the United States from this period to the present time, may be seen from the following table, which I have carefully prepared from original sources:  The aggregate of the state debts to-day only exceeds by about $37,000,000 the aggregate of the same class of indebtedness 40 years ago. The table also shows a decrease of over $102,000,000, or of nearly 29 per cent., since 1870. Unhappily this has not been all paid, and while some of the states have honestly reduced their debts, we have had of late years too many painful examples of state repudiation and dishonor to see any cause for congratulation in this decrease of state indebtedness. The table presented further along makes the state debts proper $10,000,000 more than the above. The difference is mainly in the southern states, which aggregate about $114,000,000 in the one case and about $125,000,000 in the other. Owing to the financial tinkering that has characterized these states of late years it is difficult to say which of the two statements is correct. —MUNICIPAL DEBTS. The first statistics of municipal indebtedness were published in 1843, from which it appears that the aggregate amount of debts of all the cities of the United States was $27,536,422, and the annual interest charge for state debts was $12,259,602, and for all indebtedness, including national debt, $14,894,232. I have been able to find no other statistics of this class of indebtedness until 1870, when the census gives the debt, other than national, as follows:  As the old census law would not allow the superintendent to deal directly with the minor subdivisions of the country, it is not likely that the above figures were correct. The amount of debt was merely summarized by counties, and no account made of the sinking fund. The county, city, township, village and school district debt was not given separately, and in many other respects the work was unsatisfactory. —The plan adopted in 1880 has proved satisfactory. This branch of the census work, the wealth, debt and taxation division, as it is termed, has been carried on entirely in Washington, and the facts all obtained by the aid of direct correspondence with the local offices throughout the United States. Schedules were prepared with the view to suit the size of the places to which they were to be sent. To the large cities elaborate schedules were mailed, which not only called for an exact statement of the bonded and the floating debt, but also for the date of issue of the various classes of bonds, the date of maturity, the rate of interest, and the purposes for which the bonds were issued; also the amount of sinking fund or other assets and credits set aside for the payment of the debt. To the smaller cities and towns and villages a simpler form of blank was issued, and in some of the townships and school districts a postal card proved effective and secured answers to the seven important questions. The extent of this correspondence, and the difficulties of securing lists, not only of the names of financial officers, but of the municipal corporations themselves, were great. The preliminary work was as difficult as the actual work of gathering statistics. The authorities of every county had to be applied to for the names of the municipal corporations within its area, and after replies had been received from the 2,400 counties, I found that in many states the entire work must be revised, and circulars addressed directly to the places named by the county clerks or auditors, asking the question, "Is——an incorporated village or not?" In this way hundreds of the names originally placed on the lists were excluded. The lists of the minor civil divisions of the United States are formidable documents, as may be imagined when we realize that there are about 2,400 counties; 311 cities and towns, with a population of 7,500 and upward; about 8,000 incorporated cities, villages, and other small places, with a population below 7,500; about 12,000 townships having a financial existence; and 105,000 school districts, possessing a debtcreating and tax-levying power. To some of the larger and more important of these places as many as 20 letters were written before the schedule could be absolutely declared complete. There were others, probably 50 per cent., that replied with both accuracy and promptness. In several cases I succeeded in interesting the editors of newspapers and prominent individuals, and requested them kindly to call the attention of the local authorities to the importance of this work. Almost unanimously did these letters meet with response. Editors called attention to the delinquency in their newspapers, governors and state auditors touched the state pride of the delinquent officers, and in some instances prominent business men dropped their work and filled out the schedule with their own hands. [One city schedule sent to this division of the census was filled out by an ex vice-president of the United States.] With such an awakened interest, and thousands of willing assistants in all parts of the country, it is not surprising that this class of statistics is complete and satisfactory. Every municipal incorporation of over 1,000 population has sent in a correct report, which has been amended, approved, and tabulated. There still remain, scattered over the country a few post-towns in the south and backwoods places in the northwest and in the territories, from which no returns have been received. But these delinquencies can not affect the results, and for all practical purposes the report is complete. The counties, too, have all reported their indebtedness, and substantially the same holds true of the 105,000 school districts. —The following table shows the state and local indebtedness of the United States for 1880:  According to these figures it may be stated in round numbers that about 22 per cent. of the gross debt other than national is state debt; about 10½ per cent. county debt; about 2½ per cent. township debt; about 1½ per cent. school district debt; about 59 per cent. large cities debt; and about 4½ per cent. small cities debt. —From the total of over $1,200,000,000, over $145,000,000 must be deducted for sinking funds and other credits set aside for the payment of maturing bonds. Over $117,000,000 of this amount belongs to the large cities, and reduces the debt from $710,535,924 gross to $593,344,418 net. —The remainder largely belongs to states, though in a number of cases sinking funds have been returned by counties and the other minor civil divisions. The total net debt, state, county, city, township and school district, was, in 1880, $1,055,308,393, against $868,676,758, in 1870, an apparent increase of $186,631,635. The actual increase is not known, because there are no means of ascertaining whether the total for 1870 was the net or the gross debt; if it was the latter, the comparison should be made with the gross debt in 1880, which would make the increase over $145,000,000 more, or $331,682,756. After carefully weighing all the facts, and allowing for the inaccuracies of the work of 1870, I think it may be safely said that state debts have decreased about 25 per cent.; county, township and school district debts about 8 per cent.; while the debts of cities have probably increased over 100 per cent. Indeed, if the census of 1870 be correct, the increase in the last class of indebtedness was over 133 per cent. —Great care has been exercised in the collection of the statistics of debt and taxation of the principal cities of the country, and below I have prepared a statement showing the bonded, floating and gross debt, the amount of the sinking fund, and the net debt of the cities having a population of over 7.500 in each of the five geographical sections of the Union:  Of this enormous debt 3.05 per cent. was incurred for bridges;.05 per cent. for cemeteries; 3.3 per cent. for fire department; 18.02 per cent for funding floating debt; 2.46 per cent. for improvement of harbors; 5.94 per cent. for parks and public places; 3.75 per cent. for public buildings; 10.02 per cent. for railroad and other aid; 10.42 per cent. for refunding old debt; 2.04 per cent. for schools and libraries; 3.07 per cent. for sewers; 11.95 per cent. for streets; 4.22 per cent. for war expenses; 3.89 per cent. for miscellaneous; and no less than 20.79 per cent. for water works. Many of these purposes are extremely useful and beneficial, and in the case of water works, even remunerative investments. It may be that large sums of money have been squandered, but it might be well to bear in mind the wonderful growth of the cities of the United States; that about one quarter of the population is urban; and that many of the expenditures are but the results of the massing of population in large centres of industrial energy. To the continued growth of these cities, under the more stringent organic laws of many of the states, we must look for the payment of the debt. —State and local debt presses unequally on different localities, sometimes hardest in the places least able to pay. For example, the New England states have about 20 per cent. of the state debts; about 2¼ per cent. of the county debts, and 17 per cent. of the municipal debts. The middle states have about the same proportion of state debts, but about 25 per cent. of the county debts, and nearly 54 per cent. of the municipal debts. The south, on the other hand, has nearly 50 per cent. of the state debts, only 19¼ per cent. of the county debts, and but 11 per cent. of the city debts. In the western states, counties have often aided railroads with their credit, and hence nearly 43 per cent. of the total county indebtedness is located here. The west has but little state indebtedness, and only 18 per cent. of the municipal debts. In New England and the middle states the state debts proper have never assumed a serious aggregate. As I have shown, in 1842 Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York were embarrassed. To-day New York has less than $7,000,000 of unprovided debt, Maryland has assets enough to liquidate its debt at any time, and Pennsylvania a debt of $22,000,000. —Some of the New England states and New Jersey and Delaware virtually had no state debt until after the war, yet in these two sections of the country, owing to the excess of municipal indebtedness, the highest per capita debt exists. In this calculation I have included all debt other than national, which bears alike on the several sections of the country. For example, the population of New England is 4,010,438; the aggregate of its different species of indebtedness, $199,771,967; in this calculation the sinking fund is not deducted; and its per capita debt, $49.81. In the middle states the population is 11,756,503; total debt, $508,926,141, and per capita debt, $43.20. The southern states have a population of 15,254,115, a total debt of $215,534,164, and the per capita, $14.13. The western states, with a population of 17,229,810, have a debt of $235,386,261, and a per capita debt of $13.66. The Pacific states, with a population of 1,962,000, have a debt of $27,918,065, or $14.67 per capita. —The per capita of debt other than national for the United States is $23.68. To this add $40 for the national debt, and we have $63.68 per capita for every man, woman and child in the country. Estimate five persons to a family, and our public debts to-day amount to $318.40 for each head of a family. The assessed valuation of the country for 1880 is something over $16,000,000,000. —The public debt other than national equals 7 3/10 per cent. of the assessed valuation. The interest-bearing national debt is about 10 per cent. of this valuation, making a total burden, upon which interest must be paid, of 17 3/10 per cent. of the assessed valuation of all the property—In summing up this array of statistics, but little can be said in regard to the national debt. It is evident that the American people are determined to pay it as rapidly as possible. I believe government should not lose control of the debt. The high premium on the bonds of 1891, and especially of 1907, point out the danger of long time loans. Nearly $1,000,000,000 of the debt is tied up in this way. The sound policy for the future will be rapid reimbursement, rather than extremely low interest. To effect this, a very low interest must not be the only consideration. In view of this, the adopted policy of the United States treasury is, to my mind, a sound one, and should be continued until the last dollar of the national debt is paid. —The only effective remedy for excessive state and local indebtedness is constitutional legislation. In some of the early state constitutions the states were actually authorized to early on and aid internal improvements. Forty years ago Illinois was struggling with projects which, including state banks, involved capital of over $23,500,000; and yet there were then but 70,000 log cabin farmers in the state, and these loans equaled about $300 for each family. Indiana had started vast schemes for railroads and canals, and commenced operations on the whole simultaneously. The result was, that vast sums of money were expended before any work was complete, and the state for years verged on bankruptey. Michigan had the misfortune to enter the Union in times of great speculative excitement. This extraordinary fever had culminated in a bank mania in Michigan; and, though the population of that state was but 31,369 in 1831, in 1833 the state had 20 banks, and, at the close of 1837, 40 banks, with aggregate loans of nearly $4,000,000. A reckless spirit of speculation universally prevailed throughout these states. All seemed to be deluded by deceitful visions of imaginary wealth. Industry and economy were disregarded, and recourse was had to extensive credits, and the pernicious system of borrowing. No sooner was Michigan admitted to the Union than the legislature appointed a board of commissioners of internal improvements, and authorized, March 1, 1837, the survey and construction of 557 miles of railroads, 231 miles of canals, and the improvement of 321 miles of river navigation. A loan of $5,000,000 was authorized for these objects. Fortunately for Wisconsin the constitution of that state forbade the creation of a state debt to an amount greater than $100,000. The state of Missouri had embarked in the perilous course of lending her credit to corporate companies, but was not seriously embarrassed during this period. Ohio had carried on an extensive system of improvements; but, partly owing to her early settlement, and partly owing to the fact that in the year 1825 she established a co-ordinate and co-extensive system of taxation, she suffered less than some other states; and, while the abandonment of some of the works was seriously talked of in 1841 and 1842, the state managed to meet her obligations without any serious embarrassment. Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota were states that came into existence at a later day and under different environments. Iowa has a constitutional provision limiting the state debt to the sum of $250,000, except to repel invasion. The state debt of Kansas may never in the aggregate exceed $1,000,000, and the state can never be a party in carrying on any works of internal improvements, or a stockholder in any banking institution. For the purpose of defraying extra-ordinary expenditures the state of Minnesota may contract a debt not to exceed $250,000, and it can never contract any debt to aid in internal improvements. In Nebraska the constitutional limit is $100,000. In Nevada the limit is $300,000; the purpose or purposes for which it is issued must be distinctly specified; and the law creating the debt shall provide for levying an annual tax sufficient to pay the interest semi annually, and the principal within 20 years. Every contract of indebtedness entered into or assumed by or on behalf of the state, when all its debts and liabilities amount to $300,000, shall be void and of no effect, except in cases of money borrowed to repel invasion. As a result of this, the western states are to-day (with the exception of Missouri) practically out of debt. —Before the war many of the southern states had loaned their credit to railroads and to aid other internal improvements. The old constitutions did not forbid this. Much of this property was destroyed during the war, and though struggling on the verge of bankruptcy the state legislatures were again called upon under entirely new social conditions to assist. The result of this mistaken policy is too well known; the painful experiences of the past can be traced in the new constitutions, and the recent amendments. The constitution of Florida (1868), as amended in 1875; that of North Carolina of 1876; of Tennessee of 1870; of Texas of 1876; of Virginia of 1870; of West Virginia of 1870; of Alabama of 1875, and of Arkansas for 1874, all contain very definite provisions forbidding the state to lend money or credit to corporations. To-day no less than 31 states have provisions of this kind in their constitutions, and the determination to stop these abuses by organic law can not fail to effectually combat the state debt evil. —I have shown how it has prevented the newer states from contracting debt, and, after great injury to credit and suffering to creditors, brought about a more satisfactory condition of affairs in the south. If the lessons of 1842 were needed, and surely the facts I have presented warrant me in saying this much, may not the lessons of 1868-72 be also valuable, and may we not look forward to the day when $260,000,000 of state debt proper will melt away in the sunlight of wise constitutional legislation? —And now, in conclusion, a word on the constitutional restrictions on municipal debt. Massachusetts and Vermont are the only two states that have no constitutional limitations respecting indebtedness, taxation, or the power to become stockholders, loaning or giving aid, etc., etc., by the state or any political division thereof. With these exceptions all the states in their later constitutions or amendments place some restrictions on state debts proper. The constitutions of Rhode Island, Maine, Louisiana, Kentucky and Kansas have no provision authorizing the state to restrict county or municipal debts. In the other states municipal corporations are prohibited by the constitution from subscribing or becoming stockholders in any corporation, company or association, or loaning their credit. These provisions, while aiming at the same thing, differ in form; for example, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado and Florida absolutely prohibit minor political divisions loaning their credit. In Georgia the legislature may authorize subscriptions to stock by incorporated cities and towns, if a majority of the inhabitants vote for it. Aid may be granted in the same way. In Illinois the law is virtually prohibitory. In Indiana counties can not become stockholders, unless stock is paid for at the time of subscription; they can not loan the credit of the county nor borrow money to pay for stock; cities are not prohibited. In Iowa the only restriction is, that municipal corporations can not become stockholders in banks. In Maryland counties can not become indebted unless authorized by "an act of the general assembly which shall be published for two months before the next election for members of the house of delegates in the newspapers published in such county, and shall also be approved by a majority of all the members elected to each house of the general assembly at its next session after said election." In Michigan the constitution merely provides that the legislature shall restrict. In Minnesota the minor divisions can not aid to an amount exceeding 10 per cent. of the taxable value of property. In Missouri all minor divisions are to loan credit or become stockholders; also in Mississippi; and in Nebraska cities, counties, precincts and other municipalities can not become stockholders, but under certain conditions may grant aid. In Nevada the constitution makes the one exception of railroad corporations—for no other purpose can aid be granted, but even in this the legislature can restrict. In New Hampshire towns are restricted; also in New Jersey, New York and Ohio. In North Carolina no county, city or municipal corporation can create any debt, pledge its faith or loan its credit, unless by a vote of the majority of the qualified voters therein. In Oregon no town or city, by vote of its citizens or otherwise, can loan its credit or become a stockholder in any corporation whatever, nor can a county create any debt which shall exceed in the aggregate $5,000, except to repel invasion, etc., etc. In Pennsylvania the legislature can not authorize any county, city or borough, township or incorporated district, to become a stockholder in any corporation, or loan credit to same. The debt of minor civil divisions can not exceed 7 per centum of the valuation. —There are very useful provisions for the levying of taxes and the creation of sinking funds to pay debts, which provisions must be made by the law creating the indebtedness. In South Carolina the state may restrict. In Tennessee the voters of the county or city must consent by a three-fourths majority. In Texas the constitution of 1876 prohibits the loaning of money or credit by minor political divisions. In Virginia the state is simply forbidden to loan its credit to counties or cities. In West Virginia and Wisconsin they have the 5 per centum restriction. —It can not be denied, in the view of all this organic legislation, that the people of this great republic are earnestly searching for a remedy for state and local indebtedness. The success or failure of constitutional legislation to provide this remedy will soon be known beyond a peradventure. That it was successful in curtailing state debts has been shown; but as most of the provisions relating to local indebtedness have been recently enacted, the effect is as yet uncertain. Over $1,000,000,000 of local debt hanging like a cloud over this fair land, oftentimes most threatening in sections least able to dispel it, is a danger that needs prompt and firm action. Few of the provisions I have called attention to are satisfactory to my mind. The evil is approached with an uncertain hand, and not with the unwavering firmness of a master. There should absolutely be no loop-hole, and the word "except" should be followed only by "to repress invasion." Let this be the uniform provision in every constitution of every state, and in 10 years from now the census will not show an increase of 100 per cent. in municipal debt. ROBERT P. PORTER. DEBTSDEBTS, Political Economy of National. Even the ablest and most conscientious management is not always able to maintain a balance between the resources and the expenses of a country. No country is insured against accidents which may decrease its income or cause unforeseen expense. An event, a period of scarcity, for instance, or a revolution, may produce both a decrease of income and a great increase of expense. Again, the suddenness of a national want, its extent and its urgent character, are such as to prevent providing for it with a rapidity corresponding to its suddenness: wealthy England herself attempted this in vain during the Crimean war. Finally, enterprises of evident usefulness, but the introduction of which demands time and are very costly, may outweigh the current resources of the state, and necessitate for a longer or shorter period an additional revenue. —In the absence of actual resources furnished by taxation, and those which result from state savings in the past, recourse must be had to the future. The state, like the private man, discounts the future: it borrows. Much has been said of the advantages of credit in private business: its usefulness in public affairs is not less than in private. There is no essential difference between the national demand for credit and the demand for credit made by individuals: in both cases the borrower appeals to the capitalist and for time within which to return the value he received. These are the two constituent elements of every credit operation. As to the use the loan is put to and the results of the operation, the state which borrows can be compared only to the individual who borrows for purposes of consumption. In fact, the state rarely asks money for productive investment; it borrows only because its disposable or prospective funds are insufficient for the present or the near future. —This difference, too often forgotten, is of prime importance. A manufacturer commences his business with $100,000. Seeing his custom increase, he borrows two or three times the amount of his capital in order to enlarge his business. The borrowed capital, which must bring in more than its use cost, is evidently profitable to the borrower. But the borrowing of this capital is not injurious to economic society. The manufacturer who borrows at 5 per cent. and makes the borrowed money yield him 8 or 10 per cent., evidently renders a great service to society: a given amount of capital thus acquires a productive power greater than that which it had in the hands of its previous holders. It is altogether different with the man who borrows for purposes of consumption. For this borrower the borrowing limit is found not at the point where people cease to lend him, but it is found in the measure of the wants the satisfaction of which is in question with him, and in the extent of the resources which he can command to pay back the borrowed money. The lender is justified in seeking his own advantage; otherwise why should he lend his money unless he can obtain, by lending it, a greater income from it than he could by using it or holding it himself? The general good, nevertheless, may suffer from the making of loans to consumers. If the manufacturer, who gets 6 per cent. by employing his money in his own business, or the capitalist to whom the agriculturist pays 4 per cent., lends money to spendthrift young men for 10 per cent., this credit operation, though profitable to the lenders, is not favorable to the general interest. —We now see the value of certain paradoxical doctrines formerly current concerning the public debt. It is called an excellent investment. It may perhaps be an excellent investment for the capitalist, who in this way, without care or labor, can assure himself a fixed income; but it is not advantageous to society to favor idleness. As Montesquieu said, (Esprit des lois, book xxii., chap. 17,) by the burden of interest caused by the public debt, "the real revenue of the state is taken from those who are possessed of activity and industry, to give it to idle people: that is to say, facilities for labor are given to those who do not labor, and hinderances to labor are put in the way of those who labor." Fanatical defenders of the public debt say that the burdens imposed on the people by the existence of a great debt have much of good in them because they compel labor and saving. This is equivalent to saying that the prodigality of a young spendthrift is an excellent thing, because it forces his father to save his money and accumulate wealth. We do not mean to say that sums borrowed by the state are always expended as inconsiderately as those borrowed by spendthrift young men who borrow on the credit of their fathers' names. We all know that debts may be incurred with a view to production. But this case is the least frequent. The case in which the loan is made to meet sad but real wants is more frequent. But debt created by thoughtlessness and prodigality has perhaps played the principal part in the history of national debts. It is necessary, therefore, not to forget when the benefits of national credit are vaunted, to inquire what use is made of it, before too highly praising its utility. —Credit is a marvelous instrument of action, one of the most powerful springs of the material and even moral progress of society. Its development, therefore, should be favored in every way; its uses and the forms it assumes can not become too numerous. But, in order to be really profitable, they should be in keeping with the very essence and real end of credit. This end is, as all know, in the first place, to keep capital from lying idle for a longer or shorter time, as the case may be, and in the second, always to place capital in the hands of those who, at a given moment, may make the most productive use of it. Credit thus assures the continued circulation and fruitful employment of a nation's capital, and adds to the motive and protective power of this mighty instrument of labor. Has national credit always this effect? The most decided advocate of the advantages of national debts would scarcely dare to give a directly affirmative answer to this question. —By the safety and ease which it affords to investment, by the means which it possesses to inspire confidence, the state which calls for a loan, brings from their hiding places a multitude of small sums which would otherwise have remained idle. This is true; and in this way one of the objects of credit appears, to be attained: barren money is made to bear interest. But in order that it should be profitable to society also, the idle capital of yesterday should be used in production to-day; now to invest money in the state funds is seldom to employ it productively. From a general point of view if the loan did no more than absorb the idle capital of the country and the capital hidden away by its owners, it can not be said that there would be precisely what could be called a loss but only the absence of some advantage, a failure to make a certain amount of profit; the loan would not diminish the sum total of the instruments of labor in the country, since the capital above referred to was inactive. But the absorbent force of the loan is also felt by other capital, and turns it from productive employment. The more the amount of idle capital is diminished by the action of institutions, which entice such capital out of its idleness (banks, shares of stocks, bonds, etc.), the worse is the effect of the loan, on capital invested or seeking investment, because it diverts it from employment really productive to society. —How can the landed proprietor, for example, who scarcely obtains 3 or 4 per cent. net income from his land, enter into competition with a party like the state, which offers 6 or 7 per cent. to non-invested capital? The landed proprietor would have to give up the idea of borrowing at all, or submit to ruinous conditions. And still the same national loan which renders his condition worse, and diminishes the revenue derived from the exploitation of his lands, increases his burden as a tax-payer. This applies equally to the merchant, and to the manufacturer, who, in consequence of the competition of the state, have to pay a higher rate of interest when borrowing, and whose taxes are increased by reason of this very loan. The force of attraction of national loans for capital, has more drawbacks than advantages from the point of view of the common good. Let us add that the very advantage attributed to national loans, of drawing capital from its hiding places, diminishes greatly in extent and value with the progress of economic civilization. When, under the protection of liberty and competition the business of banks is sufficiently developed to absorb all un-invested capital; when the increase and development of financial and industrial associations enable every capitalist who can not employ his money himself to share in the profits of productive investments; when, finally, the insurance system appeases the fears of those who wish to rid themselves of the cares of capital and to be concerned only with the collection of the interest on it, the advantages ascribed to state loans, as a stimulus to saving and as furnishing capital with an opportunity of investment, diminish perceptibly. Neither can the political advantage ascribed to state loans stand examination. The creditors of a government, say some, are interested in its maintenance and become supporters of the established order of things. This consideration is of great weight, it is added, especially in the case of modern national loans obtained by public subscription in which the least wealthy and often the least conservative classes take part. This argument might have had a certain semblance of truth in times when governments were, so to speak, the personal debtors of fundholders, when the latter might fear to see a debt, contracted under a particular reign, repudiated in the succeeding one. This fear can have no influence whatever in Europe to-day. The Bourbons who, when reinstated in France, refused to recognize the republic and the empire, did not think for a moment of repudiating the debts contracted under these two forms of government. However active the opposition of the liberal party to the famous milliard granted the emigrants, neither the liberals, when the revolution of July brought them to power, nor even the radicals, when the revolution of February gave them the reins of government, thought of disputing the legality of the 3 per cents of which this milliard had been the origin. The increase of the national debt under the second empire was very rapid; every one will agree, however, that its creditors have nothing to fear whatever be the vicissitudes awaiting France in the future. In all continental Europe the opposition, previous to 1848, had raised its voice against the abuse of loans, frequently contracted for the purpose of destroying liberty. Did the opposition make use of its ephemeral rule of 1848 and 1849 to repudiate these debts? The reaction, after gaining the victory, did not think of protesting the bills of exchange which the interregnum had drawn on the resources of the country. Loyalty and the very correct feeling that it was the country and not the government that had incurred the debt, were not, perhaps, the only motives of these reciprocal recognitions. Governments, no matter what may be the real or pretended opposition of their members to national debts, feel at once the necessity of having recourse themselves to credit; they feel that to get the confidence of capital, they must not commence by alarming it; that in order to borrow, it is indispensable to commence by recognizing the loans of others. Let contemporary facts be consulted. If indebtedness were a means of consolidating a country, never would governments have been more firmly established than at present. But when has their condition been more precarious? —The grain of truth to be found in the sophism in question is, that the partisans of every de facto government, the props of the established order of things, increase with wellbeing. The more prosperity there is, the more individuals there are who have something to lose, and the greater the number interested in, and anxious to prevent, every disturbance in the course of public affairs. Now, when the national debt absorbs large sums which might have been employed more productively by their owners or by borrowers other than the state, the state debt rather undermines than strengthens the public peace, since it hinders the increase of well-being. It is evident, therefore, that the growth of taxation, the fatal consequence of indebtedness, is not one of the means of making a government popular and raising up devoted partisans for it—After the preceding observations it is superfluous to refute at length the strange doctrine which finds no drawback in a home debt, because "the interest is paid by the right hand into the left." Is it nothing to divert capital from productive investment? And then if to pay the interest on a loan, we take, let us suppose $10,000,000 in sums of $50, from 200,000 taxpayers, the majority of whom have not, it may be, $1,000 each a year for their own consumption, and that this amount of $10,000,000 is paid in sums of $1,000 to 10,000 fundholders who spend twenty times as much; and let us suppose, further, that taxation takes the $10,000 000 from where they would have acted in the capacity of an instrument of labor, i.e., have been engaged in the employment of labor, and puts them where they will be simply consumed, the most prejudiced must confess that a "movement" of capital has been made, but one which is far from profitable to the economy of the community. There was a time when the wealthy and middle classes exercised a predominant influence in the state, through parliament and the press; these were the classes who received the interest on the national debt, and a shortsighted policy might have believed that the good-will of a number of capitalists was not too dearly purchased at the price of the discontent which the debt might cause among the mass of taxpayers. In our day, with the system of universal suffrage in vogue, it is evidently impolitic to overburden millions of taxpayers in favor of a few hundred thousand holders of the bonds of the state. Besides, even this favor of the bond-holders of the state is only apparent; investments as safe and as productive as the bonds of the state are not wanting at present to the capitalist who either does not know how, or does not wish to turn his money to advantage. —It is time to stop lauding the pretended benefits of national loans, and the political or economic advantages of a great national debt. A national loan may sometimes be a necessity. This is the sole excuse for incurring it, and its only raison d'être. But, it will be said, there are productive loans. The productive loan furnishes the wherewithal to pay the interest on it. Besides, this interest will pay off the principal debt. But even these productive loans are destined to become less frequent. The more sound economic ideas are developed and the more general they become, the more public wealth and the spirit of association increase, the less frequently will the state be obliged to engage in enterprises requiring a recourse to credit. The English government had nothing to do with the eight to ten thousand millions of francs which the railroad system of Great Britain has absorbed up to the present time. It would have been better, perhaps, if the French government had abstained altogether from intervention in the building of railroads; but able thinkers believe that its intervention was indispensable. Austria has sold the railroad lines built and controlled by the state. Italy has begun to be very liberal in its concessions to private enterprises, but it looks after the outlay of such enterprises. Belgium, in which the national network of railroads was built and is yet controlled by the state, is now opening a broader and broader field to private companies. The treasury intervenes only in the case of enterprises with which private individuals do not care to concern themselves, even as concessionaries. The government of the Netherlands has been obliged, for the same reason, to assume the burden of constructing a great part of the national system of railroads, and the Swiss government to think for a moment of buying the lines at first given over to private industry. In a word, great works of public utility which may necessitate the making of large loans, cease to require the intervention of the state in proportion as the association of capital shows more aptitude and power to carry them out. Do we not see companies undertake to carry the trans-atlantic mail, dig canals, and pierce tunnels, make streets, and build whole quarters of cities, thus successively freeing the state of everything which can properly be called enterprise, of everything except what is concerned with its daily affairs? The reasons for borrowing save for the requirements of war are thus evidently growing weaker every day or should grow weaker. We may therefore foresee the advent of an order of things, in which, in every well organized state the inadequacy of the revenue to meet public expenses will only be momentary, in which little shall be borrowed, and in which payment will be made as soon as the circumstances which caused recourse to credit shall have ceased to exist. During the last 50 years England has made but few demands on public credit; many countries are successfully endeavoring to diminish their national debt. And these countries only do their duty. If a loan is justified only by the imperious necessities of the moment; if the debt is attended by great inconvenience without any corresponding compensation, why should not endeavors be made to pay off the loan as soon as possible and thus lessen the burden of the debt? The example of England, which, after a long trial, gave up the systematic sinking of its debt, is frequently appealed to The case of Austria is cited, in which the sinking fund, created in 1817, did not prevent the public debt from doubling between 1850 and 1860. It is true, besides, that the repeated but short-lived funding process resorted to in France has been, in fact, suspended by law since 1848. It is quite true also that the sinking of the public debt is often pure deception and very burdensome besides when there is no revenue surplus, and when a debt is incurred on more onerous conditions in order to pay off an old loan. But what does this prove against the funding system? Is it not true that the United States had succeeded in 1837 in almost completely extinguishing the debts contracted during the war of independence, and that since the war of secession they have considerably reduced the loans which that war forced them to make? The popular adage, Whoever pays his debts grows rich, may not be always true in the case of private loans contracted for purposes of production, and which yield a revenue; we have seen that there may be both an individual and a social advantage in this, that the sums borrowed continue to be employed by people who know how to turn them to the best advantage. The adage, on the contrary, is true in every respect in regard to the state, which almost always borrows for purposes of consumption and not of production. By borrowing moderately and only under the pressure of imperious necessity, by hastening to pay its debt as quickly as possible, the state "grows rich" not only to the amount of the sum by which it decreases its yearly burden of interest, but also by the resulting enhancement of its credit which takes a tangible form when it has to contract a new loan. —The more a state values its credit, the more it should hesitate to burden itself with debt, or should hasten to pay it. Is the prolonged abstention of the English government from having recourse to national credit, compared with the frequent appeals made to it by France, of small account in the higher price of English state paper? In truth, we find even to-day many people who seriously maintain that England owes its prodigious fortune to its enormous debt because its wonderful economic energy, the offspring of the nineteenth century, is contemporary with the unparalleled increase of its debt. This is simply a confusion of cause and effect. Have we not seen a similar confusion on the subject of the commercial policy of Great Britain? When the industry and commerce of that country moved with giant step, many people thought it was because of, and not in spite of, the fact that industry and commerce were shackled by the protective and prohibitive systems. At present, in view of the brilliant and universal success of commercial freedom, no reasonable man dares to maintain this theory which was considered as an axiom 20 years ago. The same fate awaits the paradoxes now bandied about on the subject of public debts. The real truth is, that England, France, Europe in general, advance in spite of, and not because of, their debts. How much their advance would be accelerated if their feet were freed from the ball and chain of their national debts! Does this mean that we should, as has been proposed, make an enormous effort to pay off the whole public debt at once? The operation is impossible, or nearly so. Let us suppose that it is only difficult and that the people are determined to redeem themselves, by the payment of the principal, from the eternal slavery of interest. The majority of taxpayers would be obliged to borrow to effect this redemption, and the debt would simply change hands. We do not wish to maintain either that in default of being able to extinguish the debt nothing at least should be added to it, and another loan never be made. This is almost impossible in great states in which the most provident and economical management will not always succeed in preserving a perfect balance between their resources and expenses. Now, rather than not satisfy legitimate wants recourse must be had to credit. There may also be cases in which a loan, without being absolutely necessary, is of such evident utility that it would not meet the opposition of even the most scrupulous financier. —By saying that recourse should be had to a loan only when there are absolutely no means of avoiding it, and that it should be repaid as quickly as possible, we think we have answered the following question which has been so often discussed: Is it better, in case of an extraordinary want, to increase taxation or have recourse to a loan? As long as taxation suffices, without becoming unbearable, absolute necessity, which alone can justify the loan, does not exist. This was the system adopted at first by the English government at the time of the Crimean war; seeing that the war was prolonged it determined to increase the revenue yielded by their high taxation by a loan of £16,000,000. In France they began with loans and ended with loans, and yet in the mean-while did not deny themselves the pleasure of increasing taxation. The first argument in favor of the making of loans is the greater facility of quickly obtaining large sums of money; second, the advantage of distributing the burden of the debt between the present and the future, instead of imposing it altogether on the present generation. But to be right in burdening a future generation, it would be necessary to have the most incontestable proof that the load thus distributed would be fruitful in good results in the future. Leaving out of consideration certain loans made for the construction of railways, what modern national loans are there which were intended to be used productively? Even if the money in tended for railroad construction is well employed by the state, and since it is likely that, sooner or later, private industry would have done the same work of construction at less cost, the future generation might well question the justice of imposing burdens of this kind upon it. With regard to the greater facility afforded by a loan as compared with taxation, we are far from seeing an absolute advantage in it: it is precisely this facility which sometimes leads to enterprises in which enormous expenditure is not the most disastrous feature. Very blind are the nations which think themselves adroit because they allow infinite latitude to their government to borrow money rather than submit to increased taxation. They think that they do but cast their burdens on the future, while what they do consists mainly in increasing the burdens of the present. —It is not in our time alone that the treasury acquired the habit of spending more than is warranted by the condition of the national revenue: wars do not date from yesterday, and neither does waste in time of peace. At all times, therefore, governments were more or less frequently obliged to make up the insufficiency of their current resources by extraordinary measures. The measures of former days were, in truth, "extraordinary": their iniquity was, in most cases, equaled only by their inefficacy. National credit had nothing to do with this violence. Whatever the name given to certain periodical "bleedings" or other similar methods of taking money from those who were supposed to have it, confidence, as a constituent element of credit, cut no figure in them. The making of national loans, in the proper sense of the word, could have its origin only with the establishment of domestic peace in states, with the reign of liberty and equality, with the general growth of private fortunes. It is thus seen that national debts had their origin in the Netherlands, where these conditions were found earlier than in any other European country. Dating from the commencement of the seventeenth century, we meet with complaints in the Batavian republic concerning the excessive burdens of the debt caused by war. In other writings of the period forced loans were recommended without hesitation, in case capitalists showed themselves less disposed to continue their support of the country's cause. The credit of the state, however, was very great, since it was possible to reduce the rate of interest under the stathouder Maurice from 6¼ to 5 per cent., and in 1655, under John de Witt, from 5 to 4 per cent. The reduction did not stop there; in the eighteenth century, the republic succeeded in reducing the rate to 2½ per cent. on an average. The situation became much worse toward the end of the eighteenth century. The debt had greatly increased by the participation of Holland in the war between England and America. In 1795 the republic lost several of its provinces and was obliged to pay France an indemnity of 100,000,000 florins. The difficulties of the time continued to weigh on the treasury, and forced it into debt more and more. On the accession of king Louis, the debts, old and new, amounted to 1,200,000,000 florins; which required an annual outlay of 38,000,000 in interest, while the total of the ordinary revenues amounted to only 58,000,000. Two-thirds of the debt was stricken off the books. These debts were acknowledged again under William I., but only as deferred debt (uitgestellte), without interest, of which a sum of 5,000,000 florins only was to be transferred annually to the regular debt. The interest of the latter was reduced to 2½ per cent. The revolution of 1830, which detached the Belgian provinces from it, introduced new troubles into the finances of the Netherlands. In 1836 it was deemed necessary to mortgage the colonies for the special benefit of the state creditors. The final arrangement entered into in 1839, by which Belgium assumed a part of the Dutch debt, afforded considerable relief. The Netherlands profited by the peace restored in this way to work again at the consolidation of their credit. This object has been completely attained by the elementary process, which so many pretended practical financiers still declare impossible, of making no new debts and reducing the old ones by paying them off. During the decade 1850-60, when nearly all the states of the continent used and abused credit so much, the Netherlands paid off a part of their debt. In 1846 the debt was still 1,231,122,702 florins principal, and required an annual interest of 35,787,948 florins; in 1860 the principal was reduced to 1,057,524,213 florins, and the annual interest to 31,402,675 florins. Four-fifths of the debt paid from 1½ to 2 per cent. interest; 4 per cent. is the maximum rate of interest for certain other parts of the debt. —If we are to believe M'Culloch, it was from Holland, and by the agency of William III., that public credit was introduced into England. This does not mean that previously the treasury had not incurred debts. Loans were known and made on the other side of the channel long before the revolution that placed the Dutch stathouder on the throne of the Stuarts. Under Henry VIII., especially, the crown had made large use of its power to make forced loans. Edward VI. applied abroad, especially to Dutch capitalists, who lent him money at 14 per cent. The debt increased also under the reign of Elizabeth; the duke of Buckingham under James I. was not the man to reduce it. The reigns of Charles I. and Charles II. caused frequent recourse to credit. The loans were always made for short terms and generally in the tontine way The sinking of the debt progressed at the same rate as the creation of new indebtedness; a part of the old debt was always paid when a new one was contracted. Thus, at the accession of William III., the principal of the debt amounted to only £664,263, with an annual interest of £39,835. At his death the principal debt had increased to about £15,000,000, the average interest was 7 per cent. It increased in vaster proportions under Anne II., owing especially to the cost of the Spanish war, Anne II. left a debt of £54,000,000, requiring about £3,300,000 annual interest. Under the peaceful reign of George I. it was possible to reduce the principal debt by £2,000,000, and to reduce the average rate of interest from 8 to 5 per cent. A new conversion of the debt, effected in 1746, was intended to reduce the interest, in 15 years, from 5 to 3 per cent. This is the present rate of the consols, a name given, in 1751, to the English debt. The war of 1755 increased it by £68,000,000; in 1762 it was nearly £139,000,000. Twelve years of peace reduced it £10,000,000. The war of the American colonies for independence doubled it. The general system of funding which Dr. Price succeeded in having adopted, could not work long on account of the immense efforts made by England to maintain the war against France. Her credit naturally suffered from this, in 1798 she was obliged to borrow at 6¼ per cent., in 1802 she received only £28,000,000 for £49,000,000 subscribed; the same difference appeared in case of most of the loans contracted during the wars of the first empire. When they had come to an end, England found herself weighted with a debt amounting to the startling sum of £840,850,491. Although it has given up systematic and continuous funding, the English government has been occupied, since 1817, and not without success, in reducing the principal and the interest of the debt. On the eve of the Crimean war, the principal of the consolidated and non-consolidated debt was reduced to £771,300,000, and the annual interest to £27,800,000. This was followed by a relapse into the former state; the sum of £800,000,000 principal debt was again greatly exceeded, beginning with 1856. Its reduction was again attempted. In the beginning of 1861 the English debt amounted to £799,949,807, of which £15,529,800 were in non-consolidated debt; the annual cost for interest and administration amounted, in 1861, to £26,090,260, or a decrease of £743,210 compared with the year 1860. —Under the ancient régime France borrowed much and at any sacrifice. We know how these debts were sometimes paid. (See BANKRUPTCY, NATIONAL.) A reglement of 1604 mentions debts incurred under Charles V. in 1375, the most ancient mentioned in French history. Sully lowered arbitrarily the interest on the debt, and putting an end to the extravagance of the court and the administration, he also put an end to the increase of debt. After his death the financial disorder of previous times reappeared. Colbert reduced the arrearage of the old debt by 8,000,000 francs; his authority, however, was not sufficient to prevent, for any length of time, new additions to the debt. The unhappy wars which marked the end of the long reign of Louis XIV. completed this disorder of the finances, and at the accession of the regency the amount of the state debts had, it is said, risen to 2,000,000,000 francs, a sum of overwhelming weight for that epoch. The general bankruptcy of the country which was seriously proposed was rejected by the regent. The brilliant promises of John Law gave a momentary and unexpected splendor to the credit of the state. The disastrous crash which followed this short-lived prosperity is well known. The reign of the Dubarrys and the administration of the Terrays caused the financial disorder of the country to reach its extreme limits, and greatly contributed to pave the way for the revolution of 1789. The revolution had much difficulty in discovering what to do with this chaos of debt. A law of Aug. 1, 1793, fixed the annual arrearages at the sum of 127,800,000 francs, of which 87,800,000 were for the old consolidated debt, 17,700,000 for various debts, and 31,300,000 as indemnification for offices and charges abolished. The imperious necessities of a war in which it was a question of life or death for France, and the false economic maxims which prevailed in all home politics at that period, brought on the irregular issue of assignats. At the end of 1795 their nominal amount exceeded the enormous sum of 45,000,000,000 francs. Measures closely resembling general bankruptcy caused the disappearance of the assignats when, in fact, depreciation had already rendered them valueless. The debt proper was regulated by the laws of Sept. 30, 1797, and Jan 29, 1798. Debts more or less doubtful were set aside, especially all claims of the emigrés; debts recognized by the state were paid, two-thirds in treasury notes, and the last third was retained as a consolidated debt and inscribed in the grand livre, bearing a fixed interest of 5 per cent. a year. The treasury notes which were to pay the two-thirds, lost 80 per cent. as soon as they were emitted; the next day they had no value at all. The creditors consequently obtained only the last third. This arrangement, called—after the minister of finance who carried it out—the Ramel liquidation, and officially the tiers consolidated, became the basis of the public debt of France. The total of the annual interest inscribed in the grand livre was 40,216,000 francs. The national credit, which was nothing at the moment of the liquidation (the rentes were quoted at 7 per cent.) improved, and the paper of the state was eagerly sought. Even at the time fortune began to turn against Napoleon I. the 5 per cent. rentes sold at more than 82 (December, 1812). We see that Napoleon was able to borrow on much better conditions than could a little later the restoration, whose first loans were made at 57 francs on 100 francs. Notwithstanding this, the annual amount of interest increased only 23,000,000 from 1798 to 1814: the restoration found it (April 8, 1814) at 63,300,000. The latter borrowed much. It was, indeed, not always free to do otherwise. The debts contracted during the first years of the restoration were used in great part to pay the arrearage of the last years of the empire, and to pay the foreign powers the indemnity (ranson) of France. This was not the case, however, with debts contracted after 1820: the justice of paying the thousand millions to the emigrés' loan contracted to aid the emigrés, was called in question, and the expedition to Spain was condemned from every point of view. The elder branch of the Bourbons at its fall left to France (Aug. 1, 1830) the burden of interest of 164,568,100 francs. The government of July figures in the grand livre of the public debt for an increase of only about 12,000,000, arising in part from loans contracted for productive purposes. March 1, 1848, the interest was thus increased to 176,845,367 francs. During the second republic the debt itself was increased about 54,000,000. —The consolidated debt of Austria, considering its amount, comes immediately after the consolidated debts of Great Britain and of France. The wars the young heiress of Charles VI. was obliged to maintain against Europe, which was conspiring to despoil her, and especially that against Frederic II., had seriously disturbed the finances of the empire of the Haps burgs. At her accession, Maria-Theresa found a funded debt of 12,000,000 florins; 15 years later, it was 118,000,000; new wars had raised it, in 1763, to 272,000,000. Domestic troubles and the war with Turkey added to it greatly under Joseph II. At the death of Leopold II. it approximated the sum of 380,000,000. Much greater were the exigencies of the wars of the first empire, in which Austria took so large a part and played so unfortunate a rôle. With a funded debt, which had increased to the sum of 660,000,000 and required an annual interest payment of 74,000,000, Austria still found herself, in 1797, in possession of comparatively good credit; her paper was accepted as the equivalent of coin. It naturally ceased to be so accepted when, under the pressure of unhappy wars, the Austrian government no longer put any limit to the increase of its consolidated debt and the issue of paper money. In 1800 the consolidated debt had risen to 690,000,000 florins, and the paper money in circulation exceeded the sum of 200,000,000. Ten years later, the consolidated debt was reduced to 658,200,000, but the floating debt already approached 1,000,000,000, which it exceeded at the commencement of 1811. We have already mentioned elsewhere (see BANKRUPTCY, NATIONAL) the desperate measures to which such financial disorder led; we stated in that article that this liquidation did not stop the increase of the floating and of the funded debts, and that a new liquidation had to reduce it, five years later, to a proportion relatively limited. Notwithstanding this double bankruptcy and the numerous operations of credit which Austria had recourse to soon after, her credit was not slow in rising under the influence of the general peace, the internal development of the empire, and the active assistance afforded by the national bank, in improving the condition of things. Comparatively favorable conditions were offered Austria immediately after the second liquidation, and especially after 1830. Her credit was strengthened to such a degree that she was able to borrow at a premium. Her loan of 40,000,000 florins at 5 per cent. was contracted in 1841, at the rate of 2 per cent. premium; in 1843 a new loan at 5 per cent. (43,600,000) went as high as 6 per cent. premium. The events of 1848-9, and the policy of reaction into which Francis Joseph I. allowed himself to be drawn, were of such a nature as to conduct the Austrian empire, financially as well as politically, to the brink of ruin. The result was that, though having from 1848 to 1858 more than doubled her receipts (153,300,000 in 1847; 315,200,000 in 1858), Austria was none the less obliged to have recourse every year to credit. After having borrowed at home in 1851 to 1853, borrowed abroad, and borrowed on pledges, the Austrian government took advantage of the Crimean war in 1854, to make the largest loan that a government had ever made. The national loan, the so-called voluntary loan, demanded by law July 20, 1854, was to reach 500,000,000 florins, an amount never before asked at one time. It subsequently leaked out that the loan exceeded this amount by about 112,000,000. The funded debt of 804,000,000 nominal principal at the commencement of 1848, the eve of the revolution, exceeded 1,900,000,000 at the commencement of 1859, the eve of the war with Italy. The credit of the government was ruined; neither at home nor abroad could it borrow the money so persistently demanded by the necessities of this war. It again became necessary to have recourse to the good offices of the bank of Vienna which was in consequence compelled to suspend specie payments again when it had just resumed them (Jan. 1, 1859,) after a suspension of 10 years. But the reverses of 1859, by inducing the Austrian government to change its whole policy and become more liberal, at last exercised a beneficial influence on its credit. Constitutional government and financial publicity (the publication of its accounts) restored it immediately. The first report (of June 4, 1860), furnished by the special commission on the debt, appointed Dec. 23, 1859, showed the amount of the consolidated debt to be 2,268,071,532 florins, requiring an annual payment of interest of 99,465,917 florins. Next followed the war of 1866 and the arrangement with Hungary, which is spoken of in the article AUSTRIA-HUNGARY—The consolidated debts of the Netherlands, Great Britain, France and Austria, taken together, form an amount of 50,000,000,000 francs, more than two thirds of the whole permanent European debt. We shall be more brief in our reference to this last third, than we have been for the first two-thirds concentrated in a few countries. The debt of Russia is indeed considerable, but it is not easy to fix its amount with precision for a country which published its first budget only in 1862. Very different is the situation in Prussia; she is the least involved of the great powers. A part of her debt was contracted for the construction of railways, the same mania for which, in second and third rate European states, has so greatly increased the amount of public debts. Switzerland is the only state which is almost without a debt. Even Turkey itself, since admitted to the "European concert" by the congress of Paris, has hastened to copy the west in the matter of making debts inconsiderately. A state created by the same congress of 1856, Roumania, has also tried the borrowing system. United Italy has had recourse several times to public credit; and has thus succeeded in doubling in a few years the amount of the united debt of the states of which it was formed. In March, 1863, it borrowed, in one operation, the sum of 700,000,000 cash, which increased by more than 1,000,000,000 the nominal principal of debt and its corresponding burden of interest. The amount of the consolidated debt of Europe at present may, without risk of exaggeration, be set down at 70,000,000,000 francs, requiring the payment of more than 3,000,000,000 of interest annually, and absorbing more than one-fourth of the public revenues. Besides, estimates rarely include all the expenses which the debt causes. This burden would not be so regretable if the money coming from the loans had been used in productive employment. We have said already that this is scarcely true even of a small part. The wars of the first 15 years of the nineteenth century, the armed peace of the years succeeding 1848, and the wars of 1866 and 1870, created and increased the national debts of Europe to an amazing degree. The source of the evil being so evident, the remedy is easy to discover. It is not to be supposed that, with the increasing wants which social development requires the state to satisfy, civil expenses can be reduced very soon. The military budget, on the contrary, is everywhere susceptible of the greatest reduction without injury to the security of states and with great benefit to social, political and economic progress. Let us imagine only a part of the money, at present withdrawn from circulation, in the debtor state, returning by degrees to the creditors who would be obliged to seek new investments for it, would not production and consumption immediately feel the benefit of this capital? If a continually increasing portion of the 3,000,000,000 now spent in paying the interest of the debt, were employed by the state in works of public utility or remained in the hands of taxpayers to increase their instruments of labor or their means of enjoyment, would there not be the where withal to compensate liberally and seriously for the petty and fictitious advantages which self-satisfied dreamers attribute to the existence of great national debts? J. E. HORN. DECENTRALIZATION.DECENTRALIZATION. This word signifies the action which tends to diminish centralization, that is, the concentration of power. —For some time the word decentralization has also been used to mean the opposite of centralization. It is often confounded also with self-government, which is the opposite of tutelary administration. All these terms, however clear the ideas they represent may appear to us, designate things which are very complicated. It would no doubt be difficult to deny that a country is centralized, but it would sometimes be more difficult still to prove that it is too much so. A certain degree of centralization is in fact necessary to maintain unity in a state, and to insure it a good administration, but how determine this degree? Should it not differ in different countries, according to the tendencies of their population, the extent of their territory, and political, economic and other circumstances? Should there not be a greater degree of centralization in a state which contains the more or less active germs of dissolution, than in a country whose unity is invulnerable? —Since we were speaking of degrees, does "political" centralization differ in nature or in degree from "administrative" centralization? This distinction, which was invented to furnish an argument both to those who demand centralization, and to those who reject it, seems to us vague and idle. Vague, for what is political centralization? Is it the concentration of all power in the hands of one man, or absolutism? Is it the concentration of all power in one constitutional government, as opposed to a more or less explicit federation, or unity in opposition to the confederation of states? Or does it rather refer to a greater or less extension accorded to the legislative power? The distinction is idle, for political centralization signifies what might be more clearly expressed by other words. We therefore speak only of administrative centralization, and hasten to give positive details regarding it, in order not to lose ourselves in the vagueness with which we reproach others. We shall seek to determine where centralization is appropriate, and where it is injurious. To this end, therefore, let us pass in review the different branches of the administration and examine them from this point of view. —First of all we must mention the administration of the military and marine services. In these centralization is evidently indispensable. Could any one wish that the army should be decentralized; that the provinces should nominate their generals; that the council general be called upon to vote the calibre of the guns used by the troops of the department; that the seaport towns should be consulted as to the thickness of the plates for iron-clad ships of war? —The administration of finances should also be centralized. Formerly a special tax was levied for each important expense, and the multiplicity of the accounts rendered all control impracticable, not to speak of the other inconveniences of this system. At last the state funds (fonds) were centralized, and all difficulty disappeared. We wish it distinctly understood, that we here speak only of the national funds. —The administration of justice also should be centralized. No one will deny the necessity of a court of appeal, and of a supreme court in judicial organization. It would indeed be very strange if the civil, commercial or penal laws were different in different departments of the same country. —In confederations centralization has not always been complete. Such is the case for instance in the United States, where an individual state can not enter into relations with foreign nations. It was not thus in Switzerland before 1848, nor in Germany before 1871, where particular agreements might inconveniently affect the treaties negotiated for the entire confederation. —Religious worship should not, in our opinion, form part of the public service; as to education, we do not believe it could be rendered sufficiently flourishing by means of the mere free initiative of citizens; facts do not show that it could be, and rather seem to demonstrate that it can not. The intervention of the state is therefore necessary here. Unfortunately, this intervention is for the most part too great; states wish to take charge of and regulate education entirely, here some degree of decentralization would be a decided improvement. —Agriculture and commerce do not demand centralization. The mission of the ministry having charge of these interests is rather one of encouragement and protection. Public works on the contrary, may tempt the administration to go beyond what is necessary, but in proportion as the influence of the provincial and communal representations increases, these encroachments become more rare. Moreover, here also the just limit may be a matter for discussion. —In France, and many other countries, centralization is usually confounded with administrative guardianship. And yet these two things are as different from each other as form and substance. Centralization is the form. An affair which, instead of being decided by the mayor or the prefect, goes to Paris, is centralized; to decentralize we have but to have it returned before the prefect as a court of last resort. In 1852 and 1861 decentralization was effected in France, but the guardianship remained as before, for, instead of the minister, it was the prefect who rendered decisions. Since then guardianship has been lightened, and it would not be difficult to show that French departmental and communal legislation, such as it was in 1873, is as liberal as that of most other European countries, including England, Belgium and Switzerland. —Centralization appears to be one of the natural phases of the administrative organization of every country. When it is insufficient, the people ask that it be increased; when it is too great, they demand a diminution of it. When society was in a rudimentary state there could be no question of centralization; men experienced but few general wants, had but few common interests; and things were done as often ill as well, or were not done at all. There was a time when Paris was neither swept nor lighted, and therefore could not have the Hotel de Ville, neither a street-cleaning department nor a gas department. Besides, for a long time one branch of the public service was intrusted to the feudal lords, another to the church; and at that epoch decentralization was very much like anarchy. Centralization was at first, therefore, an undoubted blessing; it introduced the branches of the public service. By a concurrence of circumstances, which history tells us of, France has made greater advancement in this respect than many other countries; and if some other countries were or appeared to be less centralized than France, it was at times because certain branches of the public service did not exist in them. A city which does not light its streets has fewer employès and less expense than a city which has taken this step in the way of progress. —If we were of the number of those who attribute a preponderant influence to race or nationality, we might say that the words of the law are of secondary importance in these matters, and that everything depends upon the zeal and intelligence with which the law is followed. Have we not seen admirable sculpturing done with a broken knife, and artistic engraving executed with a nail pulled out of the walls of a prison? Now, more or less liberal laws have remained a dead letter, because the nations for whom they were framed inclined to self-government. Is decentralization an affair of temperament? (See CENTRALIZATION.) —See A. de Tocqueville, l' ancien Régime; Odilon-Barrot, la Decentralisation; Dupont White, la Centralisation. MAURICE BLOCK. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. The struggle against Great Britain was begun by the English-speaking American colonies without any general idea of independence as a possible result. (See REVOLUTION.) Any such intention, however warmly favored in New England, was very distasteful to the other colonies, and was formally disavowed by congress, July 6, 1775. Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey, before the spring of 1776, had enjoined upon their delegates in congress the rejection of any proposition looking to a separation, and New York, Delaware and South Carolina were so much opposed to a separation that their delegates took no prominent part in promoting it. The transfer of the war to the south in May and June, 1776, did much to advance the idea of independence there, and in May the Virginia convention instructed the delegates of that state in congress to propose a resolution declaring for independence, which was done, June 7, by Richard Henry Lee, though his resolution was not formally adopted until July 2. Before July 1, Pennsylvania. Maryland and New Jersey had rescinded the former instructions, and ordered their delegates to vote for the declaration. After debating Lee's resolution, June 8 and 10, in committee of the whole, and appointing a committee of five to draw up a declaration, the question was dropped until July 1, when the declaration, which the committee had reported June 28, was taken up and debated in committee of the whole through July 3. By this time the delegates of South Carolina, who had hitherto voted against it, came over to the majority. Delaware's two delegates were divided, and the New York delegation refused to vote, although personally in favor of the measure. July 4, Rodney, the third delegate from Delaware, was brought hurriedly about 80 miles to secure the vote of his state, and in the evening of that day the declaration of independence was passed, no state in opposition, but New York still refusing to vote. July 9, the New York convention ratified it, and it thus became "The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America." The New York delegation did not sign until July 15, nor six new Pennsylvania members until July 20. One member, from New Hampshire, did not sign until Nov. 4—The committee appointed to draft the declaration were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Jefferson, who was no speaker, but had the reputation of being an able writer, was appointed to make the draft, and his draft was accepted, with some few changes, by the committee and by congress. The changes were generally omissions rather than alterations, so that the whole document, as we have it now, contains hardly any words which were not those of Jefferson. The most noteworthy omissions were those of the last two counts of his original indictment of the king, which were as follows: "He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our property. —He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce; and, that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another." —The last of these two charges fully expressed Jefferson's theoretical sympathy for the negro race (see ABOLITION, I.), and it is the only place in the whole document where his draft descended to italics to express feeling. But slavery was already too delicate a subject to be rudely touched, and the matter above given was stricken out in obedience to the wish of southern delegates. —The debates upon the declaration are not sufficiently preserved to give us any adequate idea of their nature, but from all the concurrent testimony of the time it is evident that, though Jefferson was the author of the declaration, to John Adams must be given the credit of its passage. His eloquence and his great influence over the northern delegates insured a hearty support to that which was originally a Virginia measure. Jefferson acknowledges that in the debates he was of necessity a passive auditor of the opinions of others, while Adams "supported the declaration with zeal and ability, fighting fearlessly for every word of it." By a singular coincidence, the deaths of the two men were almost simultaneous, occurring on the same day, July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of their joint success in producing the declaration of independence. —Few state papers have been drawn up with more skill, or with greater adaptation to the purposes in view, than the declaration of independence. Jefferson's first object was to impress upon the whole document the consistent character of a renunciation of future allegiance to the king, while avoiding anything that could be construed into an acknowledgment that the British parliament had ever had any rightful authority over the colonies. The skill with which this difficult path is pursued until the end is most admirable. Parliament, the head and front of the enemies of America, is not even mentioned, except by implication, and then only as a number of lawless and usurping persons with whom the king had combined and confederated to procure the passage of certain unconstitutional acts of pretended legislation. (See REVOLUTION.) Beyond this, of course, a further object was to exhibit such a catalogue of grievances as would justify every American to his own conscience in throwing off the royal authority, and this also was attained with wonderful ability. There is no unseemly violence of language in the declaration. The slow and stately scorn with which the successive counts of the dreadful indictment against the king are rehearsed, is massive in its impressiveness even to us, who have not the living and burning feeling of injury which was in the hearts of its first hearers. Even as a piece of literary workmanship, to be judged by its capacity to affect Anglo-Saxon minds and hearts, Jefferson had right to be proud of it, and it is not wonderful that his first claim to remembrance, as given upon his tomb by his own wish, is that he was the "Author of the Declaration of American Independence." —The general principles with which the declaration proper begins, the equality (meaning the equality of privilege) of all men, and popular will as the true basis of government, seem to us trite enough now, and are accepted in fact by every government whose subjects have capacity enough to comprehend and assert them. In 1776 they had been asserted again and again in theory, and Jefferson was accused of having stolen them from the declaration of rights by congress in 1774, from James Otis, from Samuel Adams, or from Locke's Treatise on Government. A long list might easily be made of writers who had maintained, in the closet and on paper, sentiments identical with those of the declaration; but, with the possible exception of the English commonwealth, which, however, was sui generis, this was the first time in modern history that these ideas had appeared armed and demanding a hearing. By their successful establishment the declaration has taken, in American history, the place which Magna Charta and the death warrant of Charles I. occupy in English history. —Upon the essential nature of the declaration there are two opposite opinions, which may be called the Story theory and the Calhoun theory, from their ablest supporters. The Story theory is that the colonies did not severally act for themselves and proclaim their own independence; that the declaration was the united act of all for the benefit of the whole, "by the representatives of the United States of America in congress assembled"; that it was therefore a national act, by the sovereign and paramount authority of the people at large; and that, therefore, from the moment of its passage, the united colonies must be considered a national government de facto, acting by the general consent of the people of all the colonies. The Calhoun theory is that the words "one people" in the preamble refer to the people of each colony severally, not jointly, as the source and fountain of all rightful power; that the congress which made the declaration was a congress of states only; that the delegates of each state signed and joined in the declaration by direction of the several state governments, not in deference to the decision of a majority of congress or of the people at large; that the independence of each separate colony not only of Great Britain, but also of its neighbors, was established before the declaration, by popular assumption of power; that the declaration itself was only an assignment, out of a decent respect to the opinions of mankind, of reasons for the previous exercise of independency by the states; and that the separate states, though acting in common for self-defense, were so far from being a nation in reality that they did not even form a confederation until five years afterward. (See STATE SOVEREIGNTY.) —The Story theory must be taken as generally most correct. From the inception of Anglo-Saxon political organization upon this continent, growth was a certainty, and, by the circumstances of its surroundings, growth could only take place along the line which is marked out by the Story theory. If the doctrine of the declaration, that popular consent is the basis of government, be accepted, the 13 colonies were already united by their own consent, before 1774, in a common membership in the British empire, as they afterward remained united from 1774 until 1789 under two classes of revolutionary governments, and since 1789 under the present constitution. The form of the government during the interregnum period, 1774-89, which by the Calhoun theory is all-important, is in reality of no importance at all; it is the fact of union which is all-important, and against which it is useless and absurd to argue. Popular consent to union has been continuously and progressively in force from the beginnings of English colonization in America until the present time, and logic is wasted against the patent fact while the consent is not rescinded. As the declaration expressly rescinded the popular consent to further union or political connection with the rest of the British empire, its very silence as to the continuance of union between the colonies themselves is the strongest of affirmations. The union which theretofore existed, by common consent, between the 13 colonies and the rest of the British empire was dissolved by common consent as the result of civil war; but no such common consent to a further dissolution has ever been obtained, and no such common consent can ever be presumed, or arise by inference or implication. It must be express. Nor does the confederating of the states, after the declaration, alter the case, as is contended by the Calhoun theory, for the truth is (see CONTINENTAL CONGRESS) that this scheme of government was either the extra-legislative action of state legislatures, or was as essentially revolutionary as the continental congress. The union must be regarded as continuous, under the British constitution until 1774, under a revolutionary interregnum during the period of 1774-89, and since 1789 under the practical supremacy of the general popular will which had been theoretically declared in 1776 to be the true basis of government. —But it would be misleading if we should leave it to be inferred, as the Story theory usually does, that the American statesmen and people of 1776 were in all points perfectly cognizant of the full scope and meaning of their action. If the Story theory had been fully explained to the congress of 1776, we would certainly never have had the declaration in exactly its present form. Some of the signers read the instrument with the light of the future upon it, but the great mass acted simply because they were in the full drift of the current which has regularly governed successful political action in this country. In that current, however, there were many strong eddies. State feeling, distrust of other commonwealths, and the strong individualistic bias of the Anglo Saxon character, were constantly prompting the delegates and their state governments to action which was entirely inconsistent with the Story theory and is usually ignored by its supporters. Such are, for example, the emphatic declaration of the Virginia convention, June 20, 1776, that the political connection between that colony and the British empire was totally dissolved; the resolutions of congress, June 24, 1776, that allegiance was due to the separate colonies (see ALLEGIANCE, I.), and that treason was an offense against the colony in which it had been committed; the title given to the declaration by order of congress, "The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America"; and other instances given under STATE SOVEREIGNTY. All these are constantly quoted as convincing proofs of the soundness of the Calhoun theory; but the candid student, while allowing them their fair value as militating against the general current of American political history, must look upon them as only eddies. Whatever may have been the feeling of any American statesman in 1776, it must be evident that a declaration of the several as well as the joint independence of the colonies, a resolution of the American portion of the British empire into its constituent elements, could never be valid without the express action of each colony at the time, and its successful establishment by separate warfare. To assume it, to obtain it by inference or implication, or to attempt to establish it by argument, would be to erect a monstrosity in the generally orderly history of American politics. (See REVOLUTION; CONFEDERATION, ARTICLES OF; CONTINENTAL CONGRESS; CONSTITUTION, IV.; STATE SOVEREIGNTY; UNITED STATES.) —For conditions precedent, as well as for the declaration, see 8 Bancroft's United States, 373; 4 Grahame's United States, 315; 1 J. C. Hamilton's United States, 110; Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, 245-509; 3 J. Adams' Works, 45; 4 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll, (5th Ser.), 300; 2 Wells' Life of S. Adams, 352; 1 Randall's Life of Jefferson, 124; 1 Rives' Life of Madison, 108; Greene's Historical View of the Revolution, 58; 1 Pitkin's United States, 362. For a fac-simile of Lee's resolution, see 6 Force's American Archives (4th Ser.), 1700. For a fac-simile of the declaration in Jefferson's writing, with the alterations, see 1 Jefferson's Works (ed. 1829), 146. For a fair summing up of the conflicting statements of Jefferson and John Adams, see 1 Curtis' History of the Constitution, 81. See also 1 Lee's Life of R. H. Lee, 275; Letters of John and Abigail Adams, 190; 3, 7 Harper's Magazine; Scribner's Monthly, July, 1876: Potter's American Monthly. December, 1875; Story's Commentaries, § 205; 1 Calhoun's Works; 1 A. H. Stephen's War Between the States, 58; and in general Winson's Reader's Handbook of the Revolution, 102; and authorities under MASSACHUSETTS, and under articles above referred to. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DECLARATION OF PARISDECLARATION OF PARIS. (See ALABAMA CLAIMS.) DECLARATION OF WARDECLARATION OF WAR. As a rule the transition from a state of peace to war is not a sudden one. In such transition certain usages have been adopted and are followed. It has been pretended, in our opinion wrongly, that to justify war no declaration of war is necessary, that there is needed no communication whatever by which the injured state announces that it is preparing to assert its rights by means of war. We are of opinion that a declaration of war is always morally obligatory. It matters little what the form of this declaration, provided the passage from the state of peace to the state of war be publicly announced. —The custom of making a declaration of war, properly so called, formerly prevalent in Europe, has been frequently neglected since the middle of the seventeenth century. This custom was borrowed from the nations of antiquity, who declared war by heralds of arms. In our days a simpler measure is frequently substituted for this ancient form. It consists in proclaiming war by public manifestoes. But, leaving the form followed and the name employed out of consideration, it is clear that, at bottom, the same end is had in view. What is intended is, that the state of war should be known to all. So true is this, that the attention of foreign governments is regularly called to these manifestoes; and in such documents it is frequently sought to show the justice of the motives which determined the country to have resort to arms. So necessary is the declaration of war considered, that the justice of all military operations preceding it has been contested. "Moreover," says Klüber, "although it does not decide in all cases the moment of the beginning of hostilities, it always exerts a legal influence on the intercourse of individuals. For all these reasons the proclamation of war, or rather the declaration of war, is a general custom among all the nations of Europe." —The proclamation of war is of importance to the subjects of the state, because, since the war establishes relations of enmity between the entire nation and its enemy, every individual is threatened, if not in his person, at least sometimes in his goods. Declarations of war are very short and simple, like that made to Prussia July 19, 1870, in the name of France, or the reasons and motives which justify them, called in international law claregatio, are stated in them in detail. —Generally the belligerent powers regulate, by special edicts or decrees, the conduct which their subjects or vassals shall maintain after the declaration of war. F. RITTIEZ. DECLINEDECLINE, National. Do humanity, society, civilization and the state pass through the phases which mark the life of the individual? Have they a youth, a maturity and an old age? This is a difficult question, in the solving of which history affords us but little aid. The philosophers, who have touched upon it have accumulated more conjectures and hypotheses than facts. —How can we decide whether humanity is in its youth or in its old age, when we know only an infinitesimal part of its past, and absolutely nothing of its future? Was humanity contemporary with the first revolutions of our globe? Were some individuals able to escape the destruction produced by the cataclysms whose periodicity is asserted with such assurance that philosophers have even dared accurately to predict their return? These questions must be abandoned as forever insoluble. —The duration of society seems quite as barren a subject for discussion. Man is a sociable animal. He will, therefore, always seek the society of his fellow men. Solitude is contrary to his nature. Only it seems reasonable to suppose that the bonds of society become complicated and closer with time. Civilization may be considered as a particular state of society, the origin and progress of which men have seen, and whose end can be conceived. The civilizations of Egypt, of Rome and of Athens have disappeared within historic times. Would it be unreasonable to conclude that ours may one day vanish? The future doubtless may hold in reserve surprises of all kinds for our descendants; but there is reason for thinking that a civilization never disappears spontaneously, but always through violence, at home or abroad; that is, through the agency of civil or foreign wars. Up to this time it has almost always been the invasion of barbarians which has obscured the brilliancy of known civilizations. And it is intentionally that we use the word obscured, and not extinguished; for the force of social development, once acquired, is such that the barbarians have generally been absorbed by the conquered, though not without exercising for a time a retrograde influence upon the latter. To render our idea clearer, or to be more exact, let us say that civilization had only been confined to a narrower circle, limited to a smaller number of individuals, but that it lost nothing of its intrinsic quality. While the masses, driven from the temple of light, were wandering in the darkness, a few priests lay hidden in a profound retreat to keep alive the sacred fire and to prepare the way for the renaissance. —But do nations decline? It is certain that a great number of them have been known to disappear. It is only necessary to know whether the state must perish when its time comes; whether it has youth and an old age; in short, whether its decline is inevitable, or whether it can be avoided. —The sequence of the different phases of a nation's existence seems to be generally admitted; in the first place, because history tells us of nations which have sprung up, progressed, decayed and ceased to exist; and then, because the ideas of progress and decline have an a priori power over our minds. But the parallel between the individual and great political communities must not be pushed too far. The birth, the growth and the death of man follow laws as uniform as they are unchangeable, moderately influenced by the surroundings of each life. This is not the case with nations; their lot is essentially governed by contingent causes, by numberless circumstances, which form a multitude of combinations. Is it possible to think that every city, founded on a favorable site, is destined to become a Rome or an Athens, a Paris, a London, or a New York? The empire of Charlemagne, divided into two parts produced, on the one hand, united France; on the other, Germany, for a long time divided into fractions. Could the hordes of Tamerlane now conquer Russia? Or can Tunis, the neighbor of Carthage, hope to get the better of Marseilles? —But if we are forced to admit that a city or a nation, to increase, must be favored by circumstances, if, in addition, we recognize that history has not yet recorded a sufficient number of observations, so that the relative age of a nation can be in some way determined, it is nevertheless evident that there are certain characteristic signs which are unmistakable. For instance, barbarism is always met with in the infancy of a political community: unhappily, it is not necessarily followed by an age of progress. A nation, like a man, may perish before attaining its full development. On the other hand, we have seen nations spring up without passing through this phase so common in antiquity; the American Union, for example. —Youth, therefore, does not always present the same aspect; age, still less so. How could it be otherwise? May not decline be due to very different causes? May not the political body, like the individual, be attacked by ills markedly diverse? If, in man, it is sometimes the blood or the nerves, sometimes the muscles or the bones, which are impaired; if one organ or another, one or another vital function may be impeded in its action; so society may witness one of its principles abjured, one of its dogmas evaporate, one of its essential elements disappear. Here, it will be religion; there, morality; elsewhere, political organization, authority or liberty; elsewhere still, the principles of political economy which will be the diseased part. In each of these cases the decline will become manifest under a different aspect, the malady will be different, and will demand different remedies, if remedies for it there be. —To religion belongs by right the first place in our enumeration. And we shall consider it here from the point of view of political history, and not of faith. Religion is the most powerful bond of society. An atheistical state can be conceived of, but society without a religion, never. Still, all the creeds which have exercised an influence upon humanity have not been equally powerful. Some have become elevated, purified, spiritualized; others have become ossified, and have sunk to the point of being no more than a purely mechanical practice. Such, for instance, is that religion of distant Asia, whose priests are not contented to repeat their prayers with the simple aid of a rosary: some write them on a wheel, which they turn with a handle: others make use of a stream of water for this purpose: the prayers are supposed to have been said every time they face the sky. How can these bonzes inspire the people, urge them in the way of progress, fortify them against oppression from within and from without? Such a religion is, so to speak, an intellectual burden: it has no effect except on the minds of the superstitions. And how are the moral wants of enlightened minds in those countries satisfied? Have they really no resource but to return to the abyss of nothingness? —When the ministers of religion make no other pretense than to govern the beliefs of men and rule over consciences, the dogmas which hinder progress, where progress exists, become subject to imperceptible but steady modification. The words will remain, perhaps; but they can no longer have the same meaning. Moral and material interests being confined within their own special limits, sometimes the one and sometimes the other will contribute most to the advancement of a nation: they will mutually sustain and urge each other onward. But if a theoretic system becomes permanently established, if religion persists in regulating the affairs of this world by the same title that it does spiritual affairs, it will either stop all progress, or it will lose all its influence—two things equally to be deplored. This can not take place without a struggle; and if the nation has not wonderful vitality, if circumstances do not favor it, it will be ruined. —Morals are very closely connected with religion, but they are not entirely ruled by it. What is understood by morals? Is it a question simply of the habits of life more or less moral, or of the entire social organization? Dissipation, lying, unwillingness to work, unbridled egoism, are some of the causes of decay in every human community. These vices prepare a people for servitude, by depriving them of the energy and the spirit of self-sacrifice necessary to work out their freedom. These vices give all its full effect to a bad political organization. —We may well say: like people, like institutions. The constitution, the most rational, the best poised, the richest in guarantees, is a dead letter if public spirit does not breathe life into it. What is the use of written laws if no one tries to obey them, or if they are only drawn up to fulfill a formality without any practical import? —Nevertheless, the form of the government and the part the citizens take in the direction of the affairs of a country, are never indifferent things. If men were influenced only by reason, there would rarely be conflicts between the governing and the governed. The governing would know that their power is just so much the more stable as it is more in sympathy with the people, as it renders them the more service, and the governed would understand that they have nothing to gain by anarchy. But reason has only a relatively feeble influence over human action: it is oftener sentiment or passion which controls it; and sentiment knows only too well how to borrow the language of reason, to accumulate arguments, and to set forth grounds, each more plausible than the other, for its actions. Then, the passions are not the same in the different degrees of the social scale: and if real and serious interests are the same for the governing and the governed, there are often artificial interests, irritated by passion, which run counter to them. Hence must follow strife, open or covert, according to circumstances. —In such a situation, a good constitution is a safeguard, and sometimes the means by which the two opposing forces are neutralized. In despotic nations, in absolute monarchies, there is no derivative remedy: at a given moment a destructive explosion occurs. In countries politically organized, the people have peaceful aims, the realization of their desires, the satisfaction of their wants. The constitution is there a safety valve. —The two forces which have been alluded to are authority and liberty: their synthesis is order, embodied in a constitution. The excess of one or the other of these two forces is equally prejudicial to order and to a harmonious organization of the social elements; each must keep within its own bounds. When one encroaches on the other, it destroys the equilibrium necessary to political or social health; disorganization and decay invade the entire state; the edifice loses its adhesive power and crumbles at the first shock. —The disproportion between these two forces was what caused the downfall of the Roman empire. This disproportion is made manifest in different ways in different countries. It was disclosed in Rome by the necessity forced upon the successors of Augustus to divide their power, or rather, to divide the country. This division was the consequence of the great extent of territory. To govern despotically so vast a country, a man of extraordinary ability is needed, and such a man is rarely found. A small nation, or one with a very free form of government, can more easily endure a mediocre ruler. We are very much disposed to believe that a state is no longer governable when its boundaries have swelled beyond a certain extent, whatever may be the liberty enjoyed by the citizens. From this would follow the practical deduction, that the spirit of conquest is a blind passion: it does not see that it will cause a situation in which political restraints will no longer be able to maintain the social union. —The great extent of territory was one of the causes of the decline of the old German empire. The Roman empire of the German nation, stretching from the Vosges to the Carpathian mountains, and from the Adriatic to the North sea and to the Baltic, had to be divided between vassals. The emperors not always being able to make their authority respected, it declined, without profit to liberty. The great vassals, instead of becoming or remaining a chamber of peers, with the mission to restrain their sovereign, went to work to dismember the central authority, to the prejudice of the unity of the nation. Little by little the empire became a shadow; and in 1806 it disappeared. Although it was reconstructed in 1871, it was with a less extent of territory, and under conditions that we have not yet seen put to the proof. —The size of the Chinese empire is also a source of weakness to that country. Where can a government be found strong enough to satisfactorily fulfill the superhuman task of ruling from 350,000,000 to 400,000,000 of people? Because of the disproportion of the forces of authority and those accorded to liberty, Poland, in the eighteenth century, saw her prestige and even her independence vanish. The unanimity of the votes of 40,000 nobles was necessary for a decision to be legal. Could they flatter themselves it could ever be attained? Hence arose wrangles among themselves; and their neighbors took possession of different parts of the country, until nothing remained of it. —The United States of America stretches over a very great area. The result has been that, between north and south, there were political and economical conditions diverse enough to cause a formidable war (1861-5), which however did not succeed in dissolving the Union. But will she emerge intact from future struggles which may arise, for instance, through the divergent interests of the east and the west? That is the question. —A bad economical organization can have the same effect as a poorly constructed constitution. The absence of what is called freedom of labor, a faulty distribution of property, can retard the progress of a country, keep it in poverty, and deliver it, under certain combinations of circumstances, over to the mercy of a richer nation. Slavery has been more than once the cause of loss to a state. —Sometimes, too, the decline of a nation may be due to several causes. Spain suffered for a long time at once from despotism and the inquisition, and her too large colonial possessions weakened her more than they strengthened her. They drew away from her her most vigorous and most enterprising sons; and those who remained in the mother country depended upon the gold and silver which the galleons might bring. How many of those indolent Iberians saw nothing of the cargoes of those galleons except the aims distributed to them at the door of a monastery! —The example or Spain may prove, perhaps, that a great country can recover, and that national decline does not necessarily mean death. France, also, had her moment of weakness in the eighteenth century; but although her body suffered, her spirit was strong, and was, by a happy reaction, able to cast aside all the causes of the difficulty, but not without dangerous convulsions. Other countries, also, seem to be on the road to renewed life, after having had their development arrested for a long time. This is because our civilization is more vigorous than all those which preceded it; and if, in turn, it perishes or is eclipsed, it will not be before it has had a long career; and as, in our times, there is no external enemy strong enough to combat it, it can perish only through weapons of its own forging. MAURICE BLOCK. DEFINITIONS IN POLITICAL ECONOMYDEFINITIONS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. The last of the essays in J. S. Mill's volume on "Unsettled Questions in Political Economy" is appropriately entitled, "The Definition and Method of Political Economy." The problem of definition in a science is one closely connected with the method of investigation pursued in it. One of the ablest advocates of the deductive method in political economy, N. W. Senior, opposing, at the beginning of his treatise on the science, the view that the main business of the economist is the investigation of facts, urges that the prime object should be the proper choice, definition and employment of words. "If," he says, "economists had been aware that the science depends more on reasoning than on observation, and that its principal difficulty consists, not in the ascertainment of its facts, but in the use of its terms, we can not doubt that their principal efforts would have been directed to the selection and consistent use of an accurate nomenclature." The advocate of the inductive method may reply that, without the observation and ascertainment of facts, an accurate use of terms in political economy, a proper exposition or definition of their meaning, and consequently, a scientific nomenclature, are impossible. To define light, heat, electricity, correctly, or to use these terms of physical science with an understanding of their true meaning, we must study the phenomena which they denote; and it is no otherwise with the terms of economic science. Production, distribution, wealth, capital, money, currency, credit, wages, profit, rent, are terms which can not be properly explained or employed without careful investigation of the facts which they are designed to represent. So with the term political economy itself. J. S. Mill, in the essay above referred to, on "The Definition and Method of Political Economy," has, contrary to the main object of the essay, afforded a signal demonstration of the failure of the deductive method to furnish an adequate and accurate definition of the science. The definition there put forward as complete is, "the science which traces the laws of such of the phenomena of society as arise from the combined operations of mankind for the production of wealth, in so far as those operations are not modified by the pursuit of any other object." Yet, immediately afterward, we find Mr. Mill admitting other and counteracting motives. "Political economy," he says, "makes abstraction of every other human motive, except those which may be regarded as perpetually antagonistic principles to the desire of wealth, namely, aversion to labor, and desire of present enjoyment." Presently, too, he adds another principle, excluded by his own definition. After repeating that the economist inquires, "What are the actions which would be produced by the desire of wealth, if unimpeded by any other?" he continues: "Only in a few of the most striking cases (such as the important one of the principle of population) are corrections interpolated into the expositions of political economy itself." Had Mr. Mill's attention been directed to the facts which observation led Adam Smith to take cognizance of in his exposition of the diversity of the rates of pecuniary wages and profit in different employments, he must have perceived that reasoning from the desire of wealth alone would inevitably lead the economist astray at the very threshold of the science. Moreover, if certain other principles are legitimately admitted within the pale of the economist's province, on what logical ground can any be excluded, whose operation is revealed by the investigation of facts? "The definition of a science," says Mr. Mill himself, in his great work on Logic, "must necessarily be progressive and provisional. Any extension of knowledge, or alteration in the current opinions respecting the subject matters, may lead to a change more or less extensive in the particulars included in the science." And in his treatise on the "Principles of Political Economy," written at a maturer age than the essay on the definition and method of the science, Mr. Mill describes the economist's province as embracing the investigation of all the causes by which the condition of mankind is made prosperous or the reverse in respect of wealth. These causes can not, indeed, he adds, be all even enumerated in a treatise on the science; but it should aim at setting forth all that is or can be known about them and the laws of their operation. In other words, political economy should be regarded as a progressive science, and must owe its progress to the constant observation of facts and ascertainment of the laws on which they depend; and no definition which confines the student to deduction from any single principle or set of principles can be otherwise than defective, and founded on a wrong conception of the method of investigation. —What is true of the science as a whole, is true, likewise, of the terms which denote the chief classes of phenomena to which it relates, and the laws discoverable in them. The question of definition in respect of these terms is one of method of investigation; and no definitions should be put forward which have not been derived from the study of phenomena, nor should they, however well considered, be regarded as absolutely final and adequate. —We are not, however, justified in giving, in the definition or use of economic terms, a wider meaning to one that has a special signification, merely in order to embrace under it a larger group of phenomena which is already denoted by a more general term. When a distinct agency or principle, or set of facts, has once been designated by a distinct name, it is contrary to the objects of scientific nomenclature to generalize unnecessarily the meaning of this name or term, for the mere purpose of covering additional ground already provided with a denomination. The term money, for example, was formerly employed by the best economists only to denote the common medium of exchange and common standard of value. "Money," said Mr. Huskisson, in his famous tract "On the Depreciation of the Currency," "is not only the common measure and common representative of all other commodities, but also the common and universal equivalent." No instrument of exchange can fulfill these functions, or answer to this definition, unless it be legal tender in payment of debt. It must be the common medium of exchange and the universal equivalent, and not merely a medium accepted or used in particular localities, at particular times, and by particular persons. A check, a bill of exchange, an ordinary promissory note, a bank note which is not legal tender, may, at certain places and times, and among some of the inhabitants of a country, perform the functions of money. But such instruments may become valueless, or be rejected as payment, in a crisis, or beyond a particular district, and they have at all times only a limited circulation, so that they do not come up to the mark of money, and are not definable as the common medium of exchange or universal equivalent. It is true that prices are not determined simply by the amount of money, in the strict and accurate sense, but by the whole mass of instruments of exchange. This whole mass is, however, adequately denoted by the term circulating medium; and it is a wanton sacrifice of the means of precision of language and thought, to expand the meaning and definition of the special term money so as to cover the entire volume of circulation. —On the other hand, there are cases in which the extension of the meaning of a term from a special to a more general sense, and the enlargement of its definition, may be not only justifiable but necessary. Further observation of phenomena, or the advance of scientific knowledge, may prove that a wider field of inquiry than was originally contemplated and denoted by a particular term, lies before the student. No other term, nevertheless, may be equally serviceable or apposite; or it may be difficult to supersede it, and accordingly a more extensive signification must be given to it. An instance of the highest importance presents itself in the case of the term distribution. Political economy is commonly defined as the science which investigates the natural laws governing the production and distribution of wealth. But by distribution some of the early French economists meant only what is now indicated where the business of the distribution of goods is spoken of, by contradistinction to their production. And in the first book of the "Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith applies the term distribution simply to the process of exchange whereby wages, profit and rent, and the value of each man's products or services, are obtained. It has, however, become clear that the causes governing the partition of wealth include also customs, social arrangements and positive laws. The different distribution of property in England and France has not been the result simply of the process of exchange, or of dealings in the market. The advance of knowledge of the natural laws of society, moreover, reveals the fact that they control even human positive laws, and that the latter have their antecedents as well as their consequences, and follow an ascertainable order. The natural history of Roman law, from a period earlier than the twelve tables down to its codification under Justinian, has been recovered, and shown to follow a regular and natural development or evolution. When political economy, therefore, is defined as investigating the natural laws governing the distribution as well as the production of wealth, the term distribution should be understood as covering a much larger field than that of exchange, and extending over positive institutions and social usages and arrangements. The case affords an illustration of the connection between definition and method of investigation. Economists could not have persisted in limiting the field of inquiry to exchange, had they kept actual phenomena in view. Nor can the science they profess obtain an accurate nomenclature, or be equipped with proper definitions, otherwise than by close and unflagging attention to those phenomena. The question whether a special or a more general signification should be given to a term, is always one turning mainly on facts. If the narrower meaning excludes the consideration of essential facts, a wider definition should be adopted. Where, however, the whole extent of the field of inquiry is adequately indicated by another term, it is inconvenient and misleading to give that comprehension to one which hitherto had denoted only a particular section of the field. —The opposite error ought equally to be avoided, of giving needlessly and arbitrarily a more restricted meaning to phrases than had been attached to them in the current nomenclature of a science. A change in the actual economy of society may indeed call for a limitation of the meaning of a word, and the question whether there really be such a change in actual phenomena, is sometimes one of complexity and difficulty. A case of considerable practical importance arises in relation to the definition of profit. Adam Smith, and his successors down to J. S. Mill, included under profit the two elements of interest on the capital engaged in business, and remuneration for its direction and management. Some recent writers, however, separate, under the name of profit, the second element from interest, on the ground that the capital employed in modern enterprises is rarely managed by the capitalists themselves, who obtain only interest, while the direction is in the hands of paid directors and managers, whose earnings measure the gain, over and above interest, on the undertakings, and who are regarded by the writers in question as a higher class of skilled laborers. There are, however, facts, in addition to long usage, in favor of including under profit both interest and remuneration of superintendence. In the first place, if we take into consideration not only undertakings requiring large capitals, and carried on by companies or great firms, but all the various employments, wholesale and retail, large and small, to be found in a country, it will be seen that a vast number of capitalists still manage their own capitals, and earn more than interest; so that the term profit, in its old meaning, is still useful to designate the double earnings of capital. Secondly, even where a large business is carried on by a paid manager and a staff of directors, the owners of the capital engaged, if the management be good, ordinarily obtain more than bare interest, and a term is needed to comprehend their entire gains. But whether we confine the term profit to the earnings of management, or include interest also under it, ought we to define the surplus above interest, which is the fruit and remuneration of superintendence, simply as a species of wages; the wages, that is to say, of a special description of industrial or commercial skill? In support of an affirmative answer, it is argued that a flourishing business may be conducted by a skilled manager, who receives a fixed salary determined by the causes that regulate the wages of skilled labor in general. The counter-argument is, that the surplus above interest, derived from the employment of capital in business, follows a principle entirely different from that which governs wages, varying, not in proportion to labor and skill, but to the amount of the capital. If either a capitalist conducting a business himself, or a manager conducting one on behalf of a company, sees that by some skillful stroke he can raise the returns, the gain will be in proportion, not to his trouble or sagacity, but to the capital employed. If, again, the managers of two different companies, see that they can make 5 per cent. more than usual by the sale of goods in a new market, the amount of gain in each case will depend on the quantity sold, not on the skill or trouble involved, which may be nearly the same in both cases; although twice the amount sold on behalf of the poorer company is disposed of, at twice the profit, by the other. There seems thus to be an element, over and above interest, in the income derived from the active employment of capital, which can not properly be defined as wages, because following a different law. —A definition of wages which was not inappropriate to a past phase of industrial economy, is sometimes put forward as applicable to that of our own day. The real wages of labor, according to a definition which originated with Adam Smith, consists, not in the sum of money the laborer receives from his employer, but in the commodities he is enabled to procure. And in Adam Smith's time, this definition was true in the main of the recompense of agricultural labor over a great part of Europe. The farm laborer was paid chiefly in kind, not in money; he was fed, clothed and lodged by his master; and his wages depended almost altogether on the necessaries and comforts he directly received. But in modern times this mode of payment is nearly extinct, and the quantity and quality of the commodities obtained by the workman depend, not simply on what he gets in exchange for his labor as wages, but on another set of exchanges, in which he is buyer instead of seller. The food and clothing of the Irish harvest laborer depend, not merely on the amount of money he earns in England, but on the Irish potato crop, the American crops, the price of tea. sugar and cloth, and other conditions unconnected with the price of his labor. The commodities obtained by a laborer may properly enough be said to form his real income, but the use of the term "real wages," by modern economists, in the sense in which they define it, shows how superficially the actual economy of life has been studied under the influence of the deductive method, and how essential the observation of facts is to "the selection and consistent use of an accurate nomenclature," on which N. W. Senior laid so much stress—The term capital is so variously defined that we shall not attempt more than to support the common definition in preference to one assigning to it a wider signification, for which an eminent English economist contends. As ordinarily defined, capital denotes commodities engaged in production or commerce, excluding things which, however valuable and durable, are not so employed. W. Stanley Jevons, however, argues that the private house of a gentleman is practically productive of an income equivalent to the sum he would have to pay for a hired dwelling. Mr. Jevons puts the question, "Are articles in the consumer's hands capital?" In reply, he contends that, if we consider hotels and houses let by their owners to tenants as capital, we can not consistently refuse the same denomination to houses inhabited by the proprietors. In like manner, he would class the clothes in a private wardrobe, along with those in a tailor's shop, as capital. It is nevertheless evident, we would suggest, that the stock of dresses possessed by a lady of fashion, may represent simply extravagance and waste. A private house, again, may be altogether beyond the means of its owner; and whereas, if let it might yield him a sufficient income, it may, if inhabited by himself, involve him in ruin. We adhere, accordingly, to the definition which confines the term capital to things in the hands of producers, or things from which an income is derived by sale or other dealings in the market. The stock which a country gentleman raises on his farm for the market, thus constitutes capital; but his hunters and dogs, his guns and his pheasants, unless he sells the last, do not conform to the designation. —The definitions discussed in these observations have been instanced, not on their own account only, but also for the sake of general conclusions, to which they point. The first condition of adequate and accurate definition in political economy, is the study of the actual economic structure of society, the changes that take place in it, and the fundamental social laws that govern these changes. Gratuitous and useless innovations in the use of terms are to be deprecated; but the advance of economic knowledge, and the appearance of new phenomena may call for new classifications, and new expositions of the nomenclature of the science. There have been states of society to which not a single term in that nomenclature would have been applicable in its present meaning; and the most civilized societies may yet undergo changes calling for large alterations in economic language and thought. T. E. CLIFFE LESLIE. DELAWAREDELAWARE, a state of the American Union, first settled by the Swedes, who bought from the Indians all the land from cape Henlopen to the great falls of the Delaware. It passed by conquest to the Dutch, who divided it into three counties which still exist. It was claimed by the duke of York, as part of the New Netherlands, and was by him enfeoffed for an annual rent to William Penn, Aug 24, 1682. Thereafter, until the revolution, governors were appointed by Penn and his heirs for Pennsylvania and the "Territories" on the Delaware together, the former by royal patent, the latter as the tenant of the duke of York. After 1710, however, Delaware had its own council. The territory seems rightfully to have fallen within the Maryland patent, and long continued disputes between lord Baltimore and the Penn family resulted, in 1732, in the establishment of the following boundaries: "Beginning at cape Cornelis, or Henlopen; thence due west half way to the Chesapeake; thence northerly on a line tangent to a circle of 12 miles radius around New Castle; thence around this circle to the Delaware, and thence to the place of beginning." Baltimore repudiated his agreement, but the boundaries nearly as given were decreed in 1750 by the lord chancellor. In the continental congresses the colony had its own delegates, and was at first known as The Counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex, upon Delaware. Its connection with Pennsylvania was still close, and some of its prominent men were successively officers of both Delaware and Pennsylvania. Aug. 27, 1776, a convention met at New Castle and formed a state constitution, which was proclaimed in force Sept. 21. It assumed the name of The Delaware State, with a president chosen by the legislature to serve three years. The importation of slaves was forbidden, and the right of suffrage was limited, as under the proprietors, to freeholders. June 12, 1792, a state convention adopted a new constitution, which went into force without a popular vote. It altered the state title to that of The State of Delaware, vested the executive power in a governor chosen for three years by popular vote, and gave the right of suffrage to white male citizens over 21 years of age paying state or county taxes. It also made the state suable in its own courts. The state is really still under this constitution. A new constitution, adopted by a convention which met Nov. 8, 1831, is that of 1792, with an alteration of the judiciary system, and of the governor's term of office to four years. Two slight amendments have since been made. —In national politics the year 1850 (see UNITED STATES) is a dividing line for Delaware. Until that year the state had been steadily anti-democratic, casting its electoral votes for federalists and whigs at every election except that of 1820, when, like all the other states, it voted for Monroe. (See CONNECTICUT.) Since 1850 the state has always been democratic, except in 1872, when it cast its electoral votes for Grant. But the majorities have always been extremely small. The successful party has never obtained more than 56 per cent. of the popular vote, except in 1868, when Seymour's proportion reached 59 per cent. —In state politics the small margin of difference between the parties has always been easily affected by local reasons, so that state elections have generally been very close and doubtful. During the state's whig period, a democratic congressman or governor was occasionally elected, as in 1838 and 1846. In 1850 the democrats succeeded for the first time in choosing governor, congressman and legislature; but four years later the know nothings (see AMERICAN PARTY, I.) were equally successful. In 1860 the electoral vote was democratic, the congressman opposition, and the legislature a tie. In 1862 the governor elected was a republican, and the congressman democratic. Since 1862 the democratic majority (except in 1872) has been slowly increasing, so that in 1878 the republicans, who seem to have lost courage, attempted to change their party organization to that of the greenback-labor party. The results were the refusal of many republicans to vote, the consequent rise of the democratic proportional vote to 79 per cent. of the whole, and the temporary disappearance of all opposition to the democratic party in the state government. In 1880 the republican organization was renewed, and the vote stood. 15,275 Dem., 14,133 Rep. Connecticut and Delaware furnish the best examples of the manner in which a party may be kept in active existence by keeping up a struggle in state elections, in the face of almost constant defeat in national elections. —In 1861 the state, though slaveholding, took no part in secession. Jan. 2, 1861, a commissioner from Mississippi invited the state, through its legislature, to join the southern confederacy about to be formed. He was courteously heard, and the legislature then unanimously voted its "unqualified disapproval" of the proposition. From the first the calls for troops were promptly and fully answered, and of all the border states Delaware alone received the hearty and entire approval of president Lincoln in his message of Dec. 3, 1861. To use his own words, "South of the line [Mason and Dixon's], noble little Delaware led off right from the first." It is said that no citizen of Delaware ever made a secession speech. The attitude of the dominant party in the state, as represented by governor William Burton, the Bayards, and other leading democrats, may be best expressed by citing Thos. F Bayard's speech in June, 1861, in which, after hoping for a peaceful solution of the difficulties of the nation, he thus concluded. "But with this secession, or revolution, or rebellion, or by whatever name it may be called, the state of Delaware has naught to do. Never has a word, a thought, an act of ours, been unfaithful to the Union of our fathers; in letter and in spirit it has been faithfully kept by us." —The great change in party lines which took place about 1850 (see UNITED STATES; DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, V.) is exemplified in the political history of the Bayard family, which has for about 83 years furnished the most distinguished of Delaware's congressmen. James A. Bayard (in Congress 1797-1813) was one of the ablest federalist senators, and his son Richard H. Bayard, who was in the senate 1836-45, was an equally distinguished whig. On the other hand, James A. Bayard (in senate 1851-69), and his son Thomas F. Bayard, who has been in the senate since 1869, have held as high rank in the democratic party. —The name of lord Delaware, who died off the coast of this state, was given in 1703 to Delaware bay, and thence to the river and state. The state is popularly known as The Diamond State, from its shape, and its people as The Blue Hen's Chickens, probably from a particularly game breed of fighting cocks of which the state was once proud. —GOVERNORS: Joshua Clayton (1789-96), Gunning Bedford (1796), Daniel Rogers (1797), Richard Bassett (1798-1802), David Hall (1802-05), Nathaniel Mitchell (1805-08). George Truett (1808-11), Joseph Haslett (1811-14), Daniel Rodney (1814-17), John Clarke (1817-20). John Collins (1821-4), Samuel Paynter (1824-7), George Poindexter (1827-30), David Hazzard (1830-33), Caleb P. Bennett (1833-7), Cornelius P. Comegys (1837-40), Wm B. Cooper (1840-44), Thomas Stockton (1844-6), William Temple (1846-7), William Thorp (1847-51), William H. Ross (1851-5), Peter F. Causey (1855-9), William Burton (1859-63), William Cannon (1863-7), Gove Saulsbury (1867-71), James Ponder (1871-5), John P. Cochran (1875-9) John W. Hall (1879-83). (See ABOLITION, III.) —See 1 Poore's Federal and State Constitutions; 2 Bancroft's United States; 2 Hildreth's United States; Houston's Boundaries of Delaware; Clay's Annals of the Swedes on the Delaware; Tribune Almanac, 1838-81: Appleton's Annual Cyclopœdia, 1861-80; Spencer's Life of Thos. F. Bayard; Ferris' History of Wilmington, Delaware; Vincent's History of Delaware; 11 Pennsylvania Hist. Society's Publications. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DEMAGOGISM.DEMAGOGISM. By demagogism we generally understand the exaggeration and the abuse of democracy. This definition, which has often caused democrats and demagogues to be subjected to the same reprobation, does not appear to us to be either just or clear; it is as far from being right as if theft were to be called an abuse of the right of property. To make the definition plain we must draw a clear distinction between use and abuse. It may be said that, by the means he employs, the tendencies he follows and the results he obtains, the demagogue is the most dangerous enemy of democracy. While democracy looks for support in the practical sense and the good feeling of the masses of the people; while it strives to make government the responsible mandatary of public interests, and the worthy protector of individual interests, and while it endeavors to improve the morality of the people by instruction, and to enlighten them by the press; demagogism addresses itself, by way of preference, to material instincts, and, by flattering the masses, it fraudulently assumes an absolute delegation of power, which it uses for its own advantage, or for the realization of its senseless utopias. In the name of the common weal, of which it styles itself the representative, it stifles individual initiative and silences the press. In a word, the ideal of the democrat is equality within the limits of liberty and civilization. The demagogue is satisfied with the equality which is found in slavery and ignorance. —It is very certain, that, of the demagogues who have appeared in all periods of history, some were guided by personal ambition. When such was the case, as Garnier-Paget observes, the demagogue was rather an aristocrat than a democrat, since he made use of the interests of the people as of a mask, and since his real object was to lay a foundation for the rule of the few. But demagogues of this kind are far from being the most dangerous of demagogues, although history shows that they sometimes succeeded. The demagogue really dangerous to democracy is the man who is guided by political fanaticism, and whose ambition it is to see his own utopian ideas realized rather than to succeed himself. His disinterestedness frequently gives him an irresistible ascendency over the masses; and the result of this ascendency always is to prepare the way for the ambitious demagogue, of whom we spoke above. The narrow-minded demagogue always admits the sovereignty of the end, and can not understand how any one can hesitate at employing any means, provided they seem to lead to the realization of his ideal. Even when that ideal is the ideal of democracy, even when his object is equality within the limits of freedom, he accepts, as a necessary transitory measure, the régime the most contrary to his principles, and willingly opens the door to tyranny as the readiest means to the realization of his plans. Even if liberty appears to him in principle the thing most to be desired, he fears that as a matter of fact it may postpone his own success; and he grows indignant at the necessary slowness of real progress, and prefers to ask from summary proceedings the immediate success of the reforms he dreamed of. Hence the enemy he most hates is the democrat who opposes him in the name of his own principles. He accuses the democrat of being a moderate party man, a sleepy head; and he never fails to try to reduce him to impotence when he has grasped at and obtained power. Respect for legal forms seems puerile to him; and the assertion of individual rights which he pitilessly sacrifices, he looks upon as a guilty revolt against the public interest, to which he appeals, and which he thinks he serves. —The theoretical difference between the democrat and the demagogue seems clear enough. It would be very unjust to hold the former responsible for the doctrines and proceedings of the latter. There never was a great idea in the world, which, side by side with its intelligent advocates, its enlightened propagators, did not have its intolerant sectarians. Can such an idea be justly held responsible for the excesses committed in its name and against itself? Can the gospel be held responsible for Jesuitism, or democracy for demagogism? —In ancient Greece the word demagogue did not always have a bad acceptation, and it frequently designated the eloquent orator or able statesman who had an influence on the people, and who in some sort led them. It is in this sense that Pericles was a demagogue. But even Aristotle, in his politics, gives the word demagogue the meaning which we attribute to it to-day.  CLÉMENT DUVERNOIS. DEMAND AND SUPPLYDEMAND AND SUPPLY, words which express the competition and strife between the sellers and buyers of a product, the former supplying what they wish to exchange, the latter demanding what they need. The result of this competition and strife is the determination of the market price, or price current. —To understand fully the meaning of this term, we must give to the words demand and supply a well-defined meaning. They are thus explained by Rossi: "Demand expresses not only the quantity considered by itself, but the quantity in its relations to the nature and intensity of the want which causes it to be sought after, and to the magnitude of the obstacles which this want would and is able to surmount in order to its satisfaction. Everybody may desire a carriage and a palace; and assuredly, if the purchase and keeping of them cost but a few dollars, there probably would not be one of us who would not get them. But if, instead of a small sacrifice it is necessary to spend considerable sums, those who wished to supply this demand would diminish in proportion to the greatness of the expense. Undoubtedly the carriage will still be desired, but this desire can not constitute a demand in the market, because some would be unwilling to make, and others could not make, the sacrifice required to surmount the obstacles which opposed the realization of their desire. —It is the same in the case of supply. Supply does not mean merely the quantity offered, but this quantity combined with the difficulty or facility of production. In fact, if there are in the market to-day 10,000 pairs of stockings, or 1,000,000 needles, can it be affirmed that that is the entire supply? Everybody knows, that, if the demand be urgent, there will soon be an enormous amount of stockings and needles; for these things are easily produced. Consequently, it would not be exact to say that the price is determined solely by the quantity of these commodities found in the market; it is determined also by the facility with which the supply may be increased. —Let us change the hypothesis. Suppose that we are considering wheat, and that the supply is equal to but two-thirds or four-fifths of the effective demand, you will at once see the aspect of the market change in an alarming manner. On the one hand, the demand is of such a nature as to justify all possible sacrifices in order to satisfy it; on the other, it matters but little that the supply is not much less than the demand; each one fears the deficiency will reach him; and panic increases these anxieties and fears. Each one feels that if he could put off till to-morrow supplying himself with stockings or needles, he can not equally well defer the purchase of food for himself; and as it is known that grain cannot be improvised, that the resource of importation is always feeble and uncertain; as it is known, consequently, that next year's crop must be waited for; the demand becomes more and more active, blind and pressing, and the exchangeable value of wheat surpasses all anticipation. Such is the influence which the scarcity of those things whose quantity can not be increased at will, their utility remaining the same, may exercise over the market. —Again, by the term demand and supply is not to be understood only the quantity of material things in the market. In demand, we must also take into consideration extreme want and the extent of the want, as well as the means of exchange which the demander has at his command; and in supply, the greater or less facility which producers may have of modifying the condition of the market by competition, and of thus exciting the hopes and fears of buyers and actual holders of the commodity in question." —The status of demand and supply is made up of moral data, difficult to weigh, and of arithmetical data, which are not always observed. It is impossible to determine the state of business, the number of the suppliers, and the quantity of the supply; the number of those who demand, and the quantity demanded; the reciprocal wants of buyers and sellers; for self-interest may make use of deceit in concealing merchandise, and removing it beyond the calculation of buyers. Supply often comprises absent merchandise, which is or is not yet manufactured, the future quantity of which is still uncertain; either because it depends upon the seasons for its manufacture or transportation, or because it depends upon uncertain circumstances. When the goods are in the market, the merchants, to lessen the supply, feign demand and sales; they make pretended deliveries, which impose upon the buyers, and amount to nothing more than a removal; they sometimes retire from the market a part of what they had placed in it, and hold it for a more favorable moment. The amount of demand is more easily concealed when it is not bodily in the market; as is also the case at times with the amount of the supply. —If deception is practiced in the case of arithmetical data, it is practiced a fortiori, and by both buyers and sellers, in the case of moral data. Buyers and sellers advance as slowly and cautiously as possible: demand waits for supply, and supply for demand, to say the first word. There is an intention to buy a great deal; a demand for little is made; and this demand is made at different places and of different persons at the same time; but, the price once established, purchases double or increase ten-fold at the current rate or at a slight advance. It is the same thing with sales: sellers offer their goods in different places, to persons who do not see each other; pretense is made of favoring the buyers who are the first to make up their minds; and they increase their business by selling to all on the same terms. Neither party speaks but to ruin his opponent, and says whatever suits his interest at the moment. —These things occur in all markets, and may easily be observed wherever there are collected together a large number of buyers and sellers, either of merchandise, services, or paper representative of value; as at fairs, in the places where workingmen meet, on the boards of trade, etc. The state of the revenues also exerts an influence on the relation of demand and supply. Those who offer anything for sale seek to ascertain the resources at the command of buyers; and buyers consider the situation of the classes for whom they intend their merchandise. —Some products whose cost of transportation is very small, go without trouble from one place to another: others can never leave a market to which they have once been carried. Some keep a long time: others are perishable, and must be sold at once. In demand, there are, in like manner, wants which must be satisfied immediately, and others, on the contrary, the satisfaction of which may be postponed for days, months and years. —We must also mention the influence of accidental circumstances: the fear of seeing a monopoly come to an end, or the certainty of its continuance; the fear of a bad crop, or the hope of an abundant year; the fear or hope of a public event, happy or unhappy, such as the signing of a treaty of peace in troublous times, or the declaration of war, which will throw the country into dreadful danger. We must mention, too, false reports, the circulation of fabricated news, coalition of groups of buyers or sellers, etc. —In this struggle, those who are expert, prudent, patient, dissembling, cold, circumspect, or well informed and prompt to execute, those possessed of large credit or disposable capital, have a great advantage over those who are in opposite conditions; and it sometimes happens that this advantage gives buyers the superiority over sellers, or sellers over buyers—Lastly, demand and supply react one upon the other. When they are stronger or weaker relatively one to the other, it happens that the greater and stronger one is, the smaller and weaker the other is. In other words, the greater the supply, the more is the demand weakened; the greater the demand, the more is the supply weakened. —These ideas are borrowed, in part, from J. A. Robert, a writer little known, but sometimes happy in his analyses and his views. These observations agree with those of Rossi, which they complement, show how complex and delicate are the phenomena of demand and supply, and account for the difficulty encountered in popularizing their true theory. —But how can we formulate in a happier manner the phenomena of demand and supply? This problem tried the acuteness of Ricardo, who pointed out, as the regulator of the changeable value of things, the quantity of labor necessary to produce them, or, better, the cost of production. —The formula of demand and supply has been the object of the attacks of certain writers, some of them avowed socialists, others socialists without knowing it, who represent it as an iniquitous and barbarous principle, invented by economists, and doomed to disappear in a better constituted society. But when we examine what they wished to say in speaking thus, we see that they have not even understood the object of their criticism. Demand and supply, necessary consequences of the wants of man, of the necessity under which he labors of freely exchanging the fruit of his industry, that is, his products, his labor, or his services in return for the products of the labor of another; demand and supply, evident consequences of the principle of property, are acts so inherent in the nature of man, that it is impossible to conceive of a man who would not perform them. If acts of demand and supply were not allowed, man would come singularly near to the beast. This is the objection made to the principle of competition, under the most ingenious and childish form, to which we need make no other reply than to state it. The followers of Fourier pretended that the communal associations or phalansteries would no longer be subject to the law of demand and supply; but, admitting that exchange should cease to exist between individuals, by reason of this social combination, it is found again in associations which do not suffice for themselves, like the snail in its shell, but are obliged to carry on transactions conformably to all the circumstances indicated by the formula of demand and supply. It is true the communists do not recoil from the dream of a universal association of the human race, from which the notion of mine and thine would be banished; but what can be said to men who assure you that they have discovered a ladder by which they can reach the moon? —An author, Esmenard du Mazet, who has pretended to discover "new principles of political economy," says. "Demand and supply are good for nothing unless to cover up the ignorance of economists; for they can draw from their theory of the subject no serious consequence, and they put it forward merely for the want of something to say. It has always served as a make-shift to economists. I never think of it but I call to mind a professor of chemistry, otherwise a very able man, who, embarrassed at times in the explanation of certain phenomena, assumed the most rapt and learned air, and said, 'We think that electricity here plays a great part.'" This piece of pleasantry has not the merit of being appropriate; and what piquancy it possesses is to be found in the fact that the author, after disdainfully rejecting the formula of the cost of production of Ricardo, and that of utility, informs us himself that value is fixed by experience; a formula which implies in reality the idea of demand and supply, and whose sole merit is that it is less satisfactory and less intelligible than the others. JOSEPH GARNIER. DEMOCRACY.DEMOCRACY. I. Meaning of the word Democracy in Ancient and in Modern Times. By democracy the ancients understood, following the etymology of the word, government by the people. Such a meaning necessarily implied the division of society into several classes, each with a sort of stability. The sovereignty resided sometimes in one of these classes, sometimes in another. When the great body of citizens who did not belong to the nobility were invested with the power of making laws, and choosing the chief magistrates, the government was called democratic. Neither this name nor the preponderance of the element it designated, abolished the fundamental distinction between nobles and plebeians, any more than it abolished that between freemen and slaves, who were deprived of all rights. Hence we may perceive that civil and political equality was restricted within rather narrow limits in ancient times. The result of long contests, this equality could not maintain itself, even within these limits, without a struggle. At Rome the popular element, whose advent is marked by the tribunate, which became its most powerful arm, contended for a long time against the aristocracy which gave form to the Roman republic. It never completely triumphed until the downfall of that republic. Under the empire there was less liberty and more equality, but it was the equality of despotism. The court of the Cæsars took its counselors and its favorites from all classes, it even chose them from among the freedmen and the sons of freedmen. Merit sometimes succeeded under it, the favored still more frequently. Emulation in baseness became the rule under the bad emperors. Under the good emperors there were honest men, devoted to their prince and the public service; great men disappeared. Even admitting that the empire was an improvement as compared with the republic, in the social order, it is incontestably true that it meant decline morally and ruin politically. The amount of prosperity and private virtue which flourished during its long continuance does not blot out this stain. The public virtue which continued to exist assumed, in the stoics, the character of a powerless protest. —In the states of antiquity, when the patricians were, as frequently happened, the conquerors and rulers of a country subject to their yoke, it was natural that the vanquished should seek to regain the rank from which they had fallen, and to recover their share of right, influence, prosperity and dignity. Besides, ability is never absolutely concentrated in a minority. It must inevitably happen that the ability that exists among the masses shall win for itself recognition and place. There are few political societies that do not make place to some extent for individual merit, independently of birth. But, under the name of the people, it was frequently the crowd that carried the day. The multitude introduced into the government—such was ancient democracy. Hence the bad reputation it has left behind it, and the preference which the political writers of antiquity, without exception, manifested for the aristocratic form of government, which they considered more favorable to moderation, to the maturity and proper sequence of the measures useful to the state, as less capricious, not so easily influenced or corrupted, and more enlightened. Plato and Aristotle had a decided leaning toward aristocracy, and showed themselves most severe judges of democracy, whose fickleness and vices so forcibly impressed them; of that democracy which had just sent Socrates to death. These philosophers considered that democracy almost inevitably ended in the tyranny of one man; a form of government which excited the repugnance of these liberal minds. They had no greater liking, however, for that other species of tyranny which the majority exercises over the minority. The sanguinary colors in which Plato painted the demagogues, proves what were the sentiments of those whom we may call the honest men, respecting the men who made themselves masters of the multitude by basely flattering their worst instincts. Their very imperfect notions of liberty and right, together with the fickleness and other inherent weaknesses of the popular element, serve to explain this opinion of democracy among the ancients. They too often confounded, as is well known, liberty with sovereignty. To be free was to have a share in the framing of the laws, whether or not these laws were intended to limit or hamper the liberty of individuals, the liberty of private life, which the moderns put before every other. As to the idea of right, how completely was it mingled with and subordinated to that of force! The will of the people passed for right, and what was judged useful, even though contrary to justice, became the sovereign rule of public action. It was in vain that Aristides, at Athens, protested against this doctrine, in the name of a select minority. It had the approval of the people, who applauded Themistocles as the defender of these convenient maxims of government, the only ones that were popular, the only ones that were practiced. —In modern times democracy has not, nor could it have, the same meaning as in antiquity. If the ultra-democratic governments are not exempt from the vices and dangers which characterized those of antiquity, it is none the less true that the very notion of democracy differs profoundly from that which the ancients formed of it, and that it no longer responds to the same ideas, or expresses exactly the same facts. The meaning attached to the ideas of liberty and equality is different in many respects. These differences are explained by the influence of Christianity upon ideas and manners, by the rise of a new moral and political philosophy, and by the development of industry and wealth—Modern nations were formed under the influence of Christianity, which has completely changed the general point of view from which man and society are regarded. Man, according to the conception which has prevailed for nearly eighteen centuries, even among those who do not adopt to the letter the dogmas and mysteries of the Christian religion, but who nevertheless feel the influence of its moral teachings, is sacred inasmuch as he is man, sacred in his own eyes, and sacred in the eyes of his fellow-men. According to Christian teaching man has an immense value, since God himself, to purchase and redeem him, did not disdain to assume his humanity. God has revealed to us the mystery of our immortal destiny, and all the means which can regenerate us and work out our salvation. This is the foundation of Christianity: a free, responsible soul, fallen, it is true, but in a condition to raise itself. What duty after this is there greater than to respect this responsibility in one's self and in others, than to develop the moral man in others and in ourselves? All the children of God are brothers; all the sons of Adam are equal in their fall; all the members of Christ are equal in their redemption. Let it not be said that these beliefs have been without effect, and remained dead doctrine. What could be more completely contrary to the laws of human nature, to the irresistible logic which draws facts from principles, moral and religious order from social order? and finally, what more contrary to historic truth? The belief in responsible liberty, in a common redemption, in equality before God, came into existence with Christianity itself. If a state of conquest and violence, if barbarity for a long time retarded its civil effects, it is none the less true that since the middle ages the slavery of antiquity has disappeared, protective institutions for the weak have multiplied, under the empire of a sentiment of charity until then unknown. The poorest, the humblest, the most oppressed, regarded themselves as the equals of kings and lords, inasmuch as they were subject to the same religious obligations, and believed themselves called to the same chances of happiness in another life. The self, overburdened with misery, cast a glance toward the heavens as toward the future home of equality. The victim of injustice, in the depths of his own soul, he cited his master before the tribunal of the supreme Judge. These ideas of equality, born of a community of faith and hope, and which resulted from Christian dogma itself, found a visible expression in the organization of the church. There the fact of birth was long accounted nothing. Merit was everything. The bishops and popes frequently came, like the apostles, from the mass of the people. The simple sons of peasants exercised over princes an almost absolute empire. Election was the mark of equality. With time this democratic character of the church was modified, but did not disappear; and in 1789 it was advocated by a majority of the members of the clergy who were seated in the constituent assembly. Did not the ideas of equality and Christian brotherhood, as applied to society, manifest themselves at the time of the foundation of the English colonies of America? Who, then, will deny that American democracy was born of Christianity? —From this we may estimate the distance which separates the ancient from the modern idea of democracy. The thoroughly democratic idea that men are responsible solely as men, have rights because they are men, are valued solely as men, and as men should mutually love and help one another, is pre-eminently a Christian idea. Neither the maxim, "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," nor the precepts of resignation and obedience, can do away with this truth. It was not sufficient for Christianity to espouse the cause of the oppressed and the feeble; it was not sufficient for it to curse the bad rich man, and make of the poor its chosen children; it was not sufficient for it that the apostles and their successors were themselves of the number of the poor; the sentiment of their rights came to men only with that of their moral value. —If democracy finds its title to recognition in the ideas of liberty, equality and Christian fraternity, why can we not see that it finds it also in philosophy? The principle of liberty has been incessantly vindicated by philosophers, under one form or another, since the seventeenth century. Descartes claimed it for pure thought; Montesquieu introduced it into political philosophy; Voltaire became its defender in the interest of universal inquiry. Philosophy proclaims the inviolability of the human person, without regard to race, color or opinion. In spite of differences and inequalities, it finds the same human nature in all, and founds upon this identity an equality of rights. Its desire is to develop man; to see every individual raise himself to the height of excellence and happiness of which he is capable. It exalts sociability, the fraternity of sympathies and interests; it maintains in the hearts of men the idea of right; it attacks unjust distinctions and odious privileges: in a word, it presses onward, with the aid of the weapons which are its own, that is to say, by enlightenment and reason, toward liberty and civil equality. —Must we not say as much of the modern development of industry and wealth? Do not these modern powers manifest the same tendency toward freedom and a greater effective equality? Nor is there any more necessity to-day than at any other epoch, of supposing that equality of conditions could or should always be absolute; for this would be the very destruction of civilization. But if wealth continues to develop with its inevitable and desirable inequalities, is it not now more equitably divided than ever before? does it not more than ever depend upon labor? Landed property is considerably divided up: this was remarked to be the case even before the French revolution. Movable property has increased prodigiously. Restrictions on labor have in great part disappeared. Exchange of wealth is carried on in most countries without meeting with any artificial obstacles at home; and as to international commerce the idea of the solidarity of nations mutually interested in each other's enrichment has taken the place of their commercial antagonism. Industry, in fine, with its improved processes, places its products within the reach of almost all. The circle of those who are able to enjoy bodily comfort and intellectual advantages increases daily. This is the social condition called democracy. —In the last analysis modern democracy, which we first consider in its most general character and in its most favorable traits, tends toward a state in which, conformably to the data of Christianity, of moral and political philosophy, and of the development of wealth, a greater number of men continually enter into the possession of intellectual, moral and material benefits. The diffusion of knowledge, a more equal division of the gratifications which constitute comfort, a more general participation in civil and political rights, essentially characterize it. It proposes to substitute merit for chance, and right for injustice. It shelters itself under the shield of the doctrine of perfectibility, which is applicable not only to the works of the human mind, to the discoveries of science, and to the inventions of industry, but also to the social condition and to the political and economic combinations which may serve to improve it. Modern democracy thus seems to be the result of a great progress in ideas and beliefs, of a slow transformation already effected in part, and which still continues, in manners, customs and laws. That each man may be more and more a man, that is to say, better realize the type of humanity, by the development of all that constitutes it, is the end to which it aspires. The development of power for the individual and for the species, the increase of dignity and comfort, such is its ideal. —This ideal will never be attained, even in part, without great difficulties. The first of these difficulties is human imperfection. Would a pure and absolute democracy suit men? Rousseau himself doubted it. But in order to approach even to the ideal which we have just outlined, man has need of constant efforts over himself, of learning, of wisdom, of virtue. It is not in consequence of a vain and declamatory reminiscence of ancient republics that Montesquieu made virtue the soul of democracy. A state which calls man to an energetic and complete control of his being, and which bids him govern himself, by emancipating him from the guardians to whose hands he intrusted the care of his destiny, evidently can not sustain itself but by the continual sentiment of responsibility and duty. How, for example, would democracy, taken in the favorable sense which we have just given it, maintain itself, if the taste for immoderate enjoyment should prevent work, destroy economy and attack probity; if the desire of living upon the fruits of other people's labor, if the contempt for justice, trodden under foot by an unrestrained egotism, should be substituted for moderation, for the spirit of equity and right? Moral disorder such as this could not but prepare the way for slavery: anarchy would not be slow to open the way for despotism, following an accustomed formula, of which history furnishes the elements and the proofs. —We shall now consider democracy, first under its civil, then under its political form, in society, and in the government. The real and grave reasons for this distinction will soon be seen. —II. Of Democracy in the Civil Law and in Society. We have distinguished the democracy which determines the civil relations of citizens from that which gives to power its political form. A sensible proof of the reality of this distinction may be found in France, where society has long been democratic to a remarkable degree, and where power is not purely democratic in its composition, and has retained in the main the monarchical form down to a very recent date. The democratic nature of society is recognized especially by the equality of rights which is manifested in industry by free competition, and in the professions by the admissibility of all citizens to practice them. Who does not know that property and labor are no longer monopolies? The extreme mobility of property, on the one hand, and on the other the facility which each one has of choosing his own state in life, of freely carrying on his trade or business; are not these living and familiar proofs of this equality of rights which refuses no one access to the goods and labors which lead to it? A certain equality of condition results, and must result, from this equality of rights. In fact, as soon as liberty presides over the distribution of wealth, the chances are equal for all. Vast accumulations of wealth are now only exceptional, and are subject to the laws of change common to all, to exempt themselves from which was the aim of the privileged aristocrats and nobles. If a clever man, who has become rich by fortunate speculation, leaves a great amount of wealth to his children, this wealth will be reduced by division among several heirs, and will perhaps be lost by incapacity or dissipation. Thus will the democratic tendency of the different classes of society to intermingle find an increased facility for further growth. Thus will the advantages of merit and of good fortune, which are purely personal, be substituted for hereditary family renown. This tendency, which is the result of the doctrine of laisser-faire, receives in France a new force from the law, which makes the equal division of property among the children of the same father obligatory. The inability, under which the father of a family in France is placed, of favoring one of his children to the prejudice of the others beyond a certain limit, is, as all admit, one of the instruments of democratic equality. But must we believe, with some publicists, that equality is inseparably attached to such a law? The proof of the contrary is found in the fact that the same equality exists in the United States, although it is not there prescribed by law, but remains optional. To make the eldest son sole heir would seem as iniquitous to an American as it seems natural and just to an Englishman. Custom seems to have the same tendency, and almost the same intensity, on this point, in France. How could it be otherwise, when we remember that equal partition had become firmly fixed in the customs of the third estate, long before the French revolution, as M. Augustin Thierry has proven in his introduction to the "History of the Third Estate"? It is not probable, therefore, that, if full liberty were left to fathers of families to dispose of their property, it would not have worked any such great change as is generally believed in a society so saturated as ours is with the idea of the equality of all the children of the same father? Without here entering into details which would lead us beyond the limits of our subject, we still believe that there are serious objections to absolute liberty in the making of wills. Let us admit, with its advocates, that by its means many a bad son would be punished by the deprivation of his inheritance, and that some children who had been unfortunate in their business, or who had contracted disadvantageous marriages, would receive a larger share. Some cases of extreme partition of landed property might be more easily prevented by its means, although means of preventing excesses of this sort are not wanting even now. On the other hand, the well-known evils which result from absolute liberty in making wills would have full away, to the prejudice of families and society. To resume: there is nothing to make us foresee the abrogation of the law of descent in France, and it is not to be believed that democracy, assured as it feels of the power of established customs, would long consent to completely lose such a weapon. Moreover, whether deservedly or not, unpopularity would, in France, attend any too absolute measure of this nature, though it were authorized by the purest theories of liberty, by the intention of regenerating the family by respect and fear, and even by the intention of manifesting greater regard for property. People would see in the omnipotence of paternal power, in this sense, but an inhuman desertion of the children, and an unpleasant possibility of the re-establishment of the right of primogeniture and of substitution. —Another feature of equality in democracy is the necessity under which each citizen is placed of contributing to the national expenses in proportion to his power. This is the only truly liberal interpretation of democracy. It makes of the payment of taxes a true title to citizenship, even for the poor, instead of numbering them among the crowd as individuals without duties and without ties to society; while at the same time it subjects the well-to-do and the rich, who receive from the state a greater protection for their property and their persons, to the necessity of bearing a greater portion of the expenses. But this manner of looking at taxation does not satisfy all democratic schools. Many believe that democracy ought to exempt citizens, not in very easy circumstances, and not having a certain minimum income, from all taxation. Some desire the establishment of a progressive tax, that is to say, of a tax increasing progressively with the fortune of the individual, and which, therefore, would take, not ten times more from him who had ten times more, but fifteen or twenty times more, according to the arbitrary will of the legislator. This is not the place to consider all the economic and political consequences of graduated taxation, which most fortunately has had but a very limited application in practice. But we should observe that it gives rise, in the democratic schools which sustain it, to a false idea of democracy, that of the state constituting itself the judge and equalizer of fortunes. Nothing is more incompatible than such a pretension with respect for liberty and property, which is the first duty of modern democracy. Liberal democracy ought, above all things, to avoid yielding to theories that recognize in the state the right to do everything. If it establish the arbitrary division of fortunes, if it introduce progressive taxation, is it not evident that it places itself, whether it will or not, upon the very verge of communism? It can check itself by moderation, but this would be the abandonment of its principle. We to the democracy which would make of leveling by the state a dogma and a point of departure! It would betray itself, and sacrifice liberty. How entirely right was the chief whom the French republican-democratic party mourned 50 years ago, when he thus replied to the manifesto of the democratic levelers and more or less openly avowed communists, who had their centre of action in the society of the rights of man, in 1832: "Graduated taxation, the taxation of jealousy and not of justice, would not distinguish between idle and laborious wealth. Graduated taxation would punish all wealth without distinction, under the false notion that every rich man devours the substance of a certain number of poor men. * * Between this system (the liberal system which confines itself to abolishing unjust privileges in the matter of taxes) and that which would consist in declaring the state alone rich, the sole proprietor, the sole producer, the sole consumer, the sole regulator of national activity, the sole inventor, the sole creator in the arts, in industry, in the general movement of civilization; between these two systems, we say, graduated taxation would hold but a hypocritical middle course; it would have for its object, while concealing this end, the destruction of all wealth." —This system of the monopoly of industry and wealth by the state, described with so much force by Armand Carrel, is to too great an extent the temptation and danger of democracy for us not to insist upon it here. For the very reason that the natural course of events, the free play of interests, bring more equality into democratic nations, the need of equality becomes a veritable passion, and shows itself more shocked at the inequalities which exist. It pretends to do away with these inequalities, and to bring the different classes, which are so variable in their composition, to one common and tyrannical level; it wishes to have no longer either rich or poor, either masters or workmen; it insists that all shall be equal in fact as in right; and the most consistent of its advocates do not recoil before the thought of absolute equality of wages for all producers, regardless of condition, as well for the minister of state who governs, the incumbent of a high office, for the head of a manufacturing establishment, if there remain any such, as for the meanest laborer. —An unenlightened but generous desire for the amelioration of the lot of the poorer classes, together with the far less noble sentiments of cupidity and envy, concur in inspiring democracy with such thoughts. How many accomplices and dupes it easily finds! It therefore becomes the duty of publicists and economists, of the men of good sense in democratic nations, constantly to combat them and to propagate sound ideas upon this subject. Is it not clearly evident that inequality of conditions enters into the divine plan; that it results, in society, from the inequality of the talents which we receive from nature, from opportunities more or less favorable, and finally and above all, from the more or less judicious use of our moral and bodily faculties, which is the result of our free will? All can not be generals in industrial pursuits and in the professions, any more than in the army; and it is difficult to see what society would gain if all should remain in the rank of common soldiers under pretext of democratic equality. On the contrary, is it not clear that society would lose much by such an arrangement? Science and its applications; arts and letters, with their grandeur; wealth, with its almost indefinite faculty of development; civilization, in fine, do not prosper but on condition of vast accumulations of capital, and a hierarchy established in the division of labor. Liberty, therefore, with the inequalities which it engenders, is as necessary to them as air and exercise are to human life and development. —Nor can we readily understand, once we cease dreaming of an absolute equality as chimerical as it is unjust, how democracy can, under the influence of liberty in all human transactions, fear the encroachments of an inequality which nothing in the law favors. Liberty constantly aims at removing all inequality except such as is absolutely necessary to the progress and advancement of human society. Human action, under a thousand forms, always on the alert; always busy divining and satisfying the wants of others, in order to obtain the satisfaction of its own wants; sharing, as the price of its exertion, the mass of social wealth; agreeing upon the share of remuneration which shall belong to each: such is the spectacle presented by democratic society. Industry, which desires an extensive market, endeavors to produce what will be of universal use in consumption. Useful discoveries are of profit to all. The possession of property, by becoming more general, seems itself an instrument conducive to a community among men, so much does it lose of its exclusive character, so much does it diffuse its blessings among the masses in the shape of labor, profit, wages, and in enjoyments which become accessible to all classes of society. From this point of view it seems surprising that M. de Tocqueville, the eminent writer who has expressed such profound views on democracy, should have seen any reason to fear that liberty was destined to lead to such accumulations of capital in the hands of a few as would give rise to an oppressive aristocracy. He repeated an accusation believed by many, an opinion not wanting in adherents, but which has, it seems to us, but little foundation, when he professed to believe that the great manufacturing interests would engender a sort of industrial feudalism more oppressive than the old. "The territorial aristocracy of past ages," he writes (De la Démocratie en Amerique, vol. iii., part ii., chap. 20), "was bound by the law, or believed itself bound by custom, to aid its servants, and to relieve their misery. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our day, after impoverishing and brutalizing the men whom it uses, leaves them to be supported by public charity in times of crises. This is the natural consequence of the preceding. Between the workman and his master there are many relations, but there is no real association. I think that, all things considered, the manufacturing aristocracy which we see growing up before us is one of the hardest which has appeared in the world; but it is at the same time one of the most limited and least dangerous. Nevertheless, it is thither that the friends of democracy should incessantly and anxiously turn their gaze: for, if aristocracy and a permanent inequality of conditions ever again make their way into, the world, it may be safely predicted that they will enter by this door." Whatever favor this opinion of M. de Tocqueville may enjoy to-day, a lasting and excessive inequality of conditions can never enter by this door; and the economic reasons which forbid it are too numerous for us to mention them all here. De Tocqueville clearly exaggerates the importance of the great manufacturing interests in a country as thickly settled and as extensively engaged in every sort of industry as France, for instance, when he attributes to them such influence. Everything opposes it; the partition of estates, the association of small sums of capital, the diffusion of wealth, the progress of the working classes, which prevents their return to a state of slavery. We can not justly style aristocrats the great manufacturers who enjoy no privileges, and to whom competition makes life one incessant struggle. Besides, is the opinion of M. de Tocqueville consistent with itself? Does he not admit that this aristocracy, if it be an aristocracy, is one of the most limited and least dangerous? Except in case of certain articles of general use, such as cotton, wool and iron, for example, it will very likely be with parceling out of industrial labor, at least in part, as with land. The small manufactures will maintain their rights. The law of the division of labor favors, it is true, in industry, vast agglomerations; but they have their limits, and they can not do everything with a sufficient degree of perfection. Perhaps democratic equality will have more to fear from the monopolies of large companies than from manufactures. The problem is a difficult one, we admit. Democracy, or, to speak more correctly, the common weal, finds itself between two dangers; either to allow great companies to abuse their monopoly, or to place some important industries under the exclusive control of the state, which has already too great a tendency to encroach upon private enterprise. The reasonable remedy is to have the fewest monopolies possible, instead of increasing their number, and to hold them to a strict account. —The consideration of what is, and what may be in the future, the influence of democracy upon morals and upon the human mind, is of an entirely different nature from the foregoing. The author of "Democracy in America" devoted the last two volumes of his work to this important inquiry. He does not concede, as is so often done nowadays, the necessary abasement of the human intelligence by democracy; he thinks that there will always be found there, by the side of vulgar taste and the vast amount of work destined to satisfy it by its cheapness, higher tastes for art and science, represented by a gifted class, and rewarded by the wealthy class. He explains with great nicety the reasons why the example of the Americans does not prove that a democratic people can not be possessed of an aptitude for the higher sciences, literature and the arts. What is styled its vulgarity, is not, however, the only moral danger to which democracy is exposed. Another is the excessive individualism which is developed by the idea and habitual practice of the sovereignty of the individual, who is constituted judge of what is right and true, and sole judge of his own affairs. The pride of individualism easily engenders envy and contempt for superiority. It has, nevertheless, no matter how serious the danger, its natural correctives. No one feels more than the individual member of such a society the importance of isolation. He has no support, unless he create it for himself. He therefore seeks associates. The idea of the great association, his country, will address itself to his imagination all the more forcibly, perhaps, as the individual sees nothing between it and himself. The collective sentiment of patriotism has undoubtedly worked wonders in the democratic states. The great danger of our day is to be apprehended from the purely humanitarian doctrines which destroy patriotism, and from the predominance which is given to questions of wages, by which the workman is tempted to see a brother in a workman of a foreign country, in league with him, and an enemy in the capitalist who is his fellow-countryman. This danger is great. It must be watched and combated, in order to be warded off. It is asked [in Catholic countries, like France. —ED.], in the matter of faith and opinions, if democratic individualism does not lead necessarily either to philosophy, which appeals to reason alone, or to Protestantism, which accords a greater part than Catholicism to freedom of choice and investigation. Whatever may be said on the point, there is nothing to prove that Catholicism is not perfectly compatible with democracy. There are even serious reasons for believing that democracy and a religion founded on authority have some affinity. Is there not reason to believe that a superior authority, speaking in the name of God, will have more chance of being heard and obeyed where every individual considers his reason equal to his neighbor's, and is unwilling to defer to others, while at the same time he has not the leisure to form religious opinions for himself? Equality could not but rejoice in such an authority; and that exaggerated taste for authority and for unity, which in democracies serves as a counterpoise to individualism, would find herein wherewith to satisfy its longings. We see, therefore, that if, in a democratic society, certain motives urge toward philosophy and Protestantism, the opposite current, which carries men off toward Catholicism, has also its force. —Another essential characteristic of democracy, when we examine its influence upon public thought, is, that it is, perhaps, less favorable to full and entire individual liberty of opinion than is generally believed. The tyranny of custom, the despotism of the majority, reigns sometimes in democratic countries in a more absolute manner than under any other form of the state. It seems that the deposit of beliefs, ideas and opinions upon which society lives, not being the property of any particular body, but frequently a sort of common property, each one constitutes himself its guardian, and a guardian all the more watchful and suspicious for that reason. No writer of our day has marked more forcibly than J. Stuart Mill, in his remarkable work on "Liberty," this violent pressure of all upon the individual, and this tendency to impose the same type of mind upon all. It is for brave and energetic spirits to clear a way for themselves between false originality, which aims at effect, and excessive docility, which swims along with the stream. —One of the happiest effects of democracy among the nations of modern times is the softening of their manners. How can we help remarking that a good share of this improvement must be credited to the spirit of equality, although recent and terrible events have but too clearly shown how much still remains to be done in this direction, and how much activity is still retained by the fierce passions which produced the cruel excesses of 1792 and 1793, in France. The dire recollections of the Paris commune of 1871, and of such atrocities as the massacre of its hostages, should keep us from a too confident optimism. Nevertheless, this refinement of manners may be regarded as an advance made by the mass of the people and preserved by them under ordinary circumstances. A more real and more lively sympathy exists among like classes. The ages of aristocracy afforded a favorable opportunity for the display of generosity and devotion, but not of that pity and mutual commiseration which exist among equals. —The tempering of punishment for crime and the improvements in the international code, in like manner, have a similar origin to a great extent, whatever may be said of the ideas of parity and inequality. Such results may be expected to disappear with the democratic manners which have produced and preserved them. —In the family, also, democracy has very appreciable effects. It tends to substitute pleasant, unrestrained and affectionate family relations for relations purely hierarchical, founded on respect and fear. But, by the side of its advantages, it has its inconveniences. Women dream that they may easily find in it for themselves the rôle of active citizens, sharing political sovereignty, and a still more direful emancipation. Insubordination and precocious independence become the frequent defects of children in their intercourse with their parents. Where shall we find the remedies for this evil? In the strength of natural sentiments which we need not mistrust too much under the influence of a good education, which must ever remain our sole anchor of safety. Is it not a general truth that the more a law has lost of the sway which it owes to fear, the more deeply should it be engraved on the heart? This truth may be applied to the whole moral system of democracy. No form of government supposes men are better instructed in their duty than democracy, nor expects from them more seriousness in thought and feeling. To instruct democracy is well, but it is not everything. It can not do without those two elements of the moral order which too often appear to be wanting to it—respect and devotedness. Without these, there is for democracy but the hazard of intestine broils, anarchy, and a sceptre of iron, to supply the place of respect and duty, which were wanting—III. Of Political Democracy or of the Organization of Power in Democratic States. Democracy in the social order involves, to a certain extent, democracy in the political order, because a certain participation of the masses in enlightenment, in prosperity, and in the enjoyment of civil liberty, has for its natural consequence a certain participation in power, that is to say, in the exercise of sovereignty. But let us understand to what degree the government ought to be democratic. There are three conflicting opinions on this point. One, the most extreme of the three, holds that democracy, to be real democracy, requires the direct government of the people, without the intervention of a national representative body, which, according to them, soon distinguishes itself from the mass of the people, and which is even distinct from them by the position of its members when elected. They deny that a representative body can truly express the changeable desires and wills of the mass of the people; the national will, they say, can not be delegated. Rousseau is the leader of this school, and the "Social Contract" is its gospel. Who can not perceive how false and impracticable such a system is in populous countries? We can indeed, with an effort, picture to ourselves the citizens of Athens constantly occupied in voting, although the poor had to be induced to take part in the elections by pecuniary considerations. But is such a state of things conceivable in France, England or the United States? Have the citizens of these countries the time, the inclination or the means to spend their lives in the public square? Who does not understand that, even if they were willing to do it, there could result from this daily contest of opinions and of votes but a frightful anarchy? Are all citizens, without exception and without difficulty, fit to choose their deputies? Have all citizens the degree of fitness which would enable them to pronounce, from their knowledge of the case, upon all matters in home and foreign affairs? Representation is, therefore, an absolute necessity in large political communities. The representative system, without aiming at perfection, has no insurmountable inconvenience. The temporary character of the representative's commission affords an opportunity to restore the concord which may have ceased to exist between representatives and their constituents. The restriction of deliberation on public affairs to a limited number of competent men is an advantage. The final vote on matters of general interest is protected from the unreflecting fancies of the multitude. The important point is, that the election, deliberation and vote of representatives should possess the qualities of freedom and honesty. How can it be believed that, under such conditions, national sovereignty must cease to reside in the people? Is it not the people who choose? Can they not recall those whom they have appointed, at the expiration of their term of office? Finally, has not every constitution, which is in the least degree imbued with a liberal spirit, recognized the necessity and furnished the manner of appealing from the deputies to the people themselves in the case of certain solemn and decisive questions which concern the destiny of the country, or its general policy? —Of the two other opinions upon the constitution of power in democratic states, one, which is also radical, though less so than the one which we have examined, favors the greatest simplicity of power; no mingling, no balancing; but the democratic element in all its purity. One single omnipotent house and an executive power entirely dependent upon it: this is rigorous democratic orthodoxy. The other opinion far different from this, alleges, on the contrary, that democracy has no more dangerous enemy than this radical simplicity, which leads directly to tyranny. If the popular element alone is represented; if no account is taken of social distinctions; if that portion of natural aristocracy which exists in the most democratic state, not subject to the leveling despotism of communism, has not its representation in the state; if there are not two distinct houses to give greater weight to deliberation, and to represent, one the life, the other the tradition of the country; if there is not an executive power with a sphere of action independent to a certain extent, except of the responsibility which rests upon it or upon its agents—democracy will produce all the abuses it is capable of: it will be by turns, or all at once, violent and oppressive, lawless and anarchical. What can an unlimited and unrestricted power do but take the way to which it naturally inclines? Henceforth, no wisdom, no maturity, no moderation; a headlong course, rash or systematic, which nothing can check and which blots out all differences, is the lot inevitably reserved for extreme democracies. —We shall now touch on the principal law which the constitution of power in a democratic state should obey. That law is to respect liberty. —So true is it that here lies at once the peril and the duty of democracy, that an eminent publicist, John Stuart Mill, finds no other point upon which he agrees, in this matter, with de Tocqueville. He was preoccupied with this matter, even to disquietude and alarm; and it was to find a means of solving the problem that he wrote his two political works, "Liberty" and "Representative Government." There is a triple problem on whose solution hangs the destiny of democracy: not to crush the minority under the weight of the majority, the individual under that of centralization, nor liberty under that of equality. —Those who have dared to maintain that the majority can do everything, start with a very false idea, that of the unlimited sovereignty of numbers. Is it not justifying every crime to believe that the majority can do everything? Does not such an idea destroy altogether the idea of justice? Radically to change the institution of property, to destroy the family, is henceforth only a question of majority. Henceforth no law but that of force! We are told that all the consequences of this monstrous doctrine will not be thus logically drawn. Admitted. But it is sufficient that it should prevail to lead gradually but inevitably to tyranny. What, this being supposed, would prevent the majority's depriving the minority of freedom of speech and the various means of persuasion which might enable it to become the majority? Oppression of minorities, even to extermination, is written on every page of the history of the French convention. The constitution of power in a well-regulated democracy should prevent this misfortune, which would be but substituting the tyranny of the greater number for the tyranny of one man or of an oligarchy. In a word, there should be recognized certain rights superior to mere human convention—rights, without which government is nothing more than arbitrariness. —Finally, there is in democracies a strong tendency toward concentration, toward that exaggerated centralization the inconveniences of which have been so often demonstrated. We need not explain in all their details the reasons which render this tendency toward concentration so powerful. In France, it has been customary to attribute it to the national character, as is now said, to the race. But, independently of this explanation, the value of which we shall not stop to examine, democracy itself suffices to develop it. It is in the nature of democracy to be unfavorable to intermediate bodies which interpose between the people and the state. Love of equality gives rise to a great repugnance for everything that might give these bodies an importance of a nature to destroy this equality. The sovereign alone does not excite envy. Democracies want the same rule for all, a rule which intermediary bodies and powers other than the central power are not very solicitous to maintain or enforce. Not specially attached to any particular organization from which he receives his strength, and which sustains him in his weakness, the individual turns to the state. He is tempted to demand everything from it—education, employment, assistance. This general disposition will, almost inevitably, be encouraged by the government; for, in the first place, it is natural for it to favor an equality which causes it no trouble, and which makes it universally popular; and, in the second place, the government, which is represented by men, partakes of their passions. How can it be thus tempted every day with impunity? and how can we expect that it will have virtue enough not to take what is offered it, even if it do not desire to take more? How especially true is this of nations among whom equality has been introduced by absolute power, and has triumphed by revolution! As the classes accustomed to direct local affairs have now disappeared, there is left to the masses only their own inexperience, with no recourse but to invoke the aid of the government in all the details of administration. Nations which, like the American, have begun with liberty, and have had long experience of it under all its forms, are much better prepared to meet this danger. With the Americans, liberty dates from the mother country; it is a custom with them of several centuries; the spirit of liberty is with them traditional. The new fact in their case is democratic equality, a fact which requires a much shorter period of apprenticeship; for equality is a passion, and liberty often a responsibility and a duty. The advantages of centralization, even administrative centralization, should not, however, be denied. If it has its drawbacks, and its complicated bureaucracy, how many things does it not do with more order and rapidity, and with less expense! It is, moreover, capable of being improved. The French financial system is a striking proof of this. But excessive administrative centralization, to which democracy inclines, has a radical defect: it stifles local life and individual initiative. Such centralization is destructive of individual merit. How remedy it? and is there any hope of doing so? Whether nations, like individuals, can be taught wisdom, is an ever-recurring question. A sensible democratic people will strengthen their institutions in such a manner as to strengthen themselves. They will oppose reason to instinct, foresight to passion; they will profit by experience; they will take to heart the lessons of history; they will endeavor to improve the art of politics as they endeavor to improve the machinery by which they exercise their power over nature and the elements of well-being. We must, therefore, disseminate intelligence and the knowledge of political science. This science can not do everything without the aid of morality; nevertheless it can do something, and we believe it can do much. —The question of the connection of liberty and equality may be reduced, in part, to the same terms. The danger of sacrificing the latter to the former is great in democratic states; is it therefore irremediable? Has not equality itself, although it does not always perceive this truth, and has been more than once inclined to sacrifice it, a profound interest in respecting liberty? Is not liberty the guarantee of equality? Vainly would a people hope to preserve equality if they renounced liberty. When despotism governs a nation, does it not invariably introduce a system of privilege and monopoly, and do away with equality, in the interest of baseness and unworthiness? We must not forget, however, that equality, at least a relative equality of conditions, favored by democracy, is founded mainly on civil equality, that is, on an equality of rights. What is civil equality? It is equality in liberty itself, equality before the law. The future will show whether or not democracy, confronted with so many problems, to reconcile the terms of which requires a powerful mind and an upright, courageous heart, can steer its course between the reefs and reach port in safety. —To increase the power of the individual, instead of sacrificing him to the state, without sacrificing the requirements of public order, is the most difficult task imposed upon modern democracy. It is not only a political but a moral problem. Politically speaking, can we insist too strongly upon some degree of decentralization; on the carrying of life from the centre whence it flows, toward the extremities and to all parts of the political organism? These measures, however, would be insufficient, if, independently of the education necessary to form the citizen, the individual were not penetrated with a feeling of the responsibility which renders him at once the vigilant guardian of his rights, and the scrupulous doer of his duties. The improvement of society is intimately connected with the improvement of the individual. Sound judgment, upright sentiments, the habit of activity, dignity of character, which relies upon itself and not upon others, respect for superiority, a love of justice and moderation, sympathy with those in distress; such are the qualities requisite to assure success to democracy. Human imperfection will undoubtedly remain; but it is only on condition of the predominance of these qualities among the masses, that democracy can secure the realization, so much to be desired, of the grand principles of justice and charity, of which, after all, it is only the expression. Otherwise, it is nothing but a displacement, a passing of force into the hands of the masses. —We cherish the hope that this is not the meaning that modern nations would give to democracy, whose power still continues to increase; although we can not deny the threatening gravity of certain symptoms which seem to sanction such a meaning. The profound resemblance which is found between the social and political development of the different European nations for several centuries, the more and more uniform character which civilization is assuming daily among them, the removal of the inequalities which created real abysses between the different classes of society, the progress of ideas which make the whole world gravitate around certain grand principles which are everywhere the same—everything, in fact, announces the advent of democracy in the whole Christian world. To speak of its destinies is to go beyond the sphere of a nation; it is to take in the future of humanity. HENRY BAUDRILLART. DEMOCRACYDEMOCRACY, Representative. Democracy means, literally, the rule of the demos,i.e., of the free citizens. —I. History. The idea and the word (democracy) are of Hellenic origin. In their relations with foreigners or the barbarians, the Greeks looked upon themselves as aristocrats. In their relations with one another at home, in their petty states, they were democrats, and felt as such. In earlier ages, it is true, supreme power was confided by them to numerous kings: but even then the kings were limited by the voice of the people and the council of their equals. Power next passed from the kings to the aristocratic class, and from it to the people, the demos. The man, as Aristotle (Pol. iii., 1, 6) says, was held to be more of a citizen than others, who was at the same time fitted to rule. The Athenian democracy was, in spite of its faults, and although the time of its bloom was short-lived, the crowning glory of the political instinct of the Hellenes. —Until modern times democracy nowhere appeared with such brilliancy as among the Greeks. The republic was the ideal of the Romans, but not democracy. The period of the middle ages was not favorable to the democratic form of government. In the cities alone did ordinary citizens here and there have any power. But even in the cities the aristocratic element soon regained the upper hand. This is true even of the Swiss towns and provinces which, in their struggles with princes and nobles, asserted their independence and maintained popular freedom. In the cities either a patriarchate was established over the citizens, or the citizens of municipalities formed an aristocracy, to whom the rural population was subject. In the provinces the old rural population took precedence of new comers; and in many families the public offices were almost hereditary. —A great change was first operated in North America. In the new world a new form of the state appeared, representative democracy, a form of democracy very different from the radical democracy of ancient Greece. The Persian Otanes (Herodotus, iii., 82) enumerates five characteristic marks of the ancient democracy: 1, an equality of rights for all; 2, the rejection of arbitrary power as ordinarily exercised by eastern princes; 3, appointment to offices by lot; 4, responsibility in office; 5, deliberation in common, and the framing of laws in popular assemblies. The two very specific marks of ancient democracy election, by lot and the popular assemblies, are rejected by the new democratic republic, which fills offices by election, and, instead of the rude popular assemblies, has introduced representation by election. In both regards the democratic principle has been corrected and complemented by the aristocratic preference for the fitter and more intelligent. Ancient democracy was what may be called pure democracy; the modern is representative. Representative democracy is democracy moderated and ennobled by the elevation of the best. The remaining peculiarities enumerated above of ancient democracy have become the common property of all civilized states. They are incorporated in their constitutions, especially in those of constitutional monarchies. —Representative democracy is, in America, not the final independent form of the state, as it was in the Hellenic cities, but the first, the one with which American freedom began. It grew up not in a struggle with a native aristocracy, but naturally, in virgin soil, from the laying of the foundations of the Union. The same Anglo-Saxon stock, ennobled by Norman elements, which during the middle ages laid in England the foundation for the most powerful aristocracy and was first to develop representative monarchy, has in modern times produced in America the most powerful democracy in the form of a representative republic. The spirit of freedom, self-reliance, the common law, and an understanding of representation, were brought by the settlers from their home. The Puritans of New England were all men of the English middle class, who had withdrawn from the aristocratic Anglican church and esteemed each other as brothers. They were filled with the democratic ideas of freedom, equality, self-government and citizenship, as is shown by that famous statute of the Plymouth pilgrims (Nov. 11, 1620). Although there were more aristocratic elements in the southern colonies, yet even in them no aristocratic constitution could be maintained. The planters did not need the protection of the aristocracy. They helped themselves. —But this equality of freemen was at first recognized in the Anglo-Saxon race and was extended only to European immigrants who became more or less assimilated to that race and thus Americanized. The aborigines had as little part in it as the African negroes who were introduced into America for economic reasons. It is only in our own time that the Union has risked the dangerous experiment of treating the emancipated negroes as a component part of the American demos. It took this step, evidently, because it had the firm confidence that in spite of it, the Anglo-Saxon stock would continue to be the controlling element. —A masculine national character is clearly the fundamental condition of a democracy. But few nations have the mental qualities and the temper necessary to govern themselves. The Anglo-Saxons possess these in a high degree. If they can transform by political education the people of other nationalities who are pouring into the Union, representative democracy will be maintained there. The great number of Germans who have gone to the United States are most easily transformed in this respect. The Irish are less easily so; and should the latter be able to change the fundamental character of the American people, they will also change the fundamental character of the American form of the state. The religious education of the American colonists contributed as much to their freedom as did their Saxon blood. Protestant freedom extended its hand to political freedom. Religious liberty became a principle of law in America for the first time, "There is no religious teaching in the United States hostile to democratic institutions. Even Catholic priests distinguish two intellectual systems. In the one, revealed religious truths, to which they submit unconditionally, prevail. The other, that of political truth, they look on as a province which God has left to free investigation, and to man." (Tocqueville Amérique, i., 350) —The republican spirit of self-government grew up under the influence of a number of free institutions, even while the colonies were yet under the English rule. The most important of these institutions were: 1. Inherited traditional protection of personal freedom by the law against arbitrary commands, against arbitrary imprisonment; the right of assembly and the right of petition, as they were developed in the English common law. 2. The right of trial by jury in civil and criminal cases. 3. The assembling of free men within the town and county, and at first also within the colony, to discuss and take measures concerning matters of general interest. 4. When the colonies increased in population, the election of representative assemblies, to co-operate in statutory legislation, in the imposition of taxes, and in exercising a control over the administration. 5. The participation of prominent citizens in administrative councils, which, together with the governor, looked after public affairs. 6. The early creation of common schools and the making of education general. 7. The militia system, in opposition to standing armies. In certain colonies the representatives even elected the governors who stood at the head of the colonial government. 8. Self-taxation, and the refusal to recognize taxes imposed by authority alone. —When the colonies rose up against the mother country and separated from it, the foundation on which the structure of representative democracy so quickly rose, was already laid. Twice previous to the present decade did the French nation try to imitate the American form of government, in 1793 and in 1848, but without permanent success. All French history shows a tendency toward centralization; and the entire French administration is carried on from the central power of the nation at Paris, through the agency of dependent officials. This system naturally culminates in a powerful monarchy. Hence from the ruins of the revolution, after the downfall of France's kings, the two Napoleons, Cæsarian autocrats, arose and were supported by the masses, who felt the need of authority and peace in the state. The result was a new monarchy on a democratic basis. —On the contrary, American representative democracy found a favorable field for imitation in the Swiss confederation, because the population had received previously a republican education and were trained in self-government. Switzerland, it is true, was first organized on the French model, and consequently with too great unity as a representative democracy, under the name of the Helvetic republic, in 1798. But when this constitution was destroyed, in consequence of the revival of cantonal independence, the cantonal constitutions themselves, in 1830, passed over into the representative form; and in 1848 the Swiss confederation was organized in the same way. In this way the Swiss constitution came to have a great resemblance to the American. Since 1868, however, a tendency has appeared in the cantons to abandon representative democracy and to approach to pure democracy, that is, to go from the nobler to the ruder form. How long this tendency will last, and whether it is the beginning of a decline, or only the transition to a better form of the state, can not be determined with certainty at present. —II. The Principle and the Institutions of Representative Democracy. Democracy always means self-government of the people; and by the people it means the people as an aggregation, i.e., the majority of free and equal citizens as having part in the state. "The majority stands for the whole." (Herodotus, iv., 80.) This pure and direct democracy, however, is possible only in the case of a small nation which is not obliged to worry over the wants of the day, and has leisure to meet frequently for political deliberation. But as modern states almost always cover a wide extent of territory, and since the great masses, even the working classes, have acquired personal freedom and civil rights, but have neither the leisure nor the culture to govern the state, this form is not possible; and the nobler form of representative democracy has taken its place as the modern form of democracy. —The principle of representative democracy is this. The people govern themselves, but they do so by intrusting the entire administration of the state to their representatives whom they choose for that purpose, because the best and most qualified. All citizens have a part in the consciousness of political power; all may reach the highest position of authority which belongs of right only to the totality of the nation; but in fact only those can arrive at the exercise of power in the state who are distinguished by the possession of the confidence of their fellow-citizens. —The direct action of citizens is, therefore, limited chiefly to the following things: 1. Elections to representative places. American law, which requires that not only legislators but the president shall be elected by the people, is in this respect more consistent than the Swiss, which allows the executive to be chosen by election of the federal assembly. 2. In voting on the fundamental and constitutional law. 3. In a more general participation of the citizens in self-government (municipal administration, justices of the peace, jurors). 4. In the universal eligibility to public offices; in contrast to the privileged class. 5. In the exercise of individual and political liberty (freedom of the press, of religion, of trade, of association, assemblages, etc., etc.). —The direct exercise of popular sovereignty through representatives manifests itself in all the organs of the body politic. 1. In the legislative assembly, which is pre-eminently a body representative of the people. 2. In the government, in so far as it is intrusted to officials elected by the people. 3. In the administration of justice, which is also carried on by elected judges. Most offices are filled for a short term of years, so that frequent changes of officials take place; this is especially the case with the representatives of the people in the legislative bodies, and the chief governmental offices. —III. Advantages and Defects of a Representative Democracy. 1. The constitution develops the common feeling of honor and the sentiment of legal right among the citizens, and, at the same time, rouses superior persons to competition. The patriotism of all stimulates talent of various kinds and leads them into the service of the country. While the constitution depends altogether on the will of the majority, it takes education into consideration, and is framed chiefly in the interests of the middle classes. It is not favorable to a towering aristocracy, but looks on it with mistrust and aversion. At times it is also dangerous to the classes which are below the level of the free and educated citizens, as the treatment of the negroes in the United States shows clearly enough, even now, after they have received freedom and civil rights. —2. Institutions which serve the great masses are generally very well managed. Representative democracies have everywhere good common schools, excellent roads, numerous institutions for the infirm, orphans, and other benevolent objects. It is more difficult for them to attend to the higher interests of art and science. Refined luxury does not flourish in the soil of representative democracy. —3. A peculiarity of this form of the state is the separation of the right of the state-power from the exercise of that power. This right is ascribed to the totality (the majority), the electors; the exercise of it to the minority, the elected. The governing are in principle dependent on the confidence of the governed, and the governed are in practice forced to obey the governing. This separation secures the governed masses from tyranny, but it weakens the government and causes it to approximate to a simple association. It can only prosper among a people having a high respect for law, whose patriotism is greater than their selfishness, and who know how to control their own passions. —4. The feeling of dependence on the masses is manifested least in the legislative body. The great assembly of popular representatives is inclined to identify itself with the people. Their feeling of power misleads them sometimes into taking rash resolves. Rarely have they the courage to oppose the wishes and views of the masses, for they fear the elections. Rather would they please the majority by oppressing the minority. It is therefore a necessity of this form of constitution that it set limits even to the omnipotence of popular representation. In America it has been sought to attain this partly by the division of the legislative body into two houses, and partly by the veto of the president. —5. Danger from weakness in representative democracies is seen more clearly in their government, which in smaller states, as in Switzerland, or the separate states of America, sinks to a mere administrative body. In a state like the American Union the importance of great affairs puts much power in the hands of the president. But the frequent changes through election render a permanent policy very difficult. The present comes to be everything, and the future nothing. The constitution can not endure a powerful permanent military force; hence no standing armies, but only militia. Other powers, therefore, are superior to representative democracy in the concentration of the forces of the state, but in return the forces of the people are more carefully husbanded by the latter under the rule of peace. —IV. Significance of Democracy for the European Situation. The expression democracy, like the word aristocracy, has a double meaning. We designate by it either a form of the state, or we understand by it only a part of the population, the great free classes of the people and a determinate direction of political institutions. The one is a legislative, the other a political idea. An impartial analysis of the conditions of modern Europe leads to this result: that the strength of the democratic element in the people and their political participation in the state has sensibly increased and is still on the increase. —1. The entire ental development of the time has a democratic character. The action of common schools has never been greater. Popular literature was never more disseminated than at present. The consciousness of self of the great classes of society has been everywhere awakened and has asserted itself by acts. The ideas of freedom, equality and fraternity exert an influence over all minds. The pantheistic tendency in philosophy is also favorable to the democratic way of thinking, since it looks on the world as a unit and all men as developments of the common material, or of the one soul of the universe; and this philosophy is very widely spread in Europe and America. Even the tendency of the time to individualism, though this principle favors difference rather than equality, acts in a democratic direction, since it rouses and increases self respect in all individuals, even in the lower classes—2. Contemporary culture, economic conditions, and the individual rights of the present day, operate in a democratic direction. The ideas of the Roman civil law expressive of equality have found general acceptance, and dissolved the class differences of the middle ages. In addition to this, we have the free development of industry. In spite of all drawbacks the rights and well-being of the middle and lower classes are greater than during the whole period of the middle ages, and far greater than ever before in the history of mankind. —3. The increasing strength and growing consciousness of the great classes of the people appear the more important since the aristocratic elements have become weaker. It is all the more difficult for them to accomplish their natural task; to complete and balance the democratic elements, since between the two factors there is still at work much aversion, mistrust and hatred. —Nevertheless the inference is inadmissible, that the progress democracy has made in a social and political sense will extend to state legislation also, and that in the near future European states will obtain a democratic constitution. There are important reasons against such a transformation of European constitutions. 1. All the civilized nations of Europe have possessed from the beginning of their history various political elements. The Germanic races especially have always had democratic, aristocratic and monarchic elements and institutions, and only their position changes in the course of time. Toward the end of the middle ages, which was favorable to aristocracy, the princely power and that of free cities arose. In ancient Rome the empire rested on the democratic masses, and similarly in France the short rule of the demos led to a democratic empire. —2. As American history has shown an inclination toward a democratic constitution from the beginning, European history for the last 2,000 years shows an indisputable tendency toward monarchy. Only the monarchy of the middle ages was limited by the aristocratic classes, and in modern times it is limited by democratic representation. Wherever the attempt was made in great European states to introduce representative democracy it failed and was abandoned after a short experience. —3. In old Europe inequality of social relations is so great that a constitution founded on equality would be a lie. The fourth estate clings to monarchy unless when rejected by it. The crown and the fourth estate are natural allies. (F. Rohmer.) Even the third estate, which has the greatest chance in representative democracies to take possession of the government, feels safer when the monarchy firmly maintains public order and moderates the ambition of party chiefs. —4. A republican character in the people is indispensable to the maintenance of a republic. But this character is lacking in all the great European nations. Even if a few individuals of republican character are to be found among the German and Latin nations, the enormous majority would not hold out in time of crisis and trial. —Let us draw the following conclusions: 1. A blind enmity of the governing power for the democratic element in the people is adverse to the interests of the monarchy. Every attempt to crush the same must fail, for it is opposed to the entire mental and material development of the time. 2. While monarchy recognizes and protects democratic elements and tendencies in their natural rights, it finds in them its surest support, and thereby receives the power successfully to guard against any excesses they might commit. BLUNTSCHLI. DEMOCRATDEMOCRAT (IN U. S. HISTORY), a term used by the federalists to designate the whole body of their opponents, but accepted only by a faction. After about 1810 democrat and democratic were accepted as equivalent to republican. (See DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, I.-III.; DEMOCRATIC CLUBS.) A. J. DEMOCRATIC CLUBSDEMOCRATIC CLUBS (IN U. S. HISTORY), American associations formed in imitation of the Jacobin and other clubs of France. The first was formed in Philadelphia, soon after Genet's arrival in 1793, but the movement spread into other states, the Charleston club, on its own application, being recognized by the Jacobin club of Paris as an affiliated branch. These clubs lived in an atmosphere of turmoil and denunciation. The western clubs of Pennsylvania and Kentucky were strongly suspected of a design to attack the Spanish possessions in America or to form a western confederacy. Their denunciations of the first excise law and its enforcement embarrassed the government in the suppression of the whisky insurrection in 1794, and brought down upon them the wrath of president Washington, who, in his message of Nov. 19, 1794, referred to them as "certain self-created societies," "combinations of men, who, careless of consequences, and disregarding the unerring truth that those who rouse can not always appease a civil convulsion, have disseminated, from an ignorance or perversion of facts, suspicions, jealousies and accusations of the whole government" In answer, the senate echoed the president's warmth of language; and in the house, though the republican leaders succeeded by very meagre majorities in avoiding any direct reference to the democratic clubs, they were very careful to disclaim any connection or sympathy with them. The clubs feebly attempted a reply, but no longer kept up the assumption of a right to speak for the people. They had already received their death blow. Late in July. 1794, Robespierre had been guillotined, and the French convention soon after abolished the Jacobin club and its branches as dangerous to the public peace and order. The republicans in America at once withdrew their countenance from the democratic clubs, which rapidly thereafter disappeared. —Not all the members of the clubs, as given in the newspapers of the time, were hearty adherents of the principles they professed. Many republicans were forced into them by a fear of being regarded as enemies of freedom and the rights of man; so that these short-lived associations were a paltry American imitation of the persecutions of the reign of terror-moral being substituted for physical duress (See DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, II. GENET, CITIZEN; and authorities there cited.) ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DEMOCRATIC - REPUBLICAN PARTYDEMOCRATIC - REPUBLICAN PARTY, The (IN U. S. HISTORY), the political party whose theory has aimed at the increase of direct popular control over the government, the widening of the right of suffrage, the limitation of the powers of the federal government, and the conservation of the powers reserved to the state governments by the constitution. (See STATE RIGHTS, under STATE SOVEREIGNTY.) It is therefore a strict construction party (see CONSTRUCTION, I.) and has always operated as a check upon the nationalization of the United States. (But see CONSTRUCTION, III.) It at first (in 1792-3) took the name of the republican party, which more properly belongs to its present possessors (in 1881; see REPUBLICAN PARTY), and was generally known by that name until about 1828-30. Upon its absorption of the French or democratic faction, in 1793-6, it took the official title of the democratic-republican party, which it still claims. About 1828-30 its nationalizing portion having broken off and taken the name of "national republican" (see WHIG PARTY, I.), the particularist residue assumed the name of "democrats," which had been accepted since about 1810 as equivalent to "republicans," and by which they have since been known. Some little confusion, therefore, has always been occasioned by the similarity in name between the strict construction republican party of 1793 and the broad construction republican party of 1856. —I.: 1789-93 (Formative Period). Though the forces which have always tended to the complete nationalization of the American Union were in operation at the adoption of the constitution, their influence was as yet by no means general. The mass of the people was thoroughly particularist, interested mainly in the fortunes of their state governments, and disposed to look upon the new federal government as a creature of convenience only, to be accepted under protest until the exercise of its functions should prove burdensome or unpleasant. The convention of 1787 had wisely and skillfully evaded the popular feeling by couching the constitution in very general terms, excepting only its one bold proviso that the constitution, and laws and treaties made in pursuance of it, should be "the supreme law of the land," an idea which the people at large scarcely comprehended or took at its full measure. But, despite the convention's scrupulous care, despite the general influence of Washington and the Pennsylvania influence of Franklin in its favor, and despite the "grinding necessities" of the case, the final ratification of the constitution was due more to the unskillfulness of the opposition (see ANTI-FEDERAL PARTY) than to any popular desire for an energetic federal government, and it left the principle of opposition overthrown but not eradicated. During the first session of the 1st congress (March 4-Sept. 29, 1789), however, those members who had been in principle anti-federalist were content to allow the organization of the new government by the federalists to proceed with little opposition (see FEDERAL PARTY, I.), and the results so clearly and so promptly demonstrated the convenience of the federal government that the late antifederal party were soon only anxious to drop their obnoxious name, and to allow their opposition to the constitution to be forgotten. —The planters of the south, and particularly of Virginia, had generally supported the change of government and the early measures of the federal party, induced partly by the influence of Madison and partly by the compromises by which the constitution had been made acceptable to them. (See COMPROMISES, I.-III.) The general poverty and financial embarrassment, which in the north had produced Shays' rebellion (see CONFEDERATION, ARTICLES OF), had borne still more heavily upon the south. In both sections it had been the moving cause of stay laws, tender laws, and laws to hinder the collection of debts by British creditors; but in the south the certain revival of ancestral claims for debt, which before the revolution had made British merchants practically owners of many of the southern estates, but which had been suspended and almost forgotten during the revolution and the confederation, would have made almost any general settlement of debt by the federal government particularly unpopular, as a fore-shadowing of individual settlements thereafter. When Hamilton, early in 1790 (see FEDERAL PARTY, I.), finally, and almost from sheer necessity, fell back upon commercial interest as the stock upon which to graft his nationalizing measures, he necessarily alienated the whole south, which was not only particularist but exclusively agricultural, except in a few isolated spots on the seaboard. The difference between the two sections was as yet only in degree, not in kind. Both were mainly agricultural; both were particularist; neither possessed manufactures; but the south, which had far less banking and commerce than the north, and therefore, in Jefferson's words, "owed the debt while the north owned it," first felt the repulsion to the Hamiltonian policy. The opposition to his plan for settling the public debt was mainly to its commercial aspect; the opposition to his project of a national bank in the following year was of a distinct party nature, and was based upon that strict construction of the constitution which was always afterward to be the party's established theory. (See BANK CONTROVERSIES, II.) In 1791-2, therefore, we may consider the anti-federal party, which had so warmly opposed the adoption of the constitution, as rehabilitated into a party, as yet without a name, which was to maintain the binding force of the exact and literal language of the constitution, and to oppose any enlargement of the federal government's powers by interpretation. —But the new party took no pride whatever in its descent, and at first disowned any kinship with its immediate ancestor of unpleasant memory. The first authoritative claim of the party name occurs in Jefferson's letter of May 13, 1792, to Washington, in which he says: "The republican party, who wish to preserve the government in its present form, are fewer in number [than the monarchical federalists]. They are fewer even when joined by the two, three or half dozen anti-federalists, who, though they dare not avow it, are still opposed to any general government; but, being less so to a republican than to a monarchical one, they naturally join those whom they think pursuing the lesser evil." In this way Jefferson, who was already the extra-congressional leader of the new party, endeavored to account for his anti-federalist support by making the controversy out to be between republicanism and monarchy or aristocracy, between government by the people and government of the people. In one sense Jefferson's charge against the federalists was true, and as true in kind, though not in degree, against his own party as against the federalists. In both parties the abler leaders assumed the direct initiative in party management to an extent which would be intolerable, if openly asserted, at the present time; and the mass of the people, separated by distance, by slow and tedious communication, and by lack of national feeling, were content to exercise a power of revision, not of inception, in politics. In effect, "the people," in the broad sense which universal suffrage and nominating conventions have made familiar to us, was no original power in American politics until after 1820. We may, however, take Jefferson's charge in another sense, as implying that his party was more in unison with the feelings and prejudices of the people, and hence was a more popular party than the federalists. In this sense he was right; from 1790 until his death there was probably hardly a day, with the exception of the year 1798, when Jefferson was not supported by a real majority of the American people. (But see SUFFRAGE.) —Before the close of the year 1792 we must regard the republican party as fairly formed. Its general basis was a dislike to the control exercised by any government not directly affected by the vote of the citizen on whom the laws operated; a disposition to regard the federal government, which could only indirectly and slowly be reached by dissatisfied citizens, as possibly a second avatar of royalty; and an opposition to the federalist, or Hamiltonian, measures of a national bank, a national excise, a protective tariff, a funding system for the debt, and to all measures in general tending to benefit the commercial or creditor classes. But all these were local and temporary phases of opposition, from which circumstances might at any moment convert any or all the opposition; Jefferson and Madison alone labored assiduously to establish the doctrine of a strict construction of the constitution as a more permanent and reliable basis of party organization. —II.: 1793-1801. Washington's proclamation of neutrality between France and her enemies (see GENET, CITIZEN) had two important results in politics. It intensified the feeling of the republicans that they were the only anti-monarchical party in America, and that the federalists, under whose influence Washington was supposed to be acting, were by nature and practice enemies of a republic, either in America or in France, of the people, and of liberty and the rights of man; and it thus obscured for the time the newly established basis of political difference. But it also brought to the surface a class of small politicians, more French than American, who undertook to ride into power solely by means of the wave of popular enthusiasm for the new French republic, and without any reference whatever to American constitutional questions. For these the name of republican was too tame. They assumed the name of democrat, and modeled their organization upon that of the Jacobin clubs of Paris, from which, indeed, the Charleston democrats claimed and received recognition as an affiliated branch. The democratic clubs, assuming the right to speak for the people, began at once the familiar Jacobin process of branding every opponent and every indifferent spectator of events as an open or concealed enemy of "the people," and of elevating the whims and passions of associations of private citizens, disguised under the name of a devotion to liberty, to a rank higher than constitution or laws. To federalists, whose theory had always been the supremacy of law, even in the hours of the revolution, the political antics of the democratic clubs, their contempt for the constituted authorities, their fraternal banquets, their adoption of the modest French title of "citizen," their eccentricities in dress and manners, seemed rather horrible than ludicrous, and their mildest emotion, contempt, is well marked by Griswold's story of Mrs. Washington, who, finding a trace of dirt upon her wall after a reception, cried out angrily, "It was no federalist: none but a filthy democrat would mark a place on the wall with his good-for-nothing head in that manner." Nor did the original republicans feel much more real sympathy for the newly evolved democrats; they accepted them as allies, as they had accepted the professed anti-federalists, but were careful to mark the distinction between the republicans, who opposed Hamilton mainly because of his commercial and nationalizing tendencies, and the democrats, who opposed him solely for love of France and of their vague idea of liberty. But the condescension of the republicans was without reason; the democratic faction brought with it that enthusiasm, that personal acquaintance with the prejudices of the people, and that tendency toward political intercourse with the people, which finally made the republican theory the basis of a great and successful party. Jefferson and Madison did the thinking and theorizing; Bache, Callender, Freneau and other democratic leaders translated the theory into popular language. —The second presidential election (1792) can hardly be considered as a test of party strength. In 1789, as well as in 1792, Washington had been unanimously elected president. In 1789 John Adams, the federalist representative, had been chosen vice-president by the votes of New England and Pennsylvania, and part of Virginia's vote (see ELECTORAL VOTES); in 1792 the votes of Vermont and Rhode Island, which states then first took part in the election, and of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina, were added to the federalist column. From this time almost every political influence (see FEDERAL PARTY, I.) was enlisted in favor of the republicans. When the 3rd congress was organized in 1793, their candidate for speaker of the house was elected by a majority of 10 votes, and this initial success, and the temporary reverse which followed it, tended strongly to weld the democrats and republicans into one party, whose formal name was compounded as the democratic-republican party. This tendency was assisted by the disturbance in Pennsylvania in 1794. (See WHISKY INSURRECTION.) This outbreak was in reality only a symptomatic feature of the general lack of national feeling in the country at the time, brought to a head by border lawlessness and habitual freedom from restraint. The republicans, however, regarded it is an explosion designedly provoked by Hamilton in order to secure to himself and to his party the credit of suppressing it; and the democratic clubs looked upon it with a general complacency, as a spirited example of the proper assertion of individual liberty, menaced by an oppressive law. (See SECESSION.) Its suppression, Washington's indignant charge that it had been fomented by "self-created societies" inimical to the federal government, and still more the downfall of Robespierre and the original Jacobin club of Paris, made the democratic clubs unpopular and they soon disappeared. But their members, while subsiding into the mass of the republican party, colored its policy for the next few years with a strong French cast; and the federalists persisted in giving the name of democrat, as a term of contempt, equivalent to Jacobin or revolutionist, to every republican. —In the 4th congress, (1795-7), the senate was federalist. The house was doubtful, but though Dayton, an anti-British federalist, was chosen speaker, the doubtful vote generally inclined to the republican side. In the first session came the debate upon the appropriations necessary for fulfilling Jay's treaty, in which the republicans were defeated by a small majority. But the debate, and still more the course of discussion outside of congress, showed the difference between republican and democratic methods. The democrats attacked Washington personally with a virulence almost beyond quotation. (See JAY'S TREATY; WASHINGTON, GEORGE.) The republicans generally preserved a distinguished consideration for the president, while they evidently felt it to be a gross injustice that the sacred person of Washington should always be in their adversaries' end of the lists, and that they should always be compelled to reach around the president in order to attack federalist men and measures. Their feelings were thus fairly expressed nearly 40 years afterward, in 1830, by Edward Livingston, who had been a republican congressman from New York, 1795-1801: "As Washington was the head of the government, one of their [the federal party's] greatest objects was to cover all their proceedings with the popularity of his name, and to force the republican party either to approve all their measures, or, by opposing them, incur the odium of being unfriendly to the father of his country." This feeling was natural, and shows only that the time had passed when it was necessary for Washington to keep the political peace by interposing between the parties. Gross as were the attacks upon him, they came from Bache, Leib, Duane, and the other noisy and frequently silly leaders of the professed democrats; and it is creditable to the republicans proper that their opposition to Washington's administration was legitimate, that their public utterances were decorous and affectionate to the president personally, and that even in their private correspondence we can find nothing worse than an impatience for his approaching retirement from politics, and for a free and hand-to-hand struggle with the federal party. —The first disputed presidential election (1796) resulted in the election of John Adams as president and Thomas Jefferson as vice-president (see ELECTORS): but the result was eminently encouraging to the republicans. Adams was only elected by the whim of two southern electors (one in North Carolina and one in Virginia in voting for him as well as for Jefferson; the republicans otherwise had complete control of the south, excepting Maryland and Delaware, which were usually opposed to the larger neighboring state of Virginia, and they had gained Pennsylvania in the north. They had only to persevere in opposition, with the certainty of a swift advance in the other middle states. (See FEDERAL PARTY, I.) In this they were greatly assisted by the hostilities with France in 1798-9, which at first seemed fatal to all their prospects. The execution of the alien and sedition laws could hardly have been better calculated for increasing the republican and decreasing the federalist vote in the all-important middle states (see X. Y. Z. MISSION, ALIEN LAWS): and the general American indignation against France, together with the evident conversion of that country into a military dictatorship, closed the mouths even of the democrats, and forced the republicans back from their abnormal foreign dependence to their original theoretical position upon American constitutional questions. It was an opportune moment for the thinkers of the party, and Jefferson and Madison seized it to formulate the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions in 1798, whose spirit has always since been the basis of the party's existence. (But see CONSTRUCTION, III.) The spirit of the resolutions is, in brief, that the state governments are the foundation of the American political system; that their powers are unlimited, except by state constitutions and by the constitution of the United States; that the federal government, on the contrary, has no powers except those which are granted by the constitution; that, therefore, wherever there is a fair doubt as to the location of a power, the presumption must be that it is in the state, not in the federal government; that the powers of the federal government are to be construed strictly according to the terms of the grant in the constitution; that where the federal government assumes ungranted powers, its acts are unauthoriative and are to be opposed peaceably and lawfully by the legislative, executive and judicial machinery of the state governments, which the people have retained for that purpose (see also NULLIFICATION); and that as most of such assumptions of power are political in their nature, and beyond the purview of the supreme court, the proper remedy and safeguard is in frequent conventions of the states, such as formed the constitution, as its most authoritative exponent. The great political error of the resolutions, the denial of the power of the federal government to define the boundaries of its powers, was the inevitable result of the particularist tendency of the time, and has been constantly modified since by the gradual nationalization of the country and its parties. (See CONSTRUCTION, III.; KENTUCKY AND VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS; STATE SOVEREIGNTY.) —Aside from the general constitutional principles above enumerated, there were other republican characteristics arising partly from them, and partly from the nature or agricultural prejudices of the men who held them. The republicans were opposed to debt, to brilliant administrations and large expenditures of public moneys, and to a navy, which they commonly called "the great beast with the great belly," on account of its expense; they considered that government which was nearest to the citizen to be most worthy of his affection, and held every remove of government from popular control to be in some measure unrepublican and mischievous; they wished that the judiciary, as well as most other public servants, should be elective for short terms and easily removable by the people; they wished that "every man who would fight or pay" should vote, and that the suffrage should no longer be limited by any money or property qualification, as it then was in most of the states; they preferred direct to indirect taxes, as the surest means of compelling the citizen to watch the expenditures of government critically, and Jefferson even wished to deny to the government the power of borrowing money; and, in general, they believed that the country should rely most upon individual enterprise, far less upon the powers of the state governments, and least of all upon the federal government. —III.: 1801-25. Holding these principles, the republican party, in the election of 1800, at last gained the state of New York and the control of the government (see DISPUTED ELECTIONS, I.), which it retained for 24 years. Not only were the president and vice-president republicans; the 7th congress was for the first time completely republican, the senate 18 to 14, and the house 69 to 36. The judiciary was still federalist, but that department of the government also was gradually transferred to the dominant party. (See JUDICLARY.) Nor was the political revolution confined to the federal government; the first shock had shown how unsubstantial was the previous federalist control of the middle states, and had overthrown them as a party almost everywhere. Before the close of the year 1801 every state in the Union had a republican governor and legislature, excepting Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and of these Connecticut only was reliably firm in the federalist faith. So overwhelming was the sudden republican success that in several states divisions began to appear in their ranks. In New York the Livingstons and Clintons united against Burr and drove him and his adherents out of the regular party fold. (See BURR, AARON.) In Pennsylvania and Virginia radical and conservative republicans began to make their appearance, the main object of the former being to limit the terms of office of the judiciary, an object which seems quite legitimate now, but in 1801-5 was considered revolutionary in the highest degree. The federalists, however, were unable to reap any party advantage from these republican dissensions, and before the close of Jefferson's first term they even lost, for the time, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. —The great event of Jefferson's first term, was his acquisition of Louisiana. (See ANNEXATIONS, I.) For this acquisition of foreign soil no warrant can be found in a strict construction of the constitution, but Jefferson's excuse seems to have lain in the ultra-democratic idea of the power of the people to temporarily override even the organic law in a case of extreme necessity. His action was certainly ratified by almost universal popular approval, and, together with the reduction of governmental expenses, the steady payment of the public debt, and the great prosperity of the country, insured him a re-election in 1804. The only electoral votes against him were those of Connecticut and Delaware, with two from Maryland. —Jefferson's second term was by no means so brilliant. The party's determination to pay the national debt rapidly led to a systematic refusal to put the country into any posture of defense against the attacks upon its commerce by Great Britain. (See EMBARGO, II.) In 1803-4 the party adopted as its policy the building of small gunboats for coast defense, as a substitute for the more costly navy which was absolutely essential for the protection of American commerce all over the world (see GUNBOAT SYSTEM), it thus deliberately committed itself to the dogma, on which it had always acted in reality, that ocean commerce deserved, and should receive, no protection at the hands of agricultural representatives; and from this point it advanced, when commerce grew louder in its complaints, to a command, by act of congress, that American commerce should quit the ocean altogether, and thus relieve the dominant party from anxiety or responsibility on its account. (See EMBARGO, III.) A more false and foolish policy could hardly have been devised. It was the very error which had overthrown the federal party in 1800, contempt for the interest of the middle states, and it would have also overthrown the republican party in 1812 but for the growth of the western or agricultural portions of those states, which saved Pennsylvania to the party and elected Madison in 1812. (See FEDERAL PARTY, II.) —During all the period from 1800 until 1812 the republican party showed a constant disposition to exercise powers of the federal government which it had denied while the government was under federalist control. Its acquisition of Louisiana, its recognition of the legal existence of the national bank (see BANK CONTROVERSIES, II.), and its summary prohibition of American commerce, were all alike unwarranted by a strict construction of the constitution. Three distinct influences were at work in this direction. 1. The party's "strict construction" originally had a basis not visible on the surface. It had opposed the Hamiltonian broad construction mainly because this was designed for the benefit of a special interest, commerce, and where the supposed interests of agriculture were in question constitutional scruples ceased to apply. 2. It was impossible that all representatives from agricultural districts should be equally consistent in their adherence to strict construction; but the party name of federalist had by this time come to be almost entirely equivalent to commercial, and all members not devoted to that interest were compelled to accept the name of republican, no matter what their principles might be. The consequence was, particularly after a short experience of the embargo had shown its ruinous effects on agriculture as well as commerce, the growth within the republican party of an element which soon came to control the party, and which was prepared to assert the power of the federal government in national interests rather after the Hamiltonian than the Jeffersonian theory. Of this new element Henry Clay and Story (afterward justice of the supreme court) were representatives. 3. Above all, 20 years' experience of the practical workings of the constitution had raised the political standard of the country at large many degrees toward nationalization, as would be most plainly shown by a comparison of the management of the war of 1812 with that of the revolution; and the republican change of practice only reflected, as a popular party must, the altered feelings of the people. (See CONSTRUCTION, III.) —During this period Randolph, of Virginia, and a small section of personal adherents, commonly called "quids," abandoned the dominant party. (See RANDOLPH, JOHN.) Their revolt, however, was rather against the "Virginia influence" (see VIRGINIA), which controlled the party, than against the party's principles. Their design was mainly to prevent Jefferson from securing the election of Madison as his successor, and for this purpose they at first endeavored to bring out Monroe, who was dissatisfied with his treatment while minister to England, by the administration, as a competitor for the nomination in 1808. In 1812 they were more successful in obtaining a leader in the person of De Witt Clinton, of New York, a state whose politicians had long felt a jealousy of the Virginia influence. His defeat, and the close of the war of 1812, finally brought them back again to the republican party. —The failure of the restrictive system in 1810 (see EMBARGO, III.) left the republicans at a complete loss: their most trusted weapon had broken in their hands. The meeting of congress in November, 1811, shows a remarkable change; the party, abandoning the Jeffersonian ground of peace at any price, had become a war party, under the lead of Peter B. Porter, of New York, Langdon Cheves, William Lowndes, and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, Henry Clay, of Kentucky, and Felix Grundy, of Tennessee, in the house; and William H. Crawford, of Georgia, in the senate. All these were comparatively new men, and but little in sympathy with Madison, who was averse to war; but Madison (see ELECTORS) was coerced into heading the reorganized party, and war was declared (see CONVENTION, HARTFORD), June 18, 1812. It can hardly be seriously asserted that the war was unnecessary; it had been necessary for at least six years, and the hundredth part of the provocation for it would now bring war within six weeks. The error of the republicans lay in the manner of its management; in their utter refusal, during the six years given them for preparation, to provide an adequate navy; in their obstinate attempt to carry the war into Canada; and in their endeavor, by relying upon loans almost exclusively, to use as a crutch the very commercial interest notoriously hostile to the war. The result was the temporary but almost entire downfall of the national credit, and a forced peace which secured none of the objects for which war was declared, and which was only partially covered by the smoke of brilliant sea-fights and of Jackson's victory at New Orleans. But the war, and the six years of restriction which preceded it, gave an impetus to the common feeling of nationality from New York to New Orleans (see UNITED STATES); and in politics, while it modified the dogma of strict construction, it insured to the republican party the future control of the government. At last Jefferson's prophecy of 1804, that "the federalists, eo nomine, are gone forever," was fulfilled. (See FEDERAL PARTY, II.) —The force of the republican party, strongest while confined, visibly decreased as it spread over a larger surface. In 1816 it established a new national bank, modeled closely after Hamilton's (see BANK CONTROVERSIES III.); and in the same year imposed a slight protective duty upon woolen and cotton goods. This last measure was entirely opposed to the strict construction of the constitution, which holds that congress has power to lay tariffs only to "pay the debts" of the United States, and "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" of the United States, and that any departure from this principle, for the benefit of a particular interest, is beyond the powers of congress. But manufactures and manufacturers had now grown to be a power, though as yet a small one; they had given the coup de grace to federalism in New England; they had grown upon the republican restrictive system; and they now looked to the republican party for its continuance. In 1819-20 the house passed a more protective tariff, which the senate rejected, and in 1824 a still more pronouncedly protective tariff became law. —Only Massachusetts, Connecticut and Delaware had voted against Monroe and Tompkins in 1816; in 1820 (see ELECTORAL VOTES) they also at last yielded and became nominally republican states. A few inveterate federalists still denounced the republican party as managed by "John Holmes [a congressman from Maine], Felix Grundy, and the devil"; the majority declared themselves satisfied with the "Washington-Monroe policy," professed themselves "federal-republicans," and proclaimed an "era of good feeling." Of course this was only a surrender at discretion, not a conversion. Differences in human nature, which are at the root of party differences, are not so easily eradicated; and it soon appeared that the white flag had been raised with unnecessary haste, and that the all-powerful republican party contained the elements of a new party which was to be more broad constructionist than the federal party itself. —In 1819-20 occurred two events for which the dominant party was responsible. One, the acquisition of Florida, was the necessary sequence to the purchase of Louisiana. (See ANNEXATIONS, II.) The other, the admission of Missouri as a slave state (see COMPROMISES, IV.), had a most important bearing on the party's history. 1. It proved that the dominant party was no homogeneous party at all, and that the "era of good feeling" was a sham; for the members from the two sections, north and south, differed on a fundamental constitutional question with an intensity which can only mark a party difference. 2. It was the first appearance of the error into which the strict construction party was finally entrapped—the half-way application of its doctrine of strict construction to the subject of slavery. In Missouri territory slavery was first localized by the very loosest possible construction of the constitution, which nowhere authorizes any such violation of man's natural rights as the establishment of slavery, under federal auspices, where it did not exist at the formation of the constitution; when once localized, the strictest possible construction of the constitution was applied to prevent congress from interfering with slavery in the state of Missouri. This reversible process of construction, begun by accident in the case of Louisiana territory, was applied with more design in the case of Missouri, and its success there encouraged its application to the territories of Arkansas and Florida, and the state of Texas, until its failure in the case of Kansas. 