Home

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 3 Oath - Zollverein

Editor: John Joseph Lalor

Part of: Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, 3 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.

Copyright information:

The text is in the public domain.

Fair use statement:

This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.

S

SAINT-SIMONISM

SAINT-SIMONISM. (See SOCIALISM.)

SALARY GRAB

SALARY GRAB (IN U. S. HISTORY), the popular name for the general increase of federal salaries in 1873.

—The constitution provides that "the senators and representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States"; that the president "shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them"; and that the judges of all federal courts "shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office." The act of March 3, 1873, provided that, on and after March 4, 1873 (the beginning of President Grant's second term), the salary of the president should be $50,000 a year, of the chief justice $10,500, of the vice-president, cabinet officers, associate justices, and speaker of the house, $10,000, and of senators, representatives and delegates in congress, $7,500; and that the salaries of employés of both houses should be increased in various proportions. The salaries named had previously been as follows: president, $25,000; chief justice, $8,500; other officers, $8,000; and senators, representatives and delegates, $5,000. Although the act was in other respects to go into force "on and after March 4, 1873," the members of the congress which passed it were to be included in the increased salary, so that the act, as to them, was retroactive for the two years just closing. This was the essence of the "salary grab," which excited so much popular indignation that many of the members were moved to repay their increase to the treasury. The act was repealed, as to all except the president and the justices, by act of Jan. 20, 1874, and salaries reverted to the former standard. The increase of the salaries of the president and justices was retained.

—The acts to ascertain and fix the compensation of members of congress have been as follows: The act of Sept. 22, 1789, fixed the salaries of senators and representatives at $6 per day, and $6 for every twenty miles of travel, until March 4, 1795, after which date senators were to receive $7 per day, and $7 for every twenty miles of travel. The act of March 10, 1796, fixed the salaries of both senators and representatives at the rate fixed in 1789. The act of March 19, 1816, increased this salary to $1,500 per annum for "this and every future congress." This "salary grab" excited so much popular feeling that it was repealed by act of Feb. 6, 1817. The act of Jan. 22, 1818, fixed the salary at $8 per day, and $8 for every twenty miles of travel, dating the increase back to March 3, 1817. The act of Aug. 16, 1856, increased the salary to $3,000 per annum, and mileage as before, and enacted further, that "this law shall apply to the present congress." In all these ascertainments of salary, the speaker's salary had been double that of the other members The act of July 28, 1866, increased the salary of members to $5,000 per annum, and that of the speaker to $8,000. All these increases had been retroactive, and it is probable that the criticism on the increase of 1873 came mainly from the lavish generosity of congress in increasing so many salaries, heightened by the unfortunate fact that the congressional increase alone was retroactive.

—See 1 Stat. at Large, 70, 448 (for acts of Sept. 22, 1789, and March 10, 1796); 3 Stat. at Large, 257, 345, 404 (acts of March 19, 1816, Feb. 6, 1817, and Jan. 22, 1818); 11 Stat. at Large, 48 (act of Aug. 16, 1856); 14 Stat. at Large (act of July 28, 1866); 17 Stat. at Large, 486 (act of March 3, 1873); and 18 Stat. at Large, 4 (act of Jan. 20, 1874).

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

SAN DOMINGO

SAN DOMINGO. The republic of San Domingo (Republica Dominicana), founded in 1844, is governed under a constitution bearing date Nov. 18, 1844, reproclaimed, with changes, Nov. 14, 1865, after a revolution which expelled the troops of Spain, who held possession of the country for the two previous years. By the terms of the constitution, the legislative power of the republic is vested in a national congress of two houses, called the consejo conservador, and the tribunado, the first consisting of twelve, and the second of fifteen members. The members of both houses are chosen in indirect election, with restricted suffrage, for the term of four years. But the powers of the national congress only embrace the general affairs of the republic; and the individual states, five in number, have separate legislatures.

—The executive authority is vested in a president, chosen in indirect election for the term of four years. Constant insurrections have allowed very few presidents to serve the full term of office. The administrative affairs of the republic are in charge of a ministry appointed by the president, with the approval of the consejo conservador. The ministry is composed of the heads of the departments of the interior and police, finance, justice, war and marine, and foreign affairs.

—The financial estimates of the republic for the year 1882 set down the revenue as $1,500,000, or £300,000, with an expenditure to the same amount. The branches of expenditure were as follows:

Interior and police...	$ 253,514
Foreign affairs...	146,486
Justice, etc....	255,832
Finance, etc....	144,168
War and marine...	437,823
Extraordinary expenses...	102,177
Balance...	160,000
Total...	$1,500,000

The revenue for 1883 is estimated at $1,750,000, mainly derived from customs duties, which average 40 per cent., while a large part of the annual expenditure is for the maintenance of a standing army. Besides a large internal debt, of unknown amount, San Domingo has a foreign debt, contracted at the London stock exchange in 1869. The debt, to the nominal amount of £757,700 at 6 per cent., was issued at the price of 80; but it was stated officially that the government had actually received only between $190,000 and $250,000 from the contractors for the loan. ("Report of the Select Committee on Loans to Foreign States," 1875.) It is officially stated that the government is now (January, 1883) engaged in ascertaining the amount of the debt, and a commission has been appointed for the purpose.

—The area of San Domingo, which embraces the eastern portion of the island of Hayti (the western division forming the republic of Hayti), is estimated at 18,045 English square miles, with a population, in 1880, of 300,000 inhabitants, or sixteen to the square mile.

—The republic is divided into the five provinces, or states, mutually independent, of San Domingo, Azna de Compostela, Santa Cruz del Seybo, Santiago de los Caballeros, and Concepcion de la Vega, besides four maritime districts. The population, like that of the neighboring Hayti, is composed mainly of negroes and mulattoes, but the whites, or European-descended inhabitants, are comparatively numerous, and, owing to their influence, the Spanish language is the prevailing dialect. The capital of the republic is the city of San Domingo, founded in 1494, at the mouth of the river Ozama, with 10,000 inhabitants.

—The commerce of the republic is small, owing in part to customs duties of a prohibitory character. The principal articles of export are lignum vitæ, logwood, coffee and sugar. Cocoa is also cultivated. In 1881 the value of the imports amounted to £352,263, and of the exports to £338,215, the foreign commerce being shared by the ports of San Domingo and Puerta Plata. The commerce of the republic is mainly with the United States and Great Britain.

—The country is stated to be making rapid progress. A railway is being constructed between Samaná and Santiago, embracing the whole of the rich provinces in the northern portion of the republic, and another line will soon be made between Barahona and the salt mountain of "Cerro de Sal." Large sugar plantations and factories are stated to be now in full work in the southern and western parts of the republic, and a large factory for concrete owned by an English company.

—The bay of Samaná, on the northeast coast of San Domingo, one of the greatest natural harbors in the world, thirty miles long and ten miles broad, was ceded, with the surrounding country, to a company formed in the United States, by a treaty signed by the president of the republic, Jan. 10, 1873. Under another decree, passed March 25, 1874, the rights of the company were confiscated, on the ground of non-payment of a stipulated annual rent.

—BIBLIOGRAPHY. Samuel Hazard, Santo Domingo, Past and Present: with a glance at Haiti, London, 1873; W. Jordan, Geschichte der Insel Haiti, Leipzig, 1849; D. B. Randolph Keim, Santo Domingo: Pen Pictures and Leaves of Travel, Philadelphia, 1871; Antonio Monte y Tejada, Historia de Santo Domingo, desde su Descubrimiento hasta nuestros dias, Habana, 1853.

F. M.

—In 1869 a movement took shape for the annexation of San Domingo to the United States. Much of the impelling force of the movement undoubtedly lay in the selfish interests of various American citizens in San Domingo, in their loans to the republic, their claims against it, and their unproductive grants from it; but a further incentive was the naval importance of the bay of Samaná, as a coaling station for United States vessels, and a commanding position for the Mona passage, the eastern avenue to the gulf of Mexico. In July, 1869, Gen. Babcock was sent to San Domingo by President Grant; and, on his favorable report, a treaty for the annexation of the republic was made, Nov. 29, 1869, with a convention for the lease of the bay and peninsula of Samaná to the United States. The treaty was ratified by popular vote in San Domingo; but in the United States it met instant opposition. A new article was added to the treaty, May 14, 1870, in order to remove some of the reasons for opposition, and President Grant, in a special message of May 31, urged the ratification of the whole treaty. He believed that it would maintain the Monroe doctrine, prevent the acquisition of Samaná by a European power, build up our lost merchant marine, abolish slavery at once in Cuba and Porto Rico, and ultimately in Brazil, support a population of 10,000,000 in luxury, and pay off the foreign debt of the United States. Nevertheless, the senate rejected the treaty, June 30.

—In his annual message of Dec. 5, 1870, President Grant proposed that congress should authorize a commission to negotiate an annexation treaty with San Domingo, and reiterated his former arguments in favor of the project. Congress went with the president far enough to pass a resolution, Jan. 12, 1871, authorizing the appointment of a commission to examine into the condition of San Domingo, but added the proviso "that nothing in these resolutions contained shall be held, understood or construed as committing congress to the policy of annexing the territory of the said republic of Dominica." The commissioners, B. F. Wade, Andrew D. White and S. G. Howe, visited San Domingo in January-March, 1871, and made an exhaustive and rather favorable report. They specially reported that they could find no trace of the corrupt grants of land to United States officials which had been declared by common report to be the real moving cause of the treaty. But the "San Domingo scheme," with its accompanying charges of fraud, corruption, bargain and jobbery, had by this time become highly unpopular, and the president, in a special message of April 5, 1871, abandoned the question to congress, appealing to the candor and intelligence of the people for a justification of his own action. No further action was taken in the matter. President Baez, of San Domingo, had been the most efficient agent of the proposed annexation; and his government was completely overthrown by a successful revolution, 1872-3.

—One of the most active opponents of annexation was Senator Charles Sumner (see his name). The controversy between him and the president became personal and angry, and in 1871 he was removed from his place of chairman of the senate committee on foreign relations, at the request of the president, by vote of the other republican senators. From that time he was in opposition to the administration until his death, in 1874.

A. J.

SANDWICH ISLANDS

SANDWICH ISLANDS. These islands are situated in the Pacific ocean, at an equal distance from the shores of America and Japan, between 19° and 22¼° of north latitude and 155° and 160° of Paris longitude. The archipelago is composed of fifteen islands, of which only seven are inhabited or inhabitable. Their names and respective area in square kilometres are as follows: Hawaii, 12,620, Maoui, 1,966; Oahu, 1,822; Molokai, 468; Kaouai, 2,010; Nihaou, 308; Kahoulai, 94. On a total area of 19,756 square kilometres, the number of inhabitants was, in 1872, 56,897, of which 40,044 were natives. Since 1798, the date of the discovery of these islands by Cook, their population has been constantly diminishing. It amounted at that time to at least 300,000; in 1823, Mr. Ellis found less than 150,000, of whom 85,000 were in the great island of Hawaii. The statements of subsequent censuses have shown still further diminutions: in 1832, the population was 130,313, in 1836, 108,579; in 1849, 84,163; in 1853, 71,019; in 1860, 67,979. These diminutions are attributed to the dissolute habits of the inhabitants. The introduction of civilization and Christianity has not yet succeeded in establishing the institution of the family there. Marriage exists only in name The children are, for the most part, brought up by persons other than by those who begot them. The children brought up by their parents are no better taken care of. The father scarcely able to exist, his protection is almost entirely lacking. The mother, desirous of preserving her charms, which nursing children might destroy, and especially her freedom, hastens to rid herself of her progeny. The children, born spite of attempts at abortion, are, notwithstanding all the severity of the criminal laws, regularly put to death during the first year after their birth. The practices of abortion and infanticide are common in all classes of society. In the lower classes, births are very numerous; but, despite the advantages and exemptions from taxes granted to families which have more than two children, it is rare to find a family which has more than one.

—The governmental and social system was for a long time a sort of feudal communism. The union of the islands under the sole rule of Kamehameha I in the beginning brought about no change in this state of affairs. The sovereign alone was proprietor of the land. It was not until 1848 that the right of possessing landed property was granted to individuals.

—In 1838 all power was concentrated in the hands of royalty. At that time Kamehameha III., yielding to the advice of American missionaries, made himself a constitutional king. The constitution of 1840, which created a chamber of nobles, composed of sixteen persons, five of whom were women, with the king for president, did not prove very successful. It was necessary to revise it in 1848, and to confide the executive power to a council of ministers, presided over by the minister of the interior. This new constitution, which recognized an order of nobility, has also been reformed. The two parts of the national representation were replaced by a privy council, composed of the king, the queen, the ministers, the governors of the four largest islands, the chancellor, the judges of the supreme court, and of eight elected members; but since that time the constitution of Aug. 4, 1864, doubled the number of the elected members of the privy council, eight of whom are chosen from among the natives, and eight from among foreigners. This parliament deliberates at will in the native or in the English language.. After the death of king Kamehameha V., the author of the constitution of 1872, a descendant, in the female line, of the chief of the dynasty of Lunalilo I. was elected king, not, as has been stated, by universal suffrage, but by a vote of parliament. (He only reigned two years.)

—The press plays a great part in the political system of the islands. The government is represented by the "Polynesian," a journal whose chief editor is appointed by the government, with the title of director of the press; the opposition, by the "Commercial Advertiser," the "Friend," and the "Star of the Pacific."

—Almost all public offices are in the hands of English or American naturalized Hawaiian subjects, The constitution of 1840 accorded freedom of conscience; no religion has succeeded in improving the population; the ministers of all religious sects are agreed in acknowledging that their flock is Christian only in name. Schools, however, are numerous.

—During 1859-60, the revenues amounted to $656,006, and the expenditures to $643,000. During 1870-72 the receipts amounted to $964,956, and the expenditures to $969,784. The customs figured in the receipts for $396,418, the domestic taxes for $98,983, the direct taxes for $215,962, the regalian rights, postoffice, renting of domains, etc., for $124,071. The national debt was estimated, in 1874, at $177,971.

—The soil is very fertile, and its present products would be sufficient to feed a population five times as large as that now occupying the islands. To the native nutritious plants have been added the cultivation of tobacco, indigo, potatoes and sugar cane. The exports, in 1860, amounted to more than $1,200,000; those of 1871, to $2,145,000, of which $1,403,000 were native products. Oils and whalebone, sugar, coffee, wool and peltry formed the principal articles of export. The imports represented an amount of more than $1,500,000. Six-tenths were furnished by the United States, and the other fourteenths by England, the Hanseatic cities, Sweden and Russia. The Sandwich islands are connected with all these countries and with France by commercial treaties. The independence of this archipelago was, in 1863, the object of a special recognition, in which the United States joined the following year.102

LOUIS GOTTARD.

SANITARY SYSTEM

SANITARY SYSTEM. I. Public Health. The administrative organization of the sanitary regimen, in Europe, may be divided into three distinct systems: the French system, the English system and the German system. Other states adopt one or the other of these systems, with some modifications.

—1. The French System. This is characterized by the institution of collective authorities, under the name of councils of public health, and by the purely consultative powers with which they are invested. The right of execution belongs to the prefect, who is president ex officio of these councils. From the time of the new organization of police in the city of Paris, in 1667, the first magistrate charged with this administration, De La Reynie, formed a commission of physicians to consult upon a question relative to the making of bread. The opinions were found to be so diverse that he appealed to the faculty of medicine, which, at that time, embraced the entire medical body. In this assembly the disagreement was no less, and a commission, composed this time of six physicians and six "notable and expert" citizens, had to decide the question. Afterward, recourse was had again, more than once, to the advice of this commission, and, toward the end of the last century, the state of the sanitary police of the capital of France was relatively superior, and it filled with enthusiasm J. P. Frank, who may be considered as the founder of scientific hygiene. "I found there," he exclaimed, "a model of those courageous applications of heroic remedies, which will never escape criticism in certain German provinces. For many centuries the enlightened vigilance of the magistrates of this immense city has descended to the slightest details, and an eminently salutary (segensvoll) order of things confirms the value of most of the prescriptions which have their origin there."

—The royal society of medicine was religiously faithful to that part of its duties, the usefulness of its work, in the domain of public health, extended far beyond the precincts of Paris, and has outlived the existence itself of the illustrious company. Whoever has had to treat any subject of hygiene, notably of endemics or epidemics, appreciates with real gratitude, in the memoirs of the society published from 1779 to 1790, the instructive developments of its programmes and the wealth of material it has bequeathed to students.

—M. Dubois, prefect of police, took up these excellent traditions, when, by a decree dated the 18th Messidor, year VIII. (July 6, 1802), he established a board of health, composed of four paid members. Since then, this board, consulted as to all questions relating to public health, has seen the number and importance of the affairs submitted to its deliberation increase in proportion as Paris has increased. Its organization was fixed by the decree of the prefect of police of Dec. 24, 1832, somewhat modified in 1838 and 1844. The decree of Dec. 15, 1851, only confirmed the existing institution. The powers of this board extend only over Paris, but there are, in each of the arrondissements of the city of Paris and in those of Sceaux and Saint Denis, health commissions; with less extensive powers.

—The example given by the capital was slowly enough followed by the administrations of the principal cities of France. From 1822 to 1832, Lyons, Marseilles, Lille, Nantes. Troyes, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Versailles were provided with boards of health. In 1836 the government thought of a general and definitive organization of the sanitary régime in France. The academy of medicine joined eagerly in this effort with a long and remarkable report by Dr. Marc; but these projects were not realized. They were revived by the revolution of February. In the midst of the ardent aspirations for the well-being of the masses, which agitated this epoch, public health could not be forgotten. A plan was drawn up under the direction of M. Tourret, then minister of agriculture and commerce, and became the decree of Dec. 18, 1848. This act applied only to the departments; it organized commissions of health in each department, arrondissement and canton, composed of physicians, apothecaries, architects and other specialists. Their powers extended over the healthfulness of the public highways, houses, workshops, schools, etc.; over the slaughterhouses, factories and other industrial establishments, the nuisances of all kinds, dangerous animals, cemeteries, epidemic and endemic diseases, as well as over epizoötics. Their powers also extended to the surveillance of the quality of the foods, beverages, condiments and medicines of commerce. The decree mentions also many other points; but, as they seem to be entirely neglected, we may pass them over in silence. In fact, the occupation of the boards of health consists chiefly, as M. Tardieu admits, in examining demands for the licensing, removing or abolishing dangerous, unhealthy or incommodious establishments, governed by the decrees of Oct. 15, 1810, and Dec. 31, 1866. The committees find at times useful auxiliaries in the physicians of epidemics and the cantonal physicians. The first, established since May 2, 1805, in each arrondissement, must, at the first request which they receive from the subprefect, go to the localities in which an epidemic has broken out, examine into the circumstances of the situation, the habits of the people, etc., which might have caused it to originate or which favor it, and prescribe the measures proper to arrest its progress, as well as the method of treatment. The cantonal physicians date from April 13, 1835, and are as yet in only a certain number of departments.

—The organization of the Comité consultatif d'hygiène publique de France was regulated by the decrees dated Aug. 10, 1848, Oct. 23, 1856, and Nov. 5, 1869. It is composed of physicians, a chemist, an engineer of roads and bridges or of mines, an architect, and various functionaries. The province of the committee extends to quarantines and to the service of the sanitary physicians established in the orient; to the measures to be taken to prevent and combat epidemics; to the improvement of the thermal establishments, and to means of rendering the use of them more accessible to invalids who are poor.

—The law of April 13, 1850, also instituted, besides, "in each commune where the municipal council shall have declared it necessary," commissions of unhealthy houses, furnished with the power necessary to bring about the purification of such houses.

—The academy of medicine is the completion of the aggregate of the institutions with which we have to deal here. It encourages by honorary rewards the study of epidemics, centralizes the results which this study produces, and presents annually, in its learned memoirs, a tableau of the diseases which have prevailed in the different parts of France. The care of propagating vaccine, and the centralization of the observations made in the establishments of thermal or mineral waters, are also confided to it.

—Italy, Belgium and Spain follow, in their sanitary system, the way of the French. But it would be departing from the truth to place these countries in the same line. In the middle ages, Italy had already preceded other countries on this road, and to-day it still occupies an honorable rank among countries which give their attention to public health.

—2. The English System. Intelligent provisions relative to the construction and maintenance of public highways, dams and sewers; regulations concerning unhealthy trades and the construction of houses, dating from the reigns of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth, had fallen into disuse. Under George IV. a law declared that each person had the right to remove objects which were "to the annoyance of all the king's subjects," and "of doing one's self justice." Then it was necessary to bring long and expensive lawsuits, which were very much disapproved of by everybody. And yet there was the appearance of a sanitary police. It was confided to local juries; their organization and the services which could be expected from them may be inferred from the following example. In a district frequently ravaged by contagious fevers "of the gravest kind," the jury was composed of twelve members, of whom six were toll-keepers, one or two cheesemongers, three or four tailors or drapers, one mason, one house builder, and no physician. No one, they acknowledged themselves, knew anything of the business in hand, except how to examine weights and measures; and without the fortuitous presence of the builder, they would neither have understood. nor been able to do anything of, what was incumbent upon them.

—Such was the situation when the invasion of the cholera brought to an end this too long continued security. The tribute paid by England to the scourge was great. In one year alone she lost 70,000 individuals, of whom 30,000 were adults. This was 10,000 more men than the wars of 1800 to 1815 had cost her. And this was not all. In presence of these hecatombs, it was recalled that other epidemic diseases, almost unknown elsewhere, subjected, at all times, the English populations to a regular diminution, and it had to be acknowledged that those wealthy cities and those sunny stretches of country were as if poisoned by murderous miasmas; that those majestic rivers, the pride of the country, carried death in their corrupt waters; that the royal residences and even the interior of the palaces were filled with dangers. As soon as these cries of alarm were heard, England looked the enemy in the face, and understood that, to conquer it, radical measures were necessary.

—From 1848 new laws paved the way for a general healthfulness by means of the drainage of the marshes, the streets and the houses, as well as the establishment of aqueducts and sewers. This vast undertaking was confided to a general board of health, furnished with great executive authority and powers proportioned to the difficulties of the enterprise. In the special interest of the new sanitary police, the entire country was divided, by geological basins, into districts wholly independent of the administrative arrangements of the parishes, etc.; physicians were charged with the medical care of the poor, who were, moreover, visited and aided by a great number of relief officers—This organization appears to have been only partially successful, especially outside of the capital; complaint was made of the multiplicity of laws and authorities, one charged with the poor, another with the sewers, others still with unhealthy houses, etc. A law of 1872 (Aug. 10, 35 8 36 Victoria, chap. lxxix.; see also the sanitary act of 1866) concentrates this service in the hands, either of the municipality in the cities, or of poor boards. All power is given them to take the necessary measures and to levy taxes, to appoint and pay physicians, and to have charge of the execution of measures of sanitary police. The sanitary service comes within the functions of the board of local government, which causes its execution to be seen to by inspectors appointed for that purpose.

—3. The German System. The principle of cantonal physicians, official guardians of the public health, and expert physicians attached to the courts, charged with visiting the poor gratuitously, is everywhere in force. A hierarchy, similar to that of the administrations, binds them to a medical college forming part of the provincial authority. At the top of the pyramid is a superior committee. This system does not seem, however, to be sufficiently efficacious, at least as regards epidemics, for in 1872, the government appointed a commission to devise the organization of a service embracing all Germany, public health being within the functions of the federal government.

—Holland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark have organized their sanitary institutions after the German system.

—II. Endemics and Epidemics; Contagious Diseases; Quarantines. The diseases which have a right to the attention of the legislator and of the administration constitute three classes. They are: endemic, epidemic and contagious diseases. Endemic diseases arise from the conditions of the configuration of a country, from its meteorology, from the geological structure of its soil, from the distribution of its waters and their qualities, from its vegetation and all its products, from the food of its inhabitants, from their mode of life, from their case or their poverty. The number of affections of this order is large, if one considers them in all the zones of the globe. Here it is sufficient to cite the most prominent examples in certain climates: cretinism, with the endemic goitre, intermittent fevers, pellegra, etc. When we consider that the goitre and cretinism constitute a veritable physical and moral degeneration of man; that it is fatally propagated by heredity; that on the territory of France live more than 100,000 of these unfortunates, and that the number of them is still more considerable in Switzerland, Piedmont, Austria, etc; that the endemic intermittent fevers, in their various pernicious forms, very often carry death in their train, and when they are of an intense degree, keep entire populations in an habitual state of debility, incapacity for labor, and sunk in profound poverty, we must admit that the ravages produced by this category of evils outweigh every other danger which can temporarily threaten public health.

—Fortunately, the state can do much to improve this state of things. The drainage and cultivation of the marshes, the planting of the downs, irrigating canals, drainage practiced on a sufficient scale, are sure means of producing healthfulness. A government must not even recoil before the removal of a small population, when it is absolutely impossible to modify the topography of the localities which it inhabits, as may happen in certain narrow valleys, and mountain gorges, seats of cretinism. These great public works necessitate, it is true, very considerable expense. But public interest counsels these productive expenses as much as humanity commands them.

—Any disease which attacks simultaneously in a place a more or less considerable number of individuals, is called an epidemic. Strictly speaking, we should not have to cite examples here, for we would have to pass in review almost all the immense repertory of medical practice. We see even epidemics of erysipelas and of brain fever; as, on the other hand, we observe isolated cases of affections which we are most used to regard as being of an epidemic character, such as small-pox, cholera, etc. Epidemics belong to those cases in which society finds the compensation of the sacrifices it has undergone to increase the well-being and strength of its members even in the lowest ranks. The evil is always so much the more formidable and is so much the more extensive as it encounters the less resistance; and where can this resistance be found except in the vital energy of those who are exposed to the attacks of disease? Moreover, hygienic and healthful measures, hastily improvised when an epidemic is imminent or has already broken out, present the double inconvenience of being particularly expensive and of a very limited efficacy.

—A contagious disease is one which can be transmitted, by the contact of an individual who is already affected by it, to one or more other individuals predisposed to catch it. This definition differs essentially, we see, from the one we gave in the preceding paragraph; it establishes a well-defined line of demarcation between the two classes of diseases. There exist undoubtedly contagious diseases which are never epidemic, just as there are important epidemics into which the element of contagion never enters; for these latter, the question is only one of isolation, sequestration, quarantine.

—Antiquity, although it was acquainted with very terrible epidemics, opposed to them only a stoical courage and a few measures of general hygiene. In the middle ages only, at the same time that the frequency and violence of the "pests" took a frightful development, did efforts of direct defense against them begin to be taken. The terror which they inspired was extreme, the weapons with which they were fought were often barbarous. Society saw itself powerless to attack the evil in its source, by transforming the physical state of Europe and improving the material and moral existence of its people. It conceived the idea of closing access to its cities to the enemy, and of hemming it in, like a conflagration, when it had once penetrated there. The disease considered especially contagious, leprosy, had its permanent quarantines. Veritable centres of an unclean and crowded population, the settlements of lepers soon became themselves, by hereditary propagation, more surely than by contagion, immense centres of infection, which that heartless time ended by recognizing only one way of opposition, the funeral pile and the stake, its last argument in hygiene, as it was in politics and theology.

—The Italian republics sought, from the second half of the fourteenth century, in quarantines a means of protection against the invasion of pestilential diseases, although the greater part of these diseases, far from being the real eastern plague, were not even contagious. Milan possessed a lazaretto with nearly 500 rooms. Having at that time the monopoly of the trade with the Levant, Venice instituted, in 1403, the first maritime quarantine; Genoa followed this example in 1467. The regulations designed for these institutions were drawn up with Draconian severity, and the traces of them have been very slowly effaced. Scarcely a century ago, shipwrecked men, who were supposed to come from a port where an epidemic prevailed, were driven from the shores of Holland with cannon, and in our day we have seen pitiless instructions given to the troops who, on the frontiers of Poland and Russia, formed the sanitary cordon against the cholera. Despite a permanent sanitary cordon, maintained, from 1728, by Austria upon all its eastern frontier, its provinces were ravaged by the plague in 1738, and from 1755 to 1757.

—In France, up to the year 1822, there existed no sanitary law, although Marseilles, in obedience to the wants which its relations with the east created, had for a long time developed the institutions bequeathed by previous centuries, and had evolved from its old captains of health the magistracy of sanitary supervision no less independent than they. The invasion of the yellow fever into Catalonia soon brought about the promulgation of a law, dated March 3, 1822, followed by a royal ordinance of Aug. 7 of the same year. The precision with which, in 1830, it was believed the advance of the cholera could be followed from the delta of the Ganges to the centre of Europe, revived with new force the hope that the progress of diseases considered to be communicable might be arrested The experiment was not fortunate for the contagionist doctrines, which had been previously shaken so far as the yellow fever and the plague were concerned. Legislation had to undergo modifications, which were formulated by the royal ordinance of Aug. 17, 1847 (which instituted European sanitary physicians in the Levant), a decree of Aug. 10, 1849, and a decree of Dec. 24, 1850. Then France took an initiative, the happy influence of which must be acknowledged. She was the instigator of an international sanitary conference, formed by the various powers which have joint interests in the Mediterranean. In 1850 there assembled at Paris delegates from France, Austria, the Two Sicilies, Spain, the Roman States, Greece, Portugal, Russia, Sardinia, Tuscany and Turkey, who, after thorough discussion, decided on a project for an international convention and for sanitary international regulations. England was also represented at this congress, but she did not sign the convention which was the result of it. Adopting the advice of her general board of health, she renounced all organization intended to keep away from her shores the cholera, the plague and the yellow fever. Neither in France nor elsewhere did people dare to break, in so radical a manner, with deep-rooted ideas and apprehensions. But the new code has freed commerce from a great part of the shackles and the injury which were becoming more onerous in proportion as the circle of communications between nations enlarged.

—The imperial decree promulgating this international convention bears date May 27, 1853; the decree relative to its being put into execution is dated June 4 of the same year, and was followed by detailed instructions. After having declared that this act applied especially to the plague, the yellow fever and the cholera, the convention sets forth in principle that besides any healthy port has the right to fortify itself against a ship having on board persons affected by a disease reputed contagious, such as typhus fever and malignant small-pox. It maintains the foul bill and the clean bill: the former, for the proven presence of the disease in the country from which the ship comes, the latter, for the attested absence of all contagious disease. Every ship arriving with a foul bill shall be declared in quarantine. The latter is divided into quarantine of observation and close or rigorous quarantine. In what concerns the plague, the minimum of the quarantine is fixed at ten full days, and the maximum at fifteen. For the yellow fever, the minimum is five days and the maximum seven; for the cholera, the quarantine of observation is five full days, including the time of the voyage.

—For merchandise, three categories have been established, and they must be treated according to the class to which they belong. The execution of the prescriptions is confided to sanitary authorities, who are everywhere organized upon uniform bases. The director of health, taken when possible from the medical body, is the head of the active service. A council, composed of local scientific elements, watches over the interests of the public health, exercises a general surveillance over the sanitary service, gives advice as to the measures to be taken in case of invasion, and controls its execution.

—Besides the provisions common and applicable to all the countries signing the convention, Turkey in Europe and Turkey in Asia, as well as Egypt, are the object of particular provisions, intended to prevent the development of the plague, to stop this disease when it exists, to give notice of it, and to oppose its introduction into other countries. To this end a superior board of health has been established at Constantinople, and a sanitary board at Alexandria; foreign delegates, who must as much as possible be specialists, form a part of these boards.

—This organization is completed by the development of the institution of sanitary physicians, established in 1847, who are divided into two classes: central physicians and ordinary physicians. Appointed by the contracting powers, they preserve their independence of the local authorities, and are dependent only on the governments which appointed them. Their functions consist in studying, in its relation to public health, the country where they are, its climate, its diseases and all the conditions attached thereto, as well as the measures taken to combat these diseases; to inform the central physician of the arrondissement or district (a central physician resides at Constantinople, Smyrna, Beyrouth and Alexandria), and the local consular body and the local authorities, of everything which has to do with the general health.

—Finally, physicians, commissioned by the minister of agriculture and commerce, are shipped upon the steamers, which are the most active intermediaries between France and the Levant. These men are there, as so many posts of observation, whence they must signal the slightest suspicious disease which may arise during the voyage.

M. BORCHARD, D. M. P.

SAVINGS

SAVINGS. Saving is the intended conservation of the whole or part of a useful object; it is the setting apart of what is not indispensably necessary for actual wants; it is a provident reserve for certain contingencies, a provision or resource which perseverance increases from day to day, to guard against the necessities of an uncertain future. The saving is direct when it is exercised on the object itself, which is not actually consumed. It is, however, generally indirect, taking the form of money laid by until a profitable investment is found for it, or it is intrusted to some private or public savings institution.

—Adam Smith was the first to study the nature of savings, and he did it like a profound economist, politician and philosopher. Smith values highly the man who saves, as a benefactor of society, as the originator of a public workshop, which furnishes employment to a greater or less number of producers; the constant, uniform and uninterrupted effort of individual saving, he raises to the rank of a principle, and he sees in this principle the prime source of national wealth. The spirit of saving, he adds, is always more extensive than the wastefulness of prodigality can possibly be; its reparatory power is enormous, and no matter how great the waste of individual or governmental imprudence, it is still at work in the nation, unknown and in silence, from the irresistible necessity of assuring the future; this spirit realizes such an amount of saving, that, from one historical period to another, we may easily recognize a constant improvement in public and private fortunes. According to that illustrious economist, the immediate cause of the increase of a nation's capital is saving, and not industry. Industry, it is true, furnishes the material which is to be placed in reserve, but saving alone accomplishes this reserve, and without it, capital, being entirely consumed as fast as it is produced, would never become any greater.

—Frederick Bastiat, in an unfinished chapter of his "Economic Harmonies." bases the résumé of his entire doctrine, exchange and value, upon the definition of saving. "To save," he says, "is voluntarily to place an interval between the time when we render a service to society, and the time when we demand back an equivalent therefor. Thus, a man may, every day, from his twentieth to his sixtieth year, demand from his fellows, services equivalent to only three-fourths the value of the services he renders them in the practice of his profession or trade. Thus he acquires the right of drawing from society, in his old age, when he can no longer work, the unpaid fourth of his labor of forty years. The fact of his having received and accumulated titles, in the form of bills of exchange, sight drafts, bank notes and specie, is an entirely secondary matter and of no moment; it has reference only to the manner of accumulation; it can not change either the nature or the effects of saving. * * To save, therefore, is to have rendered a service, and granted time for the return of its equivalent, or, to speak more generally, it is to allow a certain space of time to elapse between the service rendered and the service received."

—One of the most dangerous anti-economic prejudices advanced, is that which considers saving as a veritable injury to society, and especially to labor. It is urged by unthinking men, that, to encourage commerce, it is necessary to spend, and to spend a great deal. This is even made a governmental rule in too many cases. This disastrous sophism, which, as Adam Smith has remarked, has not yet succeeded in ruining nations, because the power of saving is greater than that of prodigality, at least impedes the development of general prosperity, and impoverishes or overburdens with debt, the cities which administer their affairs in accordance with it. It is based upon a singular illusion, which identifies the man who saves with the avaricious miser, whose only care is to hoard up treasure. In times of invasion or trouble, in the absence of all security, when men's minds are tortured by the fear of pillage, the man who has received money in exchange for his services, may be driven to imbed it in a wall, or bury it in the ground, in order to save it from brutal cupidity. But in the normal state of society, unless a man be a fool or most profoundly ignorant, he will find some more profitable place for his spare capital; he will buy interest-bearing notes, or a direct interest in some industry, or he will purchase produce with the speculative chance of selling it again at a profit, or, better still, he will become an owner of real estate. How can these different operations be prejudicial to society, to industry, or even to the laborer, who is always pitied in the same breath which blames the man who saves? Workmen are the most interested of all in the general increase of capital, and, as we have seen, capital can only be increased by means of saving. In considering expense as a benefit, we must always bear in mind the great distinction that should be made between the free and voluntary outlay of a private individual who makes use of his own revenue as he wills, and public or forced expense. In the latter case, if it is intelligent and reproductive, it may turn to the profit of those who bear the expense; if foolish and unproductive, it impoverishes them, since they do not receive any equivalent advantage in return, and it benefits only a few, whose accidental or frivolous and superfluous labor it makes use of. Unfortunately such errors are regarded as incontestable truths and irrefutable axioms, by men who are otherwise most enlightened, in the official world, and they have long been the cause of disorders whose direful consequences are simply incalculable.

LOUIS LECLERC.

SAVINGS BANKS

SAVINGS BANKS. (See BANKS, HISTORY AND MANAGEMENT OF SAVINGS.)

SAXONY

SAXONY. The kingdom of Saxony forms part of the German empire; it has an area of 14,968 square kilometres; its frontiers, with a total length of 1,191 kilometres, border on Prussia to an extent of 306 kilometres, and on Austria to an extent of 644 kilometres; the rest is bounded by various other states of Germany.

—The population of the kingdom of Saxony was 2,225,280 in December, 1861, and 2,556,022 at the end of 1871; in 1880 it was 2,972,805; the country is therefore one of the most densely populated of Europe. In 1815 there were only 1,178,802 inhabitants; the population has therefore more than doubled since that time.

—Constitution. The constitutional act of Saxony dates from Sept. 4, 1831, but it has been modified by the laws of May 5, 1851, Nov. 27, 1860, Oct. 19, 1861, Dec. 3, 1868, and Oct. 12, 1874, without, however, being altered in its spirit. The diet is composed of representatives of the various orders. The first chamber comprises the adult princes, five mediatized lords, two deputies of Protestant establishments, one deputy of a Catholic establishment (stift), one deputy of the university of Leipzig, two Protestant prelates, twelve proprietors of equestrian property elected for life by their order, ten equestrian proprietors appointed for life by the king (the first must possess a net income from lands of 2,000 thalers, and the second of 4,000 thalers), eight burgomasters of the principal cities, and five persons chosen by the king. The second chamber consists of twenty deputies of equestrian proprietors (having an income from land of at least 600 thalers), twenty-five deputies of the cities, twenty-five deputies of the peasants, and ten deputies of the merchants and manufacturers. All these deputies must belong to the order or the class or the district which sends them to the chamber. The whole political organization is conceived in a conservative spirit. Thus, the chambers assemble only every three years; the budget is voted for a triennial period; the deputies are elected for nine years. The formation of political parties is hindered by the fact that the deputies can not choose their own places in the hall where the sittings are held, the places being determined by law or distributed by lot. The government alone has the right of initiative. When a bill has been adopted by one chamber, the other can not reject it except by a majority of two-thirds of the votes of the members present. Ministers can not be impeached except by an agreement of the two chambers. The high court of justice, which is the court of last resort, has jurisdiction in such cases as well as of every question as to the interpretation of the constitution. It is composed of twelve members, of whom six are appointed by the king from among the judges of the kingdom, three by the first and three by the second chamber, outside of the diet; the high court is presided over by one of the presidents of the courts of appeal chosen by the king. In Saxony the power of the crown is less limited than in most other constitutional monarchies, which results in part from the antiquity of the dynasty and in part from the moderation and spirit of justice which, for many generations, have animated the princes of the house of Saxony. However, as long as the royal family remains Catholic, it will not be invested with the episcopal power which Protestant sovereigns enjoy; three or four members of the ministry are charged with the exercise of that power.

—Administration and Justice. The country is divided into four circles (departments) the smallest of which had (1874) 330,000 inhabitants and the largest 959,000 inhabitants. At the head of each circle is a directory charged with the administrative affairs, with those of worship and instruction. The circles are divided into grand bailiwicks (amtshauptmanuschaft) to the number of fifteen in all, and the grand bailiff may be considered as the subdelegate of the directory. In the inferior hierarchical degree of administration we find in forty-eight cities, city (municipal) councils, and in the country 121 bailiwicks (districts of 4,000 to 86,000 inhabitants), which the large proprietors gratuitously aid as justices of the peace. The city communes possess a certain degree of autonomy. Civil justice includes as of first resort the 121 bailiwicks and (for more important matters) sixteen tribunals, whose jurisdictions extend over 84,000 to 265,000 inhabitants; above these tribunals figure four courts of appeal, one in each circle; and finally, the supreme court of appeal (third resort) sits at Dresden. In criminal cases, the trials are public, the pleadings oral, and there is a public prosecutor. Leipzig is the seat of the supreme court of commerce for all Germany.

—Worship and Instruction. There were, in 1874, 1,243 churches, of which 1,211 were Lutheran, distributed among 897 parishes, which form thirty-seven superintendent circumscriptions. There are only 54,000 Catholics in Saxony. Public instruction includes 1,977 primary schools (instruction is obligatory), seventy Sunday schools, eight primary normal schools for male instructors and one for female instructors, eleven gymnasia (lyceums), one university (Leipzig), one academy (school) of mines, two agricultural and forestry institutions, one veterinary school, seven realschulen (schools of the exact sciences), two polytechnic schools (of arts and manufactures), two conservatories of music, two academies of fine arts, five schools of architecture, three commercial schools, etc. There are few countries so rich in institutions of learning, both elementary and superior, in museums, collections, and other means of instruction.

—Finances. In the triennial financial period 1861-3, the revenue, net receipts, was 12,356,352 thalers; in the period 1864-6 it was 13,227,924 thalers; in 1872-3, 13,752,919 thalers, not including the extraordinary budget of nearly 26,000,000, intended for the construction of railways, and derived from the disposable funds of the state, principally from loans. The ordinary revenues, the only ones with which we need to occupy ourselves here, proceeded, in 1872, from the following sources:

Domains:	Thalers.
Forests...	1,727,523
Agricultural domains...	127,074
Mines...	230,000
Royal manufactory of porcelain at Meissen...	48,480
Miscellaneous...	64,813
Total domains...	2,197,890
Crown rights, net product:
Railways...	4,909,200
Taxes on the mines...	261,536
Highway and bridge tolls...	225,965
Miscellaneous...	20,600
Total crown rights...	5,417,301
Special resources (which the Saxon budget wrongly places under the head of "productive capital"):
Interest of debts...	1,230,000
Lottery...	818,520
Charges of justice...	52,900
Reserve of official salaries...	40,950
Miscellaneous...	5,138
Total special resources...	2,147,508
Direct taxes:
Real estate...	1,677,870
Industrial and personal...	1,298,500
Total direct taxes...	2,976,870
Indirect taxes:
Customs and consumption...	613,860
Stamps...	400,000
Total indirect taxes...	1,013,860
Total direct and indirect taxes...	3,990,230

The total amount of the taxes was reduced by the fact that the postoffice, telegraphs, customs, salt and other direct taxes were given to the German empire, which, in return, charged itself with certain expenses. Let us only remark that the customs are mentioned in the above table because Saxony appoints the customs officers the whole length of its frontiers, and retains out of the receipts which it turns into the coffers of the German empire the necessary sums to pay the agents and for material expenses.

—The following are the principal items of expense of the state, in thalers:

The public debt amounted, in 1819, to more than 25,000,000 thalers; in 1842, it had decreased to 13,155,000; in 1861, the construction of the railroads raised it to 56,132,333 thalers bearing interest, and to 7,000,000 of paper not bearing interest. Jan. 1, 1873, the debt amounted to 103,003,250 thalers, besides 12,000,000 of paper money. Eighty-four millions of this debt must be charged to the railways. The property of the state is worth nearly one hundred millions, about eighty-four of which are in real estate, and fourteen millions in personal property.

—Army. Military service is regulated by the German legislation. (See GERMAN EMPIRE.)

—Agricultural and Industrial Resources, etc. The kingdom of Saxony is one of the most advanced countries. Agriculture has been brought to a high degree of perfection. 50.31 per cent. of the total area of the country consists of arable land, 2.85 of gardens, 11.28 of meadows, 0.12 of vineyards, 2.1 of pasture land, 30.95 of forests, and 2.39 of uncultivated lands. The soil is but little parceled out into small properties, for so populous a country. This results in part from the law which permits each rural domain the exploitation of a third only of its extent. The 971 equestrian properties, possessed in part by people who are not nobles, form 13 per cent. of the private estates; 24 per cent. of the remainder of the real estate belongs to inhabitants of the cities, and 63 per cent. to the actual cultivators of the soil. An equestrian property is worth, on an average, 90,000 thalers; six only exceed in value 420,000 thalers. The peasants, free since 1830 from all feudal tax, are in comfortable circumstances; yet, Saxony imports 7.2 per cent. of its consumption of cereals. According to the census of 1873, the country possesses 115,667 horses, 120 asses and mules, 647,074 horned cattle, 206,830 wool-bearing animals, 301,091 hogs, 105,401 goats, and 64,283 hives of bees.

—Saxony is an industrial country, for less than a third of the population lives by agriculture, while more than two-thirds are devoted to industry, commerce and the liberal professions. In 1862 there were in the manufactories 290,108 masters, clerks and workmen. There were employed 303,397 spindles for carding wool, 104,622 for combing wool, 707,387 in the cotton mills, 13,082 in the flax mills, and 520 in the silk manufactories. Small industry gives occupation to 61,129 masters and 101,178 artisans; the corporations did not lose their privileges till 1861. The distribution of steam machines is remarkable: 275 (6,442 horse power) belong to the mines and works; 75 (374 horse power) to agriculture; 32 (630 horse power) to the mills; 247 (30,898 horse power) to the transport establishments; 605 (8,071 horse power) to the manufactories. Progress has been so rapid for some time that in 1874 the number of spindles and that of the machines may be considered to have doubled.

—The value of the commercial movement can not be separately settled, but Saxony must furnish a considerable share to the commerce of the zollverein. The city of Leipzig, notably, is celebrated for its great fairs, where millions of quintals of merchandise are gathered together; this city, besides, is the centre of the German book trade; and it alone has 217 bookstores.

—The length of the state railways in 1874 was 108.8 miles of 7½ kilometres, the cost of constructing which, up to 1871, was 74,479,430 thalers; the length of the private lines is 34.4 miles; the length of the highways is 406 miles, and that of the roads 88½ miles. The postoffice carried, in 1861, 12,083,513 letters and packages, and in 1871, 28,819,176, not including 1,042,381 and 1,841,940 local letters in these years respectively; in 1861, 2,012,433, and, in 1871, 2,902,698 money packages, containing nearly $231,000,000 in 1861, and $279,000,000 in 1871. In 1861 the number of telegraphic dispatches was 4,015 official, and 132,552 private. There are three banks, two of which have the right to issue bank notes.

—Saxony is the country in which saving is carried to the greatest extent. There is a savings bank to every 2.5 square miles (in England to every 9.4, in France to every 24, and in Prussia to every 11); or, one to every 19,400 inhabitants (in England to every 44,300, in France to every 87,000, and in Prussia to every 38,257). There is one depositor out of every 8 inhabitants (in England out of every 18, in France 32, and in Prussia 31). The average amount on each depositor's book has been 59.6 thalers (in England 184, in France 80, and in Prussia 80). Finally, dividing the amount deposited among the whole population, the average is 7.5 thalers to each inhabitant (10.2 in England, 2.5 in France, and 2.6 in Prussia).103

WILLIAM ROSCHER.

SCHOOLS

SCHOOLS. (See EDUCATION AND THE STATE)

SCHURZ

SCHURZ, Carl, was born near Cologne, Germany, March 2, 1829. He took part in the revolutionary troubles of 1848, came to the United States in 1852, entered political life as a republican, and reached the grade of brigadier general during the rebellion. He then settled down to newspaper work, and in 1867 became editor of a St. Louis newspaper. In Missouri he was one of the leaders of the "liberal movement" (see LIBERAL REPUBLICAN PARTY), and was elected United States senator in 1869 for the full term. His ability as a speaker and writer induced the republican party to condone his offense of "liberalism," and he became secretary of the interior under Hayes.

—See Davis and Durrie's History of Missouri, 598; Schurz's Speeches, 1865.

A. J.

SCIENCE

SCIENCE, SOCIAL. (See SOCIAL SCIENCE.)

SCOTLAND

SCOTLAND, the northern part of the island of Great Britain. The length of the mainland, from the Mull of Galloway, in latitude 54° 398acute; north, to Dunnet Head, in Caithness-shire, in latitude 58° 408acute; north, is 278 miles; the breadth, from Buchanness, in Aberdeenshire, in longitude 1° 418acute; west, to the most westerly point in Ross-shire, in longitude 5° 528acute; west, is 150 miles, while between the firths of Forth and Clyde, the breadth is only thirty miles. The area, including the islands, 186 in number, is 29,819.09 square miles, or about half the size of the state of Michigan. Its population in 1881 was 3,735,573; in 1811 it was but 1,805,864.

—Although small in size, thinly populated and poor, Scotland, for many centuries, has occupied an important place in the annals of western Europe. Respectable historians have prefaced the history of Scotland with an imaginary line of kings descended from a fabulous daughter of Pharaoh, called Scota, who, fleeing from the plagues sent to punish her father's obstinacy, peopled Scotland.

—The first reliable knowledge we have of Scotland is derived from Julius Cæsar, who invaded the island in the year 55 B. C. Julius Agricola first explored its northern coasts with his fleet, and informed the Romans that Britain was an island. In the 80th year of the Christian era, Agricola led the legions of Rome across the line which in later days marked the boundary between England and Scotland, and his son-in-law, Tacitus, in recording his achievements, first made Caledonia familiar to the Roman world, and brought a new country within the scope of authentic history.

—Although the Romans effected no permanent conquest beyond the neck of land between the firths of Forth and Clyde, yet they more than once pushed their armies far northward. There are more known Roman ramparts, forts, camps and roads in Scotland than in all the rest of the world—vestiges of a close, continued and doubtful warfare. The Caledonians, who so long and so effectually kept the conquerors of the world at bay, are described as barbarous and warlike, with red hair and large limbs, and rugged as the land they inhabited. They painted their bodies, and could stand great hardships. Their arms were bows and arrows, small shields, short spears, and pointless swords; they fought also with chariots drawn swiftly by small horses. They were polygamous and idolaters, their religion being druidical. The name Caledonia, although used by the Romans, had no place among the natives, whose name for Scotland was Albin. The Roman civilization had no influence on Scotland except as it reached that country in after times from the continent.

—When the Romans withdrew, the inhabitants of Scotland consisted of the Romanized Britons of Strathclyde on the south, the Dalriads, or the Scots of Ireland, on the west, and, largest of all, the kingdom of the Picts, embracing the whole of Scotland northward and eastward from the firth of Forth. The archæological hosts have long fought over the Picts. Were they Celts, or Teutons? Were they the same as the Caledonians of Tacitus, or the Scots of Ireland? What language did they speak? These are questions which will probably never be settled.

—The most important event in the history of the Picts was their conversion to Christianity, in the sixth century, by St. Columba and other missionaries from Ireland, who settled in the isle of Iona.

—When the writers of the early Christian centuries speak of Scotia, they refer to Ireland. The Mull of Cantyre, in Argyleshire, is only twelve miles from the county of Antrim, and the Scots spread in great numbers into Argyle and the western isles, so that there came to be two Scotias, and, prior to the twelfth century, a Scot might have meant a native of Ireland or of Scotland. The colony of Irish Scots in Albania, or present Scotland, continued to enlarge till it became a powerful and compact state, and the term Scotia gradually became dissociated from its original country, and attached entirely to the country which now bears the name.

—How it came about, history does not state; but near the middle of the ninth century the Pictish kingdom disappears from history, and Kenneth MacAlpin, king of the Scots, is found reigning over its people. It is not unlikely that the barbarous Picts succumbed to the superior aggressive civilization of the Scots. At this time the Celts were known as a lettered people, and it is not improbable the Picts felt honored in accepting the Dalriadic sovereign as their own.

—Scotland was long subject to incursions from the great Viking fleets of Scandinavia, and from the fourth to the tenth century large numbers of the Northmen settled on the coasts, and mingled with the existing population or gradually crowded them westward. The population of Scotland is probably of the most composite origin of any nation in Europe, a fact which has, no doubt, greatly influenced their national characteristics. Picts, Francs, Angles, Scoto-Galwegians, Saxons, Celts and Norsemen, all contributed to make the Scotsmen of to-day.

—After Kenneth, the first king of the united Scots and Picts, followed a number of royal successors, such as Gregory the Great, Duncan, and Macbeda or Macbeth, around whom has gathered a most interesting history; but unfortunately it is largely mythical.

—The first monarch of whose coronation we hear, was Malcolm III., son of Duncan, known as Malcolm Canmore, who was crowned at Scone, in 1057. His wife, the good Queen Margaret, or St. Margaret, had a greater influence on the destinies of Scotland than even her husband. Through her influence the "Lord's Day" was first sanctified from labor, and she did much to introduce a higher civilization.

—In the tenth year of Malcolm Canmore's reign occurred the Norman conquest of England. The subjection of the southern kingdom by the restless and ambitious Norman opened a serious future for the Scots, and for centuries they had a ceaseless struggle to prevent their absorption by their aggrandizing and powerful neighbors.

—The system of the Celts, even to their latest times, was patriarchal, and not feudal. The Highlander fought for his chief as the head of his family or clan, and not because he was his landed superior. For the same reason the early Scots fought for their king, who, indeed, was oftener called king of Scots than king of Scotland.

—The Normans gradually introduced the feudal usages of the continent. Under them the king was theoretically the owner of all the land. Those cultivating the lands held them from some lord or superior, who in turn held them from the king or some other superior who did so. Each subordinate had to do homage to his superior for the lands he held, for he held them solely through the special favor of his lord, who, in return, had a right to call for military and other service. The king of Scots had estates in England, and for these, under the feudal system, had to do homage to the king of England as his superior. The English soon claimed that he did homage as king of Scotland to the king of England as his superior, and that the crown of Scotland was vassal to the crown of England. Notwithstanding that folios on folios were written by the English to prove their king lord paramount of Scotland, the Scots contested the claim for generations in many a costly war.

—After Malcolm Canmore came Donald Bane, Duncan II., Edgar, Alexander I., and David I. The last named was the third son of St. Margaret, and succeeded his brother Alexander in 1124. As a true son of his good mother, he had a great influence on the condition of Scotland. In his reign the old traditionary usages were first superseded by written laws. He established the bishoprics of Dunkeld, Moray, Aberdeen, Ross, Caithness, Brechin, Dunblane and Galloway, and built the abbeys of Holyrood, Melrose, Jedburgh, Kelso, Dryburgh, Newbattle and Kinloss. He so lavished the lands of the crown on the Catholic church that King James I. said that "he was ane sair sanct for the crown." David reigned twenty-nine years. He was all to Scotland that Alfred was to England. After him came his grandson, Malcolm IV., who was not twelve years old when he began to reign. He was king twelve years, but leaves no special mark on history.

—He was succeeded, in 1165, by William I., surnamed the "Lion," who was taken captive at the siege of Alnwick. King Henry granted him his release only after he had signed an obligation of absolute homage to the English king for Scotland, and placed the Scots under feudal subjection to England, as if a proud and warlike people could be handed over by a slip of parchment signed under duress. Richard the Lionhearted, of England, for 10,000 marks, released the Scots from all the conditions extorted by his father from William.

—William the Lion was succeeded by his son, Alexander II., a monarch of great wisdom and ability, who was in turn succeeded by his son, Alexander II., whose accidental death left the crown to an infant granddaughter, Margaret, the daughter of the king of Norway, who died in one of the Orkneys, while returning to Scotland. The death of Alexander III. closed a period of prosperity, which the kingdom did not again enjoy for five hundred years. No fewer than ten competitors for the crown appeared, the chief being John Baliol and Robert Bruce, grandfather of the great Bruce. The matter was referred to Edward I. of England, who decided in favor of Baliol, stipulating that he should do homage to him as his feudal superior. The case was under discussion and consideration for eighteen months, and the decision in favor of Baliol was no doubt a correct one according to the law of hereditary descent as now established.

—As Edward claimed to be lord paramount of Scotland, so the king of France made a like claim on England, and summoned Edward as his vassal to appear and do homage before him. King Philip even fixed the day when Edward should appear in Paris. Edward prepared for war, and summoned his vassal Baliol to his aid. In the war between England and France Scotland saw her opportunity, and not only refused to aid England, but formed a league offensive and defensive with France. This was the first of that ancient league which for three centuries bound the kingdoms of France and Scotland in the closest intimacy against their common enemy, England, and had a great influence, not only on the politics of Scotland, but even on its language and manners.

—The Scots invaded England, which so exasperated Edward that he decided to concentrate his force on Scotland, and marched northward as far as Elgin with a great army, taking Berwick, Edinburgh, Stirling, Aberdeen, and all the other strongholds of importance. From the abbey of Scone he carried to Westminster the stone of destiny, the palladium of Scotland It was enshrined in the chair on which the kings of Scotland were crowned. The Scots reverently believed it to be the very stone which Jacob used as a pillow at Bethel, and that it was brought to Scone by Pharaoh's daughter Scota, from whom the Scottish kings were descended. Wherever that stone might go, it was believed the Scots would be supreme, a belief which was confirmed when, afterward, James VI. of Scotland was crowned in Westminster king of England. Edward I., as he marched back, garrisoned the strongholds with English soldiers, and many of the old castles in Scotland must be assigned to this period, 1296, and their style of architecture is properly called Edwardian. The Scots found the English planted in large numbers in strongholds in their very midst, and harassing them in many most ex asperating ways. While the nobility, the natural leaders of the nation, had sworn allegiance to Edward, the smaller gentry and the common people sullenly awaited an opportunity for revenge.

—At this juncture appeared the renowned Sir William Wallace of Ellerslie, not only a brave soldier, but a man of great political and military genius. Gathering around him a band of heroic spirits, he harassed the English till his successes enabled him to collect an army of some 40,000 men, with which he totally defeated a larger English army under Surrey at Stirling bridge. This battle of Stirling bridge gave great encouragement to the Scots, as it showed that their haughty neighbors were not invincible, and being the first pitched battle of importance between the two nations did much to inspire and render permanent that international animosity which has disappeared only in recent years. After defending his country with heroism for several years, Wallace was betrayed into the hands of Edward, who caused him to be executed in London in 1305. His head was placed on London bridge, and a quarter of his body exposed at New Castle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth, respectively. These bloody trophies, far from frightening the Scots into submission, aroused their wrath and strengthened their courage. They only wanted a leader to attempt summary revenge. In the meantime, Edward, believing he had conquered Scotland, took steps to incorporate it with England. The crown was to be represented in Scotland by a governor or lieutenant, to be assisted by a council. Scotland was also to be represented in the English parliament by ten representatives; three were to be selected by the prelates, two by the abbots, two by the earls, two by the barons, and two by the community or commonalty. When parliament met, an ordinance was passed for the government of Scotland, complete in all its details. Edward showed a broad statesmanship in all this, and a desire to propitiate the Scots. Being seventy years of age, he hoped for a peaceful close of his stormy life. But it was too late. The Scots had seen the effect of Norman power in England; and Stirling bridge, Falkirk and the quartering of Wallace, were not to be so easily forgotten.

—In February, 1306, Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, was missed from Edward's court, and it was found that he had left for Scotland. He was now thirty-two years old, and had been carefully trained in the English court. On his way north he met Comyn, his only rival for the crown of Scotland, in the church of the Grey Friars, Dumfries, and during a heated controversy stabbed him with his dagger. He and his followers then attacked the English judges at that time sitting in Dumfries, and drove them across the border. The die was cast, the Rubicon was crossed, and there was no retreat for Bruce. The tidings spread rapidly all over Scotland, that Bruce was in the field against the English, and the people rose like one man. In March of the same year he was crowned king in the chapel royal of Scone. King Edward promptly determined on such an invasion of Scotland as would forever suppress all opposition. The flower of England's chivalry, with all the fighting power of England, was enlisted in the cause; and the king, broken down as he was, exacted a promise that his body should be carried with the army till Scotland was subdued. Some of the nobles of Scotland and Bruce's nearest relatives were executed as traitors, and their bodies quartered; but the Scots were not a servile people, to be cowed by such cruelties, which only served to arouse them to greater deeds of daring. King Edward died within sight of Scotland, on July 7, 1307.

—The first undertakings of Bruce were unfortunate; but the death of King Edward proved a favorable turning point in the destiny of Scotland, for his son, Edward II., was no such leader as a contest like that demanded.

—June 24, 1314, is the most momentous day in Scottish history, the day on which the battle of Bannockburn was fought. The Scots had between 30,000 and 40,000 men, while the English had 100,000. They had, according to agreement, to relieve the English garrison in Stirling castle before St. John's day, or it was to capitulate; and it therefore behooved them to attack the Scots in a field which the latter had selected in front of Stirling. The generalship of Bruce and the bravery of his men inflicted on England, that day, a defeat and a humiliation greater than ever befell her in all her history before or since, with the exception of the battle of Hastings. Her mighty host became a very chaos. The confusion of their flight was irremediable. The booty obtained was very rich, and articles taken at Bannockburn were treasured as heirlooms for centuries. An immense sum was also acquired by the Scots as ransoms for their noble captives.

—The battle of Bannockburn marks an important epoch in Scottish history. The patriotic feelings excited and the glory acquired on that day consolidated the nation as it had never been before. It engraved on the Scottish heart a pride of their independence as a nation, which for centuries prevented a union with England; and to this day, like Thermopylæ and Marathon, it fires many a heart with an enthusiasm for liberty. The war continued for fourteen years longer, during which time England was twelve times invaded, and ravaged with fire and sword; and Edward III. was compelled to ratify a treaty in 1328, in which the claims of Bruce and the independence of the kingdom were acknowledged.

—David II. was only eight years old at his father's death, in 1329, and Randolph, earl of Murray, was appointed regent. Edward Baliol, son of John Baliol, being assisted by Edward III. of England, claimed the throne, and was crowned at Scone in 1332. David, being a mere boy, was sent to France, and Baliol, being defeated soon afterward by the supporters of the Bruce dynasty, fled into England. An active warfare continued along the borders, the Scots making a diversion in favor of their ally, France, on whose soil the English king about this time gained the famous battles of Crecy and Poitiers. David returned from France in 1341, and though but eighteen years of age, he at once put himself at the head of his forces, and while invading England was taken prisoner, and remained one for eleven years. He reigned thirty-nine years, and was succeeded by Robert II. (1371-90), grandson of Bruce of Bannockburn, being the son of his daughter Marjory, and Walter, lord high steward of Scotland, whence came the name of the Stuart dynasty, of which he was the first. Probably no regal line ever encountered so many misfortunes as did the royal house of Stuart, of more than one of whom it has truly been said that they never learned and never forgot. He was succeeded by his son, Robert III. (1390-1406), who being weak-minded, the government devolved upon the duke of Albany. He killed the king's oldest son, David, and his second son, James, fleeing to France, was captured by the English, and detained as a prisoner for nineteen years, during the greater part of which time Albany ruled as regent. It was now over one hundred years after Bannockburn when James I., being ransomed, began his reign, in 1424 He was an accomplished prince, poet and legislator, and made many necessary reforms in the administration of the country, establishing the court of session and other tribunals. He with a firm hand checked the powerful and turbulent nobility, and did much to introduce law and order. He was cruelly assassinated (1437) in the midst of his beneficent work, leaving his son, James II., then a boy of but six years of age, to succeed him. He was a brave and vigorous ruler, and was killed by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh, in 1460.

—James III., his son, was crowned when seven years old. He was unpopular with the nobility, who rebelled against him, and persuading his son, a youth of sixteen, to join them, the king was defeated and slain in the battle of Sanchieburn in 1488—His rebellious son succeeded, as James IV., in the sixteenth year of his age. In 1489 he married Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII. of England, and from this marriage eventually came the union of the crowns of England and Scotland. This Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., being great-grandmother of James VI. of Scotland, on the issue of Henry VIII. becoming extinct by the death of Elizabeth, James was next heir. James IV., desirous of assisting his ally, France, declared war against Henry VIII. of England, and was slain on Flodden Field, in 1513, where Scotland suffered the greatest defeat in her national annals. Twelve earls, thirteen lords, five eldest sons of noblemen, and an immense number of barons, fell with their king, and the land became one house of mourning.

—At the death of James IV. his son James V. was but five months old, and the office of regent was conferred on his cousin John, duke of Albany. James first married Magdalen, daughter of Francis I., king of France, who dying without issue, he married Mary of Lorraine, daughter of the duke of Guise. By her he had two sons, who died young, and in 1542 the queen was delivered of a daughter, the famous but unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots. When she was seven days old her father died of a broken heart, caused by the mutinous conduct of his nobles, and the defeat of his army at Solway Moss. When told of the birth of his daughter, the dying man is said to have murmured, "It came with a lass, and it will go with a lass," in allusion to the throne coming to the Stuarts by the daughter of Bruce. Little did he think that the son of that lass, now but seven days old, would sit on the English throne. James V. was affectionately remembered by his people as the "King of the Commons," and he long held a place in literary renown as the "People's Poet."

—It will help us somewhat to realize the troublous character of the times and the unhappy condition of Scotland, to state that, from 1390, when Robert III. began to reign, to 1567, when James VI., thirteen months old, succeeded his mother Queen Mary, a period of 177 years, every king of Scotland was succeeded by a minor. During all those years the nation was shaken by the continued quarrels of the nobles. They were a haughty, fierce and turbulent class, those Hamiltons, Huntleys, Douglasses, Albanys, Atholes, Arrans and Argyles. Combining the most indomitable courage with an utter want of principle, they seldom hesitated to endanger the interests of their sovereign, and even the interests of their country, to avenge fancied insults to their family, or to carry on personal feuds. Still, the country was advancing in wealth, and gradually taking an influential place among the powers of Europe, notwithstanding the clouds of misfortune which had encircled the personal history of her Jameses. "Battle, murder and death had swept away four of them, the fifth died of a spirit broken down by the weight of calamities."

—During the latter part of the reign of James V. Protestantism began to make considerable headway in Scotland. Although she had for centuries been a faithful daughter of the Roman Catholic church, she was so far removed from Rome that she received but little of that attention bestowed so assiduously on the powerful countries of continental Europe. On this account her clergy had received but little supervision, and had become very ignorant and very corrupt. For this reason the hold of the Catholic church upon the moral sense of the people was very weak, and it was not a difficult task to alienate them from the papal see. Under Henry VIII. England had become a base of operations whence those who favored the Protestant faith could influence Scotland. Attempts made by Cardinal Beaton, the Catholic primate, to crush out the spirit of inquiry by persecution, not only failed in their object, but had a contrary effect.

—With the rise of Protestantism, there came a party in Scotland which preferred an alliance with England to the ancient league with France; and by and by two well-defined parties existed, the Protestant or English party, and the Catholic or French party. The Protestant party hoped to unite the crowns of England and Scotland by the marriage of the Princess Mary, the young Queen of Scots, to Edward, son of Henry VIII., and they might have succeeded had it not been for the imperious conduct of Henry, who so roused the Scottish pride that the Catholic party gained the consent of the nation to her marriage with the dauphin of France, an event which brought upon her and upon Scotland many trying calamities. Mary, through the influence of her mother and the French party, was sent to France to be educated, when only six years old. In 1558 she married Francis, then dauphin, afterward king, of France; but, he dying without issue, she returned to Scotland, and in July, 1565, married Henry Stuart, known as Lord Darnley. It was a fearful mistake, for there was scarcely the vestige of a good quality to be found in his character. He was vicious, vainglorious, presumptuous—a fool. On June 19, 1566, a son was born, who was afterward James VI. of Scotland and James I. of England. Darnley was murdered in February, 1567, and in May of the same year Mary married the earl of Both well, who was generally believed to have directed the murder. The nobles soon after drove Both well out of the kingdom, and, having confined Mary in Lochleven castle, compelled her to abdicate in favor of her infant son, with her half-brother, the earl of Murray, as regent. She escaped from Lochleven, and rallied a powerful force around her, which was defeated at Langside by the regent Murray. Mary then fled to England, claiming the protection of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, but this princess ungenerously confined her in different prisons for eighteen years, and then the accomplished and beautiful, but most indiscreet and unfortunate, Mary Queen of Scots, being accused of conspiring against the life of Elizabeth, died with heroic bravery on the scaffold at Fotheringay castle, on Feb 8, 1587. There is probably no instance in history where one so able, lovely and accomplished became to such a marked degree the victim of untoward circumstances. Her life proved a burden to herself and a misfortune to her people.

—From the time of her father's death to that of her own, the religious aspect of Scotland had undergone a most wonderful change. While she was in France, and her mother, Mary of Lorraine, was regent, the conflict between the Catholic and the Protestant faith was intense. During those eventful years, when individual convictions were struggling with the traditions of centuries, and the religious thoughts and emotions of the people were stirred to their depths, there appeared upon the scene a man of no ordinary power, the fearless, stern, eloquent reformer, John Knox. His life and work have made a more marked impression on Scotland than those of any other man, and no grander figure can be found in the history of Protestantism in Great Britain. It can hardly be doubted that Knox saved Protestantism in Scotland, and in saving it in Scotland he saved it in England; for, if Scotland had been Catholic, it would have furnished the great Catholic powers of the continent a base of operations against England, and in all probability, under such circumstances, a revolution would soon have driven Elizabeth from the throne, and England would have been reclaimed to the Catholic church. But Knox breathed into the commons of his country a spirit which lives to-day, a spirit of individuality and independence which taught them that the humblest peasant, as an immortal soul, is equal in the sight of God to the proudest peer. They may have been hard, narrow and fanatical, but, "heated red-hot in the furnace of a new faith," they could never again be trodden under the foot of tyranny. Protestantism in England proceeded from the king downward, but in Scotland it originated and developed in the bosom of the people themselves. Many of the nobility joined the Protestant ranks from mercenary motives, but the common people did so from their convictions of right. Knox tried to have the lands and revenues of the church set apart for educational purposes, but the greed of the nobility was too much even for him. The year before Mary returned from France, 1560, a meeting of the estates abolished forever in Scotland the power and jurisdiction of the papal see, and made the confession of faith drawn up by Knox and his associates the standard of faith in Scotland.

—Mary on her return failed to understand the true state of affairs. She had been educated in a wrong school to meet in a conciliatory spirit the public feeling of Scotland as it now was. If she had but realized that Scotland could not be brought back to the Catholic church, and conformed herself to the necessities of her condition, she might have reigned a happy queen over a happy people; but that was not to be.

—Mary's son, James VI., had been crowned king in 1567, when but thirteen months old. His uncle, earl of Murray, who was appointed regent, being assassinated in 1570, the office was held in succession by the earls of Lennox, Mar and Morton, when the king took the reins into his own hands. During the government of the regents the kingdom was distracted by civil wars, which continued largely to partake of a religious character. Protestantism retained its supremacy, and Presbyterianism became the established religion of the country. At three o'clock, Thursday morning, March 24, 1603, Queen Elizabeth died; and, a feat unmatched in that age, Sir Robert Cary galloped into Holyrood Court on Saturday night and wakened King James to announce to him that he was monarch of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. The two nations, which for centuries had been bitter enemies, and had crossed swords on a hundred bloody fields, were now united under one head. On the 5th of April James set out for London, and as he journeyed leisurely through England he was received with enthusiasm everywhere. He arrived in London on the 22d of May, to take possession of the government of his new state, and at this point ends the history of Scotland as a distinct kingdom.

—The domestic condition of Scotland was but slowly influenced by the union of the crowns, but its external relations underwent a radical change. The ancient league with France, though never formally abrogated, was now and forever after a dead letter, while it was a matter of pride to the Scots that their king now ruled over their "auld enemy," England. The national institutions of Scotland remained untouched, so that from this source there was nothing to arouse their national jealousy. The parliament still remained in Edinburgh, and there was no occasion for the nobility and landed gentry to go to London, as was the case in 1707, when the union of parliaments took place. However, as the way was now open, a large number of Scots flocked southward to better their condition, and they generally succeeded. Political economy was not understood then, and then, and the prosperity of the Scots was supposed to be at the cost of the English, and in consequence they were much disliked and much maligned.

—Immediately after the accession of James, steps were taken for an incorporating union of the kingdoms, which signally failed. It was proposed that the new state should be called "Great Britain," a name which the king himself claimed to have suggested. A decision by the courts, that all persons born in Scotland after the union of the crowns in 1603 were entitled to all the privileges of Englishmen, did more than anything else to unite the two peoples. An attempt was made to force the church of Scotland to adopt the episcopal form of government; but it failed, and James gave it up as a hopeless task "to make that stubborn kirk stoop more to the English pattern."

—For centuries Scotsmen found their native land too small for their energies, and both before and after this period, under Gustavus, Frederick and Peter the Great, as well as in the Low Countries, France and even in Turkey, they in large numbers attained distinction; and, now that the era of colonization and commerce had dawned, they were not slow to avail themselves of its opportunities. This was first manifested in the settlement of New Scotland, or Nova Scotia.

—Charles I., on his accession, learning nothing from the past, commanded the use of Laud's liturgy in the churches in Scotland, as "the only form which we think fit to be used in God's public worship in this our kingdom." An outbreak was of course unavoidable, and tumults arose in various parts of the kingdom. Under the lead of Archibald Johnston of Warriston, the solemn league and covenant was renewed. In 1638 it was signed in Greyfriar's churchyard amid the wildest enthusiasm, some drawing their own blood, which they used for ink. It has been estimated that a large proportion of the adult male community of Scotland subscribed their adherence to it, as copies were placed in all the churches and other public places. The cause of their national religion had come to be considered as one with that of their national independence.

—The close of the thirty years war released thousands of Scottish soldiers experienced in the wars of Europe, who now returned home and contributed not a little to the important part which Scotland took in the great civil wars of the seventeenth century.

—After the restoration of Charles II. to the throne, in 1660, unmindful of the failures of his father and grandfather in a similar attempt, he tried to force episcopacy on the Scottish church, but he met with most ignominious failure.

—The estates of Scotland were not slow to indorse the revolution of 1689, and to tender the crown of Scotland to William and Mary, declaring that King James VII. had "forefaulted" all right to the crown. The attempt to compel the Highlanders to conform to the new state of affairs resulted in one of the most cruel and treacherous transactions which has ever blackened history. It is known as the massacre of Glencoe, and occurred in 1692, leaving a stain upon the name of William of Orange, which his admirers have found it hard to wipe out.

—Now that the activity and enterprise of the Scots could no longer find a field in the wars of their country against England, or in the greater contests of continental Europe, they began to make themselves felt in the field of commerce. Wm. Paterson founded the bank of England in 1695, while, some years later, John Law drove France wild with his Mississippi company and other financial bubbles. The Darien and African companies were products of the same period, all showing the active though misguided enterprise of the Scottish mind at that time.

—On the accession of Queen Anne, in 1702, the first business of importance which came up was to incorporate the union of the two kingdoms. The succession to the throne and the union of the two parliaments were readily agreed upon, but the English commissioners would not agree to allow the Scots to participate equally with them in the foreign and colonial trade, and the negotiations were a failure. In April, 1706, a new set of commissioners, representing both kingdoms, met at Whitehall; in two short months their labors were finished; and so much and so important business has probably never been concluded in so short a time. The union was bitterly opposed in Scotland; but, after nine months' discussion, on Oct. 16, 1707, an act ratifying its terms was passed in the estates by a vote of 110 to 69. At this time the population of England was about 6,000,000, while that of Scotland was probably not over 1,000,000. Nothing so much reconciled the Scots to the union as the prospect of equality in trading privileges and reciprocity of citizenship.

—George I., the first of the Hanoverian line, was proclaimed king on Aug. 5, 1714, at the market cross of Edinburgh, amid apparent quietness through the whole country. Next year, however, the chiefs of the Highlands, under the carl of Mar, commenced a Jacobite insurrection in the north, which, although encouraged by the appearance in Scotland of the pretender, the son of James VII., was speedily suppressed. This added greatly to the stability of the new government, which now attempted to disarm the Highlands, and in the interests of peace constructed a system of excellent roads through that heretofore almost impassable region. The Highlanders were irritated by and restless under the industrial civilization of the Saxon, and when Prince Charles Edward, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," the oldest son of the pretender, under promise of help from France, raised his standard at Glenfinnan, in August, 1745, many a chieftain with his clan rallied around him. The Jacobite army, marching southward, after defeating Gen. Cope at Preston Pans, entered Edinburgh in triumph. With an army of but 6,000 men, remarkable to say, the prince pushed as far as Derby, only two days' march from London, when the approach of the duke of Cumberland with a larger force compelled him to retreat. On April 16, 1746, his halfstarved, exhausted army was routed on the field of Culloden, and with it forever fell the house of Stuart.

—The British government, unwilling to lose the benefit of the fighting qualities of the Highlanders, organized Highland regiments, with Highland officers and Highland uniforms, nine of which are still in the British army. These regiments have become famous for their never-failing bravery, shown on many a well-fought field in every quarter of the globe. The Gælic-speaking population of Scotland in 1881 numbered only 231,594, or 6.20 of the whole.

—For years the union was very unpopular in Scotland, and it was some time before its beneficent effects began to be felt. In recent times the prosperity of Scotland has been such as could never have been possible without the union. Although occasionally at the present time complaints are made that Scotland receives neither her share of parliamentary attention, nor her proportion of disbursements from the imperial treasury, yet no voice is ever heard expressing a doubt as to the beneficial results of the union.

—While Scotland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, she still retains her own courts and practices of law, and her own church government. At the head of the judiciary is the court of session, which consists of thirteen judges, and is supreme in civil cases. Five of its judges comprise the court of justiciary, which is supreme in criminal cases. The full court sits in Edin burgh, but circuit courts are held in the principal cities of the country. Criminals are indicted by the lord advocate or his deputies, and are tried at the expense of the state. In case of the lord advocate failing to prosecute, any private person may do so on his own responsibility. Criminal cases are tried by a jury of fifteen persons, a majority only being necessary for a verdict; and when the case is not clear, a verdict of "not proven" may be brought in. Appeals from the Scottish courts go to the house of lords. The subordinate courts in the counties are held by justices of the peace, and the sheriffs, the functions of the latter being judicial in Scotland, and not ministerial, as in England.

—In the cities the chief magistrate is not called the mayor, but the "lord provost," and the aldermen are called "baillies." In many particulars the law as well as the titles and duties of public functionaries differ wholly from those of England and the United States, and show distinct traces of the ancient league with France.

—The Scottish peers elect sixteen of their number to represent them in the house of lords; but, in addition, many Scottish peers, being also British peers, sit in the house of lords in their own right. and without an election. Scotland is represented in the house of commons by sixty members, of whom thirty-two represent the counties, twenty-six the burghs, and two the universities. Fifty out of the sixty members belong to the liberal party. The strength of the bodies dissenting from the established church has probably much to do with Scotland being so overwhelmingly liberal in politics. The number of electors on the registers in 1881 were: in the counties, 98,328; in the burghs, 216,851.

—The established church of Scotland is Presbyterian in form of church government. It embraces but a minority of the people, two non-established Presbyterian churches, the Free and United Presbyterian, having together more adherents than the state church. Some sanguine minds think the day is not far distant when the church of Scotland will be disestablished, and all the Presbyterian bodies of the country be united in one grand Presbyterian church, the church of almost all the people of Scotland. The Free church left the established church in 1843 under the lead of the celebrated Dr. Thomas Chalmers, and the result was another church and manse in almost every parish in Scotland.

—For centuries Scotland had a system of national education superior to that of any country in Europe. As early as 1262, Master Thomas Bennum writes himself as "Rector Scholarum de Aberdeen," and in 1478 the master of the "Grammar Schules of Aberdene" had a salary of £5 annually. John Knox and his associates, 300 years ago, ordained that there should be a school in every parish, and there is no doubt but that to her parish school system is to be attributed the high place her sons have commanded in the fields of religion, literature and science. It was truthfully said of Scotland that every Scot had a mouthful of learning, but not a mouthful of meal. The imperial parliament has, in a recent educational act, wholly changed the system in Scotland by providing for local school boards and compulsory education. The number receiving education in 1881 was 720,099, being 19.28 of the whole population. Of those between the ages of five and fifteen no fewer than 79 per cent. were receiving education, which will compare favorably with the school statistics of any state in the American Union. There are four universities in Scotland, viz., St. Andrew's, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, founded, respectively, in 1411, 1450, 1494 and 1582. They are more popular in their privileges than those of England, and were framed after the pattern of the continental universities of the fifteenth century. During the session of 1880-81 there were 6.619 students of all classes in attendance. The graduates elect two members of parliament; those of Aberdeen and Glasgow electing one, and those of Edinburgh and St. Andrew's the other.

—Out of 20,000,000 acres of land in Scotland only 5,000,000 can be cultivated, yet her agriculture is not surpassed by any country in the world. Her deposits of iron and coal are very rich, and her shipbuilding and manufacturing interests are very large. The tonnage built on the Clyde is larger than that on any other river on the globe, and Glasgow is the second city of importance in the British empire.

—There has been a great reduction in pauperism and crime during the last ten years. In 1872 there were 117,611 paupers, while in 1881 there were only 97,787; in like manner the number of convicted criminals fell from 2,259 in 1872 to 1,832 in 1881, showing a remarkable diminution of crime as well as pauperism accompanying an increase of population.

—Notwithstanding the barren soil, the inhospitable skies and the scant population of Scotland, few nations, since the days of ancient Greece, have produced so many names illustrious as historians, philosophers, scholars, essayists, novelists, scientists, theologians and poets.104

—BIBLIOGRAPHY. The historical works of Buchanan; Hume, Lond., 1657; Guthrie, 10 vols., Lond., 1767; Dalrymple, 2 vols., Edinb., 1776-9; Robertson, 2 vols., Lond., 1758; Pinkerton, 2 vols., Lond., 1797; Heron, 6 vols., Pesth, 1794-9; Laing, 4 vols., Lond., 1804, new ed., 1819; Chalmers, 2 vols., Edinb., 1807-10; Mackintosh, 2 editions, Lond., 1822. Further, Tytler, History of Scotland, 8 vols., Edinb., 1826-34, 3d ed., 1845; Lindau, Geschichte Schottlands, 4 vols., Dresd., 1827; Scott, History of Scotland, 2 vols., Lond., 1830; Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, from the Reformation to the Revolution, 3 vols., Edinb., 1859- 61; Burton, History of Scotland, 7 vols., Lond., 1867-70, 2d ed., 8 vols., Lond. and Edinb., 1873-4; Mackenzie, History of Scotland, Edinb., 1867; Burns, Scottish War of Independents: Its Antecedents and Effects, 2 vols., Glasgow, 1874. The earliest history of Scotland is treated of by Leslie, 2 vols., Edinb., 1866, and Skene, Celtic Scotland: History of Ancient Alban, 2 vols., Edinb., 1876-7.

JOHN JOHNSTON.

SCOTT

SCOTT, Winfield, was born near Petersburgh, Va., June 13, 1786, and died at West Point, May 29, 1866. He was educated at William and Mary college, and was admitted to the bar in 1806, but three years afterward obtained a captain's commission in the army. During the ensuing war he rose rapidly to the rank of major general. He remained in the army at the end of the war, becoming commander-in-chief in 1841. His peace service was varied by an abortive quarrel wrongfully forced upon him by Jackson; the latter accusing him of "pompous insolence," "slander," and "the designs of an assassin"; and by services during the nullification excitement at Charleston 1832-3, and on the Canadian and Maine frontier in 1837-41, in both of which he judiciously and successfully attempted to keep the peace. During the Mexican war he assumed chief command of the army, and captured Mexico. In 1852 he was the last candidate of the whig party for the presidency. In 1859 he was made lieutenant general of the army. He was too far advanced in years to come up to the high expectations of the public, and in November, 1861, he retired from active service. See his Autobiography, and Mansfield's Life of Scott.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

SCRATCHING

SCRATCHING. The rejection of a candidate by drawing a line through his name on the printed ballot, whether or not the voter writes in another name in its place. In the "Australian system" of voting, for some time in use in England, the names of all candidates are printed on an official ballot, and the voter designates those for whom he votes by "scratching" the other names. In the United States the name and practice have been identified with "independent" voting, and the practice of scratching the names of unsatisfactory candidates from the ballot supplied to the voter by his own party, and replacing them with names from the opposite ticket or of his own choice, has long been common with individuals as a means of protest. The term acquired political notoriety in 1879, when a number of younger republicans in New York state, having little or no previous connection with politics except as individual voters, united against "the machine," and advised the "scratching" from the republican ticket of the name of the candidate for governor, Alonzo B. Cornell. and that of the candidate for state engineer, Howard Soule. The reasons for this action were: the dissatisfaction with the Saratoga convention, and the belief that under the control of the "machine" leaders the republican party could not win in the presidential election of 1880. The call for what afterward became the independent republican organization, popularly known as the "young scratchers," was a private letter printed in the "New York Evening Post," of Sept. 6, 1879; and the name of "scratchers" came from a phrase in the address soon after issued to republican voters, which concluded: "We urge true republicans not to stay at home from the polls, not to bolt, but to scratch, not to desert their party, but to attempt to purify it from within. We believe this is the only means to insure in 1880 the needed republican victory, not of politicians, but of statesmen who may be trusted to carry into practical operation the republican principles of national supremacy, sound finance, and administrative reform." The movement was much ridiculed by the party press, but the election showed that Gov. Cornell fell behind his ticket 19,686 votes, a fact which became an important factor in the succeeding presidential campaign.

R. R. BOWKER.

SEARCH

SEARCH, Right of. M. Hautefeuille is of opinion that the search of vessels at sea is not, properly speaking, a right, but the manner of exercising various rights which may belong to belligerents.

—Martens expresses himself thus: "The mere hoisting of a neutral flag by a merchant vessel met with, not being sufficient proof that it is not a vessel of the enemy, natural law can not refuse to belligerent powers the right of searching merchant vessels encountered by their men of war or privateers in a place where it would be allowable to seize an enemy's vessel, and therefore to conduct such vessels into port if the proof that they are not subject to confiscation be insufficient. But according to universal international law, the decision of the suit between the subjects of the two nations as to the lawfulness of the capture does not belong exclusively to either of them, and in default of an amicable settlement, a mixed tribunal must be established to decide it. (Précis du droit des gens, t. ii., § 317.) A merchant vessel which refuses to allow itself to be searched is suspect, and runs the risk of being declared a good prize.

—M. Cauchy is right in saying that "the right of search would never have given rise to any objections if the thing had not gone beyond what the term conveys." It is against the abuse of it that objection has been taken; for, as Hubner, Lampredi, and, we may say, all impartial men, acknowledge, the flag is not of itself a proof of the nationality of a vessel; it is also necessary to know if the ship has a right to the colors which it carries.

—M. Cauchy (Droit Maritime, t. i., p. 55) distinguishes three degrees of verification: 1, the production of a pass, or congé du prince, a naval passport which shows the nationality, the port from which the vessel sailed, and its destination: 2, the representation of the charter parties or freighting, in which are found the nature and the quantity of the merchandise on board; and 3, the visit of the vessel, or the direct search of its contents. The first two means have raised no serious debate, while the third has been much disputed. M. Cauchy compares the first two modes of verification to the proofs usual in civil procedure, and the third to a beginning of criminal proceedings. The visit of a ship appears to us a means which should be employed only in cases where there is suspicion that it carries contraband of war, or where there is suspicion of any other serious fraud. As a rule, the ship's papers should be sufficient.

—It appears clearly from the foregoing that the right of visit is practiced only in time of war; in time of peace there would be no occasion for visiting a ship except in pursuance of especial conventions, and for the object indicated in such conventions. Thus, the United States and England concluded, April 9, 1862, a treaty granting to each other for a period of ten years the mutual right of visit and search of vessels suspected of being engaged in the slave trade. France did not ratify a similar treaty proposed by England in 1841; but she concluded another, May 29, 1845, which shows clearly her repugnance to grant this right, under no matter what pretext, in time of peace.

—Men of war are not, in any case, subject to the right of visit or search.

MAURICE BLOCK.

SECESSION

SECESSION (IN U. S. HISTORY). The constitutional apology for the right of secession by one of the states of the American Union may be very briefly dismissed; it is entirely dependent upon the theory of state sovereignty. (See that title.) Grant that the states are still individually sovereign; that their citizens owe a primary allegiance and obedience to their state, and a secondary obedience to the federal government because their state remains a member of the Union; that the Union is a voluntary confederacy, not a nation: and the right of secession must be admitted as a matter of course. The advisability of secession, the propriety of severing the ancient relations with friendly and confederate states, is entirely a matter for the state's decision: when the decision is made, every law-abiding citizen is bound by his allegiance to his state to obey it. (See ALLEGIANCE, III.) However fallacious the doctrine of state sovereignty and its progeny, secession, may be, there is at least this apology for the action of the seceding states in 1860-61: that the doctrine of state sovereignty, in both its premises and its consequences, had been familiar almost from antiquity; that its technical language had been used constantly, even by those who would have scouted its logical consequences, and that the system of negro slavery, with all its countless influences, had shut out the south from that educational process which had made state sovereignty either a meaningless formula, or a political heresy, in the north and west. (See NATION.) It must be noticed, however, that the right of secession has never been admitted by any department of the national government: joint or separate resolutions have been passed by the two houses of congress, asserting the sovereignty of the states; decisions have been made by the supreme court of much the same character; but the right of secession itself has never been admitted. Leaving the theory of state sovereignty to be considered under its appropriate head, it is the object of this article to trace the more practical idea of secession in our history: I., as a mere incident of particularism, of state sovereignty; II., as complicated with slavery; and III., in practice.

—I. The union of 1643 (see NEW ENGLAND UNION) experienced in miniature most of the perils to which the perfected and national Union was afterward exposed: nullification attacked its commercial regulations, and even put a veto on its wars; but its final disappearance was due not so much to any secession as to the inherent weakness of its nature, and the dislike of the crown. With the introduction of the attempt at a more general union in 1754 (see ALBANY PLAN OF UNION), the idea of secession first comes plainly into view. The plan of Franklin contemplated its establishment by act of parliament, a very unusual acknowledgment of the power of parliament over the colonies. In explanation of this feature of his plan, he states the various interests of the colonies, and their jealousy of one another, and adds: "If ever acts of assembly in all the colonies could be obtained for that purpose, yet as any colony, on the least dissatisfaction, might repent its own act, and thereby withdraw itself from the union, it would not be a stable one, or such as could be depended on; for, if only one colony should, on any disgust, withdraw itself, others might think it unjust and unequal that they, by continuing in the union, should be at the expense of defending a colony which refused to bear its proportionable part, and could therefore one after another withdraw, till the whole crumbled into its original parts." The theory of secession could hardly be more exactly stated; in its final application in practice it was only improved in one respect, the passage of the ordinances of secession by state conventions, instead of by the assemblies.

—Accession to, and secession from, any union, were of course equally unconstitutional, without the king's consent, while the colonies remained a part of the British empire. But, as the American revolution itself was frequently appealed to in after years, as the first great example of, and precedent for, secession, it may be well to lay stress here on one essential difference between them, that the former was an exercise of the undeniable right of revolution, a revolt of an unrepresented fraction of the empire against the usurpations of parliament, and afterward against the king for sustaining parliament; while the latter was attempted to be justified as a constitutional right of the states, which could not rightfully be resisted by any other state, by all the other states, or by the federal government. A revolt of a territory, unrepresented in the federal government, against what it might consider the usurpation of the federal government, and its attempt to establish a separate government, might claim the American revolution as a precedent; the seceding states in 1860-61 could not. A revolutionist hazards his life upon the issue, with the pains and penalties of treason as a possible result; a secessionist claims all the advantages of revolution, without any of its responsibilities or dangers.

—Notwithstanding the early and general dissemination of the theory of state sovereignty, its practical consequence, the right of secession, was for some years unheard of, perhaps unthought of. Until 1783 the common dangers of war were a fence outside of which none of the thirteen states dared to stray; after 1783 the authority of the congress of the confederation was so weak a fence that none of the states cared to give it importance by formally demolishing it. The ugly word "secession" first appears in the convention of 1787, July 5, though it then referred to the states as represented in the convention itself: Gerry remarked that, unless some compromise should be made, "a secession, he foresaw, would take place." The subsequent ratification of the constitution by eleven of the thirteen states, on the original refusal of Rhode Island and North Carolina to ratify, has often been appealed to as a brilliant example of peaceable secession; and so it must be considered, if the ratifications were really, as they purported to be, the acts of "sovereign states." The articles of confederation had expressly provided that no change should be made in them unless with the assent of the legislatures of every state; and yet, in the face of this covenant, eleven of the states not only formed a new government, but inserted in it a provision for future amendment by three-fourths of the states. On the theory that the states were sovereign until the adoption of the constitution, how can such a proceeding be anything but a secession, albeit of the majority from the minority? But another power was present in the ratification, the power which had held the states together even before the adoption of the articles of confederation, the sovereign power of the nation, of the national people as distinguished from the people of the state. Its non-recognition by the state conventions can not alter the fact of its already established existence; and, without its existence, the assumptions of the continental congress, from 1775 until the ratification of the confederation in 1781, would be even a more colossal sham than the ratification of the constitution. The historic truth is, that the people of the nation, which had alone validated the revolutionary acts of the continental congress, and which had tolerated the articles of confederation, had now at last interposed to bring order out of chaos; that it was disposed to deal very tenderly with the rights and even with the prejudices of the peoples of the several states; that it chose to maintain state lines in the ratifications; but that, when nine of the states, including a heavy majority of the territory, wealth and population of the nation, had expressed their decision in favor of the new form of government, factious opposition was to cease. It is true that the status of the possible non-ratifying states was carefully ignored everywhere, as being what the "Federalist" called a "delicate question"; but it is impossible to suppose that two, or even four, recalcitrant states would ever have been allowed to escape from the national jurisdiction. Gouverneur Morris' warning in the convention of 1787, July 5, "This country must be united; if persuasion does not unite it, the sword will," which provoked so much contrary feeling, was the simple truth. The forms of ratification would never have been neglected; but ratification, willing or unwilling, would have been extorted from Rhode Island and North Carolina by a pressure increasing continually until finally successful. The passage of the senate bill, May 18, 1790, to prohibit bringing goods, wares and merchandise from the state of Rhode Island "into the United States, "and to authorize a demand of arrears of money from the said state, is a fair example of the sort of pressure which would have been increased indefinitely but for the ratification by the state on the 29th of the same month. The nation has always been thus gentle and considerate in allowing the assertion of state sovereignty in non-essentials; in essentials state sovereignty must yield or be crushed.

—Under the constitution the Union was at first spared any internal dissensions of such magnitude as to suggest secession as a remedy. Projects for separation from the Union were undoubtedly on foot before 1795 in Kentucky (see that state), and in western Pennsylvania (see WHISKY INSURRECTION); but these were rather the product of frontier freedom from restraint than the consequence of state sovereignty. Soon after 1795 a series of articles were published in the "Connecticut Courant," urging "the impossibility of union for any long period in the future," and laying down the permanent dogma that "there can be no safety to the northern states without a separation from the confederacy." These letters met no general approval in the north, and the election of Adams to the presidency in 1796 took away for the time their moving cause, a fear of southern domination in the federal government. The idea of state sovereignty, with secession as a possible consequence, next appeared, on the other side of Mason and Dixon's line, in 1798. (See KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS.) The author of the Kentucky resolutions, Jefferson, explains his feeling on the subject of secession at some length in his letter of June 1, 1798, to John Taylor. "If, on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, no federal government can ever exist. It, to rid ourselves of the present rule of Massachusetts and Connecticut, we break the Union, will the evil stop there? Suppose the New England states alone cut off, will our natures be changed? Are we not men still to the south of that, and with all the passions of men? Immediately we shall see a Pennsylvania and a Virginia party arise in the residuary confederacy. If we reduce our Union to Virginia and North Carolina, they will end by breaking into their simple units. Seeing that we must have somebody to quarrel with, I had rather keep our New England associates for that purpose." The objections, it will be noticed, lie to the advisability, not to the right, of secession. This defect, however, was common to most of the public men of the time; and for years afterward state sovereignty, with all its consequences, was the first refuge of a minority. The existence of the nation was hardly recognized, even by the courts, for twenty years after 1798 (see NATION, JUDICIARY); though its existence was not often denied in such plain language as that employed by Tucker, in his edition of Blackstone in 1803. After summing up, to his own satisfaction, the proofs that Virginia had always been a sovereign state, and enumerating the powers which Virginia had delegated to the federal government, he thus concludes: "The federal government, then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations and with each other. Their submission to its operation is voluntary: its councils, its engagements, its authority, are theirs, modified and united. Its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, to the most unlimited extent. But, until the time shall arrive when the occasion requires a resumption of the rights of sovereignty by the several states (and far be that period removed when it shall happen), the exercise of the rights of sovereignty by the states individually is wholly suspended, or discontinued, in the cases before mentioned; nor can that suspension ever be removed, so long as the present constitution remains unchanged, but by the dissolution of the bonds of union: an event which no good citizen can wish, and which no good or wise administration will ever hazard." Herein is contained, for the first time, the sum and substance of the doctrine of secession.

—When the idea of secession next appeared, it was again in the north, and closely connected with the question on which it was finally put into practice in the south, the territories of the United States. The acquisition of Louisiana (see ANNEXATIONS, I.), in 1803, was very objection able to the federalist politicians of New England. They had been beaten in the contest with the south alone: to re-enforce the southern line of battle with six, nine or a dozen future states, peopled by "the wild men on the Missouri," seemed simply suicidal, a condemnation of New England to perpetual nullity. They therefore resisted the annexation to the utmost, and claimed that, as the constitution was made only for the original territory comprised within the United States, an extension of territory was unconstitutional without the consent of all the states. "Suppose, in private life, thirteen men form a partnership, and ten of them undertake to admit a new partner without the concurrence of the other three, would it not be at their option to abandon the partnership after so palpable an infringement of their rights? How much more so in the political partnership." The annexation was consummated; but it was not until Jan. 14, 1811, on the enabling act for the first of the dreaded new states, Louisiana, that Quincy, of Massachusetts, fairly declared, in the house, the federalist conception of its consequences. "It is my deliberate opinion, that, if this bill passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved; that the states which compose it are free from their moral obligations; and that, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must." Quincy was called to order, but the house decided that he was in order. Ex-President Adams, in reply to a copy of the speech, could only say that "prophecies of division had been familiar in his ears for six and thirty years."

—In the meantime the opposition to the democratic administration, confined chiefly to the New England politicians on the annexation question, had become more popular with the introduction of the restrictive system. (See EMBARGO, III.) It is beyond question that some project of secession had been mooted in New England in 1803, though probably confined to a very few; and that Burr's candidacy for governor of New York in 1804 was a part of it. (See BURR, AARON.) By taking in the great state of New York, and by yielding the leadership-in-chief to a New York democrat, who was highly popular with the democrats of New England, it was hoped that a new republic might be formed, compact, homogeneous, and strongly defended by nature in every direction. Burr's defeat had much to do with the failure of this project, but the indifference of the people of New England probably more. The strong and general popular feeling which was aroused by the embargo revived the project. How many took part in it is uncertain; they were probably very few. The whole truth is probably expressed in a letter of Joseph Story, afterward supreme court justice, Jan. 9, 1809: "I am sorry to perceive the spirit of disaffection in Massachusetts increasing to so high a degree; and I fear that it is stimulated by a desire, in a very few ambitious men, to dissolve the Union." Henry's letter, of March 7, 1809 (see HENRY DOCUMENTS), goes further, and details the federalist programme as follows: that, in the event of war, "the legislature of Massachusetts will declare itself permanent until a new election of members; invite a congress, to be composed of delegates from the federal states; and erect a separate government for their common defense and common interest." Henry's assertions, however, are usually only proof that the contrary is the truth, and that is probably the case here. It is only certain that the accounts of the feeling in the eastern states, as given by John Quincy Adams and Story, caused a panic among the democratic leaders, and ended the embargo.

—During the war of 1812 the feeling in New England grew still higher. Ultra federalists undoubtedly used language aiming directly at secession; the student will find a large collection of such utterances in Carey's "Olive Branch," as cited among the authorities. Indiscreet references to "the New England nation," occasional flauntings of a flag with five stripes and stars, the firing of "New England national salutes" of five guns, and other similar indications, when combined with the general discontent in New England (see CONVENTION, HARTFORD), kept the administration in a chronic state of alarm. The discussion of secession in any form by the Hartford convention has been denied by its president and secretary; its journal shows no trace of it; and Mr. Goodrich has collected every available proof to the contrary. It appears certain that no such active design was considered or desired by its members; but a few of the opening sentences of its report are at least suggestive. "If the Union be destined to dissolution, by reason of the multiplied abuses of bad administrations, it should, if possible, be the work of peaceable times and deliberate consent. Some new form of confederacy should be substituted among those states which shall intend to maintain a federal relation to each other. But a severance of the Union by one or more states, against the will of the rest, and especially in a time of war, can be justified only by absolute necessity." The report concluded by advising, that, if no attention should be paid to their remonstrances, and the war should continue, a new convention should be called in the following June, "with such powers and instructions as the exigency of a crisis so momentous may require."

—With the close of the war of 1812 the first period of the history of secession ends. It continued immanent in the doctrine of state sovereignty; but nothing occurred to call it to active life. It was threatened as a possible alternative to its illegitimate brother, nullification (see that title), but was never enforced. Secessionists proper in South Carolina had a contempt for nullification, and composed the so-called "Union party" of 1831-3 in that state. Indeed, Jackson's nullification proclamation was offensive to them, as laying down "the tyrannical doctrine that we have not even the right to secede."

—II. Throughout its subsequent history secession is always connected with slavery or the opposition to slavery. The right to secede, after it had been completely formulated by Tucker in 1803, was asserted again and again for the next thirty years, but always as a mere particularist formula, a corollary of state sovereignty. The most striking of these. and particularly as coming from the north, is that of Judge Rawle, of Pennsylvania, in his commentaries on the constitution, as cited below, in 1825. "The secession of a state from the Union depends on the will of the people of such state. * * The state legislatures have only to perform certain organical operations in respect to it. To withdraw from the Union comes not within the general scope of their delegated authority. But in any manner by which a secession is to take place, nothing is more certain than that the act should be deliberate, clear and unequivocal; and in such case the previous ligament with the Union would be legitimately and fairly destroyed. * * In the present constitution there is no specification of numbers after the first formation. It was foreseen that there would be a natural tendency to increase the number of states. It was also known, though it was not avowed, that a state might withdraw itself. The number would therefore be variable. Secessions may reduce the number to the smallest integer admitting combination. They would remain united under the same principles and regulations, among themselves, that now apply to the whole. For a state can not be compelled by other states to withdraw from the Union, and therefore, if two or more determine to remain united, although all the others desert them, nothing can be discovered in the constitution to prevent it." It is notable that, so late as Nov. 9, 1860, Horace Greeley upheld "the practical liberty, if not the abstract right, of secession," only insisting that the step should be taken "with the deliberation and gravity befitting so momentous an issue." It is true that these two utterances are almost the only ones from a representative northern man after the war of 1812 in support of the theory of secession; and that all the other utterances which have been laboriously collected are simply the expression of state feeling, of state opposition to the annexation of Texas, the fugitive slave law, and similar measures, without any apparent thought of the right of secession which was involved in it. Nevertheless, it is painful to consider the result which would have followed in 1860-61, if the action of the seceding states had been slow, calm, and the evident outcome of popular desire, instead of hasty, violent, and the work of the politicians. In that event, the issue of the struggle would have been painfully doubtful.

—Secession came in again with Texas, whose independent existence was itself a brilliant instance of successful secession from the Mexican republic. As the probability of its annexation grew stronger, the language used in advocacy of or in opposition to it grew with it. March 3, 1843, John Quincy Adams and a few anti slavery whigs issued an address to their constituents, warning them that the annexation project had never been given up, and that it would result in and fully justify a dissolution of the Union. Through this and the following summer, on the other hand, "Texas or disunion" became a frequently expressed sentiment in the south, particularly in South Carolina, but this died away as the success of annexation became assured. But even this did not drive the northern states into any action looking to secession, or a dissolution of the Union, though this was unofficially suggested. In January, 1845, at an anti-annexation convention in Boston, Wm. Lloyd Garrison urged the calling of a Massachusetts convention to declare the Union dissolved, and to invite other states to join with her in a new union based on the principles of the declaration of independence. "Although," says May, "his motion was not carried by the convention, it was received with great favor by a large portion of the members and other auditors, and he sat down amidst the most hearty bursts of applause." But the final annexation of Texas, operating against the feelings of the most thoroughly nationalized section of the Union, was insufficient to call forth any dangerous or even irritating desire for a dissolution of the Union. That was reserved for the question of the settlement of the new territories (see WILMOT PROVISO).

—CO-OPERATION. The theory of secession involved the right of any state to withdraw from the Union singly; and yet the silent proof of its inherent fallacy is that single secession was never attempted, and probably never thought of. In 1847 Calhoun had endeavored unsuccessfully to obtain the "co-operation" of the slave states in the following programme: 1, the calling of a slave state convention; 2, the exclusion of the sea-going vessels of the northern states from southern ports; 3, the prohibition of railroad commerce with the northeastern, but not with the northwestern, states; 4, the present maintenance of the freedom of trade on the Mississippi; 5, the continuance of this interstate embargo system until the northwest should be "detached" from the eastern states, and should unite with the south in opening the new territories to slavery. Calhoun's programme opened the way, however, for a bolder idea of "co-operation" in 1850, according to which a number of slave states were to secede in company, for mutual defense, if any prohibition of slavery in the new territories should be enforced. But the southern states held to the resolutions of the Georgia state convention of 1850, declaring that the state accepted the compromise of 1850, but would resist, even to secession, such anti-slavery legislation as the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or in the territories, or of the interstate slave-trade. There can be no doubt that South Carolina was ready to secede in 1850, but not alone. Her state convention of April 26, 1852, declared her right to secede, but forbore to exercise it, out of deference to the wishes of other slaveholding states, that is, because no other slaveholding state wished to secede with or after her. Co-operation was, therefore, never practically attempted, because of the compromise of 1850, by which the Wilmot proviso was really enforced in California, by its admission as a free state, while nothing was said of it in the organization of the territories of Utah and New Mexico, and the fugitive slave law was accepted by the south as a make-weight. (See COMPROMISES, V.) But, though this attempt at secession by a section was unsuccessful, there had grown up an alienation between the north and the south which boded no good for the future. Calhoun's last speech in the senate, March 4, 1850, described the manner in which many of the multitudinous cords that bound the Union together had already snapped. Of the five great Christian denominations which had been national in their organization, two, the Methodists and Baptists, had split into two sectional parts; and the Presbyterians were evidently close to the point of division. Political bonds were also stretched almost to breaking, and their preservation depended on the willingness of the northern states to satisfy the south by not excluding slavery from the territories. "If you," says Calhoun, who "represent the stronger portion, can not agree to settle the great questions at issue on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the states we both represent agree to separate and depart in peace. If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so, and we shall know what to do." The last sentence shows the remarkable underlying consciousness in every advocate of secession, of the truth so forcibly stated by Webster three days afterward: "Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility." (See, in general, UNITED STATES, II., 5.)

—This underlying consciousness, that secession meant war, was for some time sufficient to make any attempt at open secession hopeless ab initio, and no such attempt was made. Indeed, the south had been very well satisfied with the compromise of 1850; and the impediments to the execution of the fugitive slave law (see FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS, PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS), while they excited great discontent in the south, were not commonly looked upon as reasonable cause for secession. Those final causes were three in number, with a supplementary cause, "coercion," which will be stated in the next section. 1. Nothing is more noteworthy in the extreme southern states than the sudden development of large estates, the freezing out of small planters, and their emigration after the absorption of their property. "In a few years large estates are accumulated as if by magic." In large sections of each state the population consisted almost wholly of negroes, with the few whites owning or managing them. But in all these states representation was on the basis of the "federal population": that is, three-fifths of the negroes were represented, while the voting and office-holding pertained to the few whites. Thus, apart from the natural influence belonging to the wealthy class of the population, the counties in the "black belt" were practically the pocket boroughs of the slave-owners therein. These thus held far more than their fair share of power in state legislatures and conventions, and in some states absolutely controlled them. With every year, from 1850 to 1860, the power of this class was growing stronger, and their desire for secession for the protection of their property in slaves was not weakened. (See SLAVERY, IV.) 2. But there was still another and much larger class in the south, owning few or no slaves, not wedded to the protection or extension of slavery, but high-spirited, and determined not to submit to oppression, or, above all, to the evasion of a fair compromise. The results of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill (see that title) served to bring these into the secession programme. They had never asked for the abrogation of the Missouri compromise; but, when it had been abrogated by fair agreement, it seemed to them an unworthy evasion to turn Kansas and Nebraska into free states by organized, not voluntary and natural emigration from the north. This was the class to which was addressed the argument which A. H. Stephens says carried Georgia, the key-stone of a successful secession, out of the Union: "We can make better terms out of the Union than in it." 3. The Harper's Ferry insurrection (see BROWN, JOHN) had a silent influence everywhere. Those who desired secession were active, persevering, and in earnest; those who did not, were at the best negative; for they saw one great chance of good, even in a successful secession, a release from national association with future John Browns, and the ability to protect themselves from such invasions by open and national warfare.

—With so many influences at work in its favor, it is matter for wonder that secession in 1860-61 was only forced through by the influence of the first two classes over the delegates to the state conventions, and that the popular demand for secession was so conspicuous by its absence that the conventions, except in Texas, did not venture to submit their ordinances to popular vote. For, in a popular vote, be it remembered, the "federal representation" disappeared; only the votes of the whites went for anything; and the total vote of the state might very easily show that their nominal representatives did not really represent them. There must have been an enormous mass of Union feeling in the south, blind, leaderless, and rendered powerless first by the belief that their primary allegiance was due to the state, and then by the organization of the new national government at Montgomery, but still genuine and hearty.

—III The threat that secession would have followed Fremont's election, in 1856, was probably only an electioneering device. When his election seemed probable, Gov. Wise, of Virginia, called a meeting of southern governors at Raleigh, for Oct. 13; but only three governors appeared, those of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and these did nothing. The meeting was of some influence, however, upon the northern vote. (See REPUBLICAN PARTY, I.) Practical secession was hardly as yet possible. The alienation between the sections was not yet sufficient; and the power of the secessionist class over the state conventions was not yet great enough. Four years made a great difference in both respects. In December, 1860, Senator Iverson, of Georgia, pictured the situation in the senate thus: "There are the republican northern senators on that side. Here are the southern senators on this side. How much social intercourse is there between us? You sit on that side, sullen and gloomy; we sit on ours with portentous scowls. Yesterday I observed there was not a solitary man on that side of the chamber came over here, even to extend the civilities and courtesies of life; nor did any of us go over there. Here are two hostile bodies on this floor, and it is but a type of the feeling that exists in the two sections. We are enemies as much as if we were hostile states. I believe the northern people hate the south worse than ever the English people hated France; and I can tell my brethren over there that there is no love lost on the part of the south." From this picture, the fact is carefully eliminated that the southern senators represented, not the southern people, but its slaveholding class; but, even barring this defect, the picture is well worthy of study. With such a tightly strained tension of international relations between the governments of the two sections, the real feeling of the people was a matter of but secondary importance, and there was but little need of open threats of secession in case of Lincoln's election. Such threats were undoubtedly made, but unofficially; and the question of secession played no formal part in the campaign of 1860. The whole congress of 1859-61 was inundated by threats of secession in the event of the election of Seward as president in 1860, the object seeming to be to commit the southern people to that policy beyond the possibility of an honorable withdrawal. It has been asserted that the disruption of the democratic party, in 1860, was contrived by the secessionist class for the purpose of insuring Lincoln's election, and thus obtaining an excuse for secession; but such a design is very doubtful. (See DEMOCRATIC PARTY, V.) The more natural explanation of their course is in their hope that the electoral vote would be so divided up as to give no candidate a majority; that the choice of the president would thus go to the house of representatives; and that they would there be able to obtain the election of either Breckinridge or Bell. That their hopes had some foundation, may be seen from the facts that the opposition to Lincoln, after his election, still controlled both houses of congress; and that the republicans, throughout the whole rebellion, were indebted for their majority in congress to the voluntary absence of the southern delegations.

—As it resulted, however, Lincoln obtained the electoral votes of all the northern and western states, with the exception of a part of New Jersey's vote, and was elected beyond cavil. What was to be the next step in the political game? Were the southern states to go on debating about co-operation, without taking any practical steps toward secession, until the popular impression caused by Lincoln's election had worn off, and his administration was found to be nothing out of the ordinary? In that case, the idea of secession might as well be laid permanently on the shelf, with other worn-out political stage thunder. The southern politician class felt, that, rather than give up what they had grown accustomed to consider the only life-preserver of their section, or rather of slavery, they would prefer to go over the cataract with it.

—Nevertheless, there remained that dread of the practical attempt to secede by a single state, which was always the surest internal condemnation of the whole theory of secession. Gov. Gist, of South Carolina, had already sent a circular letter to the other southern governors, Oct. 5, 1860, asking their advice and plans. His state, he said, would secede with any other state, if Lincoln should be elected; or she would secede alone, if she should receive assurances that any other state would follow her; "otherwise, it is doubtful." Not one governor answered that his state would secede alone. Florida, Alabama and Mississippi would secede with any other state; North Carolina and Louisiana would probably not secede at all; Georgia would wait for some overt act. At first sight, these answers seem discouraging; but there was hope in them. If three states were only waiting for a leader, South Carolina would take the plunge, though the gallantry of the act is considerably diminished by this preliminary probing for assurances of support. A movement begun even by four states, would probably swing the other gulf states; any attempt at "coercion" by the federal government would bring the border states; and the confederacy of the slave states would then be complete.

—The South Carolina legislature, which chose presidential electors until 1868, was in session to choose them, Nov. 6, 1860, and remained in session until Lincoln's election was assured. It then called a state convention, made appropriations for the purchase of arms, and adjourned. The convention met at Columbia, Dec. 17, adjourned to Charleston, on account of an epidemic in Columbia, and there unanimously passed the following ordinance, Dec. 20: "We, the people of the state of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in convention, on the 23d day of May, in the year of our Lord 1788, whereby the constitution of the United States was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the general assembly of this state ratifying amendments of the said constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved." On the 24th a declaration of causes for secession was adopted. It recapitulated the arguments in favor of state sovereignty and the right of secession, and assigned as a cause for immediate secession the general hostility of the northern states to the south, as shown in their union under a sectional party organization, and in their refusal to execute the fugitive slave laws (see PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS); and it concluded with an imitation of the closing paragraph of the declaration of independence. On the same day the governor by proclamation announced the fact of secession. Having adopted ordinances to enforce the existing laws of the United States for the present under state authority, to transfer to the legislature the powers hitherto exercised by the federal government, to make the state ready for war, and to appoint commissioners to form, if possible, a permanent government for all the states which should secede, the convention adjourned, Jan. 5, 1861. The action of the state then ceases to relate to secession, and falls under other heads. (See CONFEDERATE STATES, REBELLION.)

—The action of Georgia comes second in importance politically, if not chronologically; for the rank, wealth and position of the state would have made its persistent refusal to secede a most annoying brake on the secession programme. The legislature called a state convention, Nov. 18, 1860, and the whole struggle took place on the election of delegates. There was hardly any denial of the right of secession; but a strong state party, under the lead of Alexander H. Stephens, warmly denied the advisability of secession. The convention met at Milledgeville, Jan. 17, 1861, and on the following day, by a vote of 165 to 130, declared it to be the right and the duty of the state to secede. This really settled the question. Jan. 19, the formal ordinance of secession was adopted by a vote of 208 to 89. In order to maintain the position of the state, every delegate but six signed the ordinance; and these six yielded so far as to pledge themselves to the defense of the state. After passing the other necessary ordinances for a transfer of powers from the federal government to the legislature, the convention adjourned, but re-assembled in Savannah, March 7, and on the 16th ratified the confederate constitution.

—In Mississippi the convention was called for Jan. 7, at Jackson, and passed an ordinance of secession on the 9th by a vote of 84 to 15. March 30, the confederate constitution was ratified by a vote of 78 to 7.

—In Florida the legislature passed the bill calling a convention, Dec. 1, 1860, and the convention met at Tallahassee, Jan. 3, 1861. Jan 10, an ordinance of secession was passed by a vote of 62 to 7.

—In Alabama the election for delegates was ordered by the governor (see ALABAMA), and the convention met at Montgomery, Jan. 7, 1861. Jan. 11, an ordinance of secession was adopted by a vote of 61 to 39. March 13, the confederate constitution was ratified.

—In Louisiana the legislature, Dec. 11, 1860, passed the bill calling a convention, and it met at Baton Rouge, Jan. 23, 1861. Jan. 26, an ordinance of secession was adopted by a vote of 113 to 17, and on March 21 the confederate constitution was ratified. Louisiana was the only original seceding state in which the popular vote for delegates was a close one. It is stated at 20,448 for, and 17,296 against, immediate secession.

—In Texas, secession was forced through with great difficulty, and altogether as a revolution. The governor refused to call an extra session of the legislature until, early in January, 1861, he found that steps were being taken to call it together without his authority. He then summoned it for Jan. 22. But this gave very little time for the passage of a convention bill, the election of delegates, and the meeting of the convention. An entirely unofficial call was therefore issued, delegates were elected, and the convention met at Austin, Jan. 28. Feb. 1, an ordinance of secession was passed by a vote of 166 to 7; but, as the convention itself was entirely without any basis of law, the ordinance was to be submitted to popular vote, Feb. 23. The legislature, Feb. 4, validated the convention, apparently