3. The compromise of the Missouri case committed the northern members of the strict construction party to the policy of ignoring the discussion of slavery, while it left the southern members free to spread slavery by loose construction, as above stated. In this way the former element of the party was forced for 40 years to cover the tracks of its southern associate until its refusal to do so longer split the party in 1860. In this respect the party's history only shows the danger arising from a failure to apply its basic principle consistently. —In 1824 the delusion of an era of good feeling broke to pieces. John Quincy Adams was chosen president. (See DISPUTED ELECTIONS, II.) His electoral vote was simply a repetition of the votes of the former federal party (see ELECTORAL VOTES), with the addition of a few scattering votes in new states, and the larger part of the always doubtful vote of New York. His inaugural address, in its emphatic approbation of a system of internal improvements, would alone have forced a strict construction opposition to him; and the fact seems to be that, while the peculiar circumstances of his election were the nominal ground, the real ground of the opposition to him lay in the principles of broad construction unhesitatingly avowed and ably supported by him. —IV.: 1825-50. The opposition to president Adams, ending in the election of Andrew Jackson as president in 1828, was the culmination of a change in the political condition of the United States which had been proceeding for many years, but most rapidly since 1810. In the older states suffrage had always been limited by property qualifications of varying amounts; in the newer states it was given to all white male citizens over 21. This change reacted upon the older states; Maryland in 1810, Connecticut in 1818, New York in 1821, and Massachusetts in 1822, either by amendments or by new constitutions, abolished their property qualifications, and in the few states which still retained them they were now only nominal in amount or in enforcement. The dam, through which this current of democracy had burst, was not so high, nor was the force of the current so strong, as to greatly endanger the electoral system, but it was sufficient in all but six states in 1824, and in every state but one in 1828, to take the choice of electors from the legislatures and to give it to the people (see ELECTORS), and it was sufficient also to make Andrew Jackson president. Benton's idea that the election of 1828 was solely a rebuke of the result of the election of 1824, is a politician's error; it does not account for the new men who swarmed into public life everywhere about that time, for the horrified disgust of the former leaders of both parties at Washington at the "millennium of the minnows," "the triumphant reign of king mob," or for the chasm which yawns between the political life of 1820 and that of 1829. The truth is, that in 1829 the people first assumed control of the governmental machinery which had been held in trust for there since 1789, and that the party and administration which then came into power was the first in our history which represented the people without restriction and with all the faults of the people. —Both parties claimed the name of republicans until after the election of 1828, the supporters of Adams being the "administration wing," and those of Jackson the "opposition." But the word "national" soon became a favorite addition to the titles of Adams newspapers, and passed thence to the official name of the Adams party (see WHIG PARTY, I.); while the opposition, after using for a time the name of "Jackson men." soon came to assert a special title to the name of democrat, though they still formally used the name of republican, but never with the addition of national. The new democratic party, when it elected Jackson, had but one controlling aim—the election of Jackson; to thus, political principles were subordinate. In its ranks were included protectionists, internal improvement men, supporters of the bank of the United States, and men of every shade and variety of political opinion. Jackson himself, before his election, had been in no sense opposed to protection, to internal improvements, or to the bank; but after his election his drift toward a strict construction of the constitution was hastened by the fact that all his national republican opponents, and particularly Clay, were broad constructionists, and by the inherited and natural tendencies of his southern supporters. Jackson's first and most urgent duty was to give tone and discipline to his party, and this he did with military precision. In the north the offices under control of the national appointing power were for the first time used as party instrumentalities, as they had been used for 30 years in New York (see VAN BUREN, MARTIN; ALBANY REGENCY; NEW YORK; CIVIL SERVICE), by the dismissal of opponents, and the appointment of supporters, of the administration. The new proscriptive system undoubtedly strengthened the party in the north, by attracting to it the interested services of local leaders, and, aided by the system of nominating conventions soon after introduced, it reacted upon opposing parties and compelled them to adopt it also; its evil effect, the evolution of a controlling class of small politicians, whose only trade is the production of party hatred, still waits for correction. In the south the extreme southern party had only supported Jackson because of the loss of their chosen leader, Crawford (see CRAWFORD, WM. H.), but a large part of it, headed by John C. Calhoun, the vice-president, still affected an independence which ill suited the discipline of party. or the temper of Jackson; he therefore broke off relations with Calhoun in 1830, broke up his cabinet in 1831 and removed the Calhoun members from it, and in 1832-3, when South Carolina undertook to make the doctrine of state sovereignty practical, he was able to apply so sudden and severe a pressure to the politicians of that state that they were very willing to retire from an untenable position under the cover afforded by the good nature of congress. (See NULLIFICATION.) For his success in this instance, however, he was much indebted to his popularity in other southern states, due particularly to his action in Indian affairs (see CHEROKEE CASE), which left South Carolina to face him alone. —The first message of Jackson, Dec. 8, 1829, took the strict construction ground, which has already been noticed, upon the subject of the tariff, that it should be regulated solely with a design, 1, to obtain revenue "to pay the debts of the United States," and 2, "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" by laying duties to retaliate upon nations which protect their own manufactures, or by laying duties to protect those manufactures which are essential in war. May 27, 1830, in his veto of the Maysville road bill, the president also took the strict construction view of the powers of congress as to internal improvements, holding that appropriations for that purpose, if confined to local or state improvements, were unconstitutional, and, if more general or national, were usually injurious and always to be cautiously attempted. In both these questions the theory of the party has always been in perfect harmony with Jackson's views, but its practice has very often been inconsistent because of the difficulty of controlling the interests or feelings of individual members. Of this we find in Jackson's own case too many instances for special mention. Throughout the whole of his first term he was compelled to make unprecedented use of the veto power to defeat bills for internal improvements passed by the national republicans with the assistance of a part of the democrats. (See VETO.) —Before the first half of Jackson's first term was over, he had brought order out of the party chaos, and had re-established the party on a basis of strict construction and in a state of strict discipline, with the exception of the impracticable nullificationists of the south, who remained in opposition for about 12 years. This process had not been completed without driving from the party many voters who were only "Jackson men," not strict constructionists; but, on the other hand, it attracted a larger number of former federalists who were not sufficiently loose constructionist to agree with the advanced doctrines of the whigs, or national republicans, and who, therefore, fell into the democratic party, just as many whigs did at the formation of the republican party in 1856. In May, 1832, the party held its first national convention, at Baltimore, indorsed the nomination to the presidency which several legislatures had offered to Jackson, and for the vice-presidency nominated Martin Van Buren, who had supplanted Calhoun in the confidence both of the president and the party. In the election of 1832 the democratic candidates were successful, receiving 219 of the 288 electoral votes. In 1828 they had carried the entire south (except Delaware and half of Maryland's vote), the entire west (Ohio, Indiana and Illinois), and Pennsylvania and half of New York's vote in the middle states. In 1832 they gained Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and the rest of New York's vote, and lost Kentucky, which thenceforth followed the fortunes of Clay and the whig party. (See ELECTORAL VOTES.) —As soon as the party had been restored to its legitimate political basis, it was inevitable that it should come into conflict with the bank of the United States, whose charter was to expire in 1836. It was doubly bound to oppose the re-charter of the bank: 1, as a strict construction party, it was compelled to take the views laid down by Jefferson in 1791 (see BANK CONTROVERSIES, II.); and 2, as a popular party, it necessarily held that the public servants of the United States must be human beings, open to impeachment and punishment in case of misbehavior, and that the creation of a private corporation to do the duties of public servants and to enjoy to its own profit and without interest the custody of the public funds, was wrong, unfair and unwise, even if it were lawful. The story of the struggle, which really began before 1832, and was a prominent feature in the presidential election of that year, is given elsewhere. (See BANK CONTROVERSIES, III.; DEPOSITS, REMOVAL OF.) It resulted in the downfall of the bank, and the transfer of the public funds to various banks, which had been established by state charters, and were selected by the secretary of the treasury. The influence of these "pet banks" had largely aided in making New York democratic in 1832, and was exerted to the same effect in 1836. —In May, 1835, the democratic convention met at Baltimore. It again adopted, and thus made a permanent rule of democratic conventions, the "two-thirds rule" (see NOMINATING CONVENTIONS), which made two-thirds of the votes necessary to a nomination. The pronounced favor of the president had made Martin Van Buren his destined successor, and had given him the control of the party machinery. Indeed, the extreme southern faction took no part in the convention, relying on the nomination of Hugh L. White for president, and John Tyler for vice-president (see those names) by southern legislatures. The convention nominated Van Buren for president unanimously, and R. M. Johnson for vice-president by 178 votes to 87 for Wm. C. Rives, of Virginia. No platform was adopted. In the election of 1836 Van Buren was elected by 170 votes out of 294. This year the democratic vote was increased by that of Rhode Island and Connecticut, but lost that of New Jersey. Georgia and Tennessee voted for White, and Virginia, by voting for Tyler, threw the election of the vice-president into the senate, where Johnson was chosen. (See DISPUTED ELECTIONS, III.) —So long as Jackson's strict construction had stopped with his war upon the bank, selfish interest and a desire to handle the public funds made the state banks, particularly those of New York, his ardent supporters; when he and his successor, Van Buren, proceeded to make the party a "hard money" party, as its strict construction principle dictated, he lost their support. The removal of the deposits, their transfer to the state or "pet" banks, and the "specie circular" (see BANK CONTROVERSIES, IV.), were the three steps which brought on the panic of 1837. But in spite of panic, suspension of specie payments, and a clamor for governmental relief from men of all parties, Van Buren maintained his party's political principles with a steadiness which makes his one term of the presidency altogether the brightest part of his varied career. He refused to countenance any federal interference with the course of business, threw all his official influence into an effort for the complete "divorce of bank and state," and, after a three years' struggle, accomplished it by the establishment of the subtreasury system, July 4, 1840. (See INDEPENDENT TREASURY.) This made the federal government the guardian of its own funds, relieved it from direct intercourse with any bank and from the need to give any bank the power to issue national paper money, and by consequence made gold and silver the only money recognized by the federal government. The democratic party, after a 12 years' novitiate, was thus at last a strict construction party in every mooted political question. Its national convention at Baltimore, May 5, 1840, was, therefore, for the first time, ready to formulate its party principles, which it did in a platform whose principal resolutions were as follows: "1. That the federal government is one of limited powers, derived solely from the constitution; and that the grants of power shown therein ought to be strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the government; and that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful constitutional powers. 2. That the constitution does not confer authority upon the federal government to commence or carry on a general system of internal improvement. 4. That justice and sound policy forbid the federal government to foster one branch of industry to the detriment of another, or to cherish the interest of one portion to the injury of another portion of our common country. * * 5. That it is the duty of every branch of the government to enforce and practice the most rigid economy in conducting our public affairs, and that no more revenue ought to be raised than is required to defray the necessary expenses of the government. 6. That congress has no power to charter a United States bank; that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best interests of the country, dangerous to our republican institutions and the liberties of the people, and calculated to lace the business of the country within the control of a concentrated money power, and above the laws and the will of the people, 8. That the separation of the moneys of the government from banking institutions is indispensable for the safety of the funds of the government and the rights of the people." The omitted portions refer chiefly to slavery, which is elsewhere considered. (See SLAVERY; DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, V.) On this platform Van Buren was unanimously re-nominated, and the selection of candidates for vice-president was left to the states, with the hope of throwing the election for that office into the democratic senate. —This platform was checkmated by the whigs with the "hard cider and log-cabin" campaign of 1840 (see WHIG PARTY, II), based, as the democrats indignantly alleged, on "noise, numbers and nonsense," with a studious ignoring of political principle, and an entire reliance on the military reputation of "Tippecanoe"—in fact, quite parallel to the original democratic campaigns of 1828 and 1832. A dexterous use of four years of panic gave the whigs the small percentage of increase necessary to carry most of even the states which had been reliably democratic since 1828. New Hampshire alone in New England, Virginia, South Carolina and Alabama in the south, and Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas in the west, were democratic; everything else was whig. This result of nominating a man who had been a real party leader fixed the democratic managers for the future to the policy of nominating subordinates, and made Polk, Pierce and Buchanan presidents. —About this time the whigs began to apply the name loco-foco to the whole democratic party. The original loco-focos were a faction of the New York city democracy, which originated in a dislike to the profuse creation of state banks in New York after the downfall of the United States bank; it was opposed to Tammany, and to the grant of special privileges to corporations by charter, and was in favor of a judiciary elected by the people, as the New York constitution of 1846 soon afterward provided. (See Loco-Foco, NEW YORK.) Van Buren's course while in office, which had arrayed all the state banks against him, brought the loco-focos back to their party; and the whigs hastened to mark their belief that the whole democratic party was now hostile to all banks, business interests and property, by thus making the name loco-foco general in its application. For the next five years, 1840-45, therefore, the whig publications carefully avoided the word democrat, and used loco-foco instead. —The congress which was elected in 1840, and met in 1841, was whig, but not by the two-thirds majority necessary to pass bills over the veto of Tyler, who had succeeded Harrison. It was therefore powerless to do anything further than to balk the president. The policy which the democratic leaders followed was to preserve an official neutrality between the whigs and the president, while individuals and unofficial assemblages of enthusiastic democrats all over the country fed Tyler with delusive hopes of a democratic nomination for the presidency in 1844. In this way the separation between the whigs and the president was made permanent (see TYLER, JOHN; WHIG PARTY, II.); the whig efforts to re-establish a national bank were frustrated (see BANK CONTROVERSIES, IV.); and upon the expiration of the compromise tariff of 1833 (see NULLIFICATION), the whig majority. after ineffectual attempts to pass a protective tariff, with a clause for the distribution of surplus revenue among the states (see INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS), was forced to pass the tariff act of Aug. 30, 1842, which was sufficiently free from the principle of protection as to apparently satisfy the democrats and to do service as a party cry in the next campaign. The first half of Tyler's administration is one of the most singular episodes in the democratic party's history; beaten, to all appearance, overwhelmingly at the polls in 1840, it yet shaped all important legislation for the next two years to its own liking. —The party's success was not confined to its action as a minority in congress, backed by the president; it found abundant encouragement in the state and congressional elections of 1841-3. Returning prosperity had destroyed the usefulness of the panic as a political factor, and all the states which had been democratic after 1827, but which had voted for Harrison by small majorities in 1840, now reversed their vote; even the states of Maryland, Connecticut and Louisiana, usually whig, now elected democratic state governments. When congress met in 1843 the senate was still whig by a small majority, but the house was democratic by more than a two-thirds vote, and a democratic speaker was chosen with out difficulty. This result, in the branch of congress which was fresh from the people, presaged the election of a democratic president in 1844, according to the singularly close coincidence, from 1800 until 1876, between a party's success in electing the speaker of the even numbered congresses and its success in the closely following presidential election. Every sign in the political sky pointed to the early and secure possession of power by the democratic party; and it is beyond expression discreditable to the political acuteness of southern leaders, to the tempers of their constituents, or to both, that they should have seized this very time to force their party into a false and fatal position upon the question of the extension of slavery. If they desired to preserve slavery in the south against the growing abolitionist feeling in the north, every axiom of the economy of politics called upon them to insist upon strict construction to the full, to intrench slavery within state limits, and to trust the natural conservatism of the American people for the maintenance of constitutional boundaries. They chose, instead, to extend slavery by loose construction and then to defend the acquisition by strict construction; an error parallel with that which led to Gettysburg and the downfall of the confederacy—the unwise assumption of the offensive by the naturally defensive party. (See SLAVERY.) —Since 1830 Calhoun and his little faction of Adullamites had generally been in opposition, uniting with the whigs at one time to oppose and censure Jackson, and again to oppose Van Buren. Their democracy was entirely subsidiary to the maintenance of the sectional rank of the south and to the defense of slavery. In attaining these objects they preferred, if possible, to follow the path of strict construction, but were always willing to take loose construction where strict construction was unavailable. Before his nomination to the vice-presidency by the whigs, Tyler had always belonged to the Calhoun faction (see TYLER, JOHN), and as he became further separated from the whig party he began to draw upon the Calhoun faction for members of his cabinet. In March, 1844, Calhoun himself became secretary of state. (See ADMINISTRATIONS.) The great object of the Calhoun faction, an object to which the northern wing of the democratic party was profoundly indifferent, and in support of which the legitimate southern wing had hitherto been by no means united, was the annexation of Texas (for its history see ANNEXATIONS. III.); and in 1844, after a skillfully managed struggle of 16 months, the Calhoun faction, using the Tyler administration as a stepping stone, got control of the national democratic organization and through it committed the party to Texas annexation. The methods of this success are by no means clear, for we have only meagre data of the composition of the convention, or of the authority and instructions of its delegates. It is certain that a majority of the delegates were pledged to vote for Van Buren, and consequently against annexation. Benton and the Van Buren leaders alleged that the Calhoun clique, by months of intrigue, induced a sufficient number of Van Buren delegates to join the annexationists in voting a continuance of the two-thirds rule, for the surreptitious purpose of defeating Van Buren and fanning "the firebrand cast into the party by the mongrel administration at Washington"; the annexationists, on the other hand, asserted that the apparent Van Buren majority was of no real value; that the Van Buren delegates, particularly from the north, were not chosen by the people, but by small state conventions of self-appointed political managers; and that the whole New York delegation, for example, represented but 9,000 democratic voters. Both sides were probably correct: there is nothing at all improbable or unfamiliar in either version. The important result in this connection, however, was convention action which ultimately placed in jeopardy the basic principles of the party, and whose effects the country, as well as the party, has never, for a moment since, ceased to feel. —The national convention met at Baltimore, May 27, 1844, and the first step in its three days' session was to adopt the two-thirds rule by a vote of 148 to 118, the minority being Van Buren's real friends. On the first ballot, by force of instructions, Van Buren had 146 out of 262 votes, a majority, but not two-thirds. Thence he fell and Lewis Cass rose until, on the eighth ballot, Van Buren had 104 votes, Cass 114, and James K. Polk, whose name then first appeared, 44. On the ninth ballot Polk received 233 out of 264 votes and was nominated. Van Buren's close political friend, Silas Wright (see ALBANY REGENCY), was nominated for the vice-presidency, in spite of Tyler's living example. He declined, and George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, was substituted. The strict construction platform of 1840 was re adopted, with two additional resolutions against the distribution of the proceeds of land sales among the states (see INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS), and against any attacks on the veto power (see VETO); and a final resolution asserted the title of the United States to the whole of Oregon, and closed as follows: "That the re-occupation of Oregon, and the re-annexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period, are great American measures which this convention recommends to the cordial support of the democracy of the Union." However cleverly disguised, it is apparent that the annexation of Texas, for which the constitution afforded no warrant whatever, could only be masquerading in a strict construction platform. —In the presidential election of 1844 the democratic candidates were elected, and the congress which met in 1845 was democratic in both branches. Polk and Dallas, however, had only a small plurality of the popular vote, and a majority of the electoral votes was only obtained by the action of the abolitionists, or liberty party (see ABOLITION, II.), in withholding from Clay so many votes as to give Polk the vote of New York and Michigan and his election. The vote of Pennsylvania also was obtained by a sacrifice of party principle; for party benefit in that state, Polk avowed himself a free-trader with a leaning toward protection, and Pennsylvania was carried by the cry "Polk, Dallas, and the [semi-protective] tariff of 1842." The new departure of the party had apparently been very little to its real advantage from the first. —Texas was immediately made a state (see ANNEXATIONS, III.), and, this accomplished, the party leaders reverted to strict construction, of which Polk's messages, barring always the Texas question, are models. The first report of the new secretary of the treasury, Dec. 3, 1845, recommended a tariff for revenue only, and this recommendation was adopted to the full by the tariff act of July 30, 1846, which, with the exception of a further reduction of duties in 1857, remained in force until 1861. The sub-treasury was re-established Aug. 6, 1846. (See INDEPENDENT TREASURY.) The passage of internal improvement bills gave the president an opportunity for veto messages, Aug. 3, 1846, and Dec. 15, 1847, which form a complete digest of his party's theory and precedents on this question. The remainder of Polk's administration was occupied in the settlement of the Oregon question, the prosecution of the war with Mexico (see UNITED STATES), and the opening skirmishes over the disposition of the territory acquired from that country by the treaty of peace. (See ANNEXATIONS, IV.) In these, Texas was again, and more emphatically, a fire brand for the party. The northern democrats generally supported the Wilmot proviso, which excluded slavery from the new territory (see WILMOT PROVISO); the southern democrats were at first content with voting against the proviso, but its persistent renewal soon began to increase the number of southern converts to the doctrine which Calhoun had for some time advanced, and which the whole southern democracy adopted in 1857, that the constitution protected slavery in all the territories, and that congress could not interfere with slavery there. (See SLAVERY.) This sectional division in the party gave little promise of success in 1848, and the large whig majority in the house in December 1847, added to the doubtfulness of the prospect—The democratic national convention met in Baltimore May 22, 1848. Lewis Cass was nominated for the presidency on the fourth ballot by 179 votes to 38 for Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, and 33 for James Buchanan. For the vice-presidency William O. Butler was nominated on the third ballot. The convention renewed the platform of 1840, adding to it 14 long resolutions which gave it no additional strength; they are a mere political pamphlet, and do not need to be here given. Yancey, of Alabama, offered an additional resolution that congress had no more power to interfere with slavery in the territories than in the states, but this was voted down, 216 to 36. Two delegations were present from New York, the barnburners and the hunkers, the former being Van Buren's friends, hitherto the "regular" and controlling managers of the state democracy, and the latter the new faction supported by the Polk administration. The convention admitted both, dividing the vote of the state between them, whereupon both withdrew. —The presidential election of 1848 resulted in the defeat of the democratic candidates. This defeat was entirely due to political management; it must not be attributed to the free soil vote alone, or to the slavery question, which was just on the verge of becoming, but had not yet quite become, the leading question of American politics. The party leaders had simply reckoned ill in leaving out of their calculations Van Buren, who was fighting for political existence in his state. The conscientious free soilers, out of New York, who would not in any event have voted for either Cass or Taylor, injured the whig party most, for their vote gave Cass and Butler pluralities in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin; the political free soilers (see BARNBURNERS, FREE SOIL PARTY) in New York, who had originally nominated Van Buren for president, and John A. Dix for governor, polled 120,510 votes in the state, against 114,318 for Cass, and 218, 603 for Taylor, and thus inflicted upon the democratic party the fatal loss of New York. A union of the two factions, as in 1852, would have given the 36 votes of the state and the election to Cass by an exact reversal of the electoral votes for himself and his opponents. The legitimate strength of parties was better shown at the same election in the choice of the house which met in 1849, where the democrats had a slight plurality, the free soilers holding the balance of power. The senate was democratic by nearly a two-thirds vote. —V.: 1850-60. The compromise of 1850, as afterward interpreted by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, marks the point where the democratic party plainly began to swerve from its historic line of development. (See COMPROMISES, V.; KANSAS - NEBRASKA BILL.) That compromise, it is true, was only the fore-ordained sequence to the annexation of Texas; the territories, Utah, New Mexico and California, had been obtained by loose construction, and now strict construction, the denial at first of the advisability of congressional interference, and then of the power of congress to exclude slavery from them, was to be applied to defend the acquisition. But the cardinal canon of the democratic party (see also WHIG PARTY) had always been to ignore in politics, as far as possible, the existence of slavery. The most influential portion of the agricultural northern democracy was, indeed, in 1844, distinctly, but not aggressively, anti-slavery, determined to restrain slavery within its state limits, but equally determined not to pursue it inside of those limits. In September, 1843, the party's national organ. "The Democratic Review," did not fear to speak as follows: "Of black slavery we have little to say here and now. God forbid that that little should be in its justification. We deplore the existence of so extraordinary an anomaly in a country of absolute freedom in most respects, while we wait with patience the workings of an over ruling Providence in behalf of our black brethren." And even so late as 1848 the Ohio democratic state convention declared that it "looked upon the institution of slavery in any part of the Union as an evil, and unfavorable to the full development of the spirit and practical benefits of free institutions;" and that it felt it to be a duty "to use all the power clearly given by the national compact to prevent its increase, to mitigate and finally to eradicate the evil." Until the culmination of the Texas annexation policy it would be safe to say that the national democratic party was composed of a northern agricultural element which was generally unfriendly to slavery, a northern urban and commercial element which was generally indifferent on the subject, and a southern agricultural element which was distinctly pro-slavery; and that the three elements had united into a national party because of their accord on every subject excepting slavery, which they did not regard as a necessary or proper question for political discussion or action. But the success of the southern wing in 1844 broke this tacit compact, by bringing into the political arena a vast extent of new territory whose status as to slavery could not be settled without a political struggle. The consequent discussion of slavery, while it alienated the democratic anti-slavery element, compelled the party more and more to abandon its traditional policy, to appear as the half-avowed supporter of slavery extension, and thus ultimately to force the formation of a party of slavery restriction—which meant war, unless one section of the union should change its temper or its labor system. —Before this last result could be reached, the new policy was to have a most destructive effect upon the rationate of the party. Hitherto the great strength of the democratic party had been its agricultural element; its most widely trusted leaders, from Jefferson, Macon and Gerry down to Jackson and Silas Wright, had been engaged in agriculture; and its general supremacy in agricultural states had only occasionally been disputed through the desire for protection for special interests, such as flax and wool. But in the new prominence which the party's mistake in 1844 had led it to give to slavery over its real principles only one agricultural section, the south, had any friendly interest; and the history of these 10 years is only a list of defections of northern agricultural states from the party, beginning with Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa in 1856, and ending with the stampede of the entire west in 1860. This last loss has never since been fully recovered. —The consequences of the compromise of 1850 were not at first apparent, and the general belief that the spirit of slavery discussion had been exorcised from politics carried the party triumphantly through the year 1852. The Taylor-Fillmore administration ended with an almost two-thirds democratic majority in both branches of congress. June 1, 1852, the national convention met at Baltimore, and on the forty-ninth ballot nominated Franklin Pierce for president. The vote on the first ballot was: Cass, 116; Buchanan, 93; Douglas, 20; Marcy, 27, and 27 scattering. Buchanan rose to 104 votes on the twenty-second ballot, Douglas to 92 on the thirtieth; Cass to 131 on the thirty-fifth; Marcy to 97 on the forty-fifth; and Pierce, whose name was introduced on the thirty-fifth ballot, rose from 55 to 282 votes on the last two ballots. For vice-president Wm. R. King was nominated unanimously on the second ballot. The platform added a long number of resolutions to that of 1840, the only important additions being one against abridging the privilege of naturalization (see AMERICAN PARTY), another indorsing the compromise of 1850, and another which attempted to hush the slavery question again as follows: "That the democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing, in congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made." In the presidential election of 1852 the democratic candidates were successful by a small popular, and an overwhelming electoral, majority. Only Massachusetts and Vermont in the north, and Kentucky and Tennessee in the south, voted against pierce and King, and none of these by more than 3,000 majority. In the south the other states, which had been hitherto usually or always whig, Mary-land, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, were now permanently democratic; even Delaware, for the first time in her history, with the dubious exception of 1820, chose democratic electors. The promptness with which a majority of the southern voters recognized and accepted the democratic doctrine of strict construction as the only present means by which to defend slavery in the Mexican acquisition, brought pro-slavery southern whigs by thousands into the democratic party, and made it progressively more pro-slavery in that section; while in the north the prevailing belief that the compromise of 1850 was intended only to ignore the slavery question in the new territories, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, to stop slavery discussion, and to restore the party's old economic principles to their paramount place in politics, retained and even increased the democratic vote. The seeds of the disruption of 1860 were thus planted in the opposite views with which the two sections of the party won the overwhelming victory of 1852. —The mistaken policy of 1844 still held the party in its grip, and its inevitable but unforeseen consequences began to unfold more rapidly. If a strict construction of the constitution required that the status of slavery in the new territories should be decided by the people of those territories, and not by congress (see POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY), surely this principle was equally applicable to all the territories, and the action of congress in 1820 in forever excluding slavery from the territories north of the Missouri compromise line (see COMPROMISES, IV.) was unconstitutional and void. The immediate consequence was, that the territories north of the Missouri compromise line, which were organized in 1854, were organized with the proviso that all questions pertaining to slavery therein were to be left to the decision of the people residing in them. (See KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL.) But this was no quieting of the slavery question, no return to economic principles; it was only the evident precursor of a still greater prominence to the slavery question in the future. The consequent dissatisfaction began to show most plainly in the congressional elections of 1854 in the northern agricultural states, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. In 1850 these states had chosen 55 democratic representatives to 33 opposition; in 1852, 61 democrats to 28 opposition; in 1854, 17 democrats to 72 opposition. Not one of these states had cast an anti-democratic electoral vote since 1840, with the exceptions of Ohio in 1844, Pennsylvania in 1848, and New Jersey in 1844 and 1848. In New York the party had also been completely wrecked, but its misfortune there was inextricably complicated with internal democratic dissensions. The southern representatives were unanimous on the great question, 52 being democrats and 37 pro-slavery whigs or know nothings. The party was evidently making up its northern defections by southern whig accessions; and their influence upon the party is further marked by a revival of the question of internal improvements. (See CONSTRUCTION, III.) A bill for that object was passed in 1855, but vetoed by the president. —June 2, 1856, the national convention met at Cincinnati. On the first ballot Buchanan had 135 votes, Pierce 122, Douglas 33, and Cass 5 Cass' vote did not change materially, but Pierce's vote fell and those of Buchanan and Douglas rose, until, on the sixteenth ballot, Buchanan had 168 votes, Douglas 121, and Cass 6. On the next ballot Buchanan was unanimously nominated for the presidency Breckinridge was unanimously nominated for the vice-presidency on the second ballot. The platform was a renewal of that of 1852, which included the original platform of 1840, with additional resolutions approving the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and the principle of popular sovereignty, and condemning the know nothing movement. (See AMERICAN PARTY.) In the presidential election the democratic candidates were successful, but the vote was of evil omen for the party. The cloud in the west had grown larger and more threatening. In that section only Illinois and Indiana were now democratic, the former by a plurality of 9,000 and the latter by a meagre majority of 2,000; and these states, with California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the entire south, made up the democratic electoral vote. Nor were the congressional elections much more cheering. In both branches congress was democratic; but the majority in the house was only attained by the almost complete unification of the 96 southern votes, and by an increase from 6 to 15 in the democratic representation from Pennsylvania. In the other states specified under the immediately preceding elections there was no sign of a return to the party; indeed, five of them now sent unanimous anti-democratic representations. —If the slavery question could now have been intermitted, and if the party could have reverted to its foundation principles, its agricultural losses might possibly have been regained; but it had now entered the rapids, and the falls were not far below. At the opening of Buchanan's administration, in March, 1857, the struggle between free state and slave state settlers for the possession of Kansas had gone far enough to show that the northern democratic idea of popular sovereignty in the territories was of no use to the south in view of the superior northern power in immigration, and the whole body of southern democrats soon swerved off to the extremely loose construction ground, formerly held by Calhoun. that slaves were recognized as property in the constitution, and that congress was bound to protect property in slaves in the territories, even against the wish of a majority of their people. This construction, though indorsed by the decision of the supreme court in the Dred Scott case, was evidently one which would be extremely distasteful to the northern democrats, and which, if made a party tenet, would still further reduce the northern democratic vote. The northern section of the party had acquiesced in Texas annexation in 1844, in the fugitive slave law and the abandonment of the Wilmot proviso in 1850, and in the application of popular sovereignty to all the territories in 1854; but it was not to be expected that in 1857 it should confess its own dogma of popular sovereignty in the territories to be worthless, and preach the direct opposite. Accordingly we find Douglas and a part of the already small northern democratic representation in congress in opposition to the administration on this single question. Their scission took the form of opposition to the admission of Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution in 1858 (see KANSAS), and they were therefore known as "Anti-Lecompton democrats"; but the real line of demarcation lay further down and was to widen into a complete division in 1860. In the senate Douglas was almost the only anti-Lecompton democrat, and in this body Jefferson Davis, Feb. 2, 1860, introduced a series of seven resolutions, which were debated until May 24, and then passed. Of these the most important was the fourth, which declared that neither congress nor a territorial legislature had power, directly or indirectly, to impair the right to hold slaves in the territories. The vote on this resolution was 35 to 21; 28 of the majority from the south, and 7 northern democrats; 20 of the minority republicans, and 1 northern democrat. The introduction of these resolutions seems to have been intended as the ultimatum of the southern wing to the democratic party's national convention. —The national convention met April 23, 1860, at Charleston, S. C., and on the next day elected Caleb Cushing president and appointed a platform committee of one from each state. It was also agreed that no ballot should be taken for candidates until the platform should be agreed upon. April 27, three platforms were reported by portions of the committee, one, which may be called the southern platform, by 17 members; another, the Douglas platform, by 13 members (representing all the free states but California, Oregon and Massachusetts); and another, the Butler platform, by one member, B. F. Butler, of Massachusetts. As finally modified in debate, the southern platform contained seven, and the Douglas platform six, resolutions. The 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Douglas resolutions were the 6th, 7th, 4th and 5th of the southern resolutions, and included promise of protection to citizens at home and abroad (see BROWN, JOHN), approval of a Pacific railroad and the acquisition of Cuba, and condemnation of any attempt to defeat the execution of the fugitive slave law. (See PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS.) The first three southern resolutions were, in brief: 1, That slavery in a territory could not be prohibited by congress or by a territorial legislature; 2, that the federal government was bound to protect slave owners in their property in slaves in the territories; and 3, that the right of the people to decide the question of slavery could only accrue when the territory became a state: while the first two Douglas resolutions declared, 1, that the democratic doctrines of past years were "unchangeable," but 2, "that the democratic party will abide by the decisions of the supreme court of the United States on the questions of constitutional law." The issue between the northern and southern democracy could hardly be more comprehensible or more cleanly cut. The southern delegates were no longer democratic; they were pro-slavery. The northern delegates, while not yielding their popular sovereignty principle in terms, would yield to the Dred Scott decision. But this was not acceptable to southern delegates; they wished to bind the party to the Dred Scott principle for all time to come, no matter how the composition of the supreme court might be affected by any future successes of the republican party. —The Butler proposition, to simply re-affirm the platform of 1856, was voted down, April 30, by 198 to 105. The Douglas platform was then adopted by a vote of 165 to 138. The majority was a free state vote with a few scattering votes from the border states. The minority was the slave state vote, with California, Oregon, a majority of Pennsylvania, and a minority of Massachusetts and New Jersey. The vote was followed, on this and the following day, by the formal withdrawal of the delegates from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Georgia, and two delegates from Delaware; all these delegates united in a separate convention. The original convention then adopted the two-thirds rule, and proceeded to ballot. On the first ballot the vote stood: Douglas, 145½; R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, 42; James Guthrie, of Kentucky, 35; Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, 12; and 18 scattering. The question now lay mainly, therefore, between a northern or a border state candidate. On the 57th ballot, Douglas had 151½ votes, Guthrie, 65½, Hunter, 16, and 19 were scattering. The convention then adjourned, May 3 to meet again at Baltimore, June 18, recommending the various states to fill vacancies in the meantime. When the convention again met, June 18, its first business was to decide upon the claims of new delegates to admission. From some of the states whose delegates had withdrawn at Charleston contesting delegations were present, and the Douglas majority, by generally admitting Douglas delegations, particularly from Louisiana and Alabama, induced a further disruption of the convention, this time on the part of the border state delegates. The Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, California and Delaware delegations, with part of the Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and Massachusetts delegations, withdrew from the convention, and its president, Cushing, resigned. There were thus left in the convention but 17 border state votes, and 15 southern votes (Alabama and Louisiana). A new president was at once elected and balloting was renewed. On the 58th ballot (57 ballots having been taken at Charleston), Douglas had 173½ votes, Guthrie 10. Breckinridge 5, and 3 scattering; on the 59th ballot, Douglas had 181½, Breckinridge 7½, and Guthrie 5½. On neither ballot did Douglas have two-thirds of the original or full vote of the convention (303 votes), but the convention now resolved that, having two-thirds of its present strength, he was nominated. Benjamin Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, was nominated for the vice-presidency by 198½ votes to 1; and, as he declined the nomination, the national committee nominated Herschel V. Johnson. The convention finally adjourned June 22. —The seceders at Charleston had at once organized a separate convention, adopted the southern platform, and adjourned to meet in Richmond, June 11. In Richmond they continued to meet and adjourn without doing business until the 29th. In the meantime the seceders at Baltimore organized a separate convention, June 28, with Caleb Cushing, as president, and admitted the delegates whom the Douglas convention had excluded, including some of the delegates at Richmond. By unanimous votes on the first ballot in each instance, they adopted the southern platform, and nominated John C. Breckinridge for president and Joseph Lane for vice-president. Their action in every respect was ratified by the fragment of the Charleston seceders still in session at Richmond. Both bodies then adjourned, and the Charleston convention, in all its branches, was over. —The charge has been made, and supported by considerable concurrent testimony, that the withdrawals from the convention, at Charleston, if not at Baltimore, were part of a concerted design to split the party, insure the election of a republican president, and thus gain an excuse for secession. Such a design was very possibly active in the minds of some of the extreme southern faction, but the disruption itself was most certainly the natural outcome of the party's history for 16 years. The southern leaders had found their Mexican acquisition and their fundamental party principles too heavy a load to be carried together and had therefore discarded the latter; the northern leaders who had seen their party in the north growing weaker for eight years while assisting in slavery extension by strict construction, saw that they would be committing political suicide by following in the proposed new step of loose construction, and they therefore at last, and with an obstinacy born of personal peril, held back. The sectional division between the two factions may be seen by an analysis of the democratic popular vote in 1860. In the (afterward) seceding states, including Tennessee, the vote stood—Douglas 72,084, Breckinridge, 435,392; in the other border states, Douglas 91,441, Breckinridge 134,289; in the north, Douglas 1,211,632, Breckinridge 275,092—(213,205 of this credited to the two states of Pennsylvania and California). All the electoral votes of the slave states were cast for Breckinridge, except those of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, which were given to Bell (see CONSTITUTIONAL UNION PARTY), and those of Missouri, which were given to Douglas. With the exception of three votes in New Jersey, where a fusion ticket of electors was supported by all the anti-republican factions, and three Douglas electors were successful, no northern electoral votes were given to either of the democratic candidates. It would have been, therefore, impossible for the democratic party, even without the disruption of the Charleston convention, to have carried the election of 1860, for the adoption of the southern platform could not have made the southern vote more effective, and would certainly, even if accompanied by Douglas' nomination, have still further diminished the northern vote. (See REPUBLICAN PARTY.) —VI.: 1860-81. The situation of the democratic party, when the extra session of congress met in 1861 (see REBELLION), was peculiarly unfortunate. Founded on a strict construction of the constitution, and yet called upon to face a war in which, as it was not foreign but civil, the constitution and laws were certain to be strained to their utmost tension (see CONSTRUCTION, III.; WAR POWER), it could only be at fault in whatever direction it turned. In the midst of an enormous revolution of thought and feeling, it alone endeavored to stem the current and to apply to 1861 the precedents of 1850. In the measures which the dominant party held patriotic and necessary, the issues of paper money, the laws for the confiscation of rebel property and slaves and for drafts, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and the arbitrary arrests of suspected persons, it saw only partisan attempts to make party capital, or direct violations of law for the purpose of increasing party votes or of gratifying the spite of party leaders. The mass of the party was therefore arrayed, throughout the rebellion, against the methods by which the war was conducted; but there was a strong underlying sentiment in the party that the war itself was unnecessary, and that the troubles of the country could be most easily settled by a convention of the states. An active minority, chiefly in the border states and a few of the western states, was avowedly anxious for the success of the south; and their busy persistence, the general withdrawal of the war democrats from the party, and the repugnance of the great mass of democrats to the more violent war measures, enabled the dominant party to give the name of "copperheads" to the whole democratic party. —In the first congress of the war the democrats had in the senate but 10 out of 50 members, and in the house but 42 out of 178; in the next congress (1863-5) they had 9 out of 50 senators, and 75 out of 186 representatives. But in both congresses there were enough border state members (7 senators and 28 representatives in the first congress, and 5 senators and 9 representatives in the second), who generally acted with the democrats, to make them a very effective opposition. The political folly of secession may be partially estimated by considering the fact that only the voluntary absence of the 22 senators and 66 representatives of the seceding states gave the republicans a majority in either house at any time until the real close of the rebellion. In state elections the democrats were very steadily defeated; throughout the last two years of the war but two northern states, New Jersey and New York, had democratic governors. But the majorities in these elections, with such exceptions as that of Ohio in 1863, were usually not large; and it would be fair to say that the two parties maintained about their proportional vote from 1860 until 1864, the continued democratic loss of voters who fell off to the republican party, through a desire for a vigorous prosecution of the war, being balanced by democratic accessions of republicans who were estranged by the gradual adoption of anti-slavery measures and attracted by the democratic opposition to them. (See ABOLITION, III.; SLAVERY.) —The national convention had been called to meet July 4, 1864, at Chicago, but in June its meeting was postponed to Aug. 29. The selection of a western city as the meeting place, just at this time, was undoubtedly a great mistake, for the western democrats had been intensely excited in May, 1863, by the arrest and military conviction of C. L. Vallandigham, one of their leaders in Ohio, for attacking the management of the war in his public speeches. The influences which surrounded the convention from its first gathering by no means tended to calm deliberation, and their result was seen in the platform adopted, whose wording was almost equally brilliant, bitter and fatal. For the first time in 24 years the platform of 1840, the basis of the party's legitimate existence, was dropped; and the platform of 1864 makes no mention of any economic principle on which the party proposed to manage the government, if successful. It consisted of six resolutions, all but one of which, the last, attacked the management of the war. The single exception expressed the sympathy of the party for the volunteers in the field. The others, 1, stated the party's adherence to the Union under the constitution; 2, demanded a cessation of hostilities, and denounced the administration for, 3, interfering with military force in elections, 4, suspending the writ of habeas corpus in states not in insurrection, and 5, refusing to exchange prisoners. The most important, the second, is as follows, in full: "That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that, after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity of a war power higher than the constitution, the constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of all the states, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the federal union of the states." The platform, therefore, made every issue on which the party had ever succeeded, or could ever hope to succeed, subordinate to an issue on which it had very faint hopes of success—a mistake which has been frequently repeated since. On the second ballot Geo. B. McClellan was nominated for president by 202½ votes to 23½ for Thos. H. Seymour, of Connecticut; and for vice-president Geo. H. Pendleton was unanimously nominated on the first ballot. —In 1863 the Ohio democracy had anticipated the error of the national convention of 1864, had nominated Vallandigham for governor on the single issue of his arrest, and been beaten by the enormous majority of 101,099 out of 476,223 votes. The result in 1864 confirmed that of 1863; the democratic candidates received the electoral votes of only three states, New Jersey Delaware and Kentucky. The popular vote, however, had grown since 1860 parallel with that of the opposing party; in spite of the defection of war democrats, the secession of half a million of its former voters, and a platform which did not gain a single vote, the party still polled 45 per cent. of the total popular vote. —From July, 1865, until July, 1866, the democratic party passed through the darkest part of its valley of humiliation. It was beaten by increased majorities in every northern state election excepting a majority of a few hundred votes in Kentucky against an anti-slavery state constitution; and outside of the late seceding states but one state, Delaware, had a democratic governor. In the congress which met in December, 1865, the democrats had but 10 out of 52 senators, and 40 out of 185 representatives. All the excluded votes from the insurrectionary states could not now have given them more than a respectable minority in congress. —The open breach between president Johnson and the republican majority, about March, 1866 (see RECONSTRUCTION, REPUBLICAN PARTY), was closely similar to that between president Tyler and the whig party, 25 years before, and seemed at first to promise similar advantages to the democrats. But the questions at issue were so complicated with the passions of recent armed conflict, and the democratic party had so long been dealing with questions not fundamental to it, that it was now unable to follow the course of neutrality, coupled with a constant pursuit of its own economic objects, which its leaders had so skillfully and successfully taken in 1841-2. The party's strict construction principles certainly compelled it to oppose reconstruction by congress, but every consideration of policy should have counseled it to prevent this, if possible, from becoming the controlling question of politics. On the contrary, it fought against the passage of the preliminary and comparatively inoffensive civil rights bill and freedman's bureau bill with an acrimony which only resulted in their final passage without change, in the complete maintenance of the enormous republican majority in the congressional elections of 1866, and in the passage of the act of March 2, 1867, which fairly began the process of reconstruction by congress, with the certainty of a republican majority of over threefourths in congress, to complete it during the next two years. —The party thus renewed the mistake of 1864, and elected to fight upon ground of its adversary's choosing. During the remainder of president's Johnson's term of office (see also IMPEACHMENTS, VI.), it struggled vainly but pertinaciously against the completion of reconstruction by congress. The national convention met July 4, 1868, at New York city, and adopted a platform in eight resolutions, followed by a long arraignment of the republican party for various violations of the organic law. Most of the eight resolutions were devoted to the question of reconstruction. One of them, however, showed some signs of a return to the original political principles of the party; it demanded "a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports," though it was coupled with an ambiguous wish for "incidental protection to domestic manufactures" in arranging internal taxes. But it departed from democratic precedents in two points: 1. Since the freedmen were now legally persons and not property, the democratic principle of universal suffrage, for which the party had for 80 years contended, apparently attached at once to them also; the convention, however, declared in the strongest terms against negro suffrage. 2. The party had regularly resisted the establishment of any other currency than gold and silver by the federal government, not only as unconstitutional, but as eventually bearing most hardly upon the masses of the people, and within five years it had strenuously opposed the adoption of the legal-tender paper currency; the convention, however, seduced by the idea of forcing upon the bondholder the same currency which the people had been compelled to accept, declared in favor of the payment of the debt in legal tender paper, except those portions of it which were in terms payable in coin. —The political course of chief justice S. P. Chase, particularly during the impeachment of president Johnson, had gained many friends for him in the democratic party, and the convention would probably have nominated him but for the determined opposition of the delegates from his own state, Ohio, who were anxious to nominate Pendleton. On the first ballot the vote stood: Pendleton 105; Andrew Johnson, 65; Hancock, 33½; Sanford E. Church, of New York, 33; and 79½ scattering. Johnson's vote immediately and rapidly decreased. Pendleton's vote rose to 156½ on the 8th ballot, and then fell until his name was withdrawn on the 18th ballot. The votes for other candidates underwent little change, except those for Hancock and T. A. Hendricks, which rose to 135½ for Hancock and 132 for Hendricks on the 21st ballot. On the next ballot the Ohio delegation insisted on nominating Horatio Seymour, and the unanimous vote of the delegates was at once cast for him. F. P. Blair was then nominated for vice-president. —The platform had emphatically declared the reconstruction acts of congress to be "a usurpation, unconstitutional, revolutionary and void"; and this declaration was made more prominent by a previous letter of the candidate for the vice-presidency (the "Brodhead letter" of June 30, 1868), to the effect that the president elect must "declare these acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the south, disperse the carpet-bag state governments, and allow the white people to reorganize their own governments." Until this was done it was "idle to talk of bonds, greenbacks, gold, the public faith, and the public credit." In other words, every issue was still to be subordinate to that of reconstruction. In the presidential election the democratic candidates were defeated, but their proportion of the popular vote had risen to 47½ per cent. In the north there was no sign of a change in the electoral vote; in that section democratic electors were chosen only by New Jersey, Oregon and New York, and the votes of the last named state, it was widely believed, were carried by frauds in New York city. (See NEW YORK.) In the congress which met in December, 1869, there were 15 democrats out of 72 in the senate, and 96 out of 227 in the house. —The congressional elections of 1870 resulted in a trifling increase in democratic strength. In the senate there were now 17 democrats out of 74, and in the house 105 out of 242. The first term of president Grant rapidly developed a strong feeling in a minority of the republican party, the so-called "liberal republicans," that the national police power had been exercised beyond legal limits in the southern states since their reconstruction. This "liberal republican" minority in 1872 held a national convention at Cincinnati, adopted a platform, and nominated Horace Greeley and B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, as presidential candidates. The democratic national convention met at Baltimore, July 9, 1872. It adopted the Cincinnati platform by a vote of 670 to 62, and nominated the Cincinnati candidates by votes of 686 to 46 for Greeley, and 713 to 19 for Brown. The platform was in reality the most thoroughly democratic which the party had adopted since 1840, with the single exception of its refusal to decide for or against protection (see LIBERAL REPUBLICAN PARTY), and, as it formally recognized the validity of the last three constitutional amendments, but demanded in return local self-government for all the states, it probably afforded to the party the fairest possible avenue of escape from the difficulties of reconstruction. As might have been foreseen, the recent bitternesses of party conflict handicapped Greeley very heavily from the beginning; the number of democrats who refused to vote far more than counterbalanced the liberal republicans who voted for him, and the democratic candidates were defeated, receiving but 43 per cent. of the popular vote. The responsibility for the result is, however, fairly chargeable to the unwise selections of the Cincinnati convention; had it seen fit to nominate C. F. Adams and an acceptable democrat, the result might easily have been different. About 30,000 democrats voted for the nominees of a "straight-out" democratic convention, held at Louisville, Sept. 3, though the nominees, Chas. O'Conor, of New York, and John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, declined the nomination. The defeat in the presidential election of course included a falling off in the congressional representation; in the following congress the democrats had but 88 out of 290 representatives, the senate being almost unchanged. —Though the party had been so badly defeated in 1872, its prospects for national success date only from that year. By a single effort it had cast off the burden under which it had been laboring for years, had sloughed off that great mass of its voters who were democratic only on one point—the memories of the anti-slavery and reconstruction conflicts, and now stood, for the first time since before 1850, upon the ground of its economic principles, ignoring for the present the tariff question. It would be unfair to ascribe to this "new departure" alone the growth in the democratic vote for the next two years, for this was greatly assisted by many concurrent circumstances of president Grant's second term (see UNITED STATES), and particularly by the general financial distress which began to be felt in 1873; but it is at least certain that the democratic proportion of the vote of agricultural districts began generally to increase after 1872 for the first time since 1854. In 1874 the change was so marked that the elections of the year were commonly known as a "tidal wave." In the northern state elections of 1874-5, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, California, Nevada and Oregon were carried by the democrats; even Massachusetts introduced into her state government the phenomenon of a democratic governor; and in the congress which met in 1875 the democrats had 198 out of 292 members of the house, though they still had less than one-third of the senate. —This sudden tide of success, however, in the north, was balanced by a more general but more portentous success in the south, for which a great part of the responsibility must fall up on the abandonment by the party in 1868 of its fundamental principle of broadening suffrage. Its action left no option either to southern negroes or to southern whites and taxpayers, it forced the former into the republican party, and compelled the latter, in sheer self-defense, to take the name of democrat, no matter what their political principles might be. The consequence was that, so early as 1874-5, the whole south, with the exception of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, were nominally democratic, and a full half of the democratic vote in the house was southern, comprising in its ranks democrats, protectionists, greenbackers and internal improvement men, all agreeing firmly on but one democratic doctrine, the right of each state to self-government. The homogeneity of the party was thus injured, its action hampered and crippled, and its policy dwarfed to the care of a single section, thus checking again the national growth which had fairly begun. Had the "Chase platform" of universal suffrage (see CHASE, S P.) been adopted in 1868 and adhered to, it would probably not have affected the negro vote in that year, or perhaps in 1872, but the party in 1874, with but a fair half of the southern vote, would have been in far better position to take the crest of the wave of opportunity and develop again into a true national party. Here, as always since 1844, the party felt the want of those leaders who, until 1844, strenuously and successfully opposed the acceptance of any issue whatever which would narrow the party action to the care of a section. —The national convention met at St. Louis, June 28, 1876. and adopted a platform which, like all modern productions of the kind, was too long for popular use and better adapted for a campaign document; but it was at least almost entirely in harmony with the party's hereditary principles. It again accepted the last three constitutional amendments; it "denounced the present tariff, levied upon nearly 4,000 articles, as a master piece of injustice, inequality and false pretense," and "demanded that all custom house taxation shall be only for revenue"; and for the first time in many years it relegated the southern question to an entirely subordinate position. On financial questions it demanded due preparation before the resumption of specie payments; and the rest of the platform was entirely an indictment of the republican party. On the first ballot for a candidate for president the vote stood: Tilden, 404½ Hendricks, 140½; Hancock, 75; Wm. Allen, of Ohio, 54; Thos. F. Bayard, of Delaware, 33; and 37 scattering. Before the second ballot was finished, Tilden's nomination was made unanimous. His leading competitor, Hendricks, was then nominated for vice-president. The result of the election was that the democratic candidates had a majority over all in the popular vote, obtained a majority of the representatives to the succeeding congress, and claimed a majority of the electoral votes, though this was finally decided against them. (See DISPUTED ELECTIONS, IV.; ELECTORAL COMMISSION.) There can be no doubt that the whole party believed that the forms of law had been foully perverted to its injury in this decision; but its peaceful submission to the result was at least a useful proof of the strength of the American form of government—The south, including even the four states which had formerly been exceptions, was now solidly democratic, though its unification was not based upon the acquiescence of a majority of its voters in fundamental democratic principles, but was still entirely a measure of self-defense against the one overshadowing danger which the improvident action of the democratic convention in 1868 had made permanent. This solidification, and the entire disappearance of the republican vote in many southern districts, were skillfully used by republican leaders, during the next four years, for the decrease of the democratic vote in the north and west; and the result was very plainly seen in the congressional elections of 1878. In the senate the democrats had 42 out of 76 members, and in the house 149 out of 293; but 30 of the senators, and 105 of the representatives, were from a single section, the south. Had this southern majority been strict constructionist, pure and simple, as in Jefferson's time, it would have injured the party very little; but in fact, outside of the wish for local self-government for the states, there was hardly an article of the democratic creed, from a revenue tariff to opposition to internal improvements, in support of which this nominally democratic representation from the south was at all unanimous. The party's prospects would have been far better in the hands of a congressional minority wholly devoted to its principles than in those of a majority on which it could not rely. During the period of its nominal control of one or both branches of congress (house, 1875-81; senate, 1879-81), it is hardly possible to specify any point of democratic policy which it even attempted to enforce, excepting the reduction of federal expenses and the freedom of state governments. —The national convention was held at Cincinnati, June 23, 1880, and adopted a platform which, though somewhat paragraphic and disjointed, was in the main in consonance with the party's principles, though its financial paragraph can hardly be considered entirely Jeffersonian. It declared for "home rule; honest money, consisting of gold and silver and paper convertible into coin; and a tariff for revenue only." The remainder of the platform was devoted to denunciation of the "fraud of 1876." On the first ballot for presidential candidates the vote stood: Hancock, 171; Bayard, 153½; H. B. Payne, of Ohio, 81; A. G. Thurman, of Ohio, 68½ S. J. Field, of California, 65; W. R. Morrison, of Illinois, 62; Hendricks, 50½; and 185 scattering. On the second ballot Hancock was nominated by all the votes of the convention, except those of Indiana for Hendricks, and 3 scattering. W. H. English was then unanimously nominated for vice-president. In the presidential election of 1880 the democratic candidates were defeated. The defeat would seem to have been due mainly to the party's congressional majority, not so much because of its sectional character, after all, as because of its long influence in preventing the development of a national party policy. Even when, late in the canvass, the republican party elected to fight upon democratic ground, the tariff question, the party, which had had no education on the question from its own representatives, weakly endeavored to avoid it, and lost votes by its weakness. On the popular vote the democratic candidates were slightly in a minority, of the electoral votes they received all those of the southern states, and in the north those of New Jersey, Nevada, and five of California's six votes. Of the congress to meet in December, 1881, the democrats elected 136 out of 293 representatives, thus losing the majority in the house for the first time since 1875; both parties had the same number in the senate. But it is noteworthy that, for the first time in many years, nine of the southern representatives were republicans, an augury, perhaps, of the party's release from the worst impediment to its national development. —In its history to the present time the party has had but three leaders of the first rank, Jefferson, Madison and Jackson. (See those names) Jackson's name must be included, despite his phenomenal ignorance of very many of the commonest subjects of human knowledge; his skill in reorganizing a party out of chaos, his unerring certainty and success in going to the very marrow of unexpected political difficulties and in marking out the party policy, his ability to lead his party in the path of its own principles in spite of ambitious subordinates, and the distinct stamp which he left upon the opinions of the school of politicians who succeeded him in the control of the party until 1844, all show him to have been a leader more effective, in some respects, than either of the others. The number of leaders of a lower grade has of course, been very great, and the reader must be referred, as to them, to Gillet's "Democracy in the United States," cited below. The theoretical basis of the party has always been the principles formulated by Jefferson, though these were not put by him into any connected form, except in two instances (see KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS; BANK CONTROVERSIES, II.), but must be sought for in detached letters throughout his collected works, or in his messages. His first inaugural address, in 1801, is his nearest approach to the formation of a systematic political creed. The political writings of William Leggett, editor of the "Evening Post," of New York city (1834-6), which are cited below, are a collection fully as valuable to any one who desires to study the democratic side of American politics before 1844. (See also LOCO-FOCO.) Since that year it has been the party's misfortune that it has almost always been engaged in combating some one or more of its own fundamental principles, so that it is difficult to give any general reference during this period which would not be more or less misleading. Perhaps the "Democratic Review," up to its cessation in 1859, and Spencer's "Life of T. F. Bayard," would give a fairly consistent view of the party's application of its theory to the practical questions of American politics. The Jeffersonian doctrine, in its modern form, is also given incidentally in governor Horatio Seymour's lecture on "the History and Topography of New York," at Cornell university, June 30, 1870. —The future of the party must be largely a matter of speculation. Its destruction or disappearance is in the highest degree improbable; if there were no democratic party in existence, the first consistent policy proposed by an administration would force the evolution of one. But it seems probable that its future basis will, to some extent. be changed in the following direction. —The Jeffersonian basis of the party, however useful in its time, is open to one great objection: it ignores the progress of the country. It attempts to lay down the rigid rule that the exercise of certain derived powers by the federal government, no matter how imperatively it may be needed, no matter how much steam, electricity and war may have changed the basis of existence of the country, is still and always a violation of the organic law. No party, not the democratic party itself, not Jefferson himself, has ever lived up to the rule in practice; nor has any one who refused to live up to it felt himself to be really a violator of law. But the continued charge that a broad construction of the constitution is unlawful, coupled with the constant exercise of broad construction by all parties in emergencies, has done much to sap the reverence of the people for the constitution itself, and to give an air of unreality to the professions of democratic leaders; it has enabled the opponents of the party to meet every profession of democratic faith with apt precedents drawn from democratic theory or practice; and it has again and again forced the party into a demoralizing acceptance of that which it had but very recently been denouncing as a violation of law. —The change which is necessary seems to be the basing of the party upon expediency rather than upon claims of absolute law in the matter of powers which are fairly doubtful. Of course there are powers which are either flatly prohibited to the federal government, such as the power to tax exports, or are plainly ungranted, such as the power to impeach a private citizen; as to these there can be no difference of opinion in regard to the legality of their exercise by the federal government. But in regard to the great mass of doubtful powers the claim that it is inexpedient to exercise them is a far more fitting basis for a great political party than the claim that it is illegal to exercise them. The former not only gives an elasticity to party action which is wanting in the latter, but implies a consciousness of strength in argument; the latter is too often only a substitute for argument and a confession of inability to argue the question at issue. There are many symptoms of this change to a basis of expediency among thinking democrats, the last and most noteworthy being the address of Clarkson N. Potter before the American bar association in August, 1881. —The objection to such a change would be, that it would open the way to an indefinite latitude of construction by a dominant majority in congress; the answer to the objection is, that the dreaded result has always been the practical rule of American politics, even in face of the loudest assertion of the illegality of broad construction, and that a stand upon the inexpediency of broad construction would relieve the strict construction party from the lengthening chain of the past and give it easier access to the several elements of the opposing party in the future. The particularist element in the United States will always be strong enough to act as a controlling force upon broad construction. and the more highly the political sentiment of the country is educated the less necessary becomes the ultra-Jeffersonian idea of the absolute illegality, under all circumstances, of broad construction.—[The list of authorities given below is, with a few necessary exceptions, of works written from a democratic stand-point; those of opposite views will be found under the articles referred to among the authorities For the relative strength of party representation in the successive congresses, and for the popular vote in the presidential elections, see UNITED STATES. For the electoral votes see ELECTORAL VOTES. For the party history in each state see the articles on individual states.] (See UNITED STATES, CONSTRUCTION, ADMINISTRATIONS.)—(A), In General: See Capen's History of Democracy; Gillet's Democracy in the United States; Van Buren's Origin of Political Parties in the United States; Cutts' Treatise on Party Questions; Harris' Political Conflict in America; G. Lunt's Origin of the Late War; Tucker's United States (to 1840); Wise's Seven Decades; Cluskey's Political Text Book of 1860; Tribune Almanac (1838-81); North American Review (Jan. 1876), Art., "Politics in America"; Draper's Civil War; Greeley's American Conflict; 1-3 Von Holst's United States; Young's American Statesman; Johnston's History of American Politics; Statesman's Manual; Benton's Debates of Congress (1789-1850); Congressional Globe (1850-61); Appleton's Annual Cyclopœdia (1861-80). (B), In Particular Periods: (I., II.: 1789-1801). see 1 Schouler's United States; 2 Pitkin's United States; 2 Holmes' United States; 4, 5 Hildreth's United States; 1 Draper's Civil War (introd. chap.); 3, 4 Jefferson's Works (ed. 1829); 1, 2 Rives' Life of Madison; 2 Randall's Life of Jefferson; 1 Tucker's Life of Jefferson; Austin's Life of Gerry; Parton's Life of Burr; 1 Parton's Life of Jackson; Adams' Life of Gallatin; Hunt's Life of Livingston, 46-105; and authorities under ANTI-FEDERAL PARTY; FEDERAL PARTY, I.; BANK CONTROVERSIES, II.; WHISKY INSURRECTION; JAY'S TREATY; X. Y. Z. MISSION; ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS; DISPUTED ELECTIONS, I. (III.: 1801-25), see 5, 6 Hildreth's United States; Bradford's Federal Government; 1 Hammond's Political History of New York; 3 Randall's Life of Jefferson; 2 Tucker's Life of Jefferson; 4 Jefferson's Works, (ed. 1829); T. Cooper's Consolidation; Parton's Life of Burr; 2 Davis' Life of Burr; Garland's Life of Randolph; Pinkney's Life of Pinkney; Adams' Life of Gallatin; Carey's Olive Branch and New Olive Branch; Jenkins' Life of Calhoun; Dallas' Writings of Dallas; Ingersoll's Second War with Great Britain; 4-6 Adams' Memoir of John Quincy Adams (Diary); and authorities under ANNEXATIONS, I., II.; BURR, AARON; EMBARGO; GUNBOAT SYSTEM; FEDERAL PARTY, II.; CLINTON, DE WITT; BANK CONTROVERSIES, II., III.; CONVENTION, HARTFORD; WHIG PARTY, I.; CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS; COMPROMISES, IV. (IV.: 1825-50), see Benton's Thirty Years' View; 2 Hammond's Political History of New York; 1 Draper's Civil War; 2, 3 Von Holst's United States; The Democratic Review, (1838-50); Bradford's Federal Government (to 1839); Amos Kendall's Autobiography; Sumner's History of American Currency; 3 Parton's Life of Jackson; Hunt's Life of Livingston; Hammond's Life of Silas Wright; Holland's Life of Van Buren; Scott's Life of H. L. White; Mackenzie's Life and Times of Van Buren, and Lives of Butler and Hoyt (both useless except for the letters contained in them); Jenkins' Life of Calhoun; Parton's Famous Americans; Appleton's American Cyclopœdia, Art. "Calhoun"; Chase's Administration of Polk; Hamilton's Memoir of Rantoul; and authorities under WHIG PARTY, I., II.; ALBANY REGENCY; ANTI-MASONRY; NOMINATING CONVENTIONS; CHEROKEE CASE; INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS; FOOT'S RESOLUTION; NULLIFICATION; BANK CONTROVERSIES, III., IV.; DEPOSITS, REMOVAL OF; VETO; CENSURES; LOCO-FOCO; CONSERVATIVE; SLAVERY; ABOLITION, II.; PETITION; ANNEXATIONS, III., IV.; OREGON; WILMOT PROVISO; BARNBURNERS; FREE SOIL PARTY; COMPROMISES, V.; POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. (V.: 1850-60), see 3 Spencer's United States; Democratic Review (cont. as United States Magazine, to 1859); 3-6 Stryker's American Register; 1 A. H. Stephens' War Between the States; Schuckers' Life of S. P. Chase, 128-195; Dickinson's Life of D. S. Dickinson; Botts' Great Rebellion; Pollard's Lost Cause (cap. 1); Buchanan's Buchanan's Administration; Atlantic Monthly, 1861, and North American Review, 1866 (articles on Douglas); Chittenden's Peace Convention; and authorities under POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY; FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW; KANSAS NEBRASKA BILL; SLAVERY; AMERICAN PARTY, I.; WHIG PARTY, II., III.; REPUBLICAN PARTY; DRED SCOTT CASE; TERRITORIES; KANSAS; BROWN, JOHN; SECESSION; COMPROMISES, VI. (VI.: 1860-81), see Bartlett's Bibliography of the Rebellion; 3 Draper's Civil War; Guernsey's Rebellion; 2 A. H. Stephens' War Between the States; McClellan's Republicanism in America (to 1869); McPherson's History of the Rebellion, and History of the Reconstruction (comprising his Political Manuals); S. S. Cox's Eight Years in Congress; Delmar and Stern's Social Science Review; Ingersoll's Fears for Democracy; Barnes' History of the 39th and 40th Congresses; Spencer's Life of T. F Bayard; Moore's Speeches of Andrew Johnson; Taylor's Destruction and Reconstruction; Schuckers' Life of S. P. Chase, 514-560; The Nation, 1865-81; and authorities under REBELLION; ABOLITION, III.; SLAVERY; RECONSTRUCTION, SUFFRAGE; IMPEACHMENTS, III.; REPUBLICAN PARTY; GREENBACK-LABOR PARTY. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DENMARKDENMARK. We shall here consider successively the constitution. administrative organization, finances and resources of Denmark. I. CONSTITUTION. The Danish monarchy comprises the kingdom of Denmark, properly so called, the Faroe isles, to the north of Scotland; the island of Iceland, in the Arctic ocean; colonies in Greenland; and the three islands of Santa Cruz, St. Thomas and St. John, of the Little Antilles isles, in the West Indies. —Denmark consists of the isle of Bornholm, in the Baltic sea, the islands of Zealand, the Fionian isles, and the peninsula of Jutland, containing altogether 14,553 square miles, with about 1,969,464 inhabitants. Besides these, the Faroe isles have 510 square miles, with 9,992 inhabitants; Iceland, 39,756 square miles, with 69,793 inhabitants; the three Antilles islands, 118 square miles, with about 38,000 inhabitants; and Greenland, 46,740 square miles, with 9,825 inhabitants. —After the middle of the thirteenth century, at which time a Danish nobility was formed, Denmark had for several centuries a feudal constitution, very different, however, from that of France of Germany. The fiefs were merely personal, and were held more absolutely from the crown. In principle, the king should have been elected by the entire people; but, from the epoch above cited, his election passed into the hands of the council of the kingdom (rigsraad), composed of members of the nobility and clergy, appointed in fact, for the most part by the king himself, but who, nevertheless, restricted his power in many ways, especially by the solemn pledges they administered to him at the time of his accession, the clauses of which were stipulations for the benefit of the privileged classes. These engagements the king was obliged to sign and promulgate before his election. —In 1536, when Protestantism was established in Denmark, the clergy lost all political influence, and fell to the rank of the other non-privileged classes, the bourgeoisie and peasantry. The state was thereby compelled to reform its institutions, in order to give to the state power the authority due to it. In 1660, under Frederic III., the ancient constitution was changed. The three inferior orders declared the royal power hereditary in the male and in the female line of the family of the reigning king, and conferred upon the king absolute sovereignty, so that the nobility lost their political prerogatives. This constitution is embodied in the royal law of Nov. 14, 1665 (lex regia), which law, although it was chiefly a family regulation of the dynasty, was, nevertheless, extended in fact to all the countries then subject to the king, and to all those which he acquired later. This extension of the royal power was expressed, first of all, in article 19 of the law itself, and was frequently admitted afterward. It was clearly approved, and even guaranteed, first by France and England, and afterward by Russia in the case of Schleswig, when, in 1721, king Frederic IV. confiscated that duchy to the crown, though a part of it had formerly belonged to the duke of Holstein-Gottorp. —The royal law, of which we are speaking, remained the organic law of the state until king Frederic VI. established, by an ordinance of May 28, 1831, the provincial estates, to be consulted on all that concerns their civil interests, property, and changes in the taxes imposed and levied; but these estates received no power over the budget. There were four provincial assemblies; for the Danish isles, for Jutland, for Schleswig and for Holstein. In 1843 Iceland had a separate consultative assembly, under the ancient name of althing, which, despite the changes that occurred somewhat later in the rest of the kingdom, still exists under the same form. But this constitution of Denmark, under which the representative assembly had only a consultative voice, and which, besides, rested upon a basis none too liberal, since it required that both voters and candidates for office should be land owners, could not permanently satisfy the liberal tendencies then prevalent in Denmark, as in the other parts of Europe. —In fact, in the month of March, 1848, Frederic VII., when about to succeed his father, Christian VIII., freely and spontaneously declared his willingness to grant a truly constitutional organization to that part of his states situated beyond the limits of the Germanic confederation. He promised at the same time to give to the institutions of Holstein a liberal development, similar to the German federal legislation; but the execution of these intentions was frustrated by the insurrection of that duchy. With the concurrence of an assembly convoked for this purpose he established a constitution for the kingdom of Denmark, which was promulgated under the name of the fundamental Danish law of June 5, 1849. This constitution, based upon the most liberal principles, was intended to extend to the whole of Denmark, including Schleswig. This, however, was rendered impossible by the insurrection of the duchies, which proposed to unite Schleswig and Holstein, and form of them a German state, with an exclusively agnatic succession, and which eventually should have only a personal union with Denmark. In 1850, when peace was re-established, the king of Denmark had to renounce his intention of immediately applying to Schleswig the fundamental Danish law of June 5, 1849. In promulgating the royal patent of Jan. 28, 1852, he announced his intention of making of the Danish monarchy an indissoluble unit (heelstat): all the countries belonging to the crown of Denmark were to have a common representation for general interests, without diminishing in anything the authority of the different provinces, such as Denmark, Schleswig and the German states, within the limit of their private interests. The great powers and Sweden signed at London, May 8, 1852, a protocol, by which they recognized the integrity of the Danish monarchy. By this treaty the same powers guaranteed a new order of succession to the throne, to provide for the case in which the male line of the reigning dynasty should become extinct, a case which in fact occurred on the death of Frederic VII. and the hereditary prince, his uncle. The crown was then to devolve on prince Christian, of Glucksburg, prince of Denmark, and to his male descendants, born of his marriage with the cousin of the king. Thenceforth the succession was to become purely agnatic. The rigsdag, the legislative assembly of Denmark proper, voted this order of succession, which was promulgated July 31, 1853, as the law of the entire monarchy. For the countries beyond the jurisdiction of the rigsdag, this law was enforced in virtue of the absolute sovereignty which the king then possessed in these countries. —After numerous conferences with the leading men of Holstein, the king of Denmark, Frederic VII., with the advice of his council of state, and intending to arrange for the best common interests of the entire monarchy. caused to be drawn up and promulgated a common constitution of Oct. 2, 1855. But the Germanic confederation refusing to recognize this constitution as valid for Holstein and Lauenburg, it was restricted by a royal patent of Nov. 6, 1858, to Denmark, properly so called. —From what we have already seen it is quite clear that the Danish monarchy, particularly since the accession of Frederic VII., in 1848, has been subjected to numerous constitutional agitations, owing chiefly to opposition and interference on the part of Holstein, Prussia and Germany. The fundamental Danish law of June 5, 1849, intended to embrace southern Jutland or Schleswig (Sœnderjytland), could not be established in this province. But, on account of foreign interference, two provincial constitutions were promulgated; one for Schleswig, Feb. 15, 1854, and the other for Holstein, bearing date June 11, 1854. Next came the common and general constitution of Oct. 2, 1855, and the same reformed Nov. 2, 1858. But as the German opposition and pretensions were still unsatisfied, the king and his council prepared a draft of a new constitutional law for Denmark, including Schleswig, having obtained in advance the assent of the cabinet of Berlin. In the meantime Frederic VII. died, Nov. 15, 1863. His successor, Christian IX., signed the draft of the constitution; but the cabinet of Berlin at once rejected it. War was declared, and Denmark invaded by the German armies. By the treaty of peace of Vienna, Oct. 30, 1864, the king of Denmark ceded to Prussia and Austria together, Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg. —After this dismemberment, Denmark alone could have no need of two constitutional or fundamental laws, one general, the other provincial; nor of two legislative representations, the general rigsraad and the provincial rigsdag. This called for consideration; and, moreover, experience had shown the need of a revision of the fundamental Danish law of June 5, 1849, especially with regard to the landsthing, the upper house. It was only after repeated efforts, and in spite of the most persistent opposition on the part of the democratic party, that on July 28, 1866, the fundamental Danish law of June 5, 1849. revised, was finally voted and promulgated. —In what concerns the rights and liberties of citizens, the position of the monarch and of the national representative assembly, the division of legislative and administrative authority, etc., this new constitution of July 28, 1866, remains the same as that of June 5, 1849. The folkething is composed of 102 members, one deputy for every 16.0 0 inhabitants. They are elected by universal suffrage. Every respectable man is a voter at the age of 30, and eligible to office at 25.72 The elections are held publicly on the same day in all the electoral districts of the country. The deputies are elected every third year; they receive a per diem remuneration during the sessions, which are held annually. The landsthing and folkething elect their presidents and other functionaries, and control their own internal government. The ministers are allowed to be present at the meetings, and to take part in the debate, but they do not vote, unless they are deputies. —The landsthing has 66 members, 12 of whom are named by the king, and hold office for life; seven are elected by the city of Copenhagen; 45 by the great electoral circuits, comprising both the cities of the province and the rural districts; one by the island of Bornholm; and one by the lagthing, the elective assembly of the Faroe isles. The election of the 45 members is of two degrees; that is, they are elected by special electors chosen by voters having the right to vote for members of the folkething, but in such a manner that one-half of the final electors, or electors of the second or higher degree, are elected exclusively and separately by the general body of voters in the several electoral districts who pay the highest amount of taxes. The final elections are held according to the proportional method (first suggested by J. Stuart Mill), which is favorable to the candidates of minorities. The term of the elector's commission is eight years. —Public officers are not required to obtain the authorization of the government in order to be elected. The rigsdag meets every year, and enjoys in full all constitutional rights it votes taxes, and no expense can be incurred without its authorization. The budget must be submitted to the folkething: all other projected laws can be first brought before either the folkething or the landsthing. The assembly has the right of initiative, the right to question the government, and to bring articles of impeachment against ministers for mal-administration, but the king can dissolve the rigsdag, and has the power of absolute veto. The fundamental law guarantees to the citizen most ample civil and political liberty. The elections are perfectly free; and the citizens likewise enjoy the most complete liberty to associate and meet, and to use the press with no other restrictions than those imposed by general legislation. Individual liberty and respect for property are assured. The nobility enjoy no privileges, and the tendency is toward the abolition of the majorats. There is complete liberty of conscience: the religion he professes deprives no man of his civil and political rights. The evangelical Lutheran church, however, is recognized as the church of the people, and as such is subsidized by the state, which also appoints its ministers. The marriages celebrated by them (Lutheran ministers), and those solemnized by Catholic priests, by the pastors of the Reformed church, and by rabbis, are the only ones recognized as valid by the civil law. —The democratic element and democratic ideas are rapidly spreading in Denmark, In the rigsdag (composed of the landsthing and the folkething), as well as in the country at large, political parties are clearly defined, and mutually contend for the mastery. There are three principal parties: the conservative, the liberal national, and the popular party. It is particularly since the accession of king Christian VIII., or since the year 1840, that these parties have been formed and developed. —The conservative party, without advocating absolutism, or blindly opposing all progress or innovation, still holds to a rather slow and deliberate course in the changing of established institutions, and advocates the maintenance of many of the rights and prerogatives which had their origin in the past. This party. which is the weakest in point of numbers, is composed principally of old men who find it difficult to familiarize themselves with the novelties of our day, and of certain large landed proprietors who have to suffer from the abrogation of ancient privileges, and the modern tendency to universal leveling. —The liberal national party approaches somewhat to that which we designate by the epithet doctrinarian. It is what we may call the middle party, drawn principally from the middle classes of society. Its ranks are recruited mainly from among educated men. It also numbers among its adherents many public functionaries and distinguished journalists; and it has, since 1848, supplied the greatest number of constitutional ministers in Denmark. Without sympathizing with radicalism and demagogism, it is this party certainly which has labored most successfully in the cause of the public, to assure the triumph of patriotic and liberal ideas, to create and develop constitutional government, and to disseminate public instruction. If this party rules, it is because of its knowledge and capability, for it is not, nor can it become, the most numerous. Besides, where there is most individual enlightenment, there is least blind or complete submission to leaders, and consequently there is less probability of obtaining unanimity of opinion and of votes in the balloting of the representative assembly, or in popular elections. —The people's party (Menigmandsparti, or Bonderenrer, friends of the peasants, the party which, since 1871, has received the name of the united left) is very strong and very numerous, because in all countries the lower classes form a numerical majority, and the masses, being always and necessarily the least enlightened portion of the nation, are inclined to follow their chiefs en masse, to obey the orders and commands of those who constitute themselves their leaders and pretend to be their advocates. The rise of the people's party is due mainly to the system of universal suffrage, which was established in Denmark, rather prematurely perhaps, in 1848. This party pretend to represent the people only, excluding from the idea of people all who are above the common. The efforts of this party constantly tend to belittle superior intelligence and civilization, and institutions of art and science, and to excite contempt for all public functionaries, as an interested class who absorb the fruits of the people's labor. In this party, therefore, more particularly, we find tendencies to social leveling, and the democratic, or rather demagogic, ideas which are striving to attain the ascendant. As an impelling power such a party as this is useful, and it can not be denied that it has given the impulse to just and salutary improvements and reforms; but, on the other hand, if it is not constantly and wisely combated and restrained, it will end by disorganizing everything. —II. ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION. As long as royal absolutism lasted, the judicial and the administrative power were united in the same hands. But since the re-establishment of constitutional government, the administrative power has been separated from the judicial power, as also from the legislative power. The king is the head of the administration, and it is in his name that the administrative functions are exercised. He appoints all functionaries, whether administrative or judicial. To be appointed to office it is necessary to be a Dane, and to fulfill the general conditions as to capacity proscribed by law. With the exception of the judges, all officials are removable for administrative reasons; and unless their removal is the result of an abuse of power, they are entitled to a pension, which is payable also to their widows. Their official salaries are fixed by law. —The administration of the country is directed by the ministers. These collectively form the state council, presided over by the king in person; in which council the most important resolutions are passed, and bills discussed before they are presented to the legislative assemblies. The ministers may be members of these assemblies; they always have access to their sessions, and are heard when they ask to speak; they themselves present and support the laws which are of their own suggestion. The ministers are seven in number: the ministers of foreign affairs, of finance, of war and of the navy, of justice, of the interior, of worship, and of public instruction. —Local administration is intrusted to authorities acting under direction of the ministers. For this purpose the country is divided into 18 bailiwicks, besides those of the Faroe isles. The capital, Copenhagen, has a separate administration, and is not included in these 18 bailiwicks. The bailiff, or prefect (amtmand), is the representative of the government in the bailiwick, and the representative of the bailiwick with the government; he decides, or at least he has a consultative voice in, all administrative matters, such as communal administration, agriculture, public charities, schools, roads and police. Although he has properly no judicial authority himself, he controls the exercise of justice, and it is he who institutes examinations in all criminal affairs. In the towns and districts the inferior authority is exercised by sub-prefects (byfoged, herredsfoged), who are at the same time judges of first resort. In the rural communes there are mayors (sognefogder), chosen and appointed by the authorities from among the inhabitants of the commune itself, to aid in all that concerns local police. As to communal affairs, we must distinguish between the capital city, the other cities of the country, and the villages. In all the cities the communal administration is composed of the magistracy and of elected representatives; who together constitute the municipal council. In Copenhagen the magistracy consists of a president, appointed by the king; four burgomasters, elected by the representatives, and confirmed by the king; and four counselors, appointed by the representatives. The representatives, 36 in number, are elected by the inhabitants of the capital. In the other cities of the country the magistracy has usually only one burgomaster, appointed by the king; the number of representatives elected by the inhabitants is proportioned to the population. In the country districts there are the commune, the bailiwick and the rural commune. The former comprises the whole bailiwick; it is presided over by the bailiff, and the representatives are elected from among the inhabitants, but by two degrees of election. The sessions of the representatives occur every three months. Each parish forms a rural commune, whose representatives are elected by the inhabitants of the parish, and they themselves name their chief officer. The difference between the commune of a bailiwick and the commune of a village consists merely in the relative extent of their jurisdictions. —We include under the term communal interests all that concerns local affairs, as schools, public charities, public hygiene, seaports, local police, national guard, precautions against fire, communal revenues and communal property, the apportionment of certain taxes, etc. The communal budget must be approved by the higher authorities; that of the capital alone is dispensed from this approval. In the fundamental law of Denmark of June 5, 1849, the autonomy of the communes constitutes one of the principles of the law of the country. —The Faroe isles form a bailiwick apart, and they alone of the remote dependencies of the kingdom send a deputy to the rigsdag. For the preparation and examination of bills, as well as for many administrative affairs, there was instituted, by a law of April 15, 1854, a lagthing, a representative assembly of 20 members elected by the people of the island and presided over by a bailiff. —Iceland is divided into four bailiwicks. It has a secondary tribunal, and a representative assembly, the althing, composed of 27 members, six of whom are named by the king, and the other 21 elected by the people. It is presided over by the chief bailiff of the island. —The 16 colonies, or trading posts, of Greenland are administered by two higher inspectors, one in the south, the other in the north of the country. —The colonies of the Antilles are administered by a governor. They have a secondary tribunal. from which there is an appeal to the superior court at Copenhagen. According to the colonial law of Nov. 27, 1863, the legislative authority is exercised by the king and the council of each colony, by means of ordinances afterward presented to the rigsdag. The colonial council of the island of Santa Cruz is composed of 18 members, and those of St. Thomas and St. John together, of 15. Five members of the former, and four of the latter, of these councils, are appointed by the king; the others are elected by the inhabitants of the islands. The governor presides over both councils. —III. FINANCE. 1. Administration, Budget, etc. The administration of finance is organized in one uniform manner in the different parts of the monarchy. The minister of finance concentrates in his hands and directs the collection of taxes, payments, and controls the making of the budget and the national accounts. His ministry is divided into different departments, corresponding to the principal branches of receipts and disbursements—postal service, toll, public domain, public debt, general treasury, etc. —It is established, as a general principle of administration, that the official who receives the money, and who has the handling of it, is never authorized to disburse it (to pass accounts), and vice versa. The money received by the local treasuries is sent to the one main treasury of Copenhagen. Statements of the condition of the treasuries are sent every month to the minister of finance, who thus knows at all times the amount that should be in each treasury, and can examine them through special inspectors. —The collection of direct taxes in the cities is made by the officials of the communes (mayors or others); in the country, by the receivers of the bailiwick, of which every bailiwick has one or two. The collection of direct taxes is managed differently according to the nature of each kind of tax. —To make up the budget, each minister collects the elements of it which concern his department, and these materials are arranged by the minister of finance. The proposed budget is first submitted for the royal sanction in council, and afterward presented to the legislative assemblies. The receipts and the disbursements are most rigorously separated in the budget. Both are divided into ordinary and extraordinary. The budget is very detailed. The representative assembly can amend it, and does not merely vote the total sums, but deliberates over each item. The strict observance of the law relating to the finances (or of the budget voted) is rigorously enforced; no arbitrary transferring from one account to another, or from one year to the next, is allowed; every modification of the budget must be approved, and no expense can be incurred unless it has been approved by the chambers. —At the end of the financial term the minister of finance presents his report, and then the process of revision or verification begins. The examination of particular accounts is made by general revisors, or comptrollers, higher administrative officials belonging to the several ministries. Besides, the general account of the finances of the state is afterward submitted to a control provided for by the constitution, effected by auditors named for this purpose by the representative assembly. The assembly passes resolutions upon the remarks and notes of the auditors, in such manner that the responsibility of the ministers may be fixed by them. The common constitution of Oct. 2, 1855, gave rise to the hope that a court of accounts for the entire monarchy would be established; but as this promise has not yet been fulfilled (1872), the revision continues to be made in the administrative way, and the account of the finances, after it has been presented for examination to the national assembly (rigsdag), is submitted for royal sanction. —2. Revenues, Taxes, Expenses. The revenues of the state are derived, partly from the public domain and other property, and partly from taxes. The Danish islands in the West Indies have their finances separate, the surplus only is each year turned into the common treasury of the monarchy. In Denmark there is no longer any fiscal immunity for anybody. —The indirect taxes consist of customs duties, the tax upon playing cards, the navigation tax, the tax upon the manufacture of alcohol, postal and telegraph duties, the costs imposed by courts, stamp duty, the tax on inheritances, and the tax on real estate transfers. The excise tax was definitely abolished in 1851. As to the principles of customs legislation, some absolute prohibitions and high protective duties were in vigor until, toward the end of the last century, an ordinance of Feb. 1, 1797, established a much lower tariff. The tariff of May 1, 1838, had not yet broken with the protective system, but the customs law of July 4, 1863, was a long stride toward free trade. Export duties have been abolished. The number of articles enumerated as dutiable has been reduced more than half. The import duties on cereals have been removed, and those still imposed upon the chief articles of consumption and upon raw materials considerably lessened; to compensate for the decrease of receipts which would have resulted from this reduction, the duties on certain articles of luxury have been increased. —While speaking of customs, we must mention the sound toli, which consisted of a duty paid from time immemorial by every ship that passed the sound and the belt. This toll amounted, during the last years of its existence, to nearly 2,000,000 rigsdalers ($1,200,000) per year. It was abolished by the treaty of March 14, 1857, between Denmark and nearly all the states of Europe and America, and the powers engaged to pay an indemnity of 30,500,000 rigsdalers ($18,000,000), of which 1,120,000 was the share to be paid by Denmark itself. By a law of May 6, 1857, this capital was to form a special fund, known as the "sound" fund, the interest of which was to be turned into the public treasury; but since the law of Sept. 17, 1865, this capital has ceased to form a separate fund. —The tax imposed on the manufacture of alcohol is regulated by a law of Feb. 7, 1851. The tax is levied upon the apparatus used in manufacturing it, thus 64 skillings (a little less than 2 francs) for each ton of grain which the vats hold. The permit to establish a brandy distillery is given by the minister of the interior; the apparatus is measured and stamped by the customs officers. The revenue from customs, taxes on alcohol, stamp duties, playing cards and navigation together amounted, in 1843, to 5,000,000 rigsdalers (about $3,000,000), and during the year 1860-61, to 7,400,000. According to the budget of 1871-2 the net amount of these revenues was 7,878,183 rigsdalers (about $4,750,000). We must bear in mind, besides, that the figures for 1843 and 1861 related as well to Denmark as to the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg; while those for 1871 are for Denmark alone. —The net revenue from the postoffice was, in 1845, 240,000 rigsdalers; in 1860-61, 270,000; and in 1871, 166,989 rigsdalers, for Denmark alone. This net revenue is turned over to the state treasury. Since April 1, 1851, there has been a uniform postage of 4 skillings (about 2½ cents) on each ordinary letter. —Stamps are required on all documents containing a contract involving a pecuniary consideration. Journals and periodical publications are not subject to this tax. A law of Feb. 19, 1861, considerably lessened it. In 1845 the revenue from this source amounted to 390,000 rigsdalers; in 1860-61 it amounted, in Denmark alone, to 730,000, and in 1870-71 to 700,000. According to the ordinance of Feb. 8, 1810, the tax on real estate transfers is ½ of 1 per cent. of the purchase money. The tax on inheritance, modified by the law of Feb. 19, 1861, is, for the ascending and descending lines, 1 per cent., for the collateral line, 4 per cent. In all other cases of succession to property, it is 7 per cent. In 1845 the tax from these two sources amounted, in the kingdom alone, to 140,000 rigsdalers; in 1860-61 it amounted to 400,000, and in 1871 to 460,000. (A rigsdaler is equivalent to about $1.12.) —Court costs, and fees for copies of legal documents, amounted, in 1845, in the kingdom alone, to 140,000 rigsdalers; in 1860-61, to 500,000; and in 1871, to 684,500. —Of the direct taxes, the land tax and the tax upon houses are the most important. The unit which serves as a basis in imposing the land tax in the kingdom is the tun of corn (tonde hartkorn); that is to say, a tax considered as equivalent to a measure of corn. A certain quantity of a product being taken as a unit, it is easily seen that we must take a greater or less amount of land to obtain this quantity according to its quality; that is to say, that in one place 10 acres, and in another place 20 acres, will be required to produce a hectolitre; consequently, 10 acres of fertile land shall be taxed one hectolitre in kind, and 10 acres of medium good land shall be taxed one-half a hectolitre. In the first years of this century a new valuation of all the arable land of the kingdom was made, and in accordance with the results of that valuation, the ordinance of Jan. 24, 1844, established a new land tax, on the basis of the unit, or tun of hartkorn, according to the quality of the land. In reality, the land tax is nominally divided into the old and the new tax: the former, ever invariable, is regulated according to the ancient cadastre (official table of the quantity and value of real property); the latter, varying according to the needs of the state, is regulated by the new taxation. The woods and forests are assessed in a similar manner. —There is also imposed upon land the partition tax, which, under a law of June 20, 1850, has taken the place of some ancient and less important taxes, and the road tax, regulated by ordinance of Sept. 29, 1841, and intended for the maintenance of public roads. The tax upon houses is assessed, according to the ordinance of Oct. 1, 1802, on all buildings that are not intended for the service of agriculture; consequently upon town buildings, buildings to be used as places of amusement, factories and workshops. It is reckoned according to the aggregate superficies of all the stories of the building. The revenue from the varied sources of direct taxation in the kingdom amounted, in 1845, to 3,300,000 rigsdalers; in 1860-61, to about 4,000,000; and in 1871, to nearly the same amount. —As the communal assessments do not figure in the state budget, we have not introduced them into this exposé. These assessments are apportioned according to the land tax, and the profession and fortune of the citizens. Income tax, properly so called, is levied in the commune of Copenhagen (law of Feb. 9, 1861.)—3 Financial Situation. On March 31, 1861, the public debt of the monarchy amounted to the nominal sum of 98,000,000 rigsdalers, 68,000,000 of which constituted its home indebtedness, and 30,000,000 its foreign debt. [The foreign debt was paid off in 1877 and 1879.]—Of the home debt, 62,500,000 were really due, namely 61,000,000 at 4 per cent.; 300,000 at 5 per cent.; the balance at less than 4 per cent., even as low as 3 per cent. The floating debt amounted to 1,500,000, and consisted principally of funds belonging to minors, and bonds of public officials. There is a constant effort to diminish this debt. Of the foreign debt, nearly 6,000,000 bear interest at 4 per cent., and about 24,000,000 at 3 per cent. —In 1835 the state debt was 130,000,000; in 1848, 103,000,000; in 1850, after three years of insurrection and war, it amounted to 121,000,000; and in 1861 was reduced to 98,000,000. This very considerable reduction of the debt was effected, although during the same period numerous and extensive public works were undertaken. We should bear in mind that the sums indicated for the years previous to 1864 embrace all three countries, Denmark, Schleswig. Holstein, and Lauenburg; from 1864 downward they refer to Denmark alone. The nominal debt of the state amounted, in 1866 to 131,000,000 rigsdalers, in 1868 to 132,000,000, and in 1870 to 116,000,000; while the state property, not including railroads owned by the state, amounted, in 1866 to 65,000,000 rigsdalers, in 1868 to 67,000,000, and in 1870 to 48,000,000. —As to the annual financial balance, the reports returned for the year 1845, for the whole Danish monarchy, as it then existed, showed a revenue and an expense of about 17,500,000 rigsdalers. In 1854 the revenue amounted to 23,000,000, and the expenses to 25,000,000. In 1861 revenue and expenses amounted to about 26,500,000; during the eight years from 1854 to 1861 the mean balance was about 22,750,000. During the six years from 1866 to 1871 the budgets for Denmark were increased to about 22,500,000. The amount in the treasury at the end of each of these years was from 5,000,000 to 6,000,000. —IV. MILITARY ORGANIZATION, ARMY AND NAVY. —Military affairs of both the army and navy are under the control of the ministers of war and of the marine. Recruits are obtained by conscription; every Dane who is able to bear arms is, without distinction, obliged to contribute his personal aid to the defense of his country (law of Feb. 12, 1849). The only ones excepted are the ministers of all churches or religious associations recognized by the state. Criminals are excluded, as unworthy of serving in either army or navy. At the age of 15 young men are entered upon the rolls, of which there is one kept in the district of each court of first resort; and 22 years is the age for conscription. Since 1867 the use of substitutes has been entirely abolished. Under the law of March 21, 1861, conscription is made for both army and navy. The recruits are apportioned between army and navy, according to the needs of the service, though regard is had, as far as it is possible, for the preferences of each. For sailors who have served on shipboard for some time, and become proficient seamen, there is a separate list, and those inscribed on it serve exclusively in the marine service. Although there are always a great many sailors at sea, either on board Danish ships, or on those of foreign nations, there has nevertheless never been any difficulty in completely manning the fleet with skilled native seamen. —The army has been reorganized according to a law of July 6, 1867. Under this law the infantry is composed of 20 battalions of the line, 10 battalions of reserves, 10 of re-enforcements (landwehr), forming five brigades; and the guard, which consists of one battalion of the line, and one of re enforcements. The cavalry numbers five regiments, each consisting of two squadrons of the line, one squadron of reserves, and one division of recruits. The field artillery consists of nine batteries of the line, and three of reserves, forming two regiments, and one train division. Of stationary artillery there are six companies of the line and three of re-enforcements, formed into two battalions. The technical artillery has an arsenal division and a laboratory division. The artillery has a staff, as have also the engineers. The corps of engineers forms a battalion of the line, a battalion of reserves, and a torpedo division. There is a general staff of the army, a corps of military judges, a corps of physicians, and a commissariat corps. Each branch of the service has an inspector general. With their full complement in time of war the battalions number 800 fighting men, and the cavalry squadrons 120. The army is made up of 32,000 fighting men. —The young soldiers, enrolled at the age of 22 years, form part of the line and of the reserve for eight years, and during the next eight years of the re-enforcement (landwehr). For conscription the country is divided into five circuits, each of which furnishes a brigade of infantry and cavalry. The young recruits spend from four to nine months in the drill school, after which they are sent back home, excepting the number of men necessary for service in time of peace, and those who are made corporals or officers. For several years after this the soldiers are called out for from 30 to 45 days for drill, and manœuvre practice. The officers and non-commissioned officers of the line and of the reserve remain permanently in the service; those of the re-enforcement are called into service only in times of a general enrollment. No one can become an officer who has not served as a soldier, and as corporal, and who has not, besides, passed the examinations in the military school. This school has a special class for the instruction of artillery officers, and officers of engineers. —The Danish fleet consisted, in 1872, of three frigates and four ironclad floating batteries, which were screw steamers; one ship of the line, four frigates, three corvettes, four schooners, and seven iron gunboats, which were screw steamers; six side-wheel steam corvettes; one sailing frigate, and one sailing cutter; eight oared gunboats, and 21 iron transports. The entire fleet mounts 320 pieces of cannon, and is supplied with engines whose combined capacity aggregates 6,700 horse power. —V. PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. The public educational system comprises lower and higher primary schools, secondary schools (called Latin schools, or learned schools), and schools of the exact sciences (realschulen), special schools, and finally a university, which imparts higher education. —Primary education was formerly under the care of the church, but now, according to the ordinance of July 29, 1814, it is entirely secular. Although the state has the supreme direction of primary education, it is regarded as a communal matter. Attendance at the primary school is compulsory (law of July 29, 1814) in this sense, that every child that does not receive a sufficient education elsewhere is obliged to attend the public school of the parish from the age of seven to the age of 14 years. Primary instruction in these schools is given gratuitously, as prescribed by § 90 of the fundamental law of June 5, 1849. Besides the ordinary primary schools, there are, in the cities, higher primary schools, which, in consideration of a certain amount of money, offer a more extended education. Each commune appoints its own superintendents, who act in concert with the pastors. The expenses are in general defrayed by the communes themselves. However, outside of Copenhagen the communal schools derive some assistance from an educational fund, formed by each bailiwick, by means of a tax levied on the whole district, and administered by a council composed of a bailiff, an ecclesiastic, and a certain number of members chosen by the towns and the rural communes (law of March 8, 1856). Finally, the state appropriates regularly every year 50,000 rigsdalers to primary education. The city of Copenhagen expended for primary education, in 1860, 100,000 rigsdalers, and in 1865, 91,300; the provincial cities taken together, in 1860, 190,000 rigsdalers, and in 1865, 200,400; and the rural communes, in 1860, 1,235,000 rigsdalers, and in 1865, 779,261. —The teachers are appointed by the general board of direction of primary schools; exceptionally, for some communes, by the bishop of the diocese; always and everywhere, after mature deliberation, and after having been proposed by the communal council. They are laymen. For the teaching and training of teachers the country has five primary normal schools. —Since 1852 there have been formed in the country districts of the several provinces secondary schools for the peasantry (bondehoiskoler), of which there were in 1872 nearly 50 in existence, and the number has been increasing. They are private institutions, independent of the administration, although the government has commenced to grant them subsidies. The young men, from 16 to 18 years of age and over, who frequent them, are not subjected to any examination, either on entering or on leaving them. While developing their primary education, they tend essentially and systematically to arouse their ambition and enliven their patriotism, and to create a respect and desire for education, by the aid of free, familiar oral lessons on antiquity, mythology, the history of their native country, the phenomena of nature, etc., and by singing together, by committing songs to memory, and by lively and instructive conversations. In short, the inculcation of liberty and individual independence, and the quickening of the pupils' minds, are the objects sought to be attained by these schools. —They have begun to organize similar semi-annual courses for young peasant women. —The secondary public schools are under the control of the state. Besides the public schools there are also many secondary private schools. In Denmark the public Latin schools (lyceums, colleges) which prepare students for the university, are twelve in number; they are, at the same time, schools of the exact sciences (realschulen), that is to say, they have, at the same time, classes in literature and the sciences. Each school is governed by a rector, who is also one of the faculty. The expenses of the secondary schools are paid partly by numerous special foundations and partly by the state. The total of these expenses in 1860-61 was about 200,000 rigsdalers; in 1872 about 230,000. —Besides numerous private special schools there are many public special schools, such as the royal academy of fine arts, the higher veterinary school, the school of scientific agriculture, the forestry and surveying schools, the polytechnic school, the primary normal schools, the military schools, naval schools, etc. The expenses of these schools, inasmuch as their special funds are not sufficient thereto, are borne by the state. —Denmark has only one university, that of Copenhagen. It has faculties of theology, law, political economy, medicine, philosophy, mathematics and the natural sciences; it has 57 professors. The number of its students is from 800 to 1,000. It is supported entirely by its own revenues, which are derived in part from landed property. Its annual expenses amount to nearly 200,000 rigsdalers. Besides the university there is a separate establishment called the community, which, with its annual revenue, of about 100,000 rigsdalers, is intended to furnish scholarships to poor students, and assistance to different educational institutions. —To sum up, without reckoning the revenues of particular foundations of certain institutions, the general educational fund, or the communal expenses, the state expends annually about 300,000 rigsdalers for the benefit of public education and the sciences. It besides devotes an equal sum every year to subsidies: to the royal theatre at Copenhagen (50,000 rigsdalers), to the veterinary school (nearly 50,000 rigsdalers), to the royal academy of fine arts, to the public libraries, museums and art collections. —The results of public education in Denmark may be considered as quite satisfactory. The obligation of attending school, together with the gratuity of education, has rendered it a thing of very rare occurrence to find any one who can not read and write. —VI. PUBLIC CHARITY. We must distinguish between obligatory public charity, and private charity. According to § 89 of the fundamental law of June 5, 1849, the commune is bound to aid every person that is unable to provide himself with the means of subsistence. For this purpose there is established in every commune a poor bureau, for the support of which the inhabitants of the commune are taxed according to their means. In olden times the support of the poor was intrusted to the vestrymen, and controlled by the pastor. Each commune constitutes a poor district. The supreme direction of charities is vested in the minister of the interior. The local administration is intrusted in Copenhagen, to four burgomasters of the city, assisted by one inspector general of charities. In the other cities there is a commission of charities, composed of one member of the magistracy and several inhabitants of each parish, chosen by the representatives of the commune. This commission is submitted to a management consisting of the bishop and the bailiff of each bailiwick. In the villages the administration of charities is in charge of the representatives of the commune, who are under the control of the council of the bailiwick. Finally, in all the communes, except Copenhagen, there is a poor fund, formed chiefly of voluntary gifts; it is administered by three inhabitants of the commune, elected by their fellow citizens. This fund is intended for the aiding of those who are not inscribed on the general poor list of the commune, or who are not entitled to assistance therefrom. The right to assistance is acquired by an uninterrupted residence of five years, after having attained the age of 18 years. In default of this title, it is to the place of one's birth that he must apply for assistance. In this matter children follow their parents. As far as possible employment is furnished those who can work. Obstinate mendicants are sent to the workhouses, and submitted to a rigorous discipline. Those who are unable to work receive assistance at home, either in money or in food or other necessaries of life, or else they are placed in the poorhouses, to be found in every commune. In many places there are, also, besides the hospitals properly so called, hospitals for the old and the infirm. —The local administration of charities exercises a certain disciplinary authority over all those who receive its aid. The public charity fund also has revenues which it derives from capital and real estate which belong to it, and which serve to augment the income derived from special taxes. In 1860 Copenhagen expended (in charities) about 300,000 rigsdalers; in 1865, 293,200; in 1870, 558,595. The other cities of the kingdom, taken together, expended about 186,000 rigsdalers in 1859, 256,300 in 1865, and 391,063 in 1869; the rural communes, together, 970,000 in 1859, 934,400 in 1865, and 2,139,851 in 1869. Besides the board of charity, properly so called, the state supports hospitals and institutions for the blind and for deaf mutes, and there are in the kingdom three large insane asylums. Moreover, the state maintains under its control, and bearing its guarantee, a life annuity fund, and a widow's fund, by means of which every married official of the government can assure to his widow an annual pension proportioned to his salary. —It would be difficult to speak of any private charitable organizations, for the existence of compulsory state aid has done away with all need for such organizations. Nevertheless, there are throughout the country numerous charitable establishments founded by private citizens, or which are enabled to subsist by voluntary annual contributions, such as infant asylums, public refectories for the poor, hospitals for the aged and the infirm, pious foundations of all kinds for persons who need them, family foundations, and canonicates for noble ladies (such as Valloé and Vemmetofte, and others in Zealand, which are possessed of very great wealth). Among the members of mechanics' societies there are numerous associations for mutual aid, sickness and burial funds, aid and relief funds, etc., etc. —VII. WORSHIP. According to the fundamental law of June 5, 1849, § 3, the Evangelical Lutheran church is the church of the Danish people, and to this church the king must belong. It is the only church subsidized by the state. The administration of the church is in the hands of the minister of worship and education. Denmark is divided into seven bishoprics or dioceses. The bishops, possessed of no real ecclesiastical authority, are mere intermediaries between the ministry and the pastors. Between the pastors and the bishops are placed the provosts, or deans, in the capacity of inspectors, each for his district. All the pastors of the Protestant church are appointed by the king. They are paid by the parishes, both in form of voluntary offerings and by fees (for baptisms, marriages, interments); they are given a residence and revenues or dues legally fixed, especially the tithes established in the ancient constitution of the country, which are now, however, changed almost entirely into dues to be paid in money. In the cities the salaries of the ministers are raised by a personal (capitation) tax upon the parishioners. The church owns no real estate. —The position of the Lutheran church, in its quality of national church, does not restrict the liberty of conscience or of worship recognized by §§ 5 and 81 of the fundamental law. Those of different creeds regulate their affairs without the intervention of the state, provided they do not teach or practice anything contrary to good morals or public order. Religion is never made a pretext for depriving a citizen of any right whatever. The public exercise of worship, under whatever form, is allowed without asking any special authorization. Nevertheless, marriages are not valid before the civil law, unless solemnized either by the pastors of the Lutheran or the Reformed church, by Catholic priests or by rabbis. Dissenters obtain the legal solemnization of their marriages by contracting them before the municipal authority (civil marriage). —VIII. JUSTICE. The judiciary is organized in three grades in both the civil and the criminal courts. There are in Denmark two courts of appeal (at Copenhagen, and at Viborg in Jutland), and a supreme court at Copenhagen. For the city of Copenhagen there are only two higher courts, and no court of first resort, properly so called. The courts of first resort have but one judge, who is also intrusted with administrative functions. The courts of appeal, or superior courts, are composed of several judges, whose functions are purely judicial. The judges are appointed by the king, but according to the fundamental law (§ 78) they can not be removed, except by a judicial decree. —Before the supreme court proceedings are oral and public; before the other tribunals they are made by written pleadings, as well in civil as in criminal causes; nevertheless, § 79 of the fundamental law promises that oral and public proceedings shall be introduced in all the jurisdictions, and that a jury shall be established for political causes, and for important criminal causes. There will then be separate counsels for the prosecution, and the judges of first resort will no longer be charged with administrative functions. A law of Feb. 19, 1861, created at Copenhagen a tribunal of commerce and navigation, with oral and summary procedure. —IX. AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES. The Danish monarchy is an agricultural and stock raising country; manufactures, commerce and navigation are of only secondary importance. The fisheries, also, are beginning to attract attention. Its crop of cereals amounts to about 18,000,000 tons (4½ cubic feet), 2,500,000 of which are exported. The most important cereals, enumerated according to the quantities produced, are oats, barley, rye and wheat; to which we may add peas, beans and buckwheat. The culture of wheat has greatly increased of late years at the expense of rye. Potatoes, different kinds of radishes, turnips and other vegetables, although they are found, can not be regarded as regular crops. The cultivation of commercial plants, such as rape seed, madder and succory, is inconsiderable. Hops and flax are grown in different districts, but the crop is not sufficient for home consumption. Clover is extensively used for feeding cattle. Agriculture is constantly and rapidly progressing, owing especially to the more extensive use of draining, and the employment of artificial fertilizers and of marl. —Denmark is not rich in mineral wealth; there is nothing of the kind found there, except marl. In several places there are extensive chalk and lime quarries. Clay suitable for the manufacture of bricks and drain pipes is abundant. —Manufacturing interests are very little developed. They have, however, been improving, especially in the branches of manufacture which pertain to agriculture, commerce and navigation. There are numerous iron foundries, and the number of machine shops is increasing. The employment of steam power in the breweries and distilleries has worked a wonderful progress in these establishments. In 1860 there were manufactured about 42,000,000 pots of alcohol (a pot equals 4 litres), of which 2,000,000 were exported. In 1870 the manufacture of alcohol in Denmark alone amounted to 31,778,632 pots, of which 923,044 were exported. The building of merchant vessels is a flourishing industry. There are also tile kilns, and sugar refineries, paper mills, cloth mills, etc., are prosperous. There are oil mills, and tobacco, porcelain and piano factories. The minor industries are of more importance than the greater ones, and their products will bear honorable comparison with the best productions of foreign countries. —We give some estimates of the state of commerce and navigation. In round numbers the traffic of Denmark, during the years 1865-70, amounted to about 2,700,000,000 pounds weight, 1,800,000,000 of which were imported and 900,000,000 exported. The exports are chiefly agricultural products; the imports, manufactured articles and colonial produce. In 1870 the merchant marine of Denmark numbered 2,800 vessels (with a tonnage of four tons or more), having a total tonnage of 178,648 tons. Of these vessels, 89 were steamers, with a total tonnage of 10,458 tons, and aggregating 4,981 horse power; and besides these there are 10,667 smaller vessels, of four tons or less.73 ROTHE. DEPOSITSDEPOSITS, Removal of. In the course of his struggle with the bank of the United States (see BANK CONTROVERSIES, III.; JACKSON, ANDREW), president Jackson, in his message of Dec. 4, 1832, asked for an investigation into the truth of rumors which, if true, affected the safety of the government deposits in the bank. By section 16 of the act of April 10, 1816, creating the bank, the funds of the federal government were to be deposited in the bank or its branches, "unless the secretary of the treasury shall at any time otherwise order and direct; in which case the secretary of the treasury shall immediately lay before congress, if in session, and if not, immediately after the commencement of the next session, the reason of such order or direction." As the charter was accepted by the bank with this proviso, it would seem that the secretary of the treasury had been accepted by both the contracting parties as a sort of arbiter to decide upon the possible future question of a removal of the deposits from the bank; and the only punishment for a misuse of the discretion by the secretary would seem to be impeachment and removal, a punishment which the bank's friends in congress could not inflict in 1833 for want of a two-thirds majority in the senate. The question, then, lay, not in the right to remove the deposits, but in its necessity; and this necessity the president's mind found in his belief that the bank was using the public funds for a large expansion of its discount business, under the irresponsible direction of a committee appointed by the president, Nicholas Biddle, from which the government directors were excluded; that a large share of these discounts were in favor of members of congress or of their friends; and that, unless the deposits were soon removed, the bank would thus, in this or the next congress, secure to its support a majority sufficient to impeach and remove not only the secretary, but the president himself, if necessary. In the president's opinion the warfare between himself and the bank had been the fundamental question of the presidential election just ended, and his re-election was to him a certain proof that the people sustained him and condemned the bank. For these reasons he had made the suggestion above given in his message, and soon after seems to have decided to force the secretary of the treasury, McLane (see ADMINISTRATION, XIII.), either to remove the deposits or resign. —March 2, 1833, by the strong majority of 109 to 46, the house, which is always regarded as the special overseer of the treasury and its secretary, resolved that the deposits might be safely continued in the bank. On the following day congress adjourned, and the president was left master of the field until the following December. In January, 1833, he had received from Wm. J. Duane an acceptance of the office of secretary of the treasury. June 1, Duane entered on the duties of his office, McLane having taken the state department, from which Livingston had retired to accept a foreign mission. During his first day of office the new secretary was unofficially informed that the president had decided to remove the federal deposits from the bank To this Duane objected, and from his own statement his objection seems to have been made, first, to the impossible project, fathered by the president, of making deposits in future in state banks (see INDEPENDENT TREASURY), and, second, to the hasty method of removal without waiting for congress to meet in December. He seems to have been no friend to the bank, and not anxious to have deposits made there, if congress would relieve him of responsibility. To all his objections the president persistently replied by offering to "assume the responsibility" himself, and he seems to have been unable to understand Duane's feeling that he was sworn to exercise his own discretion, and not to shift his responsibility to the shoulders of the president Late in July Duane incautiously promised that, if satisfactory state banks could be found in which to make the deposits, he would "either concur with the president or retire." At cabinet meetings, Sept. 10 and 17, the president argued vehemently in favor of the removal, and, Sept. 18, he announced to the cabinet that the removal was resolved upon for Oct. 1, and that he assumed the entire responsibility for it. Under these circumstances Duane seems to have become satisfied that a resignation, for the purpose of making room for a secretary who would fulfill the president's wishes, would not be a fulfillment of the duty with which he stood charged by congress. He therefore asked the president peremptorily "to favor him with a written declaration of desire that he should leave office," and the president, after long expostulation with the secretary, for whom he had great liking, did so, Sept. 23. The same day, Roger B. Taney, the attorney general, was made secretary, and three days afterward he gave the necessary orders. There was in reality no removal. The order directed government collecting officers to deposit their moneys in certain state banks, named in the order. The deposits already made in the bank were left there to be drawn upon, and 15 months afterward nearly $4,000,000 were still there on deposit. —Of the economic recklessness of the removal of the deposits, without the substitution of any efficient custodian for them, the panic of 1837 is a fair proof. (See INDEPENDENT TREASURY.) Of the strict legality of the removal there is less doubt than of the legality of the president's action. He was not, apart from congress, a party to the contract between the bank and the government; and yet, availing himself of the fact that one of his cabinet had been appointed arbiter between the parties, he had used his power of removal to gain by indirection a control over the contract which he had not directly. But there is this to be said, and it applies to every phase of the struggle between the president and the bank: there was not room in the United States government for both Andrew Jackson and the bank of the United States. Instead of following the simple and natural plan afterward adopted (see INDEPENDENT TREASURY), by which the whole fiscal business of the federal government was intrusted to the treasury, congress had undertaken taken to graft a private corporation upon the treasury. The larger the fiscal business of the government grew, the more powerful and dangerous grew this extra-governmental excrescence. The very even balance of the war between the president and the bank is of itself strong evidence of the power which the bank was able to exert in politics so early in our history as 1831-2. Had it continued to enjoy the use of the increasing revenues of the federal government it would have become more and more dangerous, either as the tool or as the master of a popular government, and the succeeding administrations would have found it more and more difficult to shake off its weight. Jackson showed more political wisdom than is usually credited to him in forcing the struggle so early. When the struggle was once begun, it became a struggle for existence, in which both parties were certain to strain every point of law in the charter and elsewhere. In such a conflict it is matter for thankfulness that the most exceptionable action on either side was a violation, not of the letter, but of the spirit and intent of the law of 1816. —Dec, 4, 1833, secretary Taney, as required by law, gave congress his reasons for the removal of the deposits. Duane, who saw no reason for their removal, would have been unable to perform this office, even if the president's assumption of responsibility had been allowed by him, and this inability was the main cause of his obstinate refusal. Taney believed firmly that right and reason were conjoined in support of the removal, and he therefore argued the case, not as the mere mouth-piece of the president, but with perfect good faith. Debate upon the removal occupied the whole time of congress, Dec. 2, 1833-June 30, 1834. Petitions in great number were offered, most of them for the restoration of the deposits, but, beyond debate, the friends of the bank could do nothing. The president was impregnable against remonstrance or petition; the necessary majority to remove the president could not possibly be secured; and, after a three months' almost constant debate, the only result was a vote of censure by the senate. (See CENSURES, I.) The nomination of Taney was deferred by the president until June 23, and was then promptly rejected by the senate. It was, therefore, a personal satisfaction to the president that, when Martin Van Buren, whose nomination as minister to England had been rejected by the senate in 1832, was inaugurated as president in 1837, the oath was administered by chief justice Taney, whose nomination as secretary of the treasury had been rejected by the senate in 1834. (See BANK CONTROVERSIES III.; DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, IV.; WHIG PARTY, II.) —See II. F. Baker's Banking in the United States; Gilbart's Banking in America; Goddard's Bank of the United States; Gallatin's Considerations on the Currency; Hildreth's Banks and Banking; Clarke and Hall's History of the Bank of the United States; Moulton's Constitutional Guide; Gouge's Short History of Money and Banking in the United States; 2 von Holst's United States, 52; 1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, 373; 3 Parton's Life of Jackson, 498; 3 Webster's Works, 506, and 4: 3; 2 Colton's Life and Times of Clay; 2 Clay's Speeches; 2 Statesman's Manual; Tyler's Life of Taney; 2 Story's Life of Story; 11, 12 Benton's Debates of Congress. Duane's Address to the People, with his own and Jackson's letters, is in 2 Colton, 86; his Narrative is in 3 Parton, 509; the act of April 10, 1816, is in 3 Stat. at Large, 274. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DESCENT OF PROPERTYDESCENT OF PROPERTY. (See INHERITANCE.) DESPOTISMDESPOTISM. Montesquieu defines despotic government to be, that in which "a single person, without law and without rule, carries everything by his will and caprice." He distinguishes it from absolute government or monarchy, in which a single man rules also, but conformably to fixed laws. —According to Guizot, despotism is nothing else than absolute power, whenever this power, "instead of being a means, becomes the end itself, and the monarch, guided by views completely egoistical, seeks in power only the satisfaction of his own passions, of his insignificant and transient personality." The distinguishing mark of despotism, then, is selfishness. Following this theory, this same writer depicts Philip the Fair as "an egoistical despot, devoted to himself, reigning for himself alone, and asking of power nothing but the accomplishment of his own will." —Still, Guizot does not hesitate to place in the rank of despots, two monarchs, for whom, according to his own statement, power was a means and not an end: "Charlemagne, for example, and Peter the Great of Russia, were real despots, but not exclusively egoistical despots, busied only with themselves, consulting only their own caprices, acting only for personal ends. They both held views with regard to their own country and mankind, in which the satisfaction of their passions had but a small part." (Histoire de la civilisation en France, t. iv.) There are, then, according to Guizot, despots who are egoists, and others who are not; but in this case what becomes of his definition? It is evident that his language, usually so clear, lacks precision here; that he does not go to the root of the matter, and that he confounds despotism with absolute power. —The same confusion is found in the writings of Benjamin Constant, who, however, understood the difficulty, but did not seek completely to clear it up. "I do not understand by despotism," he says, "governments in which power is not expressly limited, but those in which there are, nevertheless, intermediaries; where traditions of liberty and justice restrain the agents of the administration; in which authority has regard for custom; and in which the independence of the courts is respected. These governments are imperfect: they are more so in proportion as the guarantees which they establish are less assured; but they are not purely despotic." The absence of all limitation to supreme power, and of independent powers to form a counterpoise, is, according to the celebrated publicist of the restoration, the characteristic feature of despotism. This distinguishes it, it is true; but from what? From constitutional government, but not from absolute power, whose character it is also not to admit of limit nor to recognize any independent intermediary, under pain of being no longer absolute.—"I understand by despotism," continues Benjamin Constant, "a government in which the will of a master is the only law; in which corporations, if they exist there, are only its organs; in which this master looks on himself as the sole proprietor of his empire, and sees in his subjects merely usufructuaries; in which liberty can be wrested from the citizen without authority deigning to explain the reason why; in which the courts are subordinated to the caprice of power; in which their decrees may be annulled; and in which the acquitted may be brought before new judges, instructed by their predecessors, who are there only to convict and condemn the accused." (Cours de politique constitutionnelle) —Instead of the definition which we expect of him, this writer gives us examples which are nearly all as applicable to absolutism as to despotism. But Benjamin Constant goes a step further, and says: "I speak only of the principle of despotism, * * that principle is arbitrary power." It is, in fact, a principle that we are looking for; let us see if this is, really, the true principle. First, how does Benjamin Constant define arbitrary power? "It is," he says, "a negative thing [arbitrary power a negative thing! arbitrary power supposes the exercise of will]; it is the absence of rule, of limit, of definition; in a word, of everything that is precise. Now, as rules, limits and definitions are inconvenient things, one may easily wish to shake off their yoke, and thus fall into the arbitrary without suspecting it." Consequently, and in virtue of this definition, a man might be a despot without knowing it!—But arbitrary power and despotism are far from being the same thing. Doubtless, the arbitrary implies a discretionary power in reference to the object on which it is exercised. Thus, we speak of the arbitrary power of a judge, ad arbitrium judicis, which does not mean his despotism or his tyranny, but only implies the exercise of absolute power. This arbitrary power can be used for good as well as evil, and it in nowise excludes the doing of good. —We have seen that egoism, which may be met with everywhere, is not the distinctive trait of despotism; nor does arbitrariness constitute its essential characteristic. —In one of the most eloquent chapters of "The Spirit of Laws," Montesquieu has stated what the principle of despotic government is, better than the two publicists whom we have just quoted. That principle is terror. "The government," he says, "has fear as its principle. Everything here must turn on two or three ideas: it does not, therefore, need new ones. When we train an animal we take good care that his master is not changed, any more than the task he has to learn. We impress on his brain two or three movements, not more. Charles XII., being at Bender, and experiencing some opposition from the senate of Sweden, wrote that he would send one of his boots to command it. This boot would have governed as a despotic king. * * In despotic states, men, like beasts, are the slaves of instinct, obedience and punishment." —If we follow Montesquieu in his thoughts on despotism, we shall find egoism and arbitrariness put down as the consequences, as the accessory characteristics, but not as the first principle and the motive power, of despotic government. —Most generally despotism is in the hands of a single man. "It results from the nature of despotic power," says Montesquieu, "that the individual who exercises it causes it to be administered by another individual. The appointment of a vizier is a fundamental law in such a state. It is said that a pope, at his election, conscious of his incompetency, raised numberless objections to his election. He accepted it at length, and turned over to his nephew the whole management of affairs. He was filled with admiration at the result, and said, 'I could never have believed it would be so easy.' And so it is with the princes of the east." —It would be an error, however, to suppose that despotism is necessarily exercised by a single person. All power may become despotic. History affords us examples of the despotism of representative bodies or of assemblies; and the representative body which in our day declared that it governed by terror, would by that very declaration brand itself a despotism. The majority may, indeed, show themselves despotic and oppress the minority; but the minority may also violently gain possession of power and oppress the majority. —An aristocracy may be despotic. So may an oligarchy. The example of despotism exercised by a democracy is not rare. Public opinion, which, in modern society, plays so great a part and wields such power that it has been called the queen of the world, becomes despotic when it swerves from the right, and when the fear which it inspires becomes the sanction of its tyranny. Finally, the law itself, which, by its nature is imperative and commands obedience, may also become a despotism, as we shall see directly. —Still, how is it possible that the majority should ever be despotic? Has it not the right to make the law and impose its will on the minority in every case? Are not its decisions, therefore, always necessarily legitimate? Such was the opinion of J. J. Rousseau, who made the general will the very source of right. According to him, this general will could not err. Legally expressed, it is, he maintains, always right, and always tends to public utility. In it sovereignty resides; and the law which is its act, sharing its infallibility, is absolute, but can never be despotic. —Benjamin Constant gave forcible expression to the consequences of this doctrine, which attributes to an entire nation, or, to speak more correctly, to the majority, an unlimited authority. "The consent of the majority," he says, "is in nowise sufficient to justify its acts in all cases. There are some which nothing can sanction. When any authority commits such acts, it matters little from what source that authority emanates, it matters little whether it is an individual or a nation; and it may be the whole nation minus the one citizen whom it oppresses; the authority would not be any the more legitimate for that. Rousseau ignored this truth; and his error has made the 'Social Contract,' so often appealed to in favor of liberty, the most terrible ally of every kind of despotism." If a nation actually transfer to its representatives its own unlimited power, and the authority of the depositary is absolute, no member of that nation can have the right to oppose it. "Whatever pleases the prince," say the Institutes of the emperor Justinian, "has the force of law, because the Roman people, by the Lex Regia, which constituted the empire, delegated and conceded to the prince their authority and power." This was the theory of Rousseau reduced to practice. —Montesquieu, in his "Spirit of Laws," considered despotism one of the three forms of government, one of its three primitive types; and he follows in this the example of Aristotle, "not that he has much to say on the subject, but to give it a place among them, and because he has called it, also, a kind of government." Montesquieu has been bitterly reproached with having raised, in a manner, to the rank of a regular government, a state of things which is merely the negation of right, which rests merely on violence, and is maintained only by fear. To describe it, say what are its laws, tell how it comes into existence, and what are the forces which destroy it, is to do it too much honor. We do not say that the bandit who takes violent possession of a town and pillages it, is the head of a government. Despotism is not less contrary to nature; and it should have been left outside the pale of all law. This criticism has been frequently passed on the "Spirit of Laws" since Voltaire's time. We do not think it is well founded. First of all, it would not be right to believe that Montesquieu justified despotism, nor even that he painted it in too weak colors. "No writer, even in antiquity, has found words more eloquent to stigmatize a state of things no less oppressive to the despot who can not escape it than to the people themselves." He merely found it occupying de facto, if not de jure, a large place in the history of humanity. He saw entire nations fatally condemned to endure it for centuries, by reason of the influence of race, of climate and of religion, and of the most complex causes. He was obliged to take it into account as a fact in the life of nations. He had, moreover, had a predecessor here. Macchiavelli before him had written his book "The Prince," which is neither an apology for, nor a satire on, despotism. The celebrated Florentine submitted a social phenomenon to a cold analysis. He described it without passion, without anger, as Thucydides described the plague. —Before Macchiavelli, and Montesquieu, Aristotle, whom the two others consulted, and whose principal traits they borrowed, treated the question of despotism thoroughly and exhaustively. According to Aristotle, despotism is contrary to nature, and by nature he understood that which constitutes the complement and the perfection of every being. Despotism is, therefore, contrary to the nature of man considered as a social being. It is an obstacle to his moral development and to the fulfillment of his destiny. (See Aristotle, Politics, book v., ch. xi.) —We have said that the law itself may be despotic. It is so, whether it emanates from the arbitrary will of an individual, or from the will of several, or even of the majority, if it is not in conformity with the principles of justice and equity which are the invariable and necessary rule of the moral world. —To say in a few words what it is that makes power legitimate, what it is that distinguishes it from despotism, in whatever hands the power be placed, whether in the hands of one or many, whether limited or unlimited, we may say that what makes power legitimate is justice. "Right is the rule of political society." (Aristotle.) Despotism is nothing but authority exercised in violation of the principles of right. Let us see if this definition is more exact than those which we have criticised. We are told, to begin with, that despotism is egoism; and it is true that egoism must be most frequently, but not always, the secret motive of the despot. Ignorance, prejudice and fanaticism are, much oftener than personal interest, the motives of governing bodies and of the multitude who, having seized upon power, transgress the moral law. We have been told, then, that despotism is arbitrariness; but we have seen that arbitrariness is the attribute of absolute power, which is different from despotism. What is the general character of those acts which all publicists have justly considered as despotic? It is the violation of the liberty of the citizen, the jeopardizing of his life, condemnation and punishment without trial, deprivation of the citizen of his property: in a word, that which characterizes all the crimes of despotism is the violation of justice and the substitution of brute force for right. —Such was, in substance, the opinion of Benjamin Constant, who did not consider governments despotic, in which the tradition of justice and liberty still lived. (See ABSOLUTISM, ARBITRARY POWER, DICTATOR, LAW, SOVEREIGNTY, TYRANNY.) EMILE CHÉDIEU. DICTATORDICTATOR. This word comes from the Latin, as the office which it describes originated with the Romans. The dictator was a magistrate appointed to meet an exceptional difficulty, and who, instead of receiving his investiture from the people as the consuls did, was designated by one of the consuls at the demand of the senate. The dictator had the most extensive powers, and had no colleagues, so that he might have full freedom of action. He could dispose of the liberty, the property and the lives of all citizens, but he needed the authorization of the senate and the order of the people to spend the public revenues. The legal duration of the dictatorship was fixed at six months, but the dictator often abdicated after the disappearance of the danger which it had been his mission to oppose. Thus, certain dictators, like Cincinnatus, exercised their office only during 15 days; others, like Q. Servilius, kept it but a week. The dictator could not leave Italy without losing his rights immediately. After the installation of the tribunes the dictatorship was an arm which the senate employed to defend itself against the people, and when Sylla was invested with this magistracy it had not been exercised for nearly 120 years. —The legal dictatorship is not found in modern constitutions; all dictatorships instituted since the fall of Rome are dictatorships de facto, which must be carefully distinguished from the ancient magistracy. It is generally in times of disturbance and during revolutionary periods that people, wearied with conflicts, take refuge in a dictatorship, and demagogues are generally the first to propose it as a sovereign remedy. —Opinions are still divided as to the usefulness of a dictatorship at certain times and to meet exceptional difficulties. It is necessary, therefore, to know the arguments urged against it and in its favor. Montesquieu remarked of dictatorship "The usage of the freest people that has ever been on earth makes me think that there are cases in which it is necessary to draw a veil over liberty for the moment, as one conceals statues of the gods." This thought sums up in a very exact and sufficiently precise manner the opinions of the partisans of dictatorship. They admit, in principle, the necessity of the liberty and independence of individual interests; but in fact, they proclaim that at certain moments of crisis or demoralization, it is necessary for society to bethink itself, and personify itself in a single man, or in an energetic and moral group of men. Once a nation is saved, purified, regenerated, its discords ended, public spirit restored, the man or the group should be dismissed, and the government de facto succeeded by the government de jure. An ordinary government, harassed by factions, thinking most of its own preservation, influenced by its own vicious surroundings, would be powerless, and liberty would not find bases solid enough for its own support; while a dictator, free from every influence, sure of his position, and obeying only his conscience, will not be embarrassed by childish formalities or miserable questions of petty interests. As the commander of a ship gives up his power for a short time to an experienced pilot, the nation should in time of danger permit a firm and able hand to conduct it to the harbor. This opinion on dictatorship is shared by a great number of modern socialists and by the entire school of demagogues. —The adversaries of dictatorship bring up, first of all, a practical difficulty, the choice of a dictator. If a dictator is only needed for a demoralized or agitated society, are we not to fear that the dictator will be no better than the people by whom he is chosen? Logically, this would be the case, for voting only gives an average of the opinion, the morality and the knowledge of the voters. In this first case dictatorship will be opposed to its object, for, by throwing themselves into the arms of a savior, they will have simply obtained a master. But if we go further, and admit the hypothesis of virtuous dictators, whose sole object is "to compel virtue through terror," it is said that the dictator will become a tyrant, by force of circumstances, while society, far from becoming moral, will sink lower; because, however virtuous we suppose him, he is a man, and every man who acquires the habit of not counting with any obstacle and not imposing any restraint on himself, reaches a degree of willfulness which becomes his own ruin. The second reason is, that a dictator governing by himself alone is a chimera, while the real dictator is necessarily surrounded by a crowd of flatterers, who praise him, excite him beyond measure, and ruin him the more promptly, as no contradiction, no advice can act as a counterpoise to his flatterers. The very virtue of the dictator is a danger to him, in this sense, that it serves him as a pretext while it is used as a mask for the passions of those who surround him. When the dictator is thus demoralized there would be a remedy if regenerated society could deprive him of power. But his surrounding, far from becoming better, has become worse. Under the influence of servitude, public spirit has completely disappeared; every one has acquired the habit of looking at public affairs as something strange, and opposition to the will of the dictator as a senseless revolt; from a bundle of wills a collection of interests and appetites have been created, without connection and without force. Does this crowd deserve liberty? and could it use it? If it was unfitted for it at the moment when the dictatorship was established, is it less so now? and if the dictator found in the general enfeeblement a sufficient reason for assuming power, will he not find similar and better ones for keeping it? He has less desire of granting liberty because he has no longer an inclination for regular government; there is less desire to have liberty because the habit of doing without it has been acquired. No wish to yield, on the one hand; no alertness in demanding, on the other: this is the end. Rousseau summed up this opinion in the following terms: "Thus, it is not the danger of abuse, but that of abasement, which causes me to blame the ill-judged use of this magistracy." —We do not think that it is permitted to hesitate between these two arguments for and against, and we believe that to prepare a people for liberty, the best means is to give it to them. It is in the rude school of experience that the physical temperament of individuals is formed, and it is in this same school that the moral and intellectual temperament of peoples is formed. Let us leave, then, to wise and enlightened minds a sort of moral dictatorship which people will not deny them; but if they were ten times as wise, let us not expose them to the danger of too great a temptation; and let us not forget that the first rule in politics is, that a power restrains itself only to the extent that it is limited. CLÉMENT DUVERNOIS. DIETS AND DIETINESDIETS AND DIETINES.—Diets are political assemblies in which the different estates or classes of the same country meet to deliberate on affairs within their jurisdiction. —Germany, Poland, Switzerland and Sweden have given this name to their assemblies. These countries, having very different forms of government, are not to be confounded in the same study; we shall therefore describe the diet of each country separately. —The German Diet. During the time of the German empire the diet was assembled according to the good pleasure of the emperor alone; afterward the consent of the electors became necessary to its being assembled; and finally, the capitulations imposed on the emperor the obligation of convoking the diet at least every 10 years. Under the feudal régime all nobles whose possessions were held directly from the emperor took part in the deliberations. In 1500 Maximilian I, deprived them of this right. The counts regained them, however, by submitting to the form of collective suffrage. Until the diet was divided into colleges its deliberations were almost entirely the work of the magnates and the nobility, but this was changed, beginning with the assembly of Nuremberg held by Fredrick III. in 1467. These colleges were three in number: The college (or chamber) of electors, the college of princes, and the college of imperial cities. After the college of electors had arbitrarily assumed to itself exclusive rights, the treaty of Westphalia defined the rights of the diet, as well as those of the emperor, whose power was at this time almost nominal, in consequence of the influence which Austria and Prussia had acquired over the small principalities. Later, from 1815 to 1866, the Germanic confederation, for which a new diet was instituted, simply vegetated. Finally, we have the German empire, created in 1871, which has a reichstag, the Prussian parliament being called landtag, words which may both be translated diet. —The Diet of Poland. Even when the kings of Poland exercised absolute power they consulted on important affairs the magnates who formed, so to speak, their senate. At the diet of Chencing, in 1331, Ladislas the Dwarf convoked the entire nobility; since that time the nobles neutralized the power of the magnates. In proportion as enlightenment increased, the meetings of the diet became more frequent, but their convocation took place at the pleasure of the king, and had no regular form. The nobility met there in a body, discussed affairs on horseback, and separated at the end of a few days. The law of 1468 having determined the form of the diets, the petty dietine arose. Two deputies represented each district at the diet, after having received the instructions of their constituents. There were assemblies of all the nobles of each district, and these assemblies took the name of ante-comitial dictines or dietines of instruction. When the business of the diets was terminated, the deputies gave an account of their action to their constituents, in post-comitial dietines or diets of account. —After the extinction of the Jagellon dynasty the government underwent great modifications. The pacta conventa, imposed on Henri de Valois, in 1573, put all important power in the hands of the diet, fixing the times and places of the sessions, as well as the length of each session. In spite of the unanimous agreement declared necessary to give force to the decisions of the diet, a majority of votes governed in its deliberations up to 1651. Sycinski, a deputy from Upita, gave at that time the first example of the liberum veto, annulling, by his protest, all deliberations taken and to be taken. This abuse, tolerated at first, was constitutionally recognized in 1718, and placed the country, so to speak, at the mercy of a single man. In this way diets were seen broken up by a single veto, pronounced even before the opening of the session. It sometimes happened that the author of the veto, when the gauntlet was thrown down to him, carried his opposition with him into the tomb, and in that way restored full liberty of action to the deputies. The liberum veto was abolished at last by the constitutional diet, which lasted four years, from 1788 to 1792, and which gave to Poland the wise constitution of May 3. When the monarchy became elective, there were diets of convocation, which took place after the death of the king, in order to provide for public tranquillity during the interregnum, and to fix the date of the election. At the diets of election all the nobility participated in a body, by virtue of a motion made in 1573 by John Zamoyski. —The Helvetic Diet. The first eight Swiss cantons, bound together by a federal pact, sent their respective deputies, from time to time, to a place agreed upon, to consult concerning their mutual interests. These assemblies, which date from 1481, appear to be the origin of the Helvetic diet. The federal cantons having increased, and with them the power of the confederation, these assemblies became more necessary and more frequent. It was then decided that the diet should be held every year. The canton of Zurich had the right of convocation, and its first deputy was president of the diet. The session lasted one month, and the place of reunion was fixed at Baden, in Aargau; in 1712 it was transferred to Frauenfeld, in Thurgau. Each canton sent two deputies, whose deliberations touched upon the differences between the cantons or between them and their allies, and upon measures fitted to guarantee the federal pact. The diet next examined the accounts of the bailiwicks or districts, and gave decisions in appeals both in civil and in criminal matters. Each canton preserved its autonomy in internal affairs; but the diet centralized in itself all power relating to foreign affairs. —The Helvetic diet presented at this period a strange contrast. Admired abroad for its simplicity, its soundness of judgment and its justice in relations with foreign states, it was distracted at home by petty hatreds, provincial jealousies, a smoldering rivalry, and mutual distrust among its members. On this account, it was powerless to remedy the evils of the constitution. The federal pact was approaching its dissolution; the French revolution caused its fall. The desertion of the diet united at Aargau in 1797, enabled France to break up the confederation, in order to form the Helvetic republic. The two chambers then took the place of the diet, but with a feeling of antagonism to the new government. A bloody struggle was about to take place for the re-establishment of the federal pact, when Napoleon interfered as mediator, and made Switzerland a federal state. The diet was re-established by virtue of the constitution of Feb. 19, 1803. It assembled every year in the month of June, alternately in each of the chief towns of the five directing cantons, and the sessions lasted one month. Each canton sent a deputy; but Berne, Zurich, Aargau, the Grisons and Saint-Gall had each a double vote; there were 25 votes. All higher power was in the hands of the diet, whose deliberations were simply reflections of the ideas of the powerful mediator who had re-established it. The congress of Vienna confirmed the new federal pact made by Switzerland in 1815, and left the same powers to the diet. It met the first Monday in the month of June, and was composed of 24 deputies. Profound changes have taken place since then. —As to the Swedish diet, as well as those of the different German states, we refer to articles devoted to these countries. HENRY LEGEAY. DIPLOMACYDIPLOMACY. "This is the designation of the sum total of knowledge and principles necessary for the good and proper conduct of public business between states," says Klüber, in his treatise on International Law. This definition, however, does not exhaust the meaning which usage has given to the word diplomacy. Klüber, in his definition, had in view only the science of diplomacy; but the practice or the application of this science, if science it be, is diplomacy, too. —The thing, diplomacy, is old; the name is modern. Relations have existed at all times between states. Even nomadic hordes and savage tribes do not always incline to attack and exterminate one another the moment they meet. Hence the necessity for every country or community to confide to representatives the business of looking after its interests with foreign states and tribes. The art of negotiation may be acquired to a certain extent, but the superior adroitness of the negotiator is as much a natural gift as is the talent of the painter or musician. So long as the relations between states were comparatively simple, and especially when they were not frequent, governments limited themselves to choosing, in each instance, the person who seemed peculiarly fitted for the mission. At a time when there was no tradition in diplomacy, no apprenticeship was needed. But as civilization spread over wider territory, states which recognized its laws increased in number, and there was established, if not a code of doctrine, at least a collection of rules and practices, purely conventional in part, but in part having their origin in the very nature of things—a collection of rules which it was necessary to know and to apply. Traces of these rules are found in antiquity, and still more in the middle ages; but it was in modern times that they were reduced to a real system. In modern times also, it was that some countries required of agents charged with international affairs certain preparatory studies. —Diplomacy, and we include in this term both its theory and practice, has been of great service; it has contributed to soften international relations and to lessen the number of wars. The first negotiators were more frequently the conquered, who, on one side, appeared as pleaders in their own cause, and on the other, conquerors, often brutal, who did not think themselves bound to give any quarter, or obliged to show any consideration. Generally they never met again. Human respect, public opinion, and so many other restraints which moderate the expression of violent passions, either did not exist then, or had no influence. But when, especially after the peace of Westphalia, the custom of permanent missions became general, and the men sent on these missions were chosen either from the higher nobility or from persons frequenting the courts, customs of courtesy became established of necessity, the value and importance of which it would be wrong to under-estimate. —One of the most direct results of these customs was to decrease the number of wars. The facility given the sovereign of a country easily to confer with the representative of a government with which he had had a dispute, was enough to smooth over many difficulties. The evils of war are so great that nations generally prefer to come to an amicable understanding rather than expose themselves to them. Besides, the more relations become intimate, or merely frequent, between two men, the more they feel a repugnance to commit injustice against each other. This restraint is of course not always strong enough; but, whatever may have been its action before the growth of public opinion, there was no power but that of the diplomatic body capable of putting a certain restraint on governments in their international relations. The intervention of this body was not caused solely by the solidarity existing between all civilized states, a solidarity close enough to cause to be felt, even in the farm lands of France and England, the effects of a civil war which raged on the banks of the Potomac and the Mississippi. This intervention is founded also on the principles of eternal morality, and sometimes even it has been able to limit itself to invoking social decorum. It was in this way that the diplomatic corps, led by the representative of France at Lisbon, Hyde de Neuville, prevented, in 1824, by common action, the insurrection of Dom Miguel against his father. And this is not the only act of this kind recorded by history. Diplomacy has more than once moderated the severities of war and religious persecution. —Diplomacy thus has been an instrument of peace. Why, then, is it in such ill repute? Is not diplomacy often taken as a synonym of cunning and dissimulation? Is not a diplomate, who must be distinguished from the diplomatic agent, in the estimation of many persons, a deceitful man with a talent for "using language in such a way as to conceal his thought"? There was a time when this unfavorable opinion had a certain foundation. But it was not altogether the fault of the institution. We may say here, like master, like man. An ambassador, or minister plenipotentiary, is simply an agent; he is obliged to execute the orders of his government and of the sovereign, "his august master." At the time when all these sovereigns were absolute monarchs, and some of them despots in the strictest sense of the word, ideas of honor, of loyalty and good faith, were not so general as they are now, and society was not so exacting on this point as at present. It is easily understood why absolute and ambitious princes gave their agents tasks morally reprehensible, and why these agents, in order to succeed, had to employ deceit, falsehood, intrigue and other means, which arouse our indignation. Pursuing an end which frequently it would not do to acknowledge, and generally through means which were still less to be acknowledged, diplomates had also to shroud their actions in the most profound mystery, and their most highly valued power was that of knowing how to speak and say nothing. —At present the diplomatic agent is more than ever the proxy of his government, but the telegraph and the rapidity of communication have almost entirely deprived him of all initiative. His task often consists in delivering to the minister of foreign affairs of the country to which he is accredited the paper containing the ideas of his superior, and in reading it, leaving with the minister a copy or not, according to the orders he has received; and it is not always he who is charged with transmitting the answer. Thus, the French ambassador at London is charged with making a communication to the chief of the foreign office, and the latter answers the French government through the English ambassador at Paris. With duties such as these the influence of diplomacy is reduced to very little. But people often attribute to diplomacy the moral action which governments exercise upon each other. —The new political system introduced into most civilized states, and the usage which has become more or less frequent of publishing diplomatic correspondence, must cause the last traces of ill will against diplomacy to disappear. Cabinets subjected to graver responsibility weigh their instructions and their orders more seriously, and it rarely happens nowadays that the end in view can not be confessed, and still more rarely that dubious means are used. These means, moreover, in our time would have fewer chances of success than formerly. At present there exists a power which must be respected—the power of public opinion. Whoever counts this power among his allies can do what he likes. Many measures are taken, therefore, in order to win this favor; and, as formerly secrecy and dissimulation were the most usual, in our time publicity and frankness are applauded, and not without reason, as the best methods of reaching success. It is only to be desired that this publicity should always be complete, and this frankness always sincere. —The difference between the mission of diplomatic agents in former centuries and that intrusted to them to-day, may be described as follows: formerly they were the organs of personal politics, the instruments of their sovereigns' ambition; at present they represent the general interest of their country, and are called upon, in a certain measure, to facilitate international relations, which is one of the conditions of the progress of humanity. Their present task is much more difficult than that of their predecessors. If they have less initiative, they need more extensive and varied knowledge in order to instruct their governments on the condition of the country to which they are accredited. They have no longer merely to follow its politics; they must also look at its economic movement, whose influence will at some time be felt everywhere, especially in free countries. This double task is considered so weighty that it has been divided; generally the ministers now have the political power, and the consuls the commercial. —The special information needed by diplomatic agents are the law of nations and certain ideas found in various works. We shall only mention the following. l'Ambassadeur et ses fonctions, by Wicquefort (Paris, 1764, 2 vols.); Histoire générale et raisonnée de la diplomatie française, by Flassan, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1811, 7 vols.); Ueber den Begriff der diplomatie, by Liechtenstern (Vienna, 1814); Système de la diplomatie, by Winter (Berlin, 1830); Traité complet de diplomatie, par un ancien ministre (comte de Garden) (Paris, 1833, 3 vols.); Guide diplomatique, 4th ed. (Leipsig, 1851). (See AGENT, DIPLOMATIC; AMBASSADOR; CIPHER DISPATCHES.) MAURICE BLOCK. DIPLOMATIC AGENTSDIPLOMATIC AGENTS. (See AGENT, DIPLOMATIC.) DISCOUNTDISCOUNT. An allowance paid on account of the immediate advance of a sum of money not due till some future period. It is usually said to be of two kinds, viz., discount of bills, and discount of goods; but they are essentially the same. —When a bill of exchange is presented at a banker's for discount, it is the practice to calculate the simple interest for the time the bill has to run, including the days of grace, which interest is called the discount; and this being deducted from the amount of the bill, the balance is paid over to the presenter of the bill. This is the method followed by the bank of England, by the London and provincial bankers, and by commercial men in general. But it is, notwithstanding, inaccurate. The true discount of any sum for any given time is such a sum as will in that time amount to the interest of the sum to be discounted Thus, if interest be five per cent., the proper discount to be received for the immediate advance of $100 due 12 months hence is not $5, but $4.76, for this sum will, at the end of the year, amount to $5, which is what the $100 would have produced. Those, therefore, who employ their money in discounting, make somewhat more than the ordinary rate of interest upon it. —The rule for calculating discount on correct principles is as follows: As the amount of $100 for the given rate and time is to the given sum or debt, so is $100 to the present worth, or so is the interest of $100 for the given time to the discount of the given sum. —Bills in the highest credit are discounted on the lowest terms; the discount increasing according to the suspicions entertained of the punctuality or solvency of the parties subscribing the bills. During the continental war the rate of interest, or, which is the same thing, of discount, was in England comparatively high; for some time afterward it was seldom above 4, and often as low as 3 and even 2½ per cent. —During the ten years 1856-65 the average rate of discount in England was 4 8/4 per cent. —Discount on merchandise takes place, when, after making a purchase of goods at a fixed term of credit, the buyer finds means to make his payment before the expiration of that term, receiving from the seller a discount or allowance, which is commonly a good deal above the current rate of interest. The discount on goods varies, of course, according to the interest of money. During the late war the loans to government were so large, and the facility of investing money was such, that the discount on goods was often as high as 5 per cent for six and 10 per cent. for 12 months. Now, however, the discount on goods has fallen, with the fall in the rate of interest to 7 or 7½ per cent. for 12 months; being about double the current interest arising from funded property, or the discount of good mercantile bills. —Long credits and discounts upon goods have for a lengthened period, been usual in England. This arose from a variety of causes, but principally, perhaps, from the magnitude of the exports to the United States, Russia and other countries, where there is a great demand for capital; but in whatever causes it originated, it has latterly been carried to what seems to be an injurious extent. In France and Germany the manufacturers, in general bare of capital, are obliged to stipulate with the merchants for short credits. In Holland the usage of the exporting merchants has been to pay either in ready money, or at so short a date as to put discounting out of the question, the manufacturer setting at once the lowest price on his goods. J. R. M'CULLOCH and H. G. REID. DISPUTED ELECTIONSDISPUTED ELECTIONS (IN U. S. HISTORY). When the electors have failed to give any one a majority of all the votes, the house of representatives, voting by states, and each state having one vote, was empowered by the original terms of the constitution to choose a president from the two highest candidates on the list. Amendment XII. enlarged the limits of choice to three candidates, and directed the senate in like case to choose a vice-president from the two highest candidates for that office. (See CONSTITUTION, III., EXECUTIVE.) There have been three such disputed presidential elections in our history, and one (1876) in which the majority of electoral votes was disputed. —I.: (1800). In the election of 1796 it had been generally agreed by the leading men of both parties, as a concession to the personal dignity and feelings of the candidates, that Jefferson and Burr, and Adams and Pinckney, should receive, as far as possible, equal consideration from the electors. The independent judgment of the electors prevented the faithful observance of this agreement, and it was more formally renewed by a congressional caucus of each party in 1800, apparently without reflection that a rigid adherence to it by both parties would certainly result in no choice, since only the highest candidate on the list became president. Both parties adhered to the agreement, except that one federalist elector (in Rhode Island) was acute enough to give his second vote to John Jay. Burr, it has been charged, on doubtful authority, endeavored in like manner to gain one vote on Jefferson in New York. Feb. 11, 1801, Jefferson and Burr were found to have a tie vote, 73 each (see ELECTORAL VOTES), and the house, in which the federalists had a majority both of members and of states, proceeded to choose between the two democrats. In anticipation the house had settled, Feb. 9, the rules for balloting, which became precedents for 1824. Their most important provisions were as follows: "2. That the senate should be admitted. 3. That the balloting should not be interrupted by any other business. 4. That the house should not adjourn until a choice was made. 5. That the balloting should be in secret session. 6. That the representatives should sit by states; that each state should ballot separately, cast its ballot in duplicate, marked with the name of its choice or with the word "divided," into its own ballot box; that two general ballot boxes should be provided, the duplicate state ballots going into separate boxes; that each state should have a teller; that, if the results of the count of the two boxes tallied, the result of the ballot should be announced, but that, if the two reports disagreed, the ballot should be null and void. 7. That, as soon as any person had a majority of the state ballots, the speaker should announce his election." —Partly to balk the evident desire of the democrats for Jefferson, and partly from an idea that Burr would be less dangerous to the commercial interests of the country, the federalist caucus had determined to vote for Burr for the presidency. Had all the federalist representatives obeyed the caucus, Burr would have been elected president at once; but the single federalist member from Georgia, one federalist member from Maryland, and one from North Carolina, whose representatives were evenly divided, decided to conform to the wishes of their constituents, and vote for Jefferson. This gave him the state vote of Georgia and North Carolina, and divided that of Maryland. Jefferson was thus sure of eight states, all those south of New England except Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina; and Burr of six states, Delaware, South Carolina, and all New England except Vermont, which, with Maryland, was divided. There was thus still no choice by the house, Jefferson lacking one of a majority of the 16 states. Bayard, of Delaware, Morris, of Vermont, and Craik and Baer, of Maryland, while yielding to the decision of the federal caucus and voting for Burr, very early came to a common agreement that, as any one of them, by voting for Jefferson, could at any time give him a majority of the states, they would not allow the balloting to be prolonged to any dangerous extent. —The balloting continued for a week, the house having 19 ballots on Wednesday, Feb. 11; nine on Thursday, Feb. 12; one on Friday, Feb. 13; four on Saturday, Feb. 14; one (the thirty-fourth) on Monday, Feb. 16; but all with the same result, eight states for Jefferson, six for Burr, and two divided. This protracted uncertainty was enlivened by frequent caucusses of both parties, by the presence of sick members who had been carried into the house in their beds and remained there to insure their votes, and by the angry and exaggerated rumors which naturally floated out from the secret sessions to the people outside. The federalists were charged (and justly in the case of some of them) with a design to prolong the balloting until the expiration of Adams' term, March 3, and then either to leave the government to the strongest and most active, or, by special act, to give it in trust to the federalist chief justice, John Marshall, who was then also acting as secretary of state. In any such event the democrats, after debating a proposition to call an extra session of the next congress in March by a proclamation signed by Jefferson and Burr, in one of whom the presidential title was vested, seem to have decided to have the middle states seize the capital by a militia force and call a general convention of the states to provide for the emergency, and revise the constitution. For all this nervous agitation there was no occasion while Bayard was in the house, and exerted his influence, as he always did, for good; but it was very fortunate that at this session congress had changed its meeting place from a large city to the little village of Washington, and had thus avoided all danger of interference by mobs. —For seven days the house remained in session, nominally without adjournment, though, after sitting out the first night, the resolution not to adjourn was evaded by taking recesses as convenience demanded. Monday, Feb. 16, the four associate federalists decided that the party experiment had gone far enough, and that, if a guarantee for the civil service could be obtained from Jefferson, Burr should have but one more ballot. Tuesday, Feb. 17, the thirty-fifth ballot took place with the usual result, and, an hour afterward, the thirty-sixth ballot began. Jefferson had given the necessary guarantee through a friend: Morris, therefore, by absenting himself, allowed his democratic colleague to cast the state vote of Vermont; Craik and Baer, by casting blank ballots, made Maryland democratic, and Jefferson received 10 state votes out of 16 and was elected. Delaware and South Carolina voted blank ballots. The vice-presidency devolved on Burr, for whom the New England states, except Vermont, voted to the end. Jefferson entered office without any feelings of gratitude to the federalists who had given him the position, but with great irritation against them for having voted blank instead of voting directly for him, and his account is to be taken with caution. —II.: (1824). The dissolution of the federal party after 1815 had left nominally but one political party, the democratic-republican, in the United States. But the debates in congress alone will show that there was still the abiding difference between those voters in the north who wished to construe the constitution broadly, for the benefit of commerce and a strong federal government, and those in the south and west who wished to construe the constitution strictly, for the benefit of agriculture and the conservation of the state governments, and that the all-prevailing democratic-republican party was really divided into two factions, strict constructionist and broad constructionist. In 1820 and 1821 these two branches of the party opposed each other, though not under distinct party names, in animated contests for the speakership of the house. The want of regularly organized parties, with recognized principles, only resulted in the degradation of the presidential election of 1824 into a personal contest between John Quincy Adams, secretary of state, Henry Clay, speaker of the house, William H. Crawford, secretary of the treasury, and Andrew Jackson, who, when nominated by his state legislature, had resigned his position as senator and become a private citizen of Tennessee. Of these the two first named were broad constructionists, federalists in reality, though they would have scouted the name, and the two last named were strict constructionists. In the presidential election Albert Gallatin, who had been nominated by the congressional caucus for the vice-presidency, had no votes, being ineligible, and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, was generally supported by the friends of all the presidential candidates. The electors failed to choose a president (see ELECTORAL VOTES), and the duty of choosing between Jackson, Adams and Crawford, the three highest candidates on the list, devolved upon the house. In balloting, the rules of the house in 1801 were adopted, after much opposition to the exclusion of the public. Clay standing fourth on the list, was ineligible, and the whole struggle in the house turned on the success of the other candidates in winning the Clay vote. This, very naturally, went to Adams, though only as a choice of evils, and the result of the first ballot, Feb. 9, 1825, was 13 states for Adams, seven states for Jackson, and four states for Crawford. Adams thus became president. —Jackson had received a plurality of the popular and the electoral vote, and the general feeling that the working of the constitution had done him an injustice aided greatly in carrying him triumphantly into the presidency four years after. (But see DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, IV.) —A more patent result in politics was the charge, first advanced by George Kremer, of Pennsylvania, in the house, and by his own confession without one tittle of evidence, that a "corrupt bargain" had been made between Adams and Clay, by which the former was to receive the Clay vote in the house, and the latter the position of secretary of state in Adams' cabinet. Adams' subsequent nomination of Clay to this very position was, to the democratic mind, incontrovertible proof of this corrupt union of New England and Kentucky, "of the puritan and the black-leg." This charge lay like a stumbling-block in Clay's path, eluding however his eager search for an authority until 1827, when it was formally reiterated by Jackson himself, on the authority of James Buchanan, representative from Pennsylvania, who at once declared Jackson's impression "erroneous." And yet the charge was renewed quadrenuially for 20 years after the only authority ever alleged had fully repudiated any responsibility for it. (See CLAY, HENRY.) —III.: (1836). Feb. 8, 1837, the electors having failed to choose a vice-president, (see DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, IV.), the senate, from the two highest candidates on the list, chose Richard M. Johnson by a vote of 33 to 16 votes for Francis Granger. (See ELECTORAL VOTES.) —IV.: (1876). The origin of the dispute over the result of the presidential election of 1876 may be found in the constitutional provision that each state shall appoint electors "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct." Of the 369 electors, 184, one less than a majority, had, without question, voted for the democratic candidates, Tilden and Hendricks; but at least 20 of the remainder were disputed. In the three southern states of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana, the legislatures had directed the counting of the popular vote for electors to be done by returning boards, with plenary power to cast out the entire vote of any county or parish in which fraud or force had vitiated the election. By exercising this power the returning boards of Florida and Louisiana had converted an apparent democratic popular majority into an apparent republican majority, and given certificates to the republican electors. It was known before February, 1877, that double returns had been sent by the democratic and republican electors of the three states named, and from Oregon. (See ELECTORAL COMMISSION, for the facts in this case.) It was impossible to give the votes in the alternative (see ELECTORS), for, by a single vote from any of the states above named, Tilden and Hendricks would be seated. By the twenty-second joint rule the democratic house could have thrown out all the doubtful states and given the democratic candidates a majority; but the republican senate had repealed the joint rule, Jan. 20, 1876, and some of its members began to assert the arbitrary and absolute power of the vice-president to "decide which were legal votes.' Under these circumstances the electoral commission was created, whose decision was only to be reversed by concurrent vote of both houses. As each decision of the commission in favor of the republican elector was announced to the two houses, the senate voted to sustain it, and the house to reject it, by strict party votes, and the commission's decision held good. In each of the states of Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont, one elector was objected to as holding an office of trust or profit under the United States; but both houses concurred in admitting all these votes. After a session lasting from Feb. 1, 1877, until 4:10 A.M., of March 2, the vote was finally announced as 185 to 184 for the republican candidates, Hayes and Wheeler. (See ELECTORAL VOTES.) —See (I.) 5 Hildreth's United States, 402; 1 von Holst's United States, 168; 2 Gibbs' Administrations of Washington and Adams, 488; 7 J. C. Hamilton's United States, 425; 9 John Adams' Works, 98; 6 Hamilton's Works, 480-523 (and Bayard's letters there given), 2 Randall's Life of Jefferson, 573; 2 Tucker's Life of Jefferson, 75, 510; 3 Jefferson's Works (ed. 1829) 444, and 4:515 (Ana); 1 Garland's Life of Randolph, 187; Parton's Life of Burr, 262; 3 Sparks' Life and Writings of Morris, 132; 2 Benton's Debates of Congress. (II.) 2 von Holst's United States, 4; 3 Parton's Life of Jackson, 54; 1 Colton's Life of Clay, 290; Private Correspondence of Clay, 109; 1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, 47; Sargent's Public Men and Events, 70; 2 Hammond's Political History of New York, 177; 8 Benton's Debates of Congress. (III) 13 Benton's Debates of Congress, 738. (IV.) 23, 24 Nation; Appleton's Annual Cyclopadia, 1876-7; Tribune Almanac, 1877; Congressional Record, 1877; and authorities under ELECTORAL COMMISSION. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DISTILLED SPIRITSDISTILLED SPIRITS, considered in reference to Taxation—Experience of the United States. Since the time of Charles II, when taxes were, for the first time in England, imposed on distilled spirits, this article has been regarded by the legislators and fiscal administration of all civilized states as an eminently proper subject for taxation for the purpose of revenue. Great Britain at present (1881) imposes a tax on distilled spirits of 10s. ($2.50) per imperial proof gallon of 227 cubic inches, which is equivalent to 7s.4d.($1.80) on the proof wine gallon of 231 cubic inches, adopted as the American standard; and for the fiscal year 1881 she derived a revenue from this source of £14,393,572 ($71,967,000) on a home consumption of 29,047,303 imperial gallons. For the year 1878 the revenue derived by France from taxes on the production and consumption of all domestic liquors was returned at 81,716,000 francs ($16,345,000); and in Sweden, in 1874, at $3,718,000. In Russia the manufacture and sale of distilled spirits is a strict government monopoly; and of the entire income of the government from ordinary sources, fully one-third is derived from the taxes on domestic liquors. The existing taxes are believed to be equivalent to about one dollar gold per gallon. The taxes on distilled spirits in the other European states vary greatly in amount and as respects the methods of assessment and collection; and the average rate is much less than that established in Great Britain or Russia. —The experience of the United States in this matter has been most peculiar and instructive, and its record, which it is here proposed to make, constitutes one of the most extraordinary and interesting of chapters in the history of economic science. The first attempt to tax distilled spirits of domestic production in the United States was made in 1791; the annual product at that time, according to the report of the secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, being about 6,500,000 proof gallons; of which 3,500,000 was estimated as derived from the distillation of foreign materials, mainly molasses and syrups. Although the taxes imposed were comparatively light, (from 9 to 11 cents per proof gallon), and the necessities of the government for revenue most urgent, their imposition provoked great opposition and resistance; and in 1794 the western counties of Pennsylvania rose in open insurrection against the enforcement of the law. And it was not until an army, drawn from the militia of the neighboring states, had marched into the disturbed district and seized the leaders of the insurgents, that the authority of the federal government was re-established. The cost of this insurrection to the government was $1,500,000; while its total expenditures for the same year for all ordinary purposes, were only $4,362,000. Upon the accession of Mr. Jefferson to the presidency in 1800, and upon his recommendation, the whole system of internal taxation by the federal government was repealed; and although temporarily renewed in 1813, in consequence of the war with Great Britain, such taxes practically formed no part of the fiscal system of the government of the United States during the more than half a century that elapsed between 1817 and 1862. During the whole of this period, therefore, the manufacture of distilled spirits in the United States was free from all specific taxation or supervision by the federal government, and also to a great extent by the governments of the several states; and, being produced mainly from Indian corn, the cheapest of all cereals, at places adjacent to the localities where the corn was cultivated, they were sold at a very low price; the average market price in New York for the five years preceding the year 1862 having been 24 cents per proof gallon; with a minimum price during the same time of 14 cents per gallon. Under such circumstances the production and consumption of distilled spirits in the United States previous to the war, for a great variety of purposes, had become enormous; the product for 1860 being returned by the census of that year at 90,412,581 proof gallons, an estimate which subsequent investigations proved was rather under than over the then actual production; while the maximum quantity ever exported in any one year was not in excess of 3,000,000 gallons. —The peculiarities of manufacture, trade and consumption, growing out of the circumstance that the United States at that time—alone of all civilized countries—enjoyed an almost unlimited supply, at an extraordinarily low price, of an article so essential to many arts, and so extensively desired for personal use, was also very remarkable; and especially interesting, also, from the contrast between the condition of things in Europe, where the price of the same article, by reason of a government fiscal policy universally adopted, was constantly maintained at such an extraordinarily high rate as to restrict its consumption in the arts and for personal uses to the narrowest of limitations. Thus, one of the purposes, unknown in Europe, for which this product of spirits was extensively used in the United States at this time, was for the manufacture of an illuminating agent termed "burning fluid," which was composed of one part of rectified spirits of turpentine, technically termed "camphene," mixed with from four to five parts of alcohol, each gallon of alcohol thus used requiring for its manufacture 1.88 gallons of proof spirits, by which is to be understood a mixture of about 50 per cent. alcohol and 50 per cent. water. Large quantities of burning fluid were also prepared at the south and west by mixing alcohol direct with the crude or commercial spirits of turpentine; and the whole quantity of alcohol used for all such purposes in the United States in 1860, was estimated by the United States revenue commission to have been at least 16,000,000 gallons, requiring over 25,000,000 gallons of proof spirits. Some idea of the extent of the production of this article may be gained from the statement that the manufacture of burning fluid in 1860, in the city of Cincinnati alone, required an amount of alcohol equal to the distillate from 12,000 bushels of corn for every 24 hours. The excessive cheapness of alcohol—its price in the New York market from 1836 to 1862 ranging from 30 to 60 cents per gallon—also led to its extensive use for a multitude of other industrial purposes: such as the manufacture of varnishes, hat-stiffening, furniture polish, perfumery, tinctures, patent medicines, imitation wines, percussion caps, and in dyeing, cleaning, lacquering, bathing, and even as fuel in domestic culinary operations. Many preparations for the hair, which at that time in other countries, as now almost universally, were prepared very largely on a basis of fats and oils, were in the United States then compounded almost wholly on a basis of alcohol; the comparative difference in the price of this article in the United States and Europe giving an entirely different composition to products of large consumption intended to effect a common object. From testimony given before the United States revenue commission in 1865, it was established that the sales of one single rectifying house in the city of New York averaged over 30,000 gallons of alcohol (equivalent to 56,000 gallons of proof spirit) per annum, for the preparation of hair tonics; 81,000 gallons of alcohol to one firm for the manufacture of a popular article of cheap perfumery; 125,000 gallons to another firm for an imitation wine; and 41,000 gallons to a third for a patent "pain-killer." A single firm in western New York, engaged in the manufacture of a horse medicine, reported a consumption for this purpose of over 50,000 gallons of proof spirits per annum; and one distiller in the same section of country reported a regular monthly sale of 8,000 gallons of proof spirits, or 96,000 gallons per annum, for the single purpose of "fortifying" cider intended for export to tropical countries, or for sale in the southern states or California. Instances were also made known of individual hair-dressers in the large cities using 400 gallons of alcohol yearly in their local business; and of others whose consumption of alcohol in the preparation of articles having merely a local sale reached 2,000 gallons per annum. —The necessities of the federal government for increased revenue, consequent upon the outbreak and continuance of the civil war, early demanded an increase in the amount and sphere of national taxation; and distilled spirits were among the first articles of domestic production and consumption upon which the new taxes were levied. The first tax imposed (act of July 1, 1862,) was 20 cents per gallon. By the act of March 7, 1864, this rate was raised to 60 cents; by the act of July 1, 1864. to $1.50; and Jan. 1, 1865, the rate was further advanced to $2. The first effect to be noticed of the imposition, alteration and rapid increase of these internal taxes upon distilled spirits, is their industrial influence. This amounted, in fact, to an industrial revolution, essentially modifying and even destroying great branches of industry; and yet these effects, in presence of other and greater events, continually and contemporaneously occurring, and which affected the life and destiny of the nation, passed comparatively unnoticed. For example, the manufacture of "burning fluid" entirely ceased; the increase in the price of its principal constituent—alcohol—from an average of 34 cents per gallon in New York in 1861, to $4.25 per gallon in the spring of 1865, having converted it from one of the cheapest to one of the dearest of illuminating agents, and made its general use impracticable. But by one of those happy circumstances which have so often characterized the experience of the United States, the industrial and economic disturbances which might naturally have been expected from this change, were to a great degree speedily neutralized by the almost contemporaneous discovery (1859) in Pennsylvania, of vast supplies of petroleum and the rapid utilization of its distillates for the preparation of a cheaper illuminating material than even burning fluid; so that in a short time the business of collecting, preparing and exporting petroleum became, as it yet is, one of the most important industrial interests of the country. And as a further curious illustration of the changes consequent upon the disuse of burning fluid and the introduction of petroleum products for illumination, it may be stated, that the demand for the new patterns of lamps and their appurtenances, adapted to burn the new material, was alone sufficient to employ the then entire manufacturing capacity of all the glass works in the country for a period equivalent to two years. Druggists and pharmaceutists estimated the reduction in the use of alcohol in their general business, consequent upon its increased cost from taxation, at from one-third to one-half. Manufacturers of patent medicines and cosmetics abandoned their old styles of preparation and adopted new. The manufacturer of horse medicine, before noticed, who used proof spirits at the rate of 50,000 gallons per annum, testified that his business was wholly destroyed. Varnish makers reported a reduction in the use of spirits in their business to the extent of 80 per cent; other and cheaper solvents for the constituent gums, such as wood naphtha, benzine, etc., being substituted. Hatters, who before used large quantities of "stiffening" composed of shellac dissolved in alcohol, in the manufacture of hat bodies, substituted glue in its place, or used cloth in the place of felt. The export of cider, tinctures and cheap perfumery was seriously curtailed; while the increased price of vinegar, before manufactured largely from whisky, so far affected the cost of the manufacture of pickles and white lead as to greatly diminish domestic consumption, and almost entirely prevent exports. No very large sales of distilled spirits for the manufacture of cheap imitation wines were reported after 1864. The curators of some of the leading muscums—anatomical or natural history—of the country, attached to institutions of learning, memorialized congress, that, owing to the high price of alcohol, they were not able to make good the constant waste of this substance (leakage and evaporation) as employed by them for scientific purposes; and that, in consequence thereof, many important collections were becoming rapidly impaired in value, while the progress of scientific discovery and research was greatly impeded. Congress accordingly provided for the supplying of alcohol to such institutions from bonded warehouses, free of tax. —Concerning the influence of the increase of price on the use of spirits for drinking purposes, there was considerable discrepancy of opinion from those best qualified to judge. Previous to the war raw whisky was retailed in every part of the country at from 7 to 15 cents per quart; and at such rates it was within the ability of every laborer to indulge freely. The weight of testimony taken by the United States revenue commission was to the effect that no marked diminution of the sales of liquors by retailers to the poorer classes of consumers was noticed until the tax was raised above 60 cents per gallon; but that subsequently, when the tax was advanced to $1.50 and $2 per gallon, the reduction of consumption was considerable; and that beer was largely substituted for whisky. On the contrary, with all those classes with whom, by reason of a abundant means, the enhanced price of liquors was a matter of but slight consideration, the consumption of distilled spirits was probably not diminished. The tariff on imported liquors having been at the same time increased in a greater proportion than the tax on domestic spirits, the demand for "foreign" liquors largely fell off: but this loss was fully or more than supplied by an increased sale of American whisky, which, under the popular name of "Bourbon," became nationalized as a beverage to a greater extent than at any former period. As was naturally to be expected, with the large increase in the cost of the original product of spirits, the temptation to adulterate the final product sold by retailers was greatly augmented; and the extent to which adulteration was practiced is shown by the circumstance that, when gin purporting to be of foreign manufacture was selling in New York in 1860 at 65 cents per gallon, the low retailers of that city charged six cents per glass; and that subsequently, when the wholesale price of the same liquor was $3.25 per gallon and upward, the former retail price remained unaltered. It is also to be noted that, from about the time when taxation largely enhanced the price of distilled spirits in the United States, the consumption of certain drugs which can be used as stimulant substitutes for spirits, particularly opium and its derivatives and Indian hemp, began to increase. Thus, in 1860, with a duty of $1 per pound, the importation of opium, crude and prepared for smoking, was 119,525 lbs.; in 1865, with a duty of $2 30 per pound, the importation was 123,470 lbs.; in 1872, with a reduction of duty to $1 per pound, the importation was returned at 205,829 lbs; in 1875, 251,012 lbs.. in 1878, 262,556 lbs.; and in 1880, 320,408 lbs. The importation of morphine and its salts, which was merely nominal in 1864, was returned at 172 ounces in 1865, 687 ounces in 1867, 1,884 ounces in 1869, 3,002 ounces in 1878, and 3,490 ounces in 1880. What proportion of this increase was due to the high prices of alcoholic liquors. and what to the excitements of the war and the speculative periods which succeeded, can not be affirmed; but that all these causes have proved operative, and that the consumption of opium and Indian hemp has progressively increased since 1864-5, in the United States, can not be doubted. —We come next to consider what to the economist is the most interesting portion of this experience in progressively and inordinately taxing distilled spirits, namely, its fiscal results. The first tax imposed on distilled spirits of domestic production, was, as already stated, 20 cents per proof gallon. This tax, exclusive of the revenue derived from licenses to wholesale and retail liquor dealers, for rectification, etc., yielded for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1863, a revenue of $3,229,911,74 indicating a production of 16,149,955 proof gallons. As production, in anticipation of the tax, was, however, for some time previous to its imposition, pushed to the utmost extent, the amount received in revenue from distilled spirits for the year 1862-3 (and also for like causes in subsequent years) constitutes no criterion of the actual production and consumption of the country. The tax of 20 cents continued in force until March, 1864, when the rate was advanced to 60 cents per proof gallon. The direct revenue from distilled spirits for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1864, under the two rates as above indicated, was $28,431,000. On July 10, 1864, the tax was further advanced to $1.50 per proof gallon; and on Jan. 1 succeeding, to $2. The revenue derived from this source for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1865, was $16,007,776; and for the succeeding fiscal years, 1866-7, with a continued and uniform tax of $2, was, respectively, $29,482,077 and $29,164,000. With the imposition of the high taxes upon this product, however, the inception and practice of frauds upon the revenue commenced upon a most gigantic scale, and soon became so successful, and so reduced to a system, that in 1868 it seemed as if the whole country and the government itself were becoming corrupted and demoralized. In the outset, while the war and its varying fortunes were engrossing the attention of the government and the people, the efforts made to repress and punish frauds in this department of the revenue were of absolutely no account whatever; and, indeed, it may be alleged with truth, that the whole spirit and working of the statute was in the direction of the encouragement and promotion of fraud; congress, in the first instance, under the influence of speculators. having advanced the rate of taxation on three occasions with ample premonition, and without making the advance applicable to stocks on hand, which had been manufactured specially in anticipation of the legislation in question; and secondly, by so devising the law and providing for its execution as to make the detection and proof of fraud almost impossible. The immediate effect of the enactment of the first three and successive rates of excise, was to cause an almost entire suspension of the business of distilling, which was resumed again with great activity as soon as an advance in the rate of tax in each instance became probable. The stock of whisky and highwines accumulated in the country under this course of procedure was without precedent; and congress, by its refusal to make the advance in taxation, in any instance, retroactive, virtually legislated for the benefit of distillers and speculators, rather than for the treasury and the government. The profits realized by the holders of stocks, thus made in anticipation of the advance in taxation, has probably no parallel in the history of any similar speculation or commercial transactions in this country, and can not be estimated at less than $50,000,000. When the opportunity for the realization of profits from manufacturing in anticipation of the tax ceased by the prospective permanent maintenance of rate, the opportunity offered by the imperfections of the law was in turn eagerly cultivated and improved. Testimony brought to light repeated instances where individual distillers manufactured. conveyed to market, and fraudulently sold spirits in quantities varying from 20,000 to 80,000 gallons and upward, without a suspicion on the part of local officers that the business was not in all respects conducted legally and honestly. It was sworn to before the revenue commission in 1865-6, that the determination of the strength of the distilled spirits preparatory to assessment, was often made by mere physical inspection or taste, and that the use of instruments (for which no uniform standard was provided) was regarded as something wholly unnecessary. It was also not unfrequently the case that barrels were inspected and branded some days in advance of their being filled, and the future regulation—filling and removal—left entirely with the manufacturer. Distillers and their workmen were sometimes constituted inspectors of their own products; and in one instance an assessor was known to have been appointed who did not possess sufficient intelligence to understand and correctly use either a gauging rod or a hydrometer. Thus it was at the commencement of the period of high taxation; but subsequently, and after the close of the war, when the administration of the new revenue laws became more intelligent and vigorous, and some degree of concealment to the projectors of fraud became necessary, the expedients successfully adopted for the evasion of the tax were in the highest degree characteristic of the ingenuity of the people. One of the most fertile of these was made available through a provision of law which allowed spirits to be made and stored in bond, or exported in bond, without prepayment of the taxes. Thus, for example, spirits deposited in bond were, through the connivance and corruption of poorly paid officials, acting as guardians, secretly withdrawn from bond, the barrels filled with water or some cheap compound, and subsequently exported. On receipt of the landing certificate, obtained through a consul of an inferior grade, the bonds given by the manufacturer for the payment of the taxes were canceled, and the profits derived from the sale of the untaxed spirits in the domestic market, at the tax paid rate, were divided among all concerned. Warehouses from which spirits deposited in bond had been fraudulently withdrawn, were also frequently burned, and the bonds canceled on evidence of loss, wholly fraudulent, but so strongly supported by perjury, as to be difficult of dis-proof. Large losses were also sustained by the government by the acceptance, as the basis of large transactions, of bonds which subsequent investigation, contingent on the exposure of more open frauds, showed were purposely made and given by persons of no responsibility, who, in some instances, by pre-arrangement, agreed 'to accept the risk of prosecution and trial, with an almost certainty of non-conviction by a jury, for a stipulated compensation or a share in the anticipated fraudulent profits. In short, the tax of $2 per proof gallon on distilled spirits (amounting to above 1,000 per cent. advance on the average cost of manufacture), and the enormous profits contingent upon the evasion of the law, coupled with the abundant opportunity which the law, through its imperfections and the vast territorial area of the country, offered for evasion, constituted a temptation which it seemed impossible for either manufacturers, dealers or officers to resist; and the longer the tax remained at a high figure, the less became the revenue and the greater the corruption. During the year 1867 the revenue directly collected in the United States from distilled spirits, as already stated, was about $29,000,000, indicating a domestic production of some 14,500,000 gallons. But during the succeeding year, 1868, with no apparent reason for any diminution in the national production and consumption of spirits, and with no increase, but rather a marked diminution in the volume of imports of foreign spirits, the total revenue from the same source was but little in excess of $14,000,000, indicating a production of only 7,000,000 proof gallons; proof spirits at the same time being openly sold in the market, and even quoted in price currents at from 5 to 15 cents less per gallon than the rate of tax and the average cost of manufacture. We have also, in these figures, the materials for approximately estimating the measure and strength of the temptation to evade the law, and the amount of profit that must have accrued in the single year 1868 from the results of such evasion. For as the consumption of distilled spirits for all purposes in the country during that year was probably not less than 60,000,000 gallons,75 and as out of this the government collected a tax upon only about 7,000,000 gallons, the sale of the difference at the current market rates of the year, less the average cost of production (estimated as high as 30 cents per gallon), must have returned to the credit of corruption, a sum approximating $80,000,000. To this must be added a further unknown but undoubted loss of revenue, growing out of the circumstance, that the influence of successful fraud in the matter of distilled spirits seemed to infect and demoralize almost every other department of the internal revenue. —But notwithstanding the fact that the current price at which distilled spirits were sold in the markets of the country was everywhere recognized and commented on by the press as less than the amount of the tax, and as allowing nothing whatever for the cost of manufacture, and notwithstanding that the existence and extent of the frauds in the manufacture and sale of spirits was for three years annually reported upon and in detail by the officials of the treasury, it was with great difficulty that congress could be induced to take any action looking to remedies by the enactment of more perfect laws, providing for more efficient administration or for diminishing the temptations to fraud by reducing the tax; and it was not until the revenue from this source bid fair to disappear altogether, and the popular manifestations of discontent became very apparent, that anything really was accomplished; a report from the committee of ways and means of the house of representatives. In favor of a new law and a reduction of the tax, having been actually delayed in 1867 a whole year, by the appeal of a leading member of the committee for postponement of action, on the ground that it would be derogatory to the honor of a great nation to confess, after having triumphed in the most gigantic of civil wars, its inability to control the domestic production and sale of whisky. How expensive this speech and its resulting delay proved to the national treasury is shown by the circumstance, that the receipts from the direct tax on distilled spirits fell off in the fiscal year 1868 to the extent of $14,874,000 as compared with the receipts for the previous fiscal year, 1867, or from $29,164,000 to $14,290,000; while, on the other hand, when by the act of July 20, 1868, the direct tax was reduced to 50 cents per proof gallon, the receipts for the ensuing and incomplete fiscal year increased at once to the extent of nearly $20,000,000, or from $14,290,000 in 1868 to $34,245,000 in 1869, and $39,244,000 in 1870; or, including all taxes on the manufacture and sale of distilled spirits, licenses, etc., the advance was from $18,655,000 in 1868 to $45,071,000 in 1869, and to $55,606,000 in 1870. It is to be here noted, that in framing the law of July 20, 1868, by which the direct tax was reduced from $2 to 50 cents per proof gallon, the intent, which was realized, was to make the total aggregate tax 70 cents per gallon, but to impose only 50 cents as a maximum tax on the spirit as an article of manufacture, and to distribute the balance (20 cents) in the way of licenses, fees, etc., at points intermediate between the manufacture of the spirits and their final sale to consumers, but so remote from and so disconnected with the process of manufacture as to render collusion between producers and distributors, with a view to gain by evading the law, almost wholly impracticable. Another leading object was to fix the direct tax at such an amount as would keep down the temptation to fraud to the greatest possible extent consistent with the procurement of such an amount of revenue as was demanded by the necessities of the government. The sum recommended by the then United States special commissioner of the revenue, and subsequently adopted by congress, was 50 cents per proof gallon; because investigations, carefully conducted, showed that on the average the product of illicit distillation costs, through deficient yields, the necessary bribery of attendants, and the expenses of secret and unusual methods of transportation, from two to three times as much as the product of legitimate or legal distillation. So that, calling the average cost of spirits in the United States 20 cents per gallon, the product of the illicit distiller would cost from 40 to 60 cents, leaving but 10 cents per gallon as the maximum profit to be realized from fraud under the most favorable conditions—an amount not sufficient to offset the possibility of severe penalties of fine, imprisonment and confiscation of property, which were made an essential feature of the new enactment. In the whole history of political economy, finance and jurisprudence, there never was a result that so completely demonstrated the value of careful scientific investigation in connection with legislation in these departments. Illicit distillation practically ceased the very hour the new law and new rule came into operation; and evasions of law were confined to occasional false returns, and a re-use, on a very limited scale, of the stamps with which the tax was for the first time made payable by purchase and cancellation. Industry and the arts experienced a large measure of benefit from the reduction in the cost of spirits; while the government collected during the second year of the continuance of the act three dollars for every one that was obtained during the last year of the continuance of the $2 rate. —The subsequent history of the experience of the United States in the matter of taxing distilled spirits may be quickly told. In 1869 a new national administration came into power; and during the next two years, frequent removals of revenue officials were made for political purposes. The result showed itself in a decrease of the gross revenue from distilled spirits from $55,606,000, in 1869-70, to $46,281,000, in 1870-71; increasing to $49,475,000 in 1871-2. In June, 1872, congress, on the recommendation mainly of a commissioner of internal revenue (who was selected for the office for reasons other than economic knowledge, or experience in respect to taxation), aided also by a speculative interest, increased the direct tax on spirits from 50 to 70 cents per proof gallon. The result for the first year of the new tax showed an increase in gross revenue of only $2,624,000 as compared with the receipts of the previous year, 1871-2, the last of the 50 cent rate; and a loss of $3,507,000 as compared with the receipts of 1869-70. The next year, 1873-4, the gross receipts were $33,911 less than the receipts of 1871-2. Uninstructed, however, by this experience, congress, in March, 1875, on the recommendation of men who, as subsequent events showed, had no thorough acquaintance with the subject, again advanced the tax from 70 to 90 cents per proof gallon, at which rate it has remained up to the date of the present writing—1881. The result was exactly that which no gift of prophecy was requisite to anticipate or predict. The rate of 70 cents per proof gallon constituted a moderate temptation to fraud. Its increase to 90 cents constituted a temptation altogether too great for human nature as employed in manufacturing and selling whisky, to resist; and fraud and evasion of the law on an extensive scale were soon inaugurated. During the years 1875-6, highwines sold openly in the Chicago and Cincinnati markets at prices less than the average cost of production, plus the government tax. Investigations conducted under the then secretary of the treasury, Hon. B. H. Bristow, showed that the persons mainly concerned in the work of fraud were the government officials rather than the distillers; and that a so-called "whisky ring," organized for the purpose of fraud and having its centre at St. Louis, extended to Washington, and embraced within its sphere of influence and participation, not merely local supervisors, collectors, inspectors and storekeepers of the revenue, but even officers of the internal revenue bureau, and probably, also, persons occupying confidential relations with the executive of the nation. As the result of these investigations, many arrests were made and prosecutions instituted, and a few prominent persons were finally convicted, and punished by fine or imprisonment. But such, nevertheless, was the political influence of the "whisky ring," and such the offense given by the secretary of the treasury by reason of his energetic action and sturdy unwillingness to compromise and cover up fraud, that this gentleman, to the disgrace of the nation, felt compelled to resign, and with draw from his office. The general result of legislation in respect to federal taxation of distilled spirits since the reduction of the tax from $2 to 50 cents per proof gallon, in July, 1868, is shown by the following summary statement: The average quantity of proof gallons which paid a tax, and presumably entered into consumption, during each of the four years of the 50 cent rate, i.e., from July, 1868, to June, 1872, inclusive, was 68,312,780 gallons; the maximum amount in any one of this period of years having been 78,490,196 gallons, during the fiscal year 1869-70. The average quantity of proof gallons which paid tax during the three years of the 70 cent rate. was 63,721,000 gallons. The average quantity which paid a tax during four fiscal years of the 90 cent rate, or from 1876 to 1879 inclusive, was 56,775,000 gallons. For the fiscal year 1880, the last for which complete returns are available at present writing, it was 62,131,000 gallons; or, in other words, with an increase of 80 per cent. in the amount of the tax since 1872, with an increase in population of at least 8,000,000, with no apparent diminution of consumption, and in a year unparalleled in the history of the country for the prosperity of the masses and the activity of manufactures, the annual production of proof spirits in the United States in the year 1880, of which the government was able to take cognizance, and assess for revenue purposes, was upward of 16,000,000 gallons less than were demonstrated to have been produced and consumed in the year 1869-70, or 10 years previously. With larger experience and a purer and better administration, illicit distillation and other evasions of the laws relating to the taxation of distilled spirits have apparently largely diminished in the United States. In the mountainous, sparsely settled districts of the southern states, illicit distillation is systematically carried on, and has thus far resisted all efforts of the civil and even military power of the government to effectually suppress it. Isolated cases of violation of the law are also frequently detected in other sections of the country. But these instances, though extensive as regards number, can do little more than meet a comparatively small demand for local consumption, and probably add nothing of any consequence to the general requirement for distilled spirits of the trade and manufactures of the country. At the same time, it is the opinion of persons engaged in the trade, and who are presumably well qualified to form an opinion, that the present (1881) annual requirement or consumption of distilled spirits in the United States is not less than 80,000,000 proof gallons, exclusive of any requirements for export; and that the demand is in some way regularly supplied. If this supposition be correct, it follows that an annual product of some 18,000,000 gallons at present successfully evades this revenue, involving an annual direct loss to the revenue of at least $16,000,000. But in support of this conclusion there is manifestly no actual proof. —The economic and moral lesson to be deduced from this curious record of experience, is, that whenever a government imposes a tax on any product of industry sufficiently great to indemnify and reward an illicit and illegal production of the same, then such product will be illicitly and illegally manufactured. When that period is reached, the loss and penalties consequent upon detection and conviction—no matter how great may be the one, or how severe the other—will be counted in by the offenders as a part of the necessary expenses of their business, and the business, if suppressed in one locality, will be invariably renewed and continued in some other. It is the part of a civilized government, therefore, in framing laws for the assessment and collection of taxes, to know when the maximum revenue point in the case of each tax is reached, and to recognize that beyond that point the government "over-reaches itself." In the case of the United States, this view of the matter has evidently not been considered worthy of any consideration, since the repeal of the act of July, 1868, which reduced the rate of taxation on distilled spirits from $2 to 50 cents per proof gallon. Nay more, the most striking lesson of experience in all economic and fiscal history—i.e., the increase in revenue in a single year, in consequence of this reduction, from $14,000,000 to $34,000,000—has been wholly disregarded. On the contrary, as has been aptly and wittily remarked, the government "now holds out the temptation on the one hand, and the writ of seizure on the other, and thus announces its readiness to proceed to business." —It remains but to answer a question, which will doubtless suggest itself to the reader, namely, how is it that Russia and Great Britain can successfully impose and collect a rate of tax on distilled spirits, which in the United States has proved to be impossible or attended with the greatest difficulties? The solution of this problem is to be found in the fact, that the circumstances in the cases under comparison are altogether different. In Russia the whole business of manufacturing and vending distilled spirits is a government monopoly, maintained through the agency of an extraordinary police and military force, and by a thoroughly despotic form of government. In Great Britain the business of distilling and rectifying spirits is carried on under such stringent conditions of law, and under such a system of official inspection—a system wholly impracticable in a country of large geographical area, sparse population, and with a limited police and auxiliary military force—that only about 300 distilling and rectifying establishments exist in the whole United Kingdom; as compared with 1,193 similar establishments in operation in the United States in 1860, and 702 in 1880. A provision, not recognized in the United States, also exists in Great Britain, whereby spirits required in the arts are allowed to be used free of duty. But notwithstanding this limitation and rigid control of the business. detections for illicit distillation in Great Britain are still numerous, and, during the year 1866, 3,557 were reported. Of these only 41 occurred in England, and only 11 in Scotland; the remainder, 3,505, occurring in Ireland, where sparsely settled districts, and an un employed, poor and non loyal population offer greater advantages and inducements for violations of the law than exist elsewhere in the kingdom. DAVID A WELLS. DISTRIBUTION LAWSDISTRIBUTION LAWS. (See INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.) DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTHDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. The study of the principles which determine the distribution of wealth, of the means by which that distribution is effected, and of the phenomena pertaining to it, constitutes one of the great divisions of political economy. This science is commonly divided into two or three parts; the first treating of the production, the second of the distribution, and the third, when a third is admitted, of the consumption of wealth. Hence, this is not a special subject, but a vast field of study embracing a great number of different subjects. To discuss the whole subject a volume would be necessary. It will suffice here merely to give some general notions of the subject, and to point out its principal subdivisions. We refer, for each of these subdivisions, to the special articles which treat of them. —It is well understood that under the head of distribution of wealth we only mean here, and can only mean, the distribution or the division of the revenue of society, such as regularly takes place among all its members. To understand this distribution it is necessary to consider, in the first place, of what this revenue consists, and what are the principal agents which have concurred in its formation.—"The whole amount of profit," says J. B. Say, "derived by an individual from his land, capital and industry, within a month, or within the year, is called, respectively, his monthly and his annual revenue. The aggregate of the revenues of all the individuals, whereof a nation consists, is its national revenue." —Some writers on this subject have fallen into a grievous error, an error which has led them to the strangest conclusions. They imagined that in the revenue of a country was to be included only the net profit of the capital employed in the country, that is to say, in other words, the net profit of those engaged in industry, who are especially charged with turning capital to account. Thus, in an industrial enterprise, it would not be proper, according to these writers, to consider as gain to the community at large, at the end of the year, anything beyond the net annual revenue realized by persons engaged in industry themselves. They have not taken pains to observe, that the expenses incurred by the persons thus engaged in industry during the course of the year in order to attain their object. consist in great measure of wages distributed under various forms, and that these wages constitute the revenue of the workmen who receive them. The sums, too, which have been expended in the purchase of raw material or implements have been, in like manner, diverted into other channels for the support of labor, and have become sources of revenue for other workers. That which is to one man outlay, or an advance made to production, is revenue in the case of another. It is not, therefore, the net product but the gross product of industrial enterprises which constitutes the revenue of society or of a nation, and which, under various forms, is distributed among the individuals who compose the nation. —In order to know how or among whom this revenue is to be distributed, it is necessary to know who those are who have concurred in its formation; in other words, who have been the agents of production in general. —Production is generally the result of the co-operation of three principal agents, namely: 1. Land capable of cultivation, mines, quarries, and all natural agents. 2. Capital, which includes the implements of labor (among which are to be reckoned farms, factories, workshops, etc.), materials to which present labor is to be applied, means of subsistence for workmen, and generally all kinds of value, the fruits of past labor, which may serve to facilitate present or future labor. 3. Labor, meaning by this term not merely physical labor, but every exercise of the intellectual or physical faculties of man, which tend directly or indirectly to the production of revenue. —All production is, we say, the result of the co-operation of these three agents, or of these three productive forces. They are combined in very different proportions, according to the kind of product sought to be obtained, but each is indispensable in the general work of production Without land capable of cultivation, mines and quarries, raw material could not be obtained, without capital, it would be impossible either to obtain it from the earth, or to work it; without labor, capital and land would be idle. —Since, then, each of these agents is indispensable to production, it seems natural that each should share in the results, according to the measure of the service it has rendered This, in fact, is what actually takes place. There are, however, certain observations to be made on this subject. —When natural agents are not appropriated, they have no claim on the result of production. The services they render are in such a case gratuitous. But when they are appropriated, as land capable of cultivation, mines, quarries, waterfalls, etc., generally are, their possessors naturally claim a part in the products due to their co-operation. These possessors exact payment for the services rendered by the natural agents which belong to them. It is very clear, of course, that it is not these inanimate natural agents which claim their share, but the men who have the services of these agents at their disposal because they have become the owners of them. With the question of the right of thus deriving a revenue from the services of inanimate agents we have here nothing to do; that subject will be treated of in its proper place. (See PRODUCTION.) It suffices for the present to state it as a fact, as being the natural and necessary result of the appropriation of these natural agents. As to capital, which is always appropriated, since it belongs of right to those who have brought it into existence or to their successors, it always claims its share; and this is equally true, and with greater reason, of labor which, excepting in certain rare cases, is not and never can be gratuitous. —It is, therefore, between these three great agents of production that revenue is divided. To each of them there corresponds, besides, a distinct form of compensation, suited to the nature of its services. —Rent corresponds to the services rendered by land or by other natural agents. —Profit is the term used to denote the ordinary remunerations paid for the use of capital, either when the holder of the capital uses it at his own risk, whether alone or in association with the capital of others; or interest, when the holder of capital, instead of employing it himself and at his own risk, lends it to another in consideration of a fixed rate of remuneration. —The compensation of labor is generally expressed by the term wages, a term capable of universal application, although other terms may be employed according to the kind of labor referred to. But whatever term is used, and to whatever kind of labor applied, remuneration remains essentially the same, and is as much wages, as when used to express the compensation of the common laborer. —It sometimes happens that the same individual participates in all three kinds of remuneration, rent, interest and wages, as the farmer, when he is at once, land owner, capitalist and workman. As proprietor of the land, he receives rent; as capitalist, profit or interest; and finally, as remuneration for his personal care and attention, he receives wages. —The case of the same individual participating in two of these kinds of remuneration is much more usual. Such, for instance, is the case with a great number of landed proprietors, who commonly receive in rent remuneration for the use of the land, and, in interest or profit, remuneration for the use of the capital expended upon it. This is more especially the case with men in industrial enterprises who, without exception, receive, in addition to the remuneration of their labor, the profit on the capital to which that labor is applied. This is the case, too, with a great number of people who constitute the so-called wage-paid classes, such as laborers, servants, soldiers, sailors, etc.; for among these individuals there are many, who, besides the wages they receive for their labor, receive also interest on some amount of capital placed either in savings banks or elsewhere. —There are also, however, a great number of individuals who receive but one kind of remuneration. In this category may be ranked, in the first place, the great mass of the wage-paid classes who have no other source of revenue than their wages; and many simple workmen, soldiers, sailors, even employes and public officials, are in this position; and there may also be included in it capitalists who live exclusively on the interest or the profit of their capital, invested either in the public funds, or in industrial companies, or elsewhere. But in whatever way these different kinds of remuneration are divided among men, the principle of the distribution of revenue is not changed, and the relation which we have established between remuneration and service remains intact. —In consequence of the action of competition where that competition operates unopposed, these different kinds of remuneration constantly tend to become regular, being reduced to a common level for equal services. Thus, two pieces of land yielding equal advantages to those working them, will generally rent for the same amount. Two separate amounts of capital employed or invested in the same place but by different persons, will also usually bring the same profit or the same interest. In like manner, the labor of two men equally strong, equally active, equally skillful, will commonly obtain, under given circumstances, equal wages. There are, however, in respect to each of these species of remuneration, various causes which, under the action of competition itself, may produce great inequalities, quite as natural, too, as the general equality which we have just mentioned. —In the first place, as regards arable land, it is very natural that more fertile or better situated land should bring a higher rental than land of less fertility or less well situated. As it is here the inequality of the services rendered which determines the inequality of remuneration, this circumstance does not in the least invalidate the general law which we have just established. As regards capital, there are inequalities as great, perhaps even greater, which are due to other causes. If it is a question of the profit to be realized by one employing his own capital, it is easily understood that this profit is in many respects aleatory, that is to say, subject to a great many risks, which may in certain cases transform it into a loss. It is therefore natural that this profit, in case of success, should sometimes be very great. The interest of invested capital seems more fixed, and in fact it is so; and yet it is susceptible of great variation due to the position of the borrower. and of the risks run by the lender. Finally, as regards wages, considerable variations may be noticed, but nearly all are explained and justified by the greater or less skill of the workmen, that is to say, by the inequality of the services rendered. Two manual laborers working under similar conditions, and with like energy, generally get the same wages, and the skillful workman gets higher wages simply on account of his skill. For the same reason the foreman of a workshop, the draftsman, the architect, and the public officer, although merely workmen too, yet commonly receive better wages than the best laborer, because to the labor of their hands they add also an intellectual labor, rarer and more precious. But we do not want to dwell upon these considerations; we merely wished to point them out briefly, referring for additional information to special articles, namely: on the subject of the remuneration of services rendered by natural agents, to the word RENT; on the subject of capital, to the words INTEREST and PROFIT; and on the subject of labor in general, to the word WAGES. —There only remains for us to make two observations, one relative to the mechanism of the distribution of revenue, the other relative to the tax received by the state. The mechanism of the distribution of revenue is as simple as the principle itself. This distribution takes place everywhere through the intermediation of those engaged in industry, because these latter centralize in their hands, each in his own sphere, the means necessary to production. and because the results of production are realized in their hands also. Thus, the farmer who cultivates a piece of land, frequently the property of another, pays in the first place to the owner the rent of the land, plus the interest or the profit of the capital invested in it. He distributes, besides, among his regularly employed workmen. as also among those whose services he requires from time to time, wages for their labor. Sometimes, too, when he employs borrowed capital he pays to the lenders the interest due them. And all this comes from what his working of the land has produced. That which remains over and above this is his personal profit, and he keeps it as the wages of his own labor, and the profit of his own capital Thus, within the range of his occupation, rent, profit, interest, wages, are distributed by him. The same is true of all others engaged in industrial enterprises, each of whom is, in his sphere, the distributor of the products which he has realized. What he must distribute to others is ordinarily fixed and determinate; what he may keep for himself is variable, on account of the risks he runs, and of the greater or less success that may attend his operations; but this does not in the least affect the order of distribution. All that results from this is, that the person engaged in industrial enterprise, instead of finding a surplus at the end of the year which he takes as his own share, may be confronted sometimes with a deficit, and that as a consequence there should be some defect in distribution. —Some economists have regarded the state as a fourth party sharing in the results of production, and the tax which the state receives as a particular form of remuneration to be added to the others. This manner of regarding the state and the taxes received by it, does not appear reasonable to us, inasmuch as it would completely disturb the simple order and mechanism of the distribution of revenue. It appears to us more consonant with the true principles of political economy to consider the state as a great business concern, and the government as a man of enterprise who renders to the nation which he governs certain services demanding, in return for them, a certain remuneration like any other entrepreneur; which remuneration he afterward distributes among his servants in the shape of wages. The state is indeed a business concern of a peculiar kind, which does not admit of competition within the sphere which it embraces, and the tax which it receives in payment for its services, instead of being freely debated about and voluntarily paid, is on the contrary, and as the nature of things requires it, imposed by itself. But these differences which are without doubt characteristic in other respects, and which constitute government an entrepreneur (undertaker) of a special kind, change in nothing the nature of things. CHARLES COQUELIN. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIADISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, The, or The Federal District, a territory of the United States, originally ceded by Maryland, Dec. 23, 1788, and Virginia, Dec. 3, 1789, and accepted by Congress under article I., §8, ¶17, of the constitution, was organized by acts of July 16, 1790, and March 3, 1791. By acts of April 24 and May 13, 1800, the seat of government and the meetings of congress were removed to Washington (see CAPITAL, NATIONAL); and by act of Feb. 27, 1801, congress took complete control of the district, retaining the laws of Virginia and Maryland in the portions respectively acquired from those states (See SLAVERY, PETITION.) The 36 square miles west of the Potomac were retroceded to Virginia by act of July 9, 1846. (See TERRITORIES; ABOLITION, III.) —For the acts above given, in their order as mentioned, see 1 Stat. at Large, 130, 214; 2 Stat. at Large, 55, 85, 103; 9 Stat. at Large, 35. (See also authorities under CAPITAL, NATIONAL.) ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DIVIDE AND REIGNDIVIDE AND REIGN. The weak have had recourse to artifice in all ages, and, under certain circumstances, the severest morality can hardly frown upon its use. When weakness results from the number of one's enemies, an equality of power may be brought about by dividing them, if that be possible. People resort to this means instinctively. We all know the story of the fight between the Horatii and the Curatii, and how the only survivor of the Horatii killed his three adversaries by separating them from one another. —But that which may be justifiable in a case of legitimate defense could scarcely be approved when, for instance, it wished to establish a despotism. In the first place, we can not see under what circumstances usurpation of sovereign power, or conquest, conforms to the precepts of a healthy code of ethics. A small number of such acts, it is true, seem to have been followed by good effects. But utility has not yet been adopted by the public conscience as the criterion of our acts. Moreover, the question of the morality of the act should be weighed before doing it, not after. And its utility is often not established by evidence until after a number of years. We conclude that no one should aim at or maintain himself in power except with the general consent; and then there is no reason for fomenting division and dissension. —So much for the principles: let us now look at the facts. The precept of practical politics which forms the subject of this article, applies above all to foreign relations. Every state is interested in preventing a coalition which has for object to injure it, the conquest of a portion of her territory, or the imposing upon her of any humiliation whatsoever. Now, how can a nation prevent the formation of a hostile combination against it? The surest way is to acquire, by appealing to its interests, the good-will of the power which threatens her safety. When self-interest does not lead to the desired result, resort is sometimes had to dangerous measures, which are at least questionable. The passions are appealed to, and those especially excited on which some hold can be had. Men are called upon in the name of religion, or in that of principle, absolute or liberal. Much is made of a common ancestry or nationality, self-respect is appealed to, jealousy is aroused, to say nothing of the arguments or motives of action which circumstances may inspire or bring into play. Family ties between princes have hardly any bearing nowadays upon events. —In home politics, also, the maxim "divide and reign" finds application also. But if favorable results are only obtained by the greatest prudence abroad, how much more carefully ought the matter to be conducted at home! In constitutional governments in which the people rule, through the elections only can any influence be wielded. Some governments, indeed, make use of brutal means, such as threats and abuse of the authority they hold under the law. But this method is fraught with more than one danger. Less dangerous, though not without peril, is the influence directed through the channel of subtle or secret corruption. —In countries governed absolutely divisions are sometimes excited among the population belonging to different nationalities or of different religions, sometimes between the different classes of society. Here, the clergy are depended upon; there, the nobility; again the peasants, the laborers or artizans; and these are sought at different crises as allies. Thus the government provides itself with masters whom it is obliged to flatter, and therein lies its well-merited punishment. —The best thing a government can do is to satisfy the just demands of reasonable people. It will by this means keep the mass of the people from union with one of the extreme parties which are found in all countries, at least dormant, and which are not to be feared so long as the aggregate of citizens have no real grievances to complain of. When disaffection takes root among a people, division becomes a method of very little efficacy. We repeat: only by serious reforms can a sovereign regain the popularity necessary to a peaceful reign. —We would say, in closing, that those among whom it is sought to sow the germs of disunion should have ever in mind the axiom which Belgium has inscribed upon her coat of arms—"Union is strength." MAURICE BLOCK. DIVINE RIGHTDIVINE RIGHT. In religion some minds accept the principle of authority, and others the principle of free investigation. In politics the same difference is found. Some advocate the principle of divine right, others that of national sovereignty. Must it be admitted that reason was given to man that he might not use it, and that he must blindly submit his opinions to those of a man clothed with ecclesiastical authority? Or may he freely use his intellect and reject what seems to him inadmissible? It is not our business to decide this question here. —We enjoy more liberty relatively to divine right. We may affirm that all men are equal before God, and that the nation was not created in the interest of a prince, but that the prince exists, at least in principle, only for the good of the nation. We say in principle, for, in reality, more than one monarch proved the scourge of his people. Moreover, nations have prospered under a republican form of government. But under the monarchical form, as well as the republican, sovereignty belongs naturally to the nation, which may delegate its powers, if it thinks best to do so. To believe that there exists any one family having rights directly emanating from God, is to ignore history and close one's eyes to evidence. M. B. DIVISION OF LABORDIVISION OF LABOR. The division of employments is a natural consequence of the life of man in society. It is, moreover, an element of productive power and of intellectual development. In the infancy of society each individual, each family, manufactures with difficulty and in an imperfect manner the objects it needs; the wisest, the old man of the tribe, preserves in his head the treasure, as yet very meagre, of acquired knowledge, which he endeavors to transmit by word of mouth to those who are to survive him. But as tribes grow larger, and improve, they come to sanction and maintain the right of the individual property of each man in the fruit of his labor; they come to understand the utility of exchanges freely consented to; and henceforth each man can devote himself to the special occupation for which he feels himself peculiarly fitted. He achieves greater results in the branch of labor to which he thus devotes himself, and produces more than is personally necessary to him; he lacks, on the other hand, everything that his individual labor is unable to supply, and exchange provides him with the means of establishing an equilibrium between what he produces himself and what he wants but can not produce; he gives his surplus in return for what he requires, and thus barters the services which he renders for those which he himself has occasion for. —When nations become greater and more enlightened, the division of labor becomes more marked. Certain individuals now devote themselves to hunting, to fishing, to the cultivation of the soil, others to manufactures: others there are again who devote themselves exclusively to the culture of the mind: these latter discover the laws of nature which God has placed at the service of man, whom he has charged to discover them and turn them to useful account. Thus they effectively help in the production of the wealth, upon the aggregate of which society subsists. —In each branch of production the division of labor tends to extend and multiply; farming adapts itself to the nature of the soil, and to the atmospheric condition of the land; in one place cereals are grown, in another the vine, in another cattle are raised: and these various products are afterward exchanged, one for another or for manufactured articles. —In the industries which convert raw material into manufactured products, the division of employments is soon pushed further still. One man becomes an iron worker; another hews wood; others still are weavers and cotton spinners. —To facilitate exchanges, yet another great industry is developed, namely, that which undertakes to place all products within the reach of the consumer, either by carrying them from one place to another, or by the simple division, on the spot, of the merchandise into quantities proportioned to individual wants: this is commerce. Here, too, division of employments soon takes place; the same merchants do not engage in sea, land and river transportation; the same merchant does not sell groceries, hardware and woolen goods. To facilitate commercial operations, a class of intermediary agents spring up. bankers, brokers, commission men. —It is plain that the division of labor is both a consequence and a cause of the development of nations, and of the progress which they make in all branches of human knowledge. The division of labor tends constantly to increase, and is checked only by the limited extent of the market, that is to say, by the limitation which the wants of the population put to the possible sale of each kind of product. —In countries, remote from cities, where agricultural operations on a large scale are carried on, those who work in the fields cultivate, too, near their cottages, vegetables for their own use; while in the neighborhood of large cities, kitchen gardeners make it their sole business to cultivate vegetables and fruit; often even they devote themselves to a single branch of gardening; there are some who make floriculture, and even the culture of a single kind of flower, a specialty. —In villages in which consumption is limited, commercial industry does not admit of a division of labor; in such places there is often but a single shop, a grocer's, who sells sugar, coffee, candles, clothing, nails and stationery; while, on the other hand, in cities each of these branches becomes the object of a different commercial enterprise; each one of which frequently grows to an importance of great dimensions. Thus it is that in metropolitan cities huge emporiums exist for the exclusive sale of tea, candles or chocolate. —But it is especially in manufacturing industries that the division of employments has attained the most marvelous results, and that its influence is unparalleled in the increase of the values produced. Hence, the first economists who critically examined the vast mechanism of the production of wealth were struck at once with this great phenomenon. —Adam Smith says, in his "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations": "The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labor, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity and judgment with which it is anywhere directed or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labor." (Book i., c. 1.) And to make the full bearing of this observation understood he instances the case of the pin-maker, and shows what an immense difference there would be between the results of a man who should attempt, alone and unaided, the manufacture of pins, and those obtained in a workshop where the labor is suitably subdivided among men skilled each in a distinct branch of their manufacture. Here one draws the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, while a fourth points it; it is a distinct process to prepare one end to receive the head, while the head itself is the result of two or three different operations. Then the pins have to be whitened; and lastly the perforation of the paper and the wrapping up are additional and separate departments. It is thus that in the important industry of pin-making there are 18 operations, which in certain factories are the work of as many different hands. The establishment which Adam Smith visited was, as he says, small, and indifferently furnished with suitable machinery; only 10 workmen were employed, and yet it produced 48,000 pins a day, that is, an average of 4,800 apiece. In the presence of such production, and, owing to improved methods much greater to-day than when Smith wrote, how insignificant indeed would be the results of one attempting alone the manufacture of pins; scarcely would he perhaps by dint of the hardest labor make 20 in a day. —J. B. Say has taken as his example the manufacture of playing-cards, and there is no branch of industry in which immensely greater results are not obtained from the co-operation of individual effort and the division of employments—If Adam Smith had extended his analysis, he might have shown that many other partial operations are divided among different workmen to complete that small product of human industry the value of which is so little, and which is called a pin. He might have directed attention to the work of the miner who brings to the surface of the earth the ore of copper, and to that of the miner having a different origin and habits, who, in another part of the world perhaps, has had to dig out the ore of tin necessary for alloyage and for whitening the pin. But in addition to the labor necessary to bring these metals to the requisite degree of purity, they must besides have been transported by sea and by land to the pin-maker's manufactory How many different operations divided among an infinite number of workmen have not been necessary in the mere construction of the ship employed in carrying the tin from a port of India to England! And what shall we say of the compass which has been used in guiding this vessel across the seas? What an amount of time and of observations of different kinds, by a great number of individuals, was necessary to put mankind in possession of the compass! The imagination is appalled at the extent of the research needed to exhibit all the labor which has been necessary to bring to perfection the most trifling product, in a single branch of any manufacturing industry of our day. —To return to the consideration of the increase in productive force effected in a branch of manufactures by division of labor. Adam Smith attributes it to three causes: first, to the greater dexterity acquired by each workman in a single and often repeated act; second, to the saving of time commonly lost in passing from one kind of employment to another, and lastly, to the stimulus given to the mind concentrated upon a single purpose, to invent more rapid processes, or even machines to supplement human labor. —Undoubtedly the first two of these causes have a great effect; the saving of time is an important consideration in industry, bearing at once on the individual labor of the workman and on the capital employed in the undertaking, the interest being less heavy the shorter the term for which the interest is borrowed. —As to the invention of expeditious methods and of machines for supplementing human labor, division of labor certainly conduces to it, and instances can be given of more than one improvement in mechanism due to the workmen themselves, the discovery of which has permitted of economizing and replacing labor. It must at the same time be observed that it is not alone to the division of labor in workshops, that the great and numerous discoveries constantly made in the arts and sciences are due. The honor of these discoveries belongs rather to the division of labor among all classes; it is to the power that the mind can attain when devoted to one single line of study and investigation, that the greatest achievements are due, that is to say, the discovery of all the laws of nature we are acquainted with, and the combination of means to be employed to render them practically useful. —The advantages of the division of labor in the production of wealth are, therefore, incontestable; but we must not forget to call attention to the drawbacks which may be consequences of these advantages The most glaring and one specially calculated to attract the attention of generous minds, is the effect which the restriction of a man to a single piece of work always the same and constantly repeated, may have upon his moral development. It is a melancholy thing, it has been observed, for one reaching the end of life to have to realize that his every day has been passed in making pin heads. Those who present the disadvantages of the division of labor under this dramatic form are, in part at least, unjust to humanity. Man must not be thus personified in the only work which it is his business to do; though a worker, he is one of a family; he is a citizen; in addition to the labor which he gives in exchange for the services of others of which he has need, he participates in all the advantages of the society in which he lives; he has his share in the progress made about him. In all vocations the working man has intervals of rest, and it is especially according to the use to which he turns his spare moments that man can elevate himself and come to enjoy the general advantages offered him by society. A steady and unvaried occupation does not necessarily dull the mind; and the artist who, during a year or two, grows pale over the same plate of copper or steel that he may produce a master-piece, does not live wholly amid the regular lines traced successively by his graver. —It would, moreover, narrow the question of the division of labor to see it and to study it within the walls of a manufactory only; it is not less worthy of observation in the little work shops of a great city like Paris. There, occupations are not only apportioned among the workingmen employed, but also among a great number of petty manufacturers, each the possessor of a small capital, each conducting for himself some undertaking and affording employment to one or two workmen and an apprentice. A single little article of Parisian manufacture is thus often the result of the successive co-operation of many; for instance, the wood-work of a lady's work box is made by a cabinet maker; each separate article which goes to complete it comes from a distinct trade, that of the turner, the cutler, the engraver, etc.; while finally, another tradesman, a furnisher, having selected these different articles, fits up the inside of the box. In the manufacture of artificial flowers the division of the labor of workmen and of manufacturers into departments is carried to quite as great an extent. The manufacture of what are called the preparations for flowers is very extensive, and gives rise to important industries; there are color makers, and mould makers, those who crimp the cloth, and those who make the stamens, the seeds and other accessories, and all these different people hand over their productions to the monteurs; among these latter, again, some make buds only, others roses, and others mourning flowers, and so on. This great division of labor largely reduces the cost of production, and the article is of improved quality. It may be observed, also, that among this vast laboring class where each one's employment is so narrow, quickness of wit and intelligence is developed to a much greater extent than in vocations where work is less subdivided. —Thus division of labor greatly facilitates and increases production; but it is at the same time a material aid to investigation and to the development of the sciences. Hence its influence is as deserving the attention of philosophers as of economists. HORACE SAY. DIVORCEDIVORCE. The right of the husband to repudiate the wife preceded divorce in all nations, just as force always precedes justice. The Persians, Hebrews and ancient Romans made extensive use of the right which they had arrogated to themselves. The principle of equality between man and woman began to be sanctioned, under Solon in Greece, Herod at Jerusalem, and Domitian at Rome, by the right given the wife of repudiating her husband. The fathers of the church themselves were much divided upon this important question of the indissolubility of marriage, and if Sts. Ambrose and Epiphanius permitted divorce, St. Augustine rejected at with all his energy. In 860 pope Nicholas I., who wished to force Lothair I. to take back his wife Teutbergia, maintained the doctrine of the absolute indissolubility of marriage with so much authority that the king finally yielded. This was a sort of recognition, by the civil power, of the principle established by the court of Rome. Still later the rupture of the eastern and western churches, and the reformation, divided Europe into two factions on the subject: the Roman Catholics holding to the indissolubility of marriage, on the one hand; the Greek Christians and Protestants making a large practice of divorce, on the other. At last the law of 1792 allowed divorce in France. The provisions of this law rendered very easy the rupture of a union become irksome to the married couple. It provided for two kinds of divorce: separation by mutual consent, and divorce on account of incompatibility of temper. —When two people, married to each other, wished to be divorced, and when, consequently, the consent was mutual, they had to convoke at least six of their nearest relations, or, these failing, friends. This call could be made through the instrumentality of a bailiff, or by simple verbal invitation. The two had to present themselves in person at this meeting, and there make their request. The matter was then discussed, and each one of the parties gave his or her reasons for desiring a separation. Remarks could be made by those present, and if, when the case was heard, the two parties persisted, a document was prepared, setting forth the uselessness of all attempts at reconciliation, and the irrevocability of the decision of the parties. —Nevertheless the legislator, wishing to surround the dissolution of marriage with all proper safeguards, and understanding that in such cases it would be dangerous to take no account of time, decided that so soon as the formalities just indicated were gone through with, the married couple should wait at least one and at most six months, before appearing a second time before the civil officer. The latter was then obliged to decree the divorce. —The same forms were used when the divorce was for incompatibility of temper. In this case, however, the act assuming a litigious character, several modifications of a secondary nature were introduced. Thus, both complaint and defense had to be made regularly, and the plaintiff, after choosing his three relatives or friends, was obliged to summon the defendant officially to appear on a certain day before the assembly prescribed by law. The defendant, on the other hand, had to bring forward three relatives or friends to complete the assembly. Two meetings should take place on the day fixed upon, and indicated by the summons of the plaintiff; and if the defendant, duly summoned, did not present himself with the members of the tribunal chosen by himself, the divorce could be decreed by default. The civil officer, a mute but indispensable witness at the two reunions, was charged with the proper execution of all the formalities prescribed by law. After the decision of the two meetings the same conditions of delay were imposed. —This law can be criticised from many standpoints, and it is needless to say that it was the object of violent attack, inasmuch as it was abolished. Nevertheless we must call, attention to this fact, that the legislator of 1792 in France made the witnesses in this affair, so delicate in every respect, the relatives of the parties, that is, the persons the most interested. The interests and dignity of the husband and wife were protected by the very nature of the tribunal before which they exposed their troubles, at least as much as by the power which they had of seeing to its composition themselves; and morality could only be the gainer by the patriarchal form prescribed by the law. —The authors of the civil code retained divorce, but changed the character given to it by the law of 1792, and instead of a natural act, and one implying nothing blamable whatever, they sensibly approached the Catholic doctrine, and looked upon it only as an evil sometimes necessary, and tolerated by the law. In retaining it they rather bowed before public opinion than obeyed their conscience. Divorce now became little accessible to the poorer classes, by reason of the precautions and formalities with which it was surrounded. Even this law, a mean between divorce frankly accepted by the law and its abolition, recognized several kinds of divorce Every action for divorce gave rise to the following measures: The providing of maintenance for the children was imposed upon the husband, whether plaintiff or defendant, unless otherwise ordered by the court. An action for divorce did not suspend marital power, but during the course of the trial the wife could leave the conjugal roof, and receive alimony from her husband. Her place of domicile was fixed by the court. The husband remained master, during the trial, of his wife's rights and acts. Such was the situation of the married couple during the trial. But the solicitude of the legislator did not end here, for he evolved a mass of formal detail whose-evident object was to prevent the frequency of divorce, by imposing costly and disagreeable obligations upon the married couple. For instance, the law directed the husband and wife to sacrifice the half of their fortune to their children, and made a second marriage of the parties impossible before the lapse of four years. A petition for divorce for a determinate cause had to be preceded by an effort toward reconciliation and by a preliminary judgment. An investigation took place, and judgment was not pronounced until after one year of trial. The divorce could not be granted unless the husband was at least 25 years old and his wife 21, nor unless the marriage had lasted at least two and at most 20 years. In no case did the mutual consent of the parties suffice; the agreement of their fathers and mothers was necessary, or, these failing, that of the other living ancestors, following the rules prescribed at the time of marriage. A divorce once pronounced was irrevocable, and the divorced could by no pretext again unite legally. Even renewed cohabitation could not revive the marriage. —In 1816 the tendency of ideas was against divorce, and one of the first acts of the Catholic reaction was to re-establish the indissolubility of the marriage bond in France. We may easily understand this eagerness on the part of the emigrants, and of those who saw in the restoration only the victory of Catholic and monarchical principles over those of the revolution. But it is harder to comprehend the persistency of the chamber of peers, under Louis Philippe, in combating divorce—After the revolution of 1830 M. de Schonen proposed, in the chamber of deputies, the abrogation of the law of May 8, 1816. An immense majority approved the consideration of this proposition, and a committee ad hoc was appointed. M. Odilon Barrot was the reporter of its deliberations. This illustrious orator commenced by proving that the right of divorce would change the very essence of marriage, if that right were to exist unconditionally for both husband and wife; that, consequently, there could be debate only on the civil code system, as compared with that of the law of May 8, 1816. According to M. Barrot, the civil code offered a happy mode of reconciliation between the imperfections of our nature and the necessity of insuring in case of marriage at least an intention of perpetuity. "Laws, to be obeyed, must not do too great violence to our nature, which is always able to avenge itself upon the despotism of the law, either by crime, which is a violent reaction, or by corruption, which is a slow and continual protest against despotism." It is thus right, in the opinion of M. Barrot, that the law should take into account human imperfection, and that it should depart from an absolute principle, which breeds crime and propagates corruption. As to the children, M. Barrot thought their interests were of two kinds, financial and moral, and that divorce preserved these better to them than the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage—The proposition was adopted by the chamber of deputies, but rejected by the house of peers. Twice the deputies insisted on it; and twice the peers opposed their veto to it. In the presence of this resolve the deputies themselves rejected a proposition of the same nature, whose fate was foreseen. —Divorce is permitted in England, Russia, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and the United States. Compare the family morals of these privileged countries with those of France, Italy, Spain and other countries in which the indissolubility of marriage has become an article of faith! "Divorce from bed and board is left us by the law," it will be said. Admitted; but by an inexplicable anomaly the rupture of corporal bonds and division of interests do not involve the loss of the rights of the husband. If the unfortunate or imprudent wife legally separated, finds in an illicit union (she can form no other) support, consolation or joy, the husband is, in France, authorized to accuse of adultery the woman who is in fact no more his wife. The husband, on his part, lives without the pale of the law, and this disunited couple, transformed into a public danger, drag down in their fall two others with them. —Therefore a legislation in harmony with morals and the progress of liberal ideas ought, we think, to have a tendency by its wise provisions, if not to do away with, at least to diminish, adultery and concubinage, the fatal consequences of the indissolubility of marriage. The first consul said, "marriage is indissoluble in this sense, that at the moment when it is contracted each of the parties ought to have the firmest intention never to break it, and ought not to foresee the accidental, and sometimes culpable, causes which may in future render a separation necessary. But that the indissolubility of marriage can be modified in no case whatever, is refuted by the maxims and examples of every age. It is not in the nature of things that two beings organized separately, should ever be perfectly identified. Therefore, the legislator should foresee the results that the nature of things may bring about. The fiction of the identity of husband and wife has always been modified, for that matter—by the Catholic religion, in case of impotence—everywhere by divorce" We are of the opinion of the first consul in this matter, and we think, with Montaigne, that the more the marriage knot is tightened, by taking away all means of dissolving it, the more the bonds of the will and affection are loosened. Marriage is anterior to all law, civil or religious, just as the will of the contractors is anterior to any law regulating the conditions of a contract. We must go back to this our starting point in order to judge, in a healthy way, what part of a contract law and religion may claim to exercise any right over. HECTOR PESSARD. DOCTRINARIANSDOCTRINARIANS. Doctrinarian is a word for the original meaning of which custom has substituted an unfavorable acceptation. —The signification of the word doctrine is well known. It means the aggregate of certain principles, certain maxims, of reasoned precepts; and the man who acts according to a doctrine, in other words, the doctrinarian, is entitled to a certain amount of esteem even when his system is false Very likely we shall meet with opposition on this head; for there is a prevailing habit of venting the same reprobation on men who hold certain principles, as on men with a multitude of projects, and hobby-riders. It must be admitted, however, that it is better to act according to an approved doctrine than to follow the dictates of caprice or even of a so-called rational interest. The laws of a country constitute a body of doctrine, and the government which does not act in their spirit is either despotic or arbitrary. —A doctrinarian in politics is one who places axioms above the vicissitudes of events, even above the decision of the majority and above the letter of the law. France has had several constitutions which recognized proscriptive indefeasible rights, which no law could ignore. The authors of these constitutions and those who accepted them were doctrinarians. Many persons and many opinions, whose classification under the same name would surprise everybody, are thus united in the same category. There are the doctrinarians of the republic as well as the doctrinarians of monarchy. The principles of 1789 in fact are a body of doctrine, and we are among those who inscribe them on our banner; we incline toward being a doctrinarian of '89. —Our definition is perhaps not one of those which would occur immediately to the mind of our readers. In truth the great majority do not attach any definite meaning to the word doctrinarian. This term merely recalls to their memory the names of some eminent men who, rightly or wrongly, were exposed to violent attack. People are too easily caught with words. —The term doctrinarian, to denote political opinion, dates from the winter of 1816-17. The word was invented by the ultra-royalists to designate a group of men of whom Royer-Collard was the chief at the time. This group comprised at different periods, the Comte de Molé, due de Broglie, Guizot, de Barante, the abbé Louis, Camille Jordan, Comte de Saint-Aulaire, Beugnot, and even de Serre, Pasquier Sébastiani and others. This group represented then a shade of the tendencies of liberal opinion which was equally distant from the extreme left, a portion of whom wished to lead the nation once more back to imperialism, and from the extreme right, which intended to return even to the old régime. These doctrinarians were the intermediary group which demanded "the charter, all the charter, and nothing but the charter." —Statesmen who avoid extremes are always in a difficult position; they are, so to speak, between the frying pan and the fire. They are harassed from all sides, and, as a natural consequence, they please no one, in the end. Such was the lot of the doctrinarians. Let us now examine their opinions. We shall take as an example the opinion of Royer-Collard which people do not yet understand. We quote: "He inquired what were the conditions necessary to the existence of governments. Liberty in all its forms appeared to him to be the primary want of both individuals and nations; he respected it in the region of conscience by dividing by an insurmountable barrier civil from religious life, both in the actions and the interests of all, by giving them as a guarantee the law and the irremovability of judges: he respected it in the political rights of the nation by inviting all those whose capability had been recognized, to participate in public affairs, by the election of a part of the legislators and by the admission of citizens into those tribunals in which their private and public interests were discussed. His love for liberty made him love order, which is only respect for the liberty of others; he never separated liberty from order. According to his opinion the final object of political institutions, the supreme result of the labor of centuries, was to reconcile liberty with order and to unite them." (Vingtain, "Public life of Royer-Collard.") —Royer-Collard has been reproached with living in theories and abstractions. Let us, therefore, cite a second passage: "To the immovable foundations of the constitution of governments, society adds other elements. Sometimes a powerful aristocracy strives to govern everything by privileges and exceptions; then the democratic spirit threatens to level everything to a deceptive equality. It behooves the legislator to restrain these tendencies; but above all it is indispensable to know them. The observation of his own period is the first, but it must not be the only object of his study. History must explain to him the reason of what is by what has been, and show him what will be by the contemplation of what is." (Vingtain.) —It is not without interest to know the opinion of this eminent man on the liberty of the press. We therefore quote two passages from his parliamentary speeches. "The liberty of the press," he said, Jan. 22, 1822, "which has become a public right, is the foundation of all liberty, and gives the nation back to itself; freedom of speech flows from it, and thus publicity watches over the public powers, enlightens them and checks them; if they are freed from this salutary control they have no other, for written right is as feeble as individuals. It is therefore strictly true that the liberty of the press has the character and the energy of a political institution. It is true that this institution is the only one which restores to the nations their rights as against the power which governs them; and it is true that on the day the liberty of the press perishes, we shall return to a state of slavery." —On Dec. 16, 1817, he said: "The license of the press may make ravages in society and imperial governments, as the excess of repression can annihilate legitimate liberty. To establish the liberty of the press by repressing the abuses it might indulge in, without the abuse of repression destroying liberty itself, is the problem which has to be solved It is a difficult problem, but one which appears continually and under every form in free countries, and which is nothing but a particular form of the general problem of the reconciliation of order and liberty. Whenever a solution is despaired of, the nations are said to be doomed to the inevitable alternative of despotism or anarchy." —Royer-Collard and his friends gave expression to less liberal opinions on other points; but what shall we think of an author who, during the first years of the July government said of them: "A party with principles respects those principles before all else; the doctrinarian party having none, thinks that the end justifies the means, and its only end is the possession of power. * * A party representing national opinion, a party the efforts of which are encouraged by the public, a party enjoying the confidence of the masses, is always calm and dignified; its confidence in the future deserts it in no calamity, and forbids it the use of violence either to acquire or to retain power. The party of doctrinarians which represents only itself, the ambitious individuality of its partisans, has professed from the legislative tribune that there is no possibility of governing without intimidation. and we have not forgotten that by this expression doctrinarians mean permanent terror and the suppression of all liberty." —We shall not name the author of this diatribe because, although he has remained faithful to his ultra-democratic opinions he might nevertheless find, after so many years of agitation, that polemics drove him too far. —These attacks were directed more especially against the duke de Broglie and M. Guizot. History has as yet passed no impartial and intelligent judgment upon them. Still we must observe that a part of the reproaches addressed them are out of place. People in France and even elsewhere seem to believe that doctrinarians were liberal only under the restoration, and that after the revolution of July they turned reactionaries, or, at least, that they ceased to advance. There is nothing in this to surprise us. The liberals of the restoration, once in power, could practice only their own doctrines, and not those which came after them. Their accession to power was an advance; a certain time was needed to develop the consequences of this accession, and that a new "more advanced" party might be formed. —In relation to the new liberals the doctrinarians became conservatives. This lay in the nature of things, and it would in no way be becoming in us to ratify throughout the judgment of the opposition of 1830-48. in France. —E. Laboulaye in his introduction to the Cours de politique constitutionnelle, by Benj. Constant (Paris, Guillaumin, 1861), thus expresses himself: "If I have chosen this question (the freedom of the press) to show the difference between two liberal policies, it is because the error of Royer-Collard is here clearly visible, but on ten other points we can find the same distinction. There has always been system in the school of the doctrinarians. It thought itself wiser than the liberals in seeking to reconcile two contradictory policies with each other; it has always more or less mixed prevention with repression; it has had no less confidence in the wisdom of the administration than in the free efforts of individuals. Benjamin Constant, on the contrary, has but one idea. In religion, in education, in politics and in industry his motto is always the old French motto: Laisser faire, laisser passer; no prevention, but energetic repression. And with regard to individual rights his motto is: Nothing to the administration, everything to justice. "This rigorous logic," Mr. Laboulaye continues, "is to the taste of the French. We easily go to extremes, even at the risk of going beyond our goal. We have, therefore, had to regret, more than once, that we did not stop at the happy medium; but this happy medium, excellent when dealing with men and caring for interests, is of no advantage when there is a question of truth and liberty. Half-truth and half-liberty are an unnatural alliance with untruth and force; an alliance which conceals a secret struggle between two irreconcilable enemies. Union between the church and the state, education regulated by the state, industry protected by the state, elections guided by the state, a press defended by the state against its own excesses—these are so many errors which bring forth nothing but discord. On the contrary, separate church and state, and the religious questions which have been troubling the world for the last 15 centuries, cease as if by magic to trouble it. Who ever heard of religious questions in the United States? Grant the freedom of education as in Belgium and the United States, and by this one stroke you put an end to the fears of the clergy and the oppression of free thought. Establish free competition and you are at once disembarrassed of the heavy responsibility which crushes you in times of dearth or crisis. Let voters choose their representatives themselves, and you will know what the country wants. Until this is done you will hear only the echo of your own voice, an echo which has thus far never instructed or saved a man. Give full rein to the press. much will be printed; there will be noise, dust and smoke; but at the same time the phantom which has been frightening all governments for the last 40 years will disappear. This great publicity will, no doubt, trouble the indolence of some and the calculations of others, but it will insure the reign of the public conscience." Guizot thus characterizes doctrinarianism: "Doctrinarians have been much attacked. I wish to explain their ideas, not to defend them. To men and parties who have exercised any influence on events and occupied a place in history it is important that they should be known as they are. Once this object is attained, they should rest in peace and allow the world to pass judgment on them. It is neither their intelligence nor their talent nor moral dignity—merits these which not even their enemies have denied them—which constituted the original character and the political worth of the doctrinarians: other men of other parties possessed these merits, and public opinion will give these rivals of their intelligence, eloquence and sincerity, their proper rank. Doctrinarians owe to another cause their name, their influence which has been great in spite of their small number. It is the great character—very dearly paid for—of the French revolution to have been the product of the human mind, of its conceptions and its pretensions, while it was also a struggle between social interests. Philosophy boasted that it would regulate politics, and that institutions, laws and the public powers would be only the creation and the servant of scientific reason. Senseless pride, but still brilliant homage paid to what is noblest in man, to his intellectual and moral nature! Reverses and disappointments were not slow to give the revolution some hard lessons. But up to 1815 the commentators on its bad fortune were either its implacable enemies or disabused accomplices; the former thirsting for vengeance, the latter for rest; these opposed the revolutionary principles with the scepticism of fatigue, the others retrograde reaction. 'In the revolution there is nothing but error and crime,' said some; 'the old régime was right in opposing it.' 'The revolution sinned only through excess,' said others; 'its principles were good, but it carried them too far; it abused its power.' The doctrinarians rejected both these assertions; they were opposed both to a return to the maxims of the old régime and to an adhesion—even entirely speculative—to the revolutionary principles of the revolution. While frankly accepting the new French society, such as not only 1789 but the whole history of France had made it, doctrinarians undertook to found a government on a rational basis and yet quite different from the theory in the name of which the old structure had been destroyed, and to the incoherent maxims which were appealed to in its reconstruction. Called upon, in turn, to combat and to defend the revolution, they placed themselves from the beginning boldly in the intellectual order of things, opposing principles by principles, appealing not only to experience but also to reason, asserting rights instead of interests only, and asking France not to confess that she had done nothing but evil, nor to declare herself impotent for good, but to come out of the chaos into which she had plunged herself and to lift her head toward heaven, there to find light again. —I must own it; there was also in this attempt, much pride, but a pride which began by an act of humility, for it proclaimed the errors of yesterday together with the will and the hope not to fall into them again. This was at once to render homage to human intelligence and to warn it of the limits of its power; it was to perform an act of respect to the past without abandoning the present and renouncing the future. —I shall tell, without hesitation, according to what experience has taught me, by what defects this generous design was successively affected, and which interfered with or prevented success. What I have most at heart at the present moment is, to define its true character. It is to their admixture of philosophic elevation and political moderation, to their rational respect for rights and facts, to their doctrines, new conservative, anti-revolutionary, and yet not retrograde, that, modest, although often haughty in their language, the doctrinarians owed their importance and their name. In spite of so many miscalculations of philosophy and human reason, our times retain a taste for philosophy and investigation, and the most determined political practitioners sometimes feign to act upon general ideas, considering them as a good means to justify and accredit themselves. The doctrinarians thus satisfied a real and profound want, although not yet clearly felt in France; they had at heart both the intellectual honor and the good order of society; their ideas appeared adapted both to regenerate the country and at the same time to put an end to the revolution. And by this double title they were brought into contact now with their partisans and again with their adversaries, this contact insuring to them, if not absolute sympathy yet great esteem; the Right held them to be sincere royalists, and the Left, although combating them with asperity, knew very well that they were neither the defenders of the old régime nor of absolute power." (Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de mon temps, vol. i., p. 156, etc.) —It now remains to us to formulate what we consider the opinion of moderate men on the doctrinarians; we shall do it in the terms which, we believe, the historian of the future will use. They were, he will say, chosen men, distinguished for their talents, the honor of their lives, and adherence to their principles. Their political system was comparatively liberal, and in other times they would have stood at the head of the progressive party. Unfortunately they came into power at a time when "democracy was sailing under full sail" (de Serre); they could neither check nor direct the waves, and not wishing to be carried on by them they were swallowed up by them. MAURICE BLOCK. DOMINION OF CANADADOMINION OF CANADA. The dominion of Canada comprises the British provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, the district of Kewatin, and the Northwest Territories. The British North American act for the federal union of these provinces into one dominion under the crown of Great Britain, was passed by the English parliament in 1867. At that date, Upper and Lower Canada—since called Ontario and Quebec—Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were the only provinces included in the confederation desiring political union. The act, however, contained provisions to admit any of the remaining British provinces whose people might subsequently desire to join the union; and British Columbia, and the province of Prince Edward Island, within a few years, became members of the federation. The act of union was proclaimed July 1, 1867. Soon afterward the Northwest Territories were transferred to the dominion. These are the vast district, "which not having before been granted to any British subject, nor belonging to the subject of any other Christian prince," Charles II. granted to the Hudson's Bay company, and throughout which that company so long monopolized a lucrative trade. The province of Manitoba, and the recently established district of Kewatin, are both portions of the territory formerly controlled by the Hudson's Bay company. —The union was purely of provincial origin, but received the hearty support of England, as it tended to consolidate British American interests. The time chosen was specially opportune for the success of such a project in Canada, as there were clouds there on the political horizon, which foreboded trouble. When Upper and Lower Canada were united in 1840, the two provinces had equal representation in the legislature, and no change in the number of representatives could be made without the consent of two-thirds of all their members. But as the increase of population was greater in the upper than in the lower province, for some years prior to 1867, there was considerable clamor in Upper Canada for a re-adjustment, on the basis of population, of the parliamentary representation. While the justice of such a demand was beyond controversy, Lower Canada declined to sanction any change which placed her in a legis8lgrave;ative minority. Under such circumstances the discontent in Upper Canada steadily increased. This was but one of a series of vexations questions which gave her majesty's loyal opposition in Canada a complete outfit of weapons of offense, and made it impossible for the most wary political leaders to retain their majorities. The strongest administrations that could be formed held their existence on but a precarious tenure, and were short-lived. Disputes respecting political grievances, between people homogeneous in race and religion, are not always easy to control, but when they are accompanied by the antipathies and antagonisms skillful dealers in disturbing questions can bring into play between people as wide apart as Scotch Presbyterians and French Catholics, they become dangerous. This fact was timely recognized in Canada. Political leaders grew apprehensive that their followers might become unmanageable and urge the strife beyond a war of words, and thoughtful, non-partisan people turned to a union of all the British provinces as the surest and most practicable means of avoiding impending trouble. This, it was thought, would afford an opportunity to dispose of perplexing questions, and prevent the recurrence of these annoying dead-locks into which the evenly balanced strength and rancor of political parties were constantly bringing the legislature. Aspiring public men in each of these provinces also foresaw, that the pent-up area of their field of political action must thereby be enlarged and made more important. In this way confederation grew to be considered the most feasible solution of the problems which puzzled the rulers of Canada. The act of union was the outcome of the deliberations of the ablest public men of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as representative men of all parties aided in the work. The act passed the English parliament essentially as it was left by the Canadian delegates. A coalition government was formed to initiate the new order of things in the dominion, and but few men of influence withheld their aid from the attempt to make the new machinery of government run smoothly at the start. —Quietly as this change was effected, it was an important transition for Canada; and that country to-day widely differs from what it was a decade and a half ago. The former Canada was but a fringe of settlements along the heavily timbered banks of the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, and a few other large rivers of the country; and along the shores of the great lakes. It had no prairies, inviting to the immigrant, because they require but a minimum outlay for cultivation, and will yield a quick return for labor. It had no accessible seaport of its own during winter, and had per force to be content with its isolated position more than half of each year, or be dependent on the courtesy of its neighbor for a winter port. The Canada of to-day contains all the British possessions in North America, except Newfoundland. It commands fine harbors, on both sides of the continent, and has at its disposal stretches of virgin prairie, nowhere surpassed. East and west it extends from ocean to ocean; and north and south from the frozen ocean and Hudson's bay to the frontier of the United States. The area within these boundaries includes more than 3,000,000 square miles, and is surpassed in extent only by the vast territories of the United States, and the imperial possessions of Great Britain, Russia and China. —Canada is naturally divided into three immense geological basins, draining into the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Arctic ocean and Hudson's bay. The great lakes and the St. Lawrence are the outlet from the eastern watershed. For several hundred miles they form the boundary between the United States and Canada. They constitute the largest and purest body of fresh water known. The St. Lawrence is 1,500 miles long, and drains an area of 330,000 square miles, the larger portion of which is in Canada. In the northern basin of the Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan, Nelson and Mackenzie rivers, together, are 2,700 miles long, and drain an area of 890,000 square miles. West of the Rocky mountains the Fraser river is 450 miles long, and drains an area of 30,000 square miles. The Fraser, Columbia and Peace rivers are the chief streams of British Columbia. The Peace river rises in the angle formed by the Peak range with the Rocky mountains and the Coast range. It receives the gold-bearing tributary, Findlay's branch, passes the great range of the Rocky mountains and joins the Mackenzie river, which, after a course of 2,000 miles, reaches the frozen ocean. The Columbia river rises in the Rocky mountains, and after receiving important tributaries enters the United States territory and falls into the Pacific. The entire western basin is about 800 miles long by 400 miles wide. From California northward the line of the Pacific coast is singularly unbroken up to the straits of Fuca, about 750 miles from San Francisco. But north of the straits there is a perfect maze of islands which were explored by Vancouver nearly 100 years ago. To seaward of this archipelago, and divided by a sound, are the islands of Vancouver and Queen Charlotte, the former being furthest to the south, and separated from the main land by a channel, which, at its narrowest parts, is only a few thousand yards wide. On Vancouver's island Great Britain established a separate colony, with the town of Victoria as capital, but the government of the island was united to that of the main land in 1866. The island is 250 miles long and 70 wide. It contains coal and other minerals, while in parts it is heavily timbered and adapted for agriculture. —If the temperature of this continent in northern latitudes were similar to that prevailing in corresponding latitudes of the other hemisphere, all the older settled parts of Canada would enjoy a climate like that of the countries of central and southern Europe. But though favored with skies as bright as these countries, Canada, influenced by arctic currents, experiences a degree of cold to which they are strangers. On the Atlantic side of Canada, long before the latitudes are left which map out some of the most highly civilized countries of Europe, a region is reached unfit for settlement, where the Indian, undisturbed by civilization, may continue to hunt and fish, and live in squalor, as his forefathers lived for generations before him. Still traced westward, the isothermal lines are found to trend to the north, and there is a difference of 25 per cent. between the temperature of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts at the same latitude. At the mouth of the Columbia river, which corresponds in latitude with Quebec, the climate is as mild as that of the south of England. The milder climate of the Pacific coast is attributed to the warm winds from the Pacific ocean. It is stated on the authority of the Canadian government, that wheat can be grown with profit in latitude 60°, at longitude 122° 31' west. The Ontario peninsula between the great lakes has a climate like that of the adjacent states of New York, Michigan and Ohio. The cities of Toronto, Hamilton, London, Guelph and Brantford have grown up in that district. The Hon. David A. Wells referred to it, in the "North American Review" for September, 1877, as being as fair a country as exists on the American continent. Prof. Kingston, of the Toronto observatory, gives the mean temperature of Toronto, as shown by the observations of seven consecutive years, as 44.4° Fahrenheit. The lowest temperature registered, during the seven years, was—16° F, and the highest, 95.4° F. The climate of Quebec and the maritime provinces closely corresponds with that of the northern parts of New York, Vermont and Maine. Summer is nearly as hot there as in Ontario, but is shorter. The winters are more extreme than in the upper province, being colder, and from three to four weeks longer. At Esquimault, on Vancouver's island, British Columbia, where a meteorological station has been established, Prof. Kingston reports that the mean temperature is 48.42° F., ranging from a maximum of 85° F. to a minimum of 8° F. Some of the finest timber in Canada is in that district. At Spence's Bridge, a British Columbian station, said to fairly represent the valleys of the southern plateau, the temperature runs to greater extremes. Prof Kingston gives 105° F. as the highest temperature recorded, and—29 F. as the lowest; the mean temperature being 47.79° F. The mean summer temperature of the prairie region of Canada is stated in governmental reports to be 60° F., but the summers are short and hot, and the winters of that region are long and cold. At Battleford, in the Kewatin district, toward Fort Edmonton, the temperature falls to—40° F., but the air is dry, and the cold is said not to be disagreeable. In latitude 51° 30' at the Touchwood hills, cattle remain out all winter, and find pasturage on the bunch grass which the snow partly covers. The snowfall is lighter in the prairie country than in the same latitudes further east. In most of the settled parts of Canada there are copious spring and summer rains. In 1877 Mr. Bell, F. G. S., explored the southeastern coast of the Hudson's bay, the Mediterranean sea of this continent. From July 11 to Sept. 21 he recorded a series of thermometrical observations of the temperature of the water in five rivers of the district, and of the temperature of the sea and of the air. The mean temperature given by his observations was: of the rivers, 61° F.; of the sea, 53° F.; and of the air, 62.5° F. The temperature of the surface water of Lake Superior varies from 40° F. to 42° F., about the temperature of the air. At a depth of 60 feet the thermometer invariably falls to 38° F. The great lakes but seldom are frozen for more than a narrow strip along the shore. They exert a great influence on the climate of the interior of Canada—The act of union requires a census to be taken in Canada every 10 years. That for 1881 has just been taken, and some of the returns are available. The population of the dominion is now 4,350,933, an increase over that of 1871 of 664,337. The population of each constituent province, during the present and two preceding decades, and the territorial area of each province, are given in the following table:  The returns of this year's census showing religious creeds are not yet published; those for 1871 gave
For the remainder of the population no religious creed was given. —The detailed returns of the census of 1871 showed that about four-fifths of the population were of native birth. Those of foreign birth were returned as follows:
—The Indian population of Canada is about 100,000. —The population of the chief cities of Canada, in 1861, 1871 and 1881, was returned as follows:76  —Most of the Canadian people are engaged in avocations of agriculture, lumbering and manufacturing of lumber for foreign markets, fishing and mining. During the last few years a protective fiscal policy has favored the establishment of manufacturing industries, and several classes of goods, formerly imported, are now manufactured by Canadians at home. Among these are boots and shoes, agricultural implements, machinery of various kinds; and in textile fabrics, tweeds and domestic cottons. The principal shoe factories are in Quebec, Montreal, Toronto and Hamilton. The cheaper and lighter classes of boots and shoes are, for the most part, made in Quebec. The manufacture of agricultural implements is carried on in almost every district of Ontario. Cotton factories, with the latest equipments, are in operation in St. John, Montreal, Valleyfield, Cornwall, Merriton, Dundas and Hamilton. —The export returns of the customs department of the government afford the best clue to a knowledge of Canadian industries. The gross exports from Canada for the year ending June 30, 1880, and the two preceding years, were: 1878, $79,323,667; 1879, $71,491,255; 1880, $87,911,458. Foreign products in transit are included in the above figures of gross exports. The exports which were products of Canada amounted in value. for 1880, to $70,096,191. The value of the various classes of Canadian products, is as follows:
These goods were exported to 30 different countries, the 10 principal buyers, and the amount taken by each, being as follows:
Of mineral produce. the coal of British Columbia and Nova Scotia takes a leading place. British Columbia exported, in 1880, 204,525 tons of coal, valued at $700.142. The coal exports of Nova Scotia, for 1880. were 132,796 tons, valued at $238,390. The principal output of coals in British Columbia is on Vancouver's island. The coal beds of Nova Scotia are in the counties of Cape Breton, Pictou and Cumberland. —Gold mining is carried on with success in both these provinces. From 2,000 to 4,000 hands, mostly Chinese, have found employment at gold mining in British Columbia since 1860. Their yearly produce has been from $1,000,000 to $3,735,850. The official report of the gold dust, etc., exported from British Columbia for the year ending June 30,1880, gives the amount as $964,484, but it is estimated that one-third more than is officially returned is exported. The returns for 1880 show that the exports of Nova Scotia gold mining produce were $121,350. The lodes of auriferous quartzite and gold-bearing slate in Nova Scotia are reported by Mr. Selwyn, the director of the Canadian geological survey. to extend through a formation having an area of 3,500 square miles. Oil and salt wells are in operation in the counties of Lambton and Huron in Ontario. The iron ores, which abound in almost every province of Canada, have hitherto scarcely been touched. The export of iron ore, in 1880, was mainly from Ontario, the amount being insignificant; value, $76,474. The value of exports of copper ores was $150,799. New Brunswick exported last year to Great Britain 1,395 tons of manganese ore, valued at $15.139. Near Ottawa city there are large deposits of phosphate of lime or apatite. Shipments of this in 1880 to Great Britain were 6,792 tons; to the United States, 1,182 tons; total value, $119,882. Of Canadian salt, 492,467 bushels, worth $46,190, were exported in 1880. —Small quantities of ores of antimony, lead and plumbago were exported in 1880, but, up to the present, these ores have been of more value as an index to the minerals of the country, than the intrinsic economic worth of their exports—The United States buy more fish from Canada than are bought from her by any other country. The value of the fish of all kinds—fresh, dry salted, pickled, smoked and canned—shipped to the United States in 1880, was $1,618,881. If to this we add the value of the fish and seal oils, and that of the skins of marine animals bought by the United States for that year, the total value of the Canadian fishery products taken by the United States for 1880, amounts to $1,738,870. The West Indies, Great Britain and South America are the next best markets for Canadian fish. —The following is a list of the chief articles of agricultural produce exported by Canada in 1880, and their value:
This excludes all produce not raised in Canada, shipped from Canadian ports. The chief markets for this grain, etc., were Great Britain, the United States, Newfoundland, France and Belgium. The value of this class of produce shipped to Great. Britain in 1880, was $12,641,961; of that shipped to the United States, $8,086,795—Canada exported, in 1880, timber and sawed lumber to 27 countries, each province shipping some of the products of its forests. Most of the shipments from Ontario were to the United States. In 1880 these were, of lumber, planks, boards and joists, and amounted in value to $4.137,662. The pineries of the upper Ottawa and those of the Georgian bay are of immense value. They are the sources of a large annual supply of logs. The returns of the Crown timber office at Ottawa, show that there were cut in the Ottawa district during the year ending June 30, 1880, 2,555,981 saw logs, and 108,957 pieces of square timber. British Columbia sent masts and bridge timber to China and Japan, and the maritime provinces sent timber to Africa. The Douglas fir (Abies Douglasii) grows in British Columbia to a great size; some trees are more than 300 feet high. Pot and pearl ashes, and bark for tanning, are important forest productions. The value of ashes exported in 1880 was $304,381; and of bark, $441,360. Great Britain bought, in 1880, productions of the Canadian forest, worth $8,673,336, and the United States bought in the same period, $6,532,418 worth. —Canadian animals and their produce were exported in 1880 to 12 countries. Great Britain bought of these to the value of $11,104,223; and the United States bought $6,016,988 worth. In 1880 Canada exported 21,983 horses, worth $1,880,379. Of these the United States took 20,594, worth $1,798,616. For the same year there were 54,944 horned cattle exported, worth $2,764,437, of which Great Britain took something more than double the number taken by the United States. —Butter and cheese have within a few years become important ant articles of export from Canada. In 1880 there were shipped of butter, 18,535,362 pounds, valued at $3,058,669; and of cheese, 40,368,678 pounds, valued at $3,893,366. The United States bought, in 1880, from Canada, 3,551,906 pounds of wool, worth $911,271.—the manufactures exported from Canada in 1880 amounted, as per figures in the statement given, to less than the fisheries exports, but to more than her mineral products. They were shipped to 37 different countries, but Great Britain and the United States were buyers of two-thirds of the amount shipped. The actual figures of the amounts they bought are: Great Britain, $1,386,746; United States, $1,283,342. Newfoundland and the British West Indies were, in 1880, the two next best customers for Canadian manufactures, but Newfoundland took hardly a fifth of the amount of manufactured goods shipped to the United States, and the British West Indies hardly a third of the amount sent to Newfoundland. More than 60,000 pairs of boots and shoes were exported to Great Britain during 1880, and about 2,000 pairs to the United States. 27,603 sewing machines, worth $201,545, were exported in 1880 to 17 different countries. About $40,000 worth of these were sent to Africa. —The value of all Canadian imports in 1880 was $86,489,747. They were $1,421,711 less than the gross exports for the same time. For the first time in Canada last year's returns show an excess of exports over imports. But if the comparison of exports and imports during 1880 be restricted to goods of Canadian production, and to goods entered for Canadian consumption, the imports are in excess. Imports, in 1880, of goods for Canadian consumption, $71,782,349; exports, in 1880, of goods the productions of Canada, $70,096,191; excess of imports for consumption over exports of Canadian production, $1,686,158. —The aggregate trade, in 1880 of Canada with Great Britain, shows an increase over the trade of 1879, amounting to $13,018,438, while the aggregate trade between Canada and the United States for the same period decreased $8,207,863. —There were 18,370 sea-going vessels entered inward and outward at dominion ports during 1880. These had a registered tonnage of 6,786,714 tons, and crews numbering 220,113 men. —The arrivals and departures of vessels engaged in the coasting trade were registered at dominion ports in 1880, as 70,493. Tonnage, 14,053,013 tons. —The number of vessels of all kinds on the register books of the dominion, as per report of minister of marine and fisheries, was, Dec. 31, 1880, 7,377, measuring 1,311,218 tons register tonnage. At-an average value of $30 per ton, the value of the registered tonnage of Canadian vessels is $39,336,540. —In the trade on the lakes and rivers between Canada and the United States there were, in 1880, 17,441 Canadian and United States vessels entered inward at Canadian ports. These vessels had a registered tonnage of 3,707,885 tons, and their crews comprised about 150,000 men. —There are in Canada, 36 banks, acting under charters granted by the dominion government. The official statement of the deputy minister of finance shows that these banks had, on May 31, 1881, paid-up capital, $59,370,840; and notes in circulation, $25,575,729. They held specie, $5,572,600, and dominion notes, $10,833,900. Their aggregate liabilities were $119,551,299; and their assets, $193,580,659. The most important Canadian banks are: bank of Montreal, with a paid up capital of $11,999,200; bank of Commerce paid-up capital, $6,000,000; and bank of British North America, paid-up capital, $4,866,666. In 1871 the paid-up capital of chartered banks in Canada was $37,915,390, or $21,455,450 less than in 1881. —The charters of Canadian banks issue subject to the provisions of the general banking act of Canada. This enjoins that no bank shall circulate notes or commence business until the sum of $200,000 capital be bona fide paid up, and the treasury board has certified to its payment. Notes in circulation must never exceed unimpaired paid-up capital. A bank must receive its own notes at par, but is not compelled to redeem them in specie or in dominion notes except at places where they are made payable. The head office of a bank must always be one of the places at which the notes of a bank are payable. —At the close of the fiscal year of the Canadian government, June 30, 1870, there were 226 postoffice government savings banks in Canada. During 1870, $1,347,901 were deposited, and during the same year $664,555 were withdrawn from these banks. The entire cost of management for the year was 0.44 per cent. of the balances due depositors. June 30, 1880, there were 297 offices; deposits for the year were $2,720,216; and the withdrawals for the year were $1,820,213. Entire cost of management for the year, 0.49 per cent. of the balances due depositors. Any person may deposit in the government savings banks any sum, from $1 to $300, and has the direct security of the dominion by statute therefor. Interest is allowed at 4 per cent., but deposits may be withdrawn, and invested at higher interest in dominion bonds. Since 1871 the sum of $4,466,700 has been thus withdrawn and re-invested. Taking into account this sum, together with the aggregate increase of deposits over withdrawals, to June 30, 1880, at the postoffice and other savings banks of the dominion, the investments in Canada in the government savings banks will amount to $15,670,856. —Prof. Cherriman, the Canadian superintendent of insurance, states in his report to the minister of finance, April 30, 1881, that there are 65 companies doing insurance in Canada. Of these 36 accept life insurance, 28 fire, 6 inland marine, 6 ocean marine, 5 accident, and 3 are guarantee companies. The government holds $6,609,767 for the protection of the policy holders in these companies. The risks held by the fire companies, April 30, 1881, amounted to $411,563,271. Premiums charged on these, $4,348,826, or $10.57 on each $1,000 at risk. Nine of the companies in Canada engaging in fire insurance are Canadian, 15 are British and 4 are American. The losses paid by the fire companies in 1880 were $1,666,578; the premiums received were $3,479,577; the losses for the year being 47.90 per cent. of premium receipts. The marine companies fared badly in 1880. The losses of the inland marine companies were 28.80 per cent. in excess of the premium receipts, and the losses of the ocean marine 24.88 per cent. more than the premiums received during 1880. The 34 companies engaged in effecting life insurance in Canada, have policies in force for insurance amounting to $90,280,293. The Canada life assurance company had, on April 30, 1880, policies in force for life insurance amounting to $21,547,759. The amount of life insurance effected in Canada during 1879 and 1880 was: Canadian companies, 1879, $6,112,706; 1880, $7,547,876. British companies, 1879, $1,877,918; 1880, $1,302,011. American companies, 1879, $3,363,600; 1880, $4,057,000. —The progress of Canada accords with Fox's dictum, "that the only means of retaining distant colonies to advantage, is to enable them to govern themselves." What advantages accrue to England from such a mode of governing Canada. Englishmen themselves have not been able to agree in deciding. Indeed, one school of English politicians, intellectual and earnest, if not numerically strong, insist that the old idea of trade following the flag is a myth; that colonial possessions are a loss instead of a gain, and but little better than hurtful suckers at the parent stem. With such a question we have nothing to do here. Truth, however, compels the admission that by Fox's method of governing, England has easily retained her authority in Canada. For though the formal bond of union be but as a silken thread, the attachment of Canadians to England is genuine and unmistakable. But we also care less for this, than to show what progress Canada has made in the art of self-government, and that, after several tentative efforts, she has settled down into a method of managing her affairs, legislative, executive and judicial, in consonance with the character of her people, and that she is not likely soon to experience much change, but such as is incident to a condition of sturdy growth. —In accordance with the provisions of the British North American act of 1867, which regulates the constitution of the dominion, the government of Canada is controlled by a parliament, consisting of the governor general as representative of the queen of England, a senate and a house of commons. The appointment of a governor general to aid in carrying on the government on behalf and in the name of the queen, and the appointment of a commander in chief of the militia and military and naval forces of Canada, are the only exercise of authority in Canadian affairs beyond the control of the Canadian parliament; and the one reminder left to show that the age of colonial tutelage is not entirely outgrown. —The senate comprises 78 members. Each senator must be at least 30 years old, a native born or naturalized subject of Great Britain, and the possessor of property in his own province to the value of $4,000, over and above his debts and liabilities. Appointment to the senate rests nominally with the crown, which is virtually with the ministry of the day, for under the English system, though the queen reigns, the premier pro tem. governs. Senatorial appointments are for life unless the appointee resigns, turns traitor, becomes bankrupt, or forswears allegiance to the crown of England. —The number of members in the house of commons is not fixed definitely as is the membership of the upper house. It varies with the returns of the decennial census. Quebec has 65 members in the commons, and this number remains the same whatever may be the change of population in that province, and the proportion this number of members bears to the number of the population of Quebec, after the census of that province is taken, determines the members to be returned by the whole country, as each province is entitled to send members to parliament in the same ratio to the number of its inhabitants that 65 bears to the population of the province of Quebec. According to the census of this year, this arrangement gives Quebec a member of parliament for every 20,900 of her population, and members to the other provinces in the same proportion, except to the smaller provinces who were assured a minimum representation till their numbers brought them an increased representation under the general rule. When the representation is adjusted as the new census requires, the provinces will have the following number of members in the house of commons: Ontario, 92; Nova Scotia, 21; New Brunswick, 15; Quebec (fixed number), 65; Prince Edward Island, 6; British Columbia, 6; Manitoba, 5; (in the last three the number of members is given by terms of union). Total number of members, 210. —The voting for members of parliament in Canada is by ballot. There are some assessment qualifications for voters required by the election law, and these vary as between cities, town and country districts, but practically almost every owner or occupant of a house has a vote. —The governor general, like the constitutional sovereign he represents, keeps aloof from party in the state. He governs solely through his ministers, who are his advisers, and so long as they have a majority of the people's representatives at their back, he must hearken to their counsel. In this he has no choice. In the most extreme case, the utmost stretch of his authority only permits him to exercise the royal prerogative, dismiss his ministers, dissolve the parliament, and obtain a new expression of the will of the people In a constitutional way, as advised by his ministry, he speaks as with the voice of the nation; were he to speak otherwise, his words would have no more weight than the gossip of the messenger at his office door. Each minister of the crown is required to have a seat in the house of commons, or in the senate—a reservoir on which premiers rely when other sources of ministerial wisdom fail them. As the estimated sum to be expended by each department has to be passed in committee of supply in the lower house at each session, the ministers of the more important departments are generally members of that house, in order there fully to explain the operations of their departments. —The public business controlled by the dominion government is transacted through 13 departments, each of which is under the control of a member of the ministry. They are: The department of the interior, controlling Indian affairs, dominion lands, and the geological survey; and the departments of finance, public works, secretary of state, railways and canals, agriculture, postmaster general, minister of justice, marine and fisheries, customs, inland revenue, militia and defense, and president of the council. These include all the branches of public business coming under the control of the dominion government, viz., management of trade, commerce, indirect taxation and management of the public debt; postal service; the census and statistics; militia and defense; payment of public officers; light houses, navigation, shipping and quarantine; fisheries; currency, banking, coinage and legal tender; weights and measures; bankruptcy; patents and inventions; naturalization laws, and laws of divorce; penitentiaries and criminal law; railways, canals and telegraphs, if extending beyond the limits of a single province. —Some promoters of confederation would have preferred, instead of that system, a legislative union of the provinces, if such a union had been practicable. But that of Upper and Lower Canada, in 1840, had, to a certain degree, proved to be, what Brougham called it at the time, "a case of being paired, not matched," and each province, for the protection of its own peculiar interests, decided to retain. large measure of "home rule." Thus, each province regulates its local affairs through its own legislature, and administration. Provincial authority extends to the control of all public lands belonging to such province before the union. The appointment of all officers required for the administration of justice, except judges, is retained by the provincial authorities. They also regulate education; asylums, hospitals and charities; jails, prisons and reformatories, except penitentiaries; municipal institutions; shop, tavern and other licenses; local works; marriages; property and civil rights; administration of justice in provincial courts, both of civil and criminal jurisdiction; the appointment of magistrates and justices of the peace; and emigration, so far as concerns provincial lands. —A lieutenant governor for each province is appointed by the dominion government. No province has the power to organize or maintain a military force; and the dominion government has the power to disallow any enactments of the local legislatures which are ultra vires. Neither in the provincial legislatures nor in the dominion parliament can a ministry remain in office unless sustained by a majority of the representatives of the people. This gives to important parliamentary debates as keen an interest as attaches to elections. The machinery of government was by degrees made directly responsive to public opinion, and became so more from practical necessity than theoretical predilection. This, however, has grown so distinctive that publicists, both American and English, have referred to the Canadian system as virtually one of the most democratic in existence. —The dominion government at the time of confederation assumed the public debts of all the constituent provinces. These amounted to the gross sum of $93,046,051, or, deducting the total assets, $17,317,410, to a net sum of $75,728,641. It was also agreed to pay the provinces an annual subsidy for the relinquishment of their right to levy indirect taxes, such as customs and excise duties. The subsidy is equivalent to 80 cents per head of the population at the time of union, and an annual allowance to defray the cost of governing each province. The subsidy thus granted amounted, last year, to the sum of $3,430,846. —The increased expenditure since the union, on railways, canals and other public works, and a heavy outlay on account of the Northwest Territories, have added to the public debt, which, June 30, 1880, was $199,125,323; or, deducting the total assets, $42,182,852, it amounts to $156,942,471. There is of this indebtedness, $137,024,582 payable in London at the following rates of interest: at 4 per cent., $89,059,999; at 5 per cent., $33,926,195; and at 6 per cent., $14,038,386. —The revenues from customs duties, excise and other sources, surrendered by the several provinces, at the time of union, to the dominion government, were to form a "consolidated fund" to defray the cost of future government. The receipts on account of this consolidated fund, for 1880, were $23,307,406; the expenditure, $24,850,634. The gross receipts of the dominion government, for 1880, were $53,177,628; expenditure, $50,879,241. Receipts for customs duties, for 1880, were $14,071,343; for excise duties, $4,232,427. —A large proportion of the public expenditure of Canada has been on works to enable the grain, timber and other products of the country to be cheaply taken to market. Up to 1867, the time of confederation. $60,210,600 had been expended on public works in Upper and Lower Canada. Since that time the ordinary expenditure on public works has been $13,405,921. In addition to this sum, $23,467,285 for public works have been charged to capital since that date. The Intercolonial railway has cost $23,467,285, and the sum of $16,488,759 has been spent on the Canadian Pacific railway; both sums were paid out of capital. The canals and river improvements on the St. Lawrence, Ottawa, Rideau and Richelieu rivers, are about 250 miles long. In 1871 it was decided to make a second enlargement of the Welland and St. Lawrence canals, to facilitate the traffic between Lake Erie and Montreal. The locks were to be 270 feet long, 45 feet wide, and to have a depth of 14 feet of water. The work on the Welland canal is nearly completed; that on the St. Lawrence canals is in progress. From Montreal to Port Colborne, on Lake Erie, is 375 miles; and there are on the route seven stretches of canals, with 53 locks having a lift of 533¼ feet. Lake Erie is 5508frac84; feet higher than the river at Montreal; the discrepancy, 17½ feet, between the lockage and the true difference in height being made up by the gradual declivity in the river during the distance. When these canals are completed, vessels of from 1,000 to 1,500 tons will be able to use the St. Lawrence route. At present, with vessels of 600 tons cargo it has received a fair share of traffic, for, in 1880, there were 710 sea-going vessels, having a tonnage of 628,271 tons, which came to Montreal during the season of navigation. The expenditure on the Welland and St. Lawrence canals to June 30, 1880, was $31,189,276. —The railway system of Canada has been developed since 1851, and now consists of about 7,000 miles of railway in operation, representing a capital of about $350,000,000. A gauge 5 feet 6 inches wide was chosen for the first roads built, but has been abandoned, as has also the 3 foot 6 inch gauge, tried on one or two small roads, for the medium gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches. The Canadian Pacific railway, at present under construction, is the most important work hitherto undertaken in Canada. The survey for this road was commenced in 1871; and in 1872 an attempt was made to subsidize a private company offering to construct it, but the project failed through political contention, and the work was continued by the government. Last year a syndicate contracted to complete the construction, and to equip and operate the road, for $25,000,000, and 25,000,000 acres of land. The surveys have been made, advance telegraph lines built, about 500 miles of road constructed, and the work is vigorously proceeding. Winnipeg, where the head offices of the company are located, has already a population of 13,000. The distance by the railway from Lake Superior to the Pacific will be about 2,000 miles. The surveys of lands in the northwest give townships six miles square, each township being divided into sections of one mile square—640 acres. The railway company take alternate sections, and the government offer, for cash, lands within 24 miles of the road, for $2 50 per acre, and lands beyond that belt for $2 per acre; or a reduction of one-half of these prices to colonies. —The receipts for 1880, on the railways operated by the government, were $1,742,537; working expenses and repairs, $1,851,489. The canal receipts, for 1880, were $347,746; expenses and repairs, $369,213. —The Montreal telegraph company founded in 1847, and the Dominion company which was established as a rival line have both been recently leased by the Northwestern telegraph company who guarantee the proprietary a fair dividend on their stock—There is no public school system common to all the provinces, although the school act passed in the old province of Canada, in 1841, is the groundwork of the present system in Ontario and Quebec, and has influenced the systems adopted in the other provinces. One feature is common to the whole, the legislative grant for school purposes is proportionate to the amount raised by local assessment. The local funds for schools are raised by the municipal authorities of the villages, towns, cities, townships and counties. In Ontario, 750 people constitute a village, 2,000 a town, 10,000 a city. Townships are from 8 to 10 miles square, and each has its reeve, deputy reeve and four councilors elected yearly. The townships are divided into school sections of about two miles square, each having three school trustees, one of whom retires annually from office. A number of townships, villages and towns form, for municipal and school purposes, a county. The county has a council composed of the reeves and deputy reeves of the townships, and is presided over by a warden, elected by the councilors themselves. The township council arranges the school sections, and levies such school rates as the school trustees require. The county council raises a sum equal to the legislative grant to the schools in the county, appoints a legally qualified school inspector, and pays one-half of his salary, the legislature paying the rest. In cities the inspector is paid by the school board. The public schools in Ontario are free, and the whole system is under the control of a minister of education, who is a member of the cabinet of the provincial premier. The last report of the minister of education for Ontario shows that there are in that province 5,123 schools, 487.012 pupils, 6,596 teachers; and the expenditure for the year was $2,833,084. There are 104 high schools, at which pupils may continue their education to the stage of fitting themselves for entering a university. There are also county model schools, and two normal schools for the preparatory instruction of teachers. Sectarian religion is carefully excluded from all public schools, the school act providing that "no person shall require any pupil to read or study from any religious book, or to join in any exercise of devotion or religion objected to by his or her parent." Roman Catholics under the act can have separate schools. Of these there are 191 in Ontario. In Quebec, where Catholics are in a majority, there are separate schools for Protestants. There are 14 universities in the dominion. These annually confer degrees on from 300 to 400 students. The universities of Toronto, Halifax, McGill, Montreal, and Laval in Quebec, have been founded many years and are well patronized. Many who desire to advance the interests of higher education in Canada think the authority to confer degrees should be restricted to one or two corporations in each province, but such a result is by no means likely to be attained. —A military college has been established at Kingston, for the instruction of a limited number of young men in the sciences requisite to be known by such as follow a military profession. The province of Ontario has established an agricultural college, and an institute of technology, where farmers and mechanics may obtain a knowledge of all that pertains to the theory of their respective vocations. Within a few years several societies have been established for the advancement of art in Canada, and have rendered good service in elevating the public taste. —A supreme court of the dominion and court of exchequer was established in 1875. It is composed of a chief justice and five judges, and holds three sessions at Ottawa, the capital of the dominion, each year. Throughout the dominion law courts, English legal procedure is closely followed, except in the province of Quebec, where civil cases are still judged according to French law. —All the male inhabitants of Canada, between the ages of 18 and 60, can, in a fixed order of their age, and their responsibility for others, be called on to serve in the militia. The present militia law of Canada permits the training annually of 45,000 men. Since the withdrawal of the imperial troops, two batteries of artillery, organized in Canada, have occupied the military works at Quebec and Kingston. —Parkman, Garneau, Smith, Bibaud and Bouchette have given in detail the principal occurrences in the history of Canada. The "Nouvelle France" of Charlevoix, Hennepin's "Travels," and the "Relations" of the Jesuits, afford charming pictures of the exploits and experiences of the early French settlers. Cartier entered the gulf of the St. Lawrence only 42 years after Columbus first landed on one of the Bahama islands, and in 1535—the next year—he entered, on St. Lawrence's day, the great river which ever since has borne that name. The French king Francis I. paid no heed to the protests of his brother monarchs of Spain and Portugal, that such expeditions were an encroachment on their rights, remarking "there was no clause in father Adam's will giving them alone so rich a heritage." Although Normans, Basques and Bretons came and fished off the banks of Newfoundland, and Huguenots and nobles turned to America longing eyes, there was no actual settlement in Canada till in 1608, when, 12 years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, Champlain established a little colony on the site of the present city of Quebec. Most of the early history of Canada is taken up with the wars of the French and Indians, or French and English. But while the nobles and their vassals were fighting, the péres of St. Francis, and of the order of Jésu, extended with such undaunted zeal their missions, that Bancroft's words are literally true, "not a cape was doubled nor a stream discovered, that a Jesuit did not show the way." The feudal system held full sway in Europe when Canada was settled by the French, and feudalism was naturally enough introduced by them into their new France. Seignories, extending over 10,000,000 acres, were given to merchants, military officers and religious corporations. Altogether there were 168 of these seignories. The first—that of St. Joseph—was registered in 1626. The seigneurs owed fealty to the king, and their land was burdened with a ground rent of two sous per acre, and half a bushel of grain for the entire concession. The chief tributes paid were called Quints, and Lods et ventes. Quints were a fifth of the purchase money of an estate en fief, to be paid the sovereign. Lods et ventes were the twelfth part of the purchase money of an estate, to be paid the seigneur, unless the purchaser were a direct descendant of the vendor. The renter of land had to have his corn ground at the seigneur's mill, and render to him, as toll, the fourteenth part of what was ground. The seigneurs also had the right, though they did not often use it, to try cases of felony and high and petty mis-demeanors. Such a system had its bright as well as its dark side, but soon became out of joint with the times. After 1759, when Wolfe's victory made Canada English, that system made no further progress, and became more anomalous. Still it was hard to kill, and lingered on till the legislation for its abolition in 1854. The current public accounts of Canada still have an item referring to the indemnity of seigneurs. What the seigneurs were as aids to the settlement of Lower Canada, the Canada company to a certain extent were to Upper Canada. The Huron tract of 2,300,000 acres was purchased by the Canada company from the government in 1826, shortly after their incorporation. For their land—wild at that time—they made an annual payment to the crown, of sums of from £15,000 to £20,000, amounting, in the aggregate, to £295,000. John Galt, the novelist, was secretary to the company, and under his auspices the towns of Guelph, Goderich and Galt were located. Besides this immense tract, they held smaller tracts in almost every county of the province. The good they did has been, by this generation, almost forgotten, and the evils of their system are alone held in remembrance. That the Canada company, in their day, rendered good service to Canada is beyond question. Still, all such adventitious assistance has been merely auxiliary to the prime cause of Canadian progress, namely, the plodding, unremitting industry which has been applied to the development of her natural resources. H. B. WITTON. DORR REBELLIONDORR REBELLION (IN U. S. HISTORY), an effort made in 1840-42, to overturn the state government of Rhode Island by revolutionary means. While the other states, before and after the declaration of independence, formed new governments, Rhode Island and Connecticut were contented to retain the charter governments under which they had lived as colonies. In the following half century the Rhode Island government became progressively more distasteful to many of her citizens, two-thirds of whom were disfranchised by its provision that the right of suffrage should be exercised only by the owners of a specified amount of real estate and by their eldest sons. Thomas W. Dorr, of Providence, a member of the assembly, took the lead in the effort to obtain a more extended suffrage, but the legal voters and their representatives were equally obstinate, and Dorr's proposition received only seven votes out of 70. Dorr then resorted to mass meetings through the winter of 1840-41, as an indication of popular feeling, and finally to a convention of delegates, which met in October, 1841, prepared a constitution, and submitted it to a popular vote. It claimed to have received 14,000 votes, a majority of the legal voters of the state, but its opponents asserted that the figures were fraudulent. Jan. 13, 1842, the new constitution was proclaimed in force. April 13, a state election took place, at which only the "suffrage party" voted, and at which Dorr was chosen governor and a full legislature elected. The legitimate state government treated these proceedings as nugatory, so far as they went to establish a new constitution, and criminal, so far as they proposed to legalize the exercise of authority by persons unauthorized to do so. —May 3, 1842, the rival governments assembled, the "charter legislature" at Newport, with governor Samuel W. King, and the "suffrage legislature" at Providence, with Thomas W. Dorr as governor. The suffrage legislature sat for two days, chose a supreme court, and transacted considerable business on paper. May 4, it adjourned until July, but never met again. In the meantime the charter legislature had passed bills to define the crime of treason, and to authorize the governor to proclaim martial law. The governor did so, and asked help from Washington. President Tyler directed the secretary of war to confer with governor King, and, whenever they should deem it necessary, to order in Massachusetts and Connecticut militia and terminate the rebellion at once. The suffrage party appealed to arms, and, on May 18 and 25, endeavored to capture Providence and its arsenal. Their forces each time dispersed at the approach of the state troops, and, May 28, Dorr fled to Connecticut and thence to New Hampshire. A reward was offered for his arrest, whereupon he voluntarily returned, was indicted in August, 1842, tried in March, 1844, convicted of high treason, and sentenced to imprisonment for life. In 1847 he was pardoned, and in 1852 the legislature restored him to his civil rights and expunged the record of his sentence. —In the meantime a new constitution had been framed, in November, 1842, by the charter party had been adopted by the people, Nov. 21-23, and went into operation in May, 1843. It extended the right of suffrage by reducing the property qualification to a nominal amount, but maintained the principle on which the Dorr rebellion had been put down, that when the people have once established a government, it is the legitimate government with all its limitations, and that no new government can be introduced except under the provisions of an act of legislation by the existing government. (See RHODE ISLAND; INSURRECTION, DOMESTIC; BROAD SEAL WAR.) —See Luther vs. Borden, 7 How., 1; 3 Spencer's United States, 421; Peterson's History of Rhode Island; 6 Webster's Works, 217; Frieze's Concise History; King's Life of Dorr; Judge Potter's Considerations on the Rhode Island Question; 15 Democratic Review, 122; F. H. Whipple's Might and Right; Goddard's Change in the Government of Rhode Island; F. Wayland's Affairs of Rhode Island; Reports of the Select Committee of Congress on the Affairs of Rhode Island, (1845); Bartlett's Bibliography of Rhode Island; 15 Benton's Debates of Congress, 130. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DOUGLASDOUGLAS, Stephen Arnold, was born at Brandon, Vt., April 23, 1813, and died at Chicago, III., June 3, 1861. He was admitted to the bar in Jacksonville, III., in 1834, and in 1841 was chosen judge of the state supreme court, for which reason he was usually known afterward in Illinois as Judge Douglas. He was a representative in congress 1843-7, and United States senator from 1847 until his death, Abraham Lincoln being his opponent in 1859. From 1850 until 1860 he was the principal leader of the northern democratic party, from which the ultra southern wing gradually drew further away on the question of the extension of slavery to the territories, until, in 1860, the party split into two parts. (See KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL; POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY; ELECTORAL VOTES; DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, V.) His small stature and great ability gave Douglas his popular name, The Little Giant. —See Sheahan's Life of Douglas; Savage's Living Representative Men; Addresses in Congress on the Death of S. A. Douglas; 8 Atlantic Monthly; 103 North American Review; Warden's Voter's Version of the Life of Douglas; 1 Wheeler's History of Congress, 60. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DRAFTSDRAFTS (IN U. S. HISTORY). —I. THE DRAFT OF 1814. The letters of Washington during the revolution contain abundant evidence of the evils of a reliance in war upon the militia, which force he characterized in general, Dec. 5, 1776, as "a destructive, expensive and disorderly mob." Under the confederacy nothing could be done to improve the discipline of the militia, but, by the constitution, power to organize, arm and discipline it was given to congress, with the idea of thus furnishing a substitute for a standing army. Knox, the secretary of war, who either had or drew from Hamilton very radical ideas on the subject, submitted to congress, in January, 1790, a plan for the classification of the militia into an "advanced corps" (18 to 20 years of age), a "main corps" (21 to 45 years of age), and a "reserved corps" (45 to 60 years of age). Each corps was to be divided into sections of 12 persons each, and in case of necessity for an army one person was to be taken by lot from each section, or from a group of sections of the advanced corps or of the main corps. Nothing was done with Knox's plan, and the militia law of 1795 simply adopted the state militia systems without any idea of draft or of compelling military service by federal authority. Knox's idea, however, was not forgotten, and after 1805 Jefferson several times revived it in his messages, but without success. It was as yet evident to the democratic (republican) leaders in congress that the militia was a state institution, and that, when it should be called into the federal service, the power to select the regiments or organizations to fill the state quota must be in the states exclusively. —When war was declared in 1812, the war party, acknowledging the weakness of the regular army, placed a large but vague reliance upon militia as a reserve force. This confidence was from the first found to be baseless. As soon as the invasion of Canada had called off most of the regular troops from the seacoast, requisitions were made upon the state governors for militia to do garrison duty in their stead. The call was at once refused by the governors of Connecticut and Massachusetts, on the ground that none of the constitutional contingencies of rebellion, invasion or resistance to the laws had occurred so as to justify the summons for militia. Even when invasion and blockade compelled the mustering of the militia, long wranglings were induced by the articles of war, which gave regular officers precedence over those of the militia, and thus, as the latter complained, took away the right of the states to officer their own troops. In 1813 a bill for classifying the militia passed the house, but was lost in the senate. The excessive demands of Great Britain as the price of peace in the next year revived the war feeling among the people, and increased the necessity for an increase of the army, to which volunteering was incompetent. The state legislatures of New York and Virginia led off in proposing to the federal government a classification and draft from the militia. This plan was recommended by the president in his message of Sept 20, 1814, and a bill to carry it into effect, mainly drawn up by Monroe, was at once introduced into congress. It occasioned great alarm and indignation among the federalists, (see CONVENTION, HARTFORD), and even among the democrats was generally looked upon as of doubtful utility and more than doubtful legality. Nevertheless it passed the senate Nov. 10, and the house Dec 9; but in the latter body, probably with a design unfriendly to the bill, the term of service had been reduced from three years to one year. On this convenient issue the two houses disagreed, and the bill was lost. The "Draft of 1814," as it is often called, was therefore a failure. —II. THE DRAFT OF 1863. During the first years of the rebellion the armies were filled by volunteering, with the exception of an occasional call for militia for short terms. No attempt was made to enforce enlistments. When, Feb. 5, 1863, the debate was opened upon the Conscription Bill, its whole theory and defense were based upon the idea of enrolling the militia by federal authority and drafting individuals therefrom to fill up the president's calls for troops, very much after the plan of the draft of 1814. It was very soon found impossible to meet the democratic objections to the constitutionality of a bill for this purpose, and Wilson, of Massachusetts, on the 16th, took the new ground, upon which the act was subsequently upheld by the courts, that the bill was based upon the power "to raise armies"; that it had no reference whatever to the state militia; but that it called every able-bodied citizen of military age into the federal service, and selected the necessary number by lot. By the terms of the bill, as it became law March 3, 1863, with the amendments of Feb. 24, 1864, and July 4, 1864, the enrollment of the able-bodied citizens between 18 and 45 was to begin April 1, under the direction of provost marshals; the quotas of congressional districts, under future calls for troops, were to be filled by drafts from the enrolled citizens, in default of volunteering; substitutes were to be accepted; a commutation of $300 for exemption from the draft was allowed; and all persons refusing obedience were to be punished as deserters. The application of the draft principle to a call for 300,000 troops early in May, was the cause of intense excitement in eastern cities, where quotas were already in arrears. Charges were made, and to a considerable extent proved, that subordinate officials had so arranged the draft as to bear disproportionately on democratic districts. Thus, from nine democratic districts of New York state (with a voting population of 151,243), 33,729 soldiers were to be drafted; while from 19 republican districts (with a voting population of 457,257), but 39,626 were to be drafted. These manifest discrepancies were promptly corrected by the war department, but the absence of the state militia in Pennsylvania enabled the mob in various cities to resist the draft, with considerable temporary success, as an oppressive, illegal and partisan measure. New York city was completely at the mercy of the rioters for four days, July 13-16, but in other cities the police force was strong enough to enforce the law. Wherever the draft had been stopped by violence, it was afterward resumed and carried into full effect. —III. CONFEDERATE STATES' CONSCRIPTION. Conscription in the southern states preceded and, to some extent, compelled the adoption of conscription by the federal government. The act of April 16, 1862, with the amendment of Sept. 27, 1862, was rather a levy en mass than a conscription. It made no provision for draft, but placed all white men between the ages of 18 and 45, resident in the confederate states, and not legally exempt, in the confederate service. July 18, 1863, by proclamation, president Davis put the conscription law into operation, and directed the enrollment to begin at once. Feb. 17, 1864, a second conscription law was passed. It added to the former conscript ages those between 17 and 18, and between 45 and 50, who were to do duty as a garrison and reserve corps. It excepted certain classes, such as one editor to each newspaper, one apothecary to each drug store, and one farmer to each farm employing 15 able-bodied slaves, and provided that all persons who should neglect or refuse to be enrolled should be placed in the field service for the war. No substitutes were or could be accepted, for every person able to do military duty was himself already conscripted. Very little resistance was made to this sweeping levy, for the government of the confederate states showed little mercy to opposition of any kind. Only through the conscription were the southern armies filled for the last two years of the war, and its enforcement was so rigorous and inquisitorial that toward the end of the war the confederacy generally had more men in the field than it could provide with arms. —IV. DRAFTS IN GENERAL. The liability of every able-bodied citizen of military age to do military duty, or to render its equivalent, has been imbedded in the constitutions of the various states, the reason being thus clearly stated in the New York constitution of 1777: "It is the duty of every man who enjoys the protection of society to be prepared and willing to defend it." By parity of reasoning, it would seem impossible, even in the absence of express stipulation on the subject, to deny the obligation of the citizen to be "prepared and willing to defend" the federal government, the national society, also, whose protection he enjoys, or the power of congress, if necessary, to make military service compulsory. The constitution, however, has not left the matter in doubt or to construction (see CONGRESS, POWERS OF, VIII.); it has expressly given to congress the power to "raise armies," without any restriction or limitation as to the manner or extent. Until 1863, nevertheless, the power to draft, with which the power to raise armies is pregnant, remained in abeyance, and its first exercise in 1863 marks strongly a great advance in the nationalization of the government. In 1795 the military reliance of the country, outside of the regular army, was placed exclusively on the state forces of militia. In 1798 the authority given by congress to the president to accept organizations of volunteers, and commission their officers, was widely censured as an infringement upon the militia rights of the states. In 1814 public opinion had advanced so far as to consent to the employment of volunteers under national authority, but insisted that armies were to be "raised" only by voluntary enlistment, and resisted a draft even when disguised as an enrollment of the militia. In 1863 the general government claimed and exercised the right to compel service ad libitum from the mass of its citizens, a power which justice Story in 1833 did not suggest, and probably did not dream of. And yet, when this power was first exercised in 1863-4, the constitutional arguments against it were surprisingly feeble. They were, in brief, that liability to compulsory military service was due, before the adoption of the constitution, to the states; that it had not been granted to the federal government by the constitution; and that it must, therefore, still be enforced, if at all, only by the states. Further arguments were drawn ab inconvenienti—from its possible absorption of state militia, and even of state civil officers, into the federal service—but these we may pass over. On the other hand, the courts have steadily held that, as the constitution has given to congress the unlimited power to "raise armies." it has given therewith unlimited discretion of choice of the method by which armies shall be raised, whether by volunteering or by draft. —But, however sound may be the theory of conscription or draft in the United States, in practice it has always been found troublesome, irritating, and very barren of results compared with volunteering, because of inevitable exemptions, rejections, and desertions. In 1863, on an enrollment of 3,113,305 able-bodied citizens between 18 and 45, it is doubtful if 100,000 conscripts were obtained for the army. The usual results of the draft are exemplified in one of provost marshal general Fry's periodical reports in 1864: Number of drafted men examined, 14,741. Number exempted for physical disability, 4,374; number exempted for all other causes, 2,632; number paid commutation money, 5,050; number who have furnished substitutes, 1,416, total, 13,472 Number held for personal service, 1,269. The results in substitutes and recruits must be still further diminished by the ultimate loss from desertion, which is not estimated here. All the hardships of the system came with most crushing severity upon those least able to endure or to avoid them. But it must not be understood that the conscription law was therefore useless; on the contrary, as an assertion of the enormous reserve power of the federal government, and as a stimulus to the energy of states and individuals in encouraging volunteering, it was of the very greatest value. It is very evident that if the United States should ever again be compelled to maintain large armies, volunteering will still be the rule, and the draft power will only be held in terrorem to insure the prompt action of the states in filling their quotas. (See CONVENTION, HARTFORD; REBELLION; WAR POWER; CONFEDERATE STATES; UNITED; STATES.) —See (I.), 1 Schouler's United States, 130; Dwight's Hartford Convention, 247, 318; 6 Hildreth's United States, 529; 2 Ingersoll's Second War with Great Britain, 270; Carey's Olive Branch, 378; 3 Spencer's United States, 262; the act of Feb. 28, 1795, is in 1 Stat. at Large, 424, and see also 12 Wheat., 19. (II.), McPherson's History of the Rebellion, 261; Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1863-4; D. M. Barnes' Draft Riots in New York; Baker's History of the Secret Service; 4 Victor's History of the Rebellion, 124; the acts of March 3, 1863, Feb. 24, and July 4, 1864, are in 12 Stat. at Large, 731, 13 Stat. at Large, 6,379. (III), Pollard's Life of Davis, 325; 16 Gratt., (Va.), 443, 470; 34 Geo., 22, 85; 38 Ala., 457; 39 Ala., 475, 609 (IV.), law authorities under CONGRESS, POWERS OF, VIII.; Whiting's War Powers (10th edit.), 205; 1 Hough's New York Convention Manual of 1867, 33; Story's Commentaries, §§ 1173, 1202; Tiffany's Constitutional Law, § 430. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DRAWBACKDRAWBACK, a term used in commerce to signify the remitting or paying back of the duties previously paid on a commodity on its being exported. —A drawback is a device resorted to for enabling a commodity affected by taxes to be exported and sold in the foreign market, on the same terms as if it had not been taxed at all. It differs in this from a bounty—that the latter enables a commodity to be sold abroad for less than its natural cost, whereas a drawback enables it to be sold exactly at its natural cost. "Drawbacks," as Adam Smith has observed, "do not occasion the exportation of a greater quantity of goods than would have been exported had no duty been imposed. They do not tend to turn toward any particular employment a greater share of the capital of the country than would go to that employment of its own accord, but only to hinder the duty from driving away any part of that share to other employments. They tend not to overturn that balance which naturally establishes itself among all the various employments of the society, but to hinder it from being overturned by the duty. They tend not to destroy, but to preserve, what it is in most cases advantageous to preserve—the natural division and distribution of labor in the society." —Were it not for the system of drawbacks, it would be impossible, unless when a country enjoyed some very peculiar facilities of production, to export any commodity that was more heavily taxed at home than abroad; but the drawback obviates this difficulty and enables merchants to export commodities loaded at home with heavy duties, and to sell them in the foreign market on the same terms as those fetched from countries where they are not taxed. J. R. M'C. and H. G. R. DRED SCOTT CASEDRED SCOTT CASE, The (IN U. S. HISTORY). I. ORIGIN. In 1820 slavery was prohibited in the province of Louisiana, north of latitude 36° 30', by the Missouri compromise, an act of congressional legislation; in 1846-50 it was attempted to extend this congressional prohibition to all the territory acquired from Mexico; this attempt was defeated by the compromise of 1850, by which congress refrained, and ordered the territorial legislatures to refrain, from meddling with the subject of slavery in the new territories; and in 1854 the abrogation of the Missouri compromise, leaving the people of each territory to decide the question of freedom or slavery for themselves, began the Kansas struggle, which, in 1856, had gone far enough to show that free state immigration would always overwhelm slave state immigration in a contest of this kind. The question of slavery had come to overshadow all others in politics, and the advocates of its extension and of its restriction had begun to exert every means to obtain control of all departments of the government. The former held the presidency and the senate, while the latter, under the name of anti-Nebraska men, had just gained control of the house; the Dred Scott case, which had been in the federal courts since 1854, was now to be the test of the affiliations of the supreme court. (See COMPROMISES, IV., V.; ANNEXATIONS, I.; WILMOT PROVISO; KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL; SLAVERY; DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, V.; REPUBLICAN PARTY, I.) —II. FACTS. In 1834 Dred Scott was the negro slave of Dr. Emerson, of the regular army, who took him from Missouri to Rock Island, in Illinois, where slavery was prohibited by statute, and thence, in May, 1836, to Fort Snelling, in Wisconsin, or upper Louisiana, where slavery was prohibited by the Missouri compromise. In 1836 Dred married Harriet, another slave of Dr. Emerson, and in 1838 Dr. Emerson, with his slaves, returned to Missouri. Here Dred, sometime afterward, discovered that his transfer by his master to Illinois and Wisconsin had made him a free man, according to previous decisions of the Missouri courts; and in 1848, having been whipped by his master, he brought suit against him for assault and battery in the state circuit court of St. Louis county, and obtained judgment in his favor. On appeal, the supreme court of Missouri, in 1852, two justices in favor and the chief justice dissenting, reversed the former Missouri decisions, refused to notice the Missouri compromise or the constitution of Illinois and remanded the case to the circuit court, where it remained in abeyance pending the argument and decision in the supreme court of the United States. —III. PLEADINGS. Soon after the hearing in the state supreme court, Dr. Emerson sold his slaves to John F. A. Sandford, of the city of New York. On the ground that Dred and Sandford were "citizens of different states," of Missouri and of New York, suit against Sandford for assault and battery was at once brought in the federal circuit court for Missouri. Here Sandford, at the April term of 1854, pleaded to the jurisdiction of this court, on the ground that plaintiff was not, as alleged in the declaration, a citizen of Missouri, but "a negro of African descent: his ancestors were of pure African blood, and were brought into this country and sold as negro slaves." To this plea Dred demurred, that is, claimed judgment and acknowledgment as a citizen, even on defendant's own showing, and the demurrer was sustained. Sandford, answering over, then pleaded in bar to the action that the plaintiff was his negro slave, and that he had only "gently laid hands" on him to restrain him, as he had a right to do. The court instructed the jury that the law was with the defendant; plaintiff excepted; and on the exception the case went to the United States supreme court, where it was argued at December term, 1855, and again at December term, 1856, but judgment was deferred until March 6, 1857, in order to avoid any increase of the excitement already attending the presidential election. The essential points for decision were two: 1. Had the federal circuit court jurisdiction, that is, was Dred Scott a "citizen of Missouri" in the view of the constitution? 2. If the court had jurisdiction, was its decision against Dred Scott correct? In considering these two questions it must be remembered that federal courts are required by the act of 1789, section 25, to follow the statutes and constructions of the respective states wherever they come in question, unless they are in conflict with the constitution. —IV. DECISION. The Missouri supreme court had decided, on the evidence submitted, that Dr. Emerson's residence in Illinois and Wisconsin was only temporary and in obedience to the orders of his government; that he had no intention of changing his domicile; and that, whatever might be Dred's status while in Illinois, and Wisconsin, on his return to Missouri, the local law of Missouri attached upon him and his servile character redintegrated. On this general ground chief justice Taney, with the assent of justices Wayne, Nelson, Grier, Daniel, Catron and Campbell (McLean and Curtis dissenting), decided that the plaintiff in error was not a citizen of Missouri in the sense in which that word is used in the constitution; that the circuit court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case and could give no judgment in it; and that its judgment must, consequently, be reversed and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. —Had the supreme court confined its action to a denial of jurisdiction in this case on the ground taken by the Missouri state supreme court, the decision would probably have been accepted generally as law, however harsh, in the case of slaves removed temporarily from state jurisdiction and then brought back. But, impelled, as has been charged, by a superserviceable desire to forward the interests and designs of slaveholders in the territories, or as is much more probable, by the wide sweep taken by counsel on both sides in their arguments, the chief justice and the assenting justices proceeded to deliver a course of individual lectures on history, polities, ethics and international law, the exact connection of which with the legal subject matter in hand it was in many cases difficult for the justices themselves to make perfectly clear. In these additions to the denial of jurisdiction lay the interest, importance and far-reaching consequences of the Dred Scott decision. These additions were a denial of the legal existence of the African race, as persons, in American society and constitutional law, a denial of the supreme control of congress over the territories, and a denial of the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise—1. Sandford's plea, given above, denied the circuit court's jurisdiction, on the ground that Dred was of the African race, as if that necessarily implied lack of citizenship. The circuit court had overruled the plea, and, although this was not one of Dred Scott's exceptions, the supreme court reverted to the plea and sustained it. The opinion of the court asserted that the African race, for over a century before the adoption of the constitution, had been considered as a subordinate class of beings, so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; that they had not come to this country voluntarily, as persons, but had been brought here as merchandise, as property, as things; that they held that position in the view of the framers of the constitution, and were not included in the words "people" or "citizens" in the declaration of independence, the articles of confederation, or the constitution; and that, even when emancipated, they retained that character, and were not, nor could by any possibility ever become, citizens of the United States or citizens of a state in the view of the constitution, capable of suing or being sued, or possessed of civil rights, except such as a state, for its own convenience and within its own jurisdiction, might choose to grant them. Of the two dissenting justices, McLean denied, and Curtis admitted, that the plea of Sandford was properly before the supreme court and might be examined on writ of error; but both relied on the plain distinction between "citizens" and "electors," on the constitution's repeated mention of negroes as "persons," and on the undoubted fact that free negroes, at the time of the adoption of the constitution, had been not only citizens but voters in at least five of the states, and were still voters except where, as in North Carolina and New Jersey, the right to vote had been taken away by a subsequent change in the state constitution; and held that, even though free negroes might not be electors in any particular state, they were still always citizens, capable of suing and being sued, at least on the same footing with women and minors. —2. The arguments of counsel had brought up the question of the power of congress (under article IV., §3, ¶ 2, of the constitution) to "make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." On this point the opinion of the court held that this language, by previous decisions and the plain sense of the words, referred only to the territory and property in possession of the United States when the constitution was adopted, and not to Louisiana and other territory afterward acquired; that the right to govern these last-named territories was only the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory, by war or purchase; that congress, therefore, had not the absolute and discretionary power to make "all needful rules and regulations" respecting them, but only to make such rules and regulations as the constitution allowed; that the right of every citizen to his "property," among other things, was guaranteed by amendment V.; that slaves were recognized as "property" throughout the constitution; and that congress had therefore no more right to legislate for the destruction of property in slaves in the territories than to legislate for the establishment of a form of state religion there. On the contrary, the dissenting opinions held that slavery was valid only by state law, and that a slave was "property" only by virtue of state law; that the constitution was explicit on this point (as, "no person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof," etc.); that the slave, when taken by the master's act out of the jurisdiction of the state law which made him a slave, at once lost his artificial character of property and resumed his natural character of a person; and that the state law could not accompany him to the territories. Of course this reasoning, which it seems impossible to overthrow, would necessarily have made all the territories, south as well as north of latitude 36° 30', free soil, unless slavery should be established there by act of congress or by popular agreement in forming state constitutions. —3. From the preceding doctrine the opinion of the court necessarily held that the act of March 6, 1820, commonly known as the Missouri compromise, which prohibited slavery in the province of Louisiana north of latitude 36° 30' and outside of Missouri, was an unconstitutional assumption of power by congress, and was therefore void and inoperative, and incapable of conferring freedom upon any one who was held as a slave under the laws of any one of the states, even though his owner had taken him to the territory with the intention of becoming a permanent resident. Mr. Justice Catron, dissenting from the majority's denial of the power of congressional legislation for the territories, yet denied that an act of congress could override article 3 of the Louisiana treaty of 1803, which guaranteed to the inhabitants of the ceded territory the full enjoyment of their liberty and property until states should be formed there; and also held the Missouri compromise void, as violating the constitutional equality of citizens of the different states in their rights, privileges and immunities. On the contrary, the two dissenting justices held that the majority had "assumed" power to attack the Missouri compromise; that that act was a proper instance of the power of congress to legislate in full for the territories, which had been exercised without question since the foundation of the government; that it was no violation of the equality of citizens for the reasons above assigned; and that the Louisiana treaty had nothing to do with the question, since the organization of the slave states of Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri had embraced every slave in the entire ceded territory. —When a court has decided a question or case before it, any further remark or expression of opinion, even by the supreme court of the United States, on a point not legally involved, is an obiter dictum, of no great weight for other courts as an authority or precedent, and of no weight at all for the public at large. How far the voluminous opinions of the Dred Scott decision were obiter dicta after the denial of the circuit court's jurisdiction is at least doubtful. Chief justice Taney and justice Wayne endeavor to establish the connecting link between the denial of jurisdiction and the attack on the Missouri compromise upon the ground of the difference between writs of error to a state court and to a federal circuit court. In the former case the inquiry would be whether the supreme court had jurisdiction to review the case, and, if not, the writ would be at an end; but in the latter case the inquiry would be whether the circuit court had jurisdiction, and to settle this the whole case, including the merits, was open to inspection. But the following extract from judge Curtis' opinion deserves consideration: "I dissent, therefore, from that part of the opinion of the majority of the court in which it is held that a person of African descent can not be a citizen of the United States; and I regret that I must go further, and dissent both from what I deem their assumption of authority to examine the constitutionality of the act of congress commonly called the Missouri compromise act, and from the grounds and conclusions announced in their opinion. Having first decided that they were bound to consider the sufficiency of the plea to the jurisdiction of the circuit court, and having decided that this plea showed that the circuit court had not jurisdiction, and consequently that this is a case to which the judicial power of the United States does not extend, they have gone on to examine the merits of the case as they appeared on the trial before the court and jury, on the issues joined on the pleas in bar, and so have reached the question of the power of congress to pass the act of 1820. On so grave a subject as this I feel obliged to say that, in my opinion, such an exertion of judicial power transcends the limits of the authority of this court, as described by its repeated decisions and, as I understand, acknowledged in this opinion of the majority of the court. * * A great question of constitutional law, deeply affecting the peace and welfare of the country, is not, in my opinion, a fit subject to be thus reached." —The Dred Scott decision was the last attempt to decide the contest between slavery extension and slavery restriction by form of law, and the course of events began at once to tend with increasing rapidity toward a decision by force. (See SECESSION, SLAVERY.) —The Dred Scott decision was finally overturned by the first section of the 14th amendment, which made "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," citizens of the United States, and of the state wherein they reside. (See CIVIL RIGHTS BILL; CONSTITUTION, IV.) —See (I.), authorities under articles referred to. (II.), Dred Scott vs. Emerson, 15 Mo., 682. (III.), Dred Scott vs. Sandford, 19 Hou., 393; Benton's Examination of the Dred Scott Decision; Tyler's Life of R. B. Taney, 373, 578; 2 B. R. Curtis' Works, 310; 9 Curtis, 72; 1 Greeley's American Conflict, 251; Hurd's Law of Freedom and Bondage; Buchanan's Buchanan's Administration, 48; Giddings' History of the Rebellion, 402; Nott's Slavery and the Remedy; Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall., 36: and authorities under SLAVERY, and TANEY, R. B. ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. DUELINGDUELING. John de Liniano defines dueling: "a combat between two men, agreed upon on both sides, to avenge an injury, for honor's sake, or to gratify one's hate;" and Bonacina: "a single combat, agreed upon between two parties of their own accord, and on certain conditions, with chances of death or of serious or slight wounds." —According to Denizart, a duel is a combat between two or more individuals, for reasons of a personal nature, at a place indicated in a challenge. According to Cauchy, a duel is a private war preceded by a challenge, by which each of the belligerent parties is warned to be on his guard and to resist force by force. John Reynaud describes a duel as a combat agreed upon in advance between two individuals, who, by this fact, place themselves without the pale of all social laws. Dupin is more severe, and his definition strongly resembles a judgment without appeal. According to him, "dueling is the savage state; it is not the right but the argument of the stronger and more adroit, and sometimes of the more insolent." —Of the origin of ducling little is known, and we shall not trace it back to Cain, who, according to some, was but a fortunate duelist. We find the first traces of it in Germany, whose inhabitants, says Montesquieu, "made war upon one another for murder, theft and injury. This custom was modified by subjecting these wars to rules. They were engaged in by order of the magistrate; this was preferable to a general license to fight." Gondebaud, king of the Burgundians, was the first to introduce into the code the judicial duel. A law called the Gombette law, promulgated in 501, regulated it. Charlemagne imitated this example, and this barbarous legislation can scarcely be said to have been seriously altered until during the reign of Philip the Fair in 1296. Duels properly so called, that is, duels to which any of the definitions given above may be applied, date from the period when tournaments and the judicial duel ceased. The discourse of Brantome on duels furnishes us some curious information as to the rules which duelists recognized in the sixteenth century. The combatants, if they followed the advice of the malicious chronicler, should take good care not to fight without witnesses, first, in order not to deprive the public of a fine spectacle, and then, not to expose themselves to be prosecuted as murderers. "It is not necessary, in these matters, to speak of courtesy," says the author of Dames Galantes. "The man who enters the lists should propose to himself to conquer or die, and above all, never to surrender; for the vanquisher disposes of the vanquished as he pleases. He may drag him over the field, hang him, burn him, hold him as a prisoner, or dispose of him as a slave. A soldier may fight his captain, provided he has served two years and asked to leave the company. If a father accuse his son of any crime by which he might be dishonored, the son may justly challenge his father to a duel, since the father has done him a greater injury by dishonoring him, than he did him good by bringing him into this world, and giving him life." In 1560 the states general of France, assembled at Orleans, besought Charles IX. to proceed with severity against dueling, and the third estate drew up a petition to the same effect. In 1566 an ordinance was issued which served somewhat later as a basis for the successive edicts of Henry IV. and Louis XIV., and which put dueling on the same footing as crimes punishable with death. The severity of the laws produced no effect, for in March, 1607, the Journal d' Estoile informs us that since the accession of Henry IV. (1589), that is, in 18 years, 4,000 gentlemen were killed in duels. (It would be a mistake, however, to take this figure without some grains of allowance.) The edict of 1626, of which cardinal Richelieu made such terrible use, proportioned the punishment to the degree of criminality. Provoking to a duel was punished by deprivation of office, confiscation of goods, and banishment for three years. Dueling, when it did not result in the death of either of the participants, was punishable with infamy and the scaffold. The seconds and witnesses were also punished with infamy. The death of Bouteville, who was executed June 22, 1627, on the place de Grève, produced a salutary effect upon the fighters. Richelieu, in this case, was relentless, and prevented Louis XIII. from granting the pardon which was begged of him, saying: "Sire, it is a question of cutting the throat of dueling, or of your majesty's edicts." Edicts against dueling appeared also in 1643; May 11, 1644; March 13, 1646; September, 1651; May, 1653; August, 1668; Aug. 13 and 14, and Sept. 14 and 30, 1679; December, 1704; and October, 1711. The rage for dueling, calmed for an instant, broke out again with renewed force, and in 1723 Louis XV. renewed solemn declarations, which were scarcely better respected than those of his predecessors. —With the revolution of 1789 the political duel had its origin. The men of that epoch, however, were too thoroughly convinced of the mission they had to fulfill, and too conscious that they were risking their lives in the common interest, to do homage to the prejudice which had caused the death of so many. We read in Beaumarchais' memoirs: "I have not given information of Bertrand's challenge to the minister of public affairs, as many honorable men advised me to do. It is true, moreover, that I did not inflict a sword wound on Bertrand's thigh, because I found he had a heart to pierce; but I, in turn, summoned this captain, by a stamped challenge, to appear in the lists, in the hall of the palace, where my agent waited in vain for him for two days in succession." —Camille Desmoulins refused to fight with two actors who took offense at his criticisms. "I would have to pass all my life in the Bois de Boulogne, if I were obliged to give satisfaction to all whom my frankness displeased. Let men accuse me of cowardice if they will. I very much fear that the time is not far distant when opportunities of dying gloriously and more usefully will not be wanting." At the same epoch, Mercier, Loustalot, and Prud'homme opposed dueling. June 15, 1792, the assembly condemned the deputy Jonneau to three days in the Abbaye for striking his colleague Grangeneuve. Nevertheless, the constituent assembly did not pass any law against dueling and the legislative assembly issued a decree of amnesty in favor of citizens detained for that cause. Duels were frequent in France under the empire, but politics had nothing to do with these single combats, which were generally between military men. Political duels re-appeared with the restoration: of royalists with Bonapartists, of Frenchmen with foreigners, of brigands of the Loire with the habits blancs. In 1830 rencontres were of almost daily occurrence. The same causes led, in 1848 and 1849, to the same effects. Gavini and Bailly presented to the legislative assembly a bill prohibiting dueling and condemning combatants and witnesses, whatever the issue of the rencontre, to a deprivation of civic rights for not less than one, nor more than ten years. The assembly rejected the proposed law. —In France it was generally admitted, down to the year 1837, that the penal law was silent upon the question of dueling, but, beginning with this year, the court of appeal, in accordance with several requisitions of the procureur général, abandoning the tradition on the point, decided that homicide, or wounds resulting from a duel, should be punished conformably to the provisions of the penal code. —Dueling is of frequent occurrence in Germany, especially in the universities. There are special tribunals charged to take cognizance of them. The new penal code, promulgated in Austria in 1855, contains special provisions relating to dueling. When a rencontre has occurred without either of the combatants being wounded, both have to undergo an imprisonment of from six months to one year; in case of wounds, the maximum of punishment is six years. —If the combat has been a mortal conflict, the challenger is condemned to 10 or 20 years in carcere duro. The witnesses are liable to from six months' to five years' imprisonment, according to the results of the rencontre. —In Switzerland, also, dueling has been made the object of special legislation, which, however, with very rare exceptions, has never been enforced. The Belgian penal code resembles in this point the Austrian code. The Dutch code is silent on the subject. —In 1835 a law was passed by the legislature of Mississippi, which condemned the survivor in a duel to pay the debts of his victim. —In 1841 a law was passed in Naples, inflicting eight years of compulsory labor on every person who participated in a duel, either as a combatant or as a witness. The Sardinian code is now in force throughout Italy Its provisions against dueling are very severe. In January, 1854, the criminal court of Genoa condemned to 20 years' banishment an aid-decamp of the national guard who had killed one of his fellow officers in a duel. —In 1855 all the journalists of Madrid, with the intention of preventing the deplorable conflicts which were becoming more numerous every day, established a tribunal of honor, before which all contests which might result in an armed encounter, should be carried. —In 1859 a young Russian captain who had the misfortune to kill his adversary in a duel, was taken before a council of war. He was condemned to military degradation, and the loss of his decorations.—"In China and in Persia," says E. Colombey, the author of a very remarkable history of dueling, which we have consulted with profit, "dueling is unknown; the insult recoils upon the one who offers it. The law takes it upon itself to inflict vengeance." When two Japanese quarrel, they agree to cut open their own stomachs; the one who performs the operation first is the conqueror, the other is disgraced. There are other points of information and many strange laws to be found in the work of de Cauchy on "Dueling," vol. ii. —Before giving our personal opinion on dueling, it remains for us to analyze the opinions of different authors who have written on the subject. La Bruyère, who agrees with Mendez upon this point, says that dueling "is the triumph of fashion, in which it has exercised its tyranny with most display. This practice has not left the poltroon a chance to live; it has led him to death at the hand of a braver man than himself, and confounded him with a man of courage; it has attached honor and glory to a foolish and extravagant act" We do not believe we need introduce here J. J. Rousseau's eloquent apostrophe to duelists, and we shall continue our citations from the adversaries of dueling with the following from the works of the republican journalist Loustalot: "I ask every French patriot: do you wish to be free? Undoubtedly. Then renounce dueling; it is incompatible with every kind of liberty. What becomes of public liberty, if you are going to deprive the people of its best defenders, by making them fight duels? What becomes of individual liberty, if the first fool or the first miscreant that meets you can force you to stake your life against his? What becomes of the liberty of the press, if for every phrase, every expression, an author must fight with every man who finds it false or out of place?" According to the count of Portalis, society can not admit a theory which supposes other laws than its own. Dupin is of the same opinion as the count of Portalis, and, like him, thinks that "the theory of duels is the destruction of lawful order." "It is an astonishing thing," says Dupin a little farther on, "that among the apologists of dueling are found writers and orators who ask for the abolition of capital punishment, who hold that the right of man over man does not go to that extent, and who, nevertheless, even at the very moment they are denying to society as a whole the exercise of this right, claim it for themselves and accord it to the first chance comer." We will leave it to de Girardin to defend journalism against the accusations of Dupin. "In the times in which we live," he says, "duels are an anachronism; they belong to another régime, to manners and ideas which no longer exist. We declare that dueling has been an error in our education against which our experience protests. To the inferiority of injury let us oppose the superiority of scorn. If you are a man of honor, if you have nothing to hide at the risk of a wound, if you need not seek refugè in the intimidation of a pistol ball, will you avenge yourself upon the wretch or clown who has injured you by forcing him to redouble his injuries? The less moderation he shows, the more assured you will be of your revenge. If he began by having public opinion in his favor, he will not be slow to turn it against him. Then your satisfaction will be complete, and surely more effectual than if blood had flown. Every duel that ends without a wound is a farce. Every duel that ends with the death of one of the two combatants is deplorable. Every duel, therefore, is an absurdity, an insurrection of rashness against reason, a last resort of barbarity against civilization, an anachronism." There are authors, however, who undertake the defense of this custom, which is so violently attacked. Duclos thinks that dueling maintains a certain sensibility of soul more generous and especially more powerful than simple duty. Guizot believes that it is good, moral and useful; that it has jurisdiction over all those cases which ordinary jurisdictions do not reach. Thanks to this individual justice, urbanity of relations, and of social convention is maintained. —For our own part it would be hard for us to defend dueling. The sword to us is no more reason than force or skill is right; but the impotency of repressive laws, the persistence of a custom against which everything has been said and well said, prove, as we imagine, that dueling is a fact which must be taken into consideration. In theory, every one believes that dueling is to be deplored; in practice, every one is inclined to resort to arms to avenge an injury. A prelate, when asked what he would do if one were to slap him in the face, replied, with witty candor, that he knew well what he should do, but did not know what he would do. Now, everything in the morals of a people ought to pass into its institutions; and to refuse to concern ourselves with the subject of dueling under the pretext that its existence should not be recognized, is to imitate the ostrich, which imagines itself concealed because with its head hidden in the sand it can see nothing. We think, therefore, that society, which is so much interested in the matter. should take cognizance of the terrible game in which the life of a man is so often staked. We could wish. for instance, that there should be established everywhere juries of honor, before which those who wish to have recourse to arms should present themselves with their witnesses, to settle their quarrel. The members of this jury, chosen from among men whose integrity should make their decisions beyond appeal, would investigate the causes of the rencontre, sanction or forbid it according to circumstances, and by dismissing immediately all with futile pretexts, would render duels more and more rare. John Reynand is of this opinion; and P. Stahl observes that this system of the jury of honor would offer greater guarantees than dueling as it is actually practiced, which is always in some way clandestine. "It is an anomaly for the law to tolerate what it forbids; justice which shuts and opens its eyes at will is no justice" We are entirely of this opinion, and for these reasons we could wish to see the law intervene in these strictly personal affairs only when one or other of the two adversaries refused to submit to the decision of the jury of honor, or should, by some dishonest act, enroll himself in the list of criminals.77 HECTOR PESSARD. DUTYDUTY, Political. It was the fashion during the eighteenth century, and to a small extent at the beginning of the nineteenth, to speculate as to what might have been the ideas and feelings of man, if he had not lived in society. This kind of speculation resulted only in perfectly gratuitous hypotheses; and moreover it was founded entirely upon an erroneous idea. Man has never lived in such a state of isolation; he could not exist in such a state; he is made for society. He would be not only unhappy and powerless without society; he would be simply an inexplicable being. If there be one truth more than another which is the evident outcome of all there is in man of weakness and of strength, it is, that nature intended us to be, par excellence, sociable creatures. —But what is the fundamental principle of society? Is it that we are necessary to each other? This amounts to inquiring whether a society based exclusively on the principle of interest be possible. Most assuredly if all men were intelligent and wise, and were never mistaken as to their true interests, society could exist without any other bond. But since nothing is so rare as a prudent mind, and a will master of itself, it is certain that, if we were reduced to a calculation of interests only, we should be in a continual state of war. What prevents this state of war, or, in other words, what makes society possible, is the existence of certain obligations by which we are bound to one another. Between the idea of society and that of obligation there is a relation of identity, because society and obligation suppose each other, and can not exist without each other. —The reciprocal obligations by means of which society subsists may be conceived as resulting from force only, or from a social contract, or from justice. But upon reflection it is clear that they result only from justice. Shall we say that they have their foundation in force? Let us agree, in the first place, that if there were no justice it would be a very good thing for man to be subjected to force; for any society, even an oppressive and cruel society, is preferable, for man to the absence of society. But what would be the nature of this society based upon force? that is, on an unintelligent principle? It would be neither regular nor viable, for it is of the very essence of force to change its location. It may put itself in the service of order; but itself and by itself it can not produce order. The same may be said of the social contract; it is a hypothesis only admissible on condition that it be regulated and governed by a higher principle. For if this contract be founded upon interest only, no legislator would have foresight enough to draw it up, nor would any criminal be so simple as to submit to it. We therefore conclude that humanity is not intelligible without society, society without obligation, nor obligation without justice. —It follows that justice is not of human creation. In fact, it can not be a result of society, since the latter itself is a result of justice. When we firmly and intelligently resolve to think for ourselves, and to reject all that our mind has received whose legitimacy and solidity we can not personally verify, we surely find many ideas which we can easily banish from our understanding as useless or dangerous guests; others, which seemed certain, become only probable or doubtful after examination; but there are some—and justice is one of them—which resist all our efforts to dislodge them, and which skepticism is powerless to overcome, however hard it may try. Not only are we unable to refute them, but we can not even remove them. Their empire over us is absolute. These ideas are of various kinds, for some of them relate to physics, like the idea of causality, without which we can not understand motion; others to logic, such as the principle of identity, without which we can not reason; others to morals, like the principle of justice. It is as impossible to believe that motion can originate without a cause to determine it, as that a man can commit murder to conceal a theft without becoming a criminal. We must admit this twofold impossibility, or else renounce reason altogether. Thus justice is doubly true, doubly necessary; first, that society may exist; secondly, that man may think. Justice makes us what we are—sociable, reasonable creatures. —Justice governs in the world of liberty, just as the principle of causality governs in the world of fatality. Thus, from the standpoint of society, two things must be considered in free action; the being who produces the action or the agent, and the being who suffers it. I know, by the idea of justice I have, that it is permitted to no one to take my life, to curb me in my faculties, to embarrass me bodily or to deprive me of my property. The assertion of this peaceable possession of my life, my liberty and my property, is what I call my rights. I do not claim these rights by virtue of any contract, or by hereditary transmission; they are natural rights, and because natural, universal; for nature is the same to all, and we are all men by the same title. All men have necessarily an equal right to live, to act, and to possess property; my right exists only by reason of the right. Duty is a result of the universality and necessity of right, that is, it is an obligation we are all under to respect the rights of others, or rather the right inothers. Right and duty are, therefore, two expressions for justice, according as we consider it in the actor or in the sufferer; in the sufferer, it is the right, the right not to be injured. In the agent it is duty, the duty not to injure others. Although opposed to each other, these two terms are correlative. —It has hence been concluded, a little hastily perhaps, that duty is measured by rights, and vice versa. This doctrine is true in this sense only that we ought to respect all rights. But we must not conclude from this that duty is not of greater extent than right, nor that the latter is in any case a consequence of duty. On the contrary, it is certain that to respect all rights is only to accomplish a part of one's duty; which is equivalent to saying, in other words, that we have duties to fulfill, the fulfillment of which no one, except God, has the right to demand of us. —This distinction is so important that in ignoring it we should render both civil and political society alike impossible. This distinction is misunderstood by two classes of men very unlike in origin, character and intentions, who are irreconcilable enemies, but who, notwithstanding, reach by opposite ways the same result; these are absolutists and communists. For the first, confounding politics with morals, give governments the right to compel their subjects to practice all duties; and the second, deceiving themselves as to the very nature of morals, deduce right from duty, and arm the egoism of each man against all the members of society taken individually, and against society as a whole. Thus, for example, the absolutists usurp the government of consciences, under pretext that every man is bound to work out his salvation, and the communists conclude from the duty of giving, which is one of the sanctions of the right of property, to the right of exaction, which is the negation of property. We have here represented each of these two doctrines by its most salient feature; but when we consult history impartially, we can not fail to observe that they are met with everywhere, that the right of confiscation is a logical consequence of absolute power, and intolerance a necessary consequence of communism. —In well-organized society, that is to say, in all society which tends toward order through liberty, the civil law enacts only what is legally right, leaving to morals the care of enacting or prescribing what is duty. Why is this? 1. Because human law is made for purposes of protection, not to command. 2. Because the formula of universal law or legal right is, at the same time and by the same title, the formula of individual law or legal right, whereas the formula of duty can only be applied to a particular case by being transformed and by losing some of its logical comprehension. —That human law is intended to protect and not to command, results from its very institution, for if all the precepts of the moral law were written in human law, and sanctioned by a penalty, there would be no room for liberty nor for right. Consequently, since legal right has three ends in view, namely, life, liberty and property, it is an implied contradiction that laws enacted to protect liberty should destroy it. In fact, the law can not protect my legal rights, without commanding others to respect them, and without commanding me, in turn, to respect those of others. But law can reach command only by the road of protection. Law declares legal rights, and has to do only with such rights. As a result of this, its commands are exclusively negative. It forbids injury, but does not command service. —Suppose, for instance, that we are speaking of the right to live. Every man has the right to live; such is the formula of general and of individual law or legal right. Since every man has the right to live, human law ought to declare that right. This declaration is equivalent to a command and this command amounts only to this: No one has the right to put another's life in danger. Now, this formula of duty is the only one which results from the formula of legal right; and although the latter includes all legal rights, the formula of duty does not include the whole of duty. The idea of duty can not be conveyed altogether by any particular formula. —From the foregoing it follows that there are two kinds of duty; negative duty, and positive duty. The former, called also, in the language of the schools, imperfect duty, is strictly measured by legal right; the latter does not correspond to a legal right which can be directly exacted by individuals. It is a duty of the higher kind, which can not depend upon human law, but only upon the moral, that is, divine law. —Negative duty is ordinarily expressed by the following formula: "Do not unto others that which you would not have done unto yourself." And positive duty by this formula: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." These two formulæ have the merit of showing very well the opposition which exists between the two kinds of duty, of being very clear, easy to understand and easy to be remembered. The feeling of human fraternity with which they are stamped causes them strongly to appeal to our sympathies. We can not, however, look upon them as really scientific formulæ. They have the common fault of measuring legal right and duty by individual feeling; and moreover, the first formula goes beyond the measure of legal right, unless we insert into it the idea of law itself, the consequence of which would be to render it useless. In fact, what I ought to spare other men is not all that I fear myself, but rather all that I have a right to fear and to ward off. In reality, nothing supplies the place of the notion of right, and since right is a first principle, it can not be expressed by a comparison. —Certain men of a selfish nature reduce all morality to the fulfillment of negative duties; others, less scrupulous and more generous, believe that the observance of positive duties may absolve them from the nonperformance of the negative. These are two equally fatal errors. Every man is always under an obligation to fulfill the whole of duty. It can only be said that he is not under obligations always in the same way to such fulfillment. —Negative duty is more imperative than positive, because it is more definite, and more necessary. Positive duty is nobler than negative, because it supposes a more generous nature, and because it can not be enforced by law. In general, the performance of a duty is more meritorious in proportion as the obligation to fulfill it is less strict, and the sacrifice greater. But although there are degrees of obligation and of merit, obligation is always present. To content one's self by not injuring others simply, without doing them any good, is to degrade one's self voluntarily; for the worth and dignity of each one of us are measured by his service to mankind. On the other hand, doing good to others and failing in the performance of negative duties is to be a bad man with some virtues. The practice of virtue does not excuse any one from the observance of probity; probity without virtue suffices to make an honest man before the law and in the eyes of the world, but a useless man in the sight of God and of conscience. —It is a question with writers on politics whether a constitution should simply declare rights, or whether it should also prescribe duty. No one can deny the existence of political duties; but we can and ought to deny that human law has for its object the prescribing of duties. All human law is a declaration of the principles of right and their application, and it can not be any more than this without attacking liberty. There are therefore, properly speaking, no political duties which can be included in a constitution or in a code. The right only, and the duty of each one to respect the right, can be written there, for this latter kind of duty is indissolubly connected with right, and is always understood, both as a sanction and as a consequence, to be part of the formula of right. —But if human law can not prescribe political duties, or if it only prescribes them indirectly, the moral law, on the contrary, enjoins upon us very directly and very imperatively political duties of the positive kind—We owe duties to every man individually considered, and special duties to the different categories of persons into which the human species is divided with respect to ourselves. These categories are four in number: society, country, friends and benefactors, and family. Besides, we must distinguish between the duties we owe to the entire category, and those we owe to the individuals who compose it. For instance, I have more duties to perform to a fellow-countryman than to a foreigner; but I have many more duties to perform to my country than to the citizens taken individually whose fatherland is mine. Of course there are degrees in each category: country, province, city; father, brother, and the most distant relative. Morality is obliged to descend to all these details; we shall give here only the most universal rules. —The duties we own each person individually and solely, in his quality of human being, are measured strictly by his rights, and consequently extend no further than the observance of the written law, when this latter is good. This is as much as to say that we have only negative duties to perform toward other men, taken individually. For instance, the matter of property, an individual man being supposed one whom we shall consider simply in the quality of a human being, making abstraction of the category to which he may belong—it is our duty not to rob him, but not our duty to give him anything. He has a right not to be injured in his property by us; he has no right to demand any sacrifice of ours. The duty to give exists only from the standpoint of the categories, and consequently creates no right to the advantage of an individual, considered simply as such. Thus I am obliged to give of my wealth to the poor, although no poor man individually can assert any claim whatever against my property. In order clearly to understand the special duties, which are at the same time positive duties, and which have relation to all four categories, we may picture them to ourselves as four concentric circles, with man in the centre of all: the largest circle represents society, the smallest the family. Here is the rule: our duties are both more numerous and less imperious, as they approach the centre. The words "less imperious" must not be left ambiguous; since every duty is imperious, the duty which outweighs another, when we are compelled to choose between duties, is considered the more imperious. For instance, my country can not exact from me so many sacrifices as my family; but when the interests of my country and my family conflict, and it is left to me to decide between them, I should sacrifice my family to my country. This is what is meant when it is said that my duties to my family are the more numerous, while those to my country are more imperious. If we take into consideration, not the entire category, but the persons who compose it, duties become both more numerous and more imperious as we approach the centre. —This rule, which suffices for all other categories of duties, is less clear in the case of politics, and for this reason: the constitution of other societies or categories is natural; that of political society is human. In other words, there is the country, which is a natural society, and the government of the country, which is factitious. Every government tries to prove that it is the natural organization of the country, and consequently the legitimate one; and this pretension, if it were proven, would elevate political law to the dignity of natural law. But let us ask if any government is legitimate simply just because it exists. This is the same as asking whether right can be the result of a fact—which is absurd. There are, therefore, legitimate governments and others which are not legitimate, and consequently it may happen to be the duty of a citizen to disobey his government in order to be true to his country. Can morality determine the duty of a citizen who looks upon the government of his country as illegitimate and pernicious? Evidently it can; for it is contrary to common sense that human liberty should be without rules, in a question of such importance. We must distinguish two kinds of illegitimate governments, namely, those which injure only interests, and those which are hurtful to morality. It is never allowable to endure the latter; the former should be resisted only when two things are very certain: 1. That we are not blinded by our private interests to ignore the general good. 2. That we do not injure the general good more by the insurrection than the government we are trying to overturn does by its existence. —As to legitimate governments, that is to say, those which are conformable to good morals and to the best interests of the country, the citizen owes them obedience and assistance. That he owes them obedience is a self-evident truth; that he owes them his assistance is not less evident, considering that the skaking of the strength of such a government puts order, and consequently justice, in peril. When this last duty is well understood in a country, it is seldom that it does not elevate a people to the first rank, whatever be its extent and wealth. But in a great many states, and especially in those in which the government takes charge of everything, the citizens resign themselves to a passive obedience, which degenerates into disobedience in certain cases. Thus, they do not do what the law commands before being required to do so; they do not lend a helping hand in the maintenance of order; unless, perchance, they hold office. They abstain from a declaration of their views, when it is necessary or useful; they refuse, for instance, to make known the full amount of what they own, which compels the state to replace exact and equitable contribution by uncertain taxation; in their enterprises they consult only their own interests—never those of the public. Such practices among the citizens make the government strong, and the nation weak; or rather, they invest the government with a mischievous power. Only duty can make men, and only men can make a people—a nation. JULES SIMON. [72.]There is nothing in this provision about age that need surprise us. As every man is a voter, it was proper to take the necessary precautions to secure maturity of choice. Voters of the age of 30 years offer all requisite guarantees on this point. It can, therefore, be left to them to appreciate whether such or such a fellow-citizen of the age of 25 years may not, by his extraordinary talents, be able to render desirable service to his country. The younger Pitt was made a minister at 23.—M. B. [73.]Under a charter dated Jan. 5, 1874, and which came into force Aug. 1, 1874, Iceland has its own constitution and administration. By the terms of the charter the legislative power is vested in the althing, consisting of 35 members, 30 elected by popular suffrage, and six nominated by the king. A minister for Iceland nominated by the king, and responsible to the althing, is at the head of the administration; while the highest local authority is vested in the governor, called stiflamtmand, who resides at Reikjavig. [74.]In addition to the tax directly imposed on the distilled spirit, the internal revenue system of the United States from the first imposed a number of other and collateral taxes—i.e., licenses, fees, permits, etc. [75.]The reader will here do well to look forward and see what was the consumption in subsequent years, when the tax was reduced. [76.]St. John, New Brunswick, during the decade, was destroyed by fire. [77.]We think, with our honorable collaborator, that something should be done against dueling. Experience has proven that a Draconian penalty would remain powerless. There is too flagrant an injustice in confounding with the assassin the honorable man who, yielding to a prejudice which reigns like a king in society, kills his equal, for public sentiment not to cry out against this too radical solution of the question. But we hesitate to admit the theory proposed by Mr. Pessard, although his proposition has already begun to be put in practice. The tribunal of honor can not but diminish the number of duels, but it does not attack the root of the prejudice. Rather would it strengthen it. Now, all our efforts should aim at its extermination. The best means to obtain this result will be, we believe: 1, to deny social recognition to any one who has challenged and then killed his adversary in a duel; 2, to have it admitted by the code of honor that no one is obliged to fight with a man who has already killed an adversary, or who, from the fact of having been engaged in three previous duels, has come to be considered as a professional duelist (we avoid using a stronger word); 3, rigorously to enforce the payment of fine and heavy pecuniary indemnity to the family of the victim; this last point is already reached. We do not flatter ourselves that we have thus solved the problem, but we would be happy to have indicated the true remedy.—M. B. |
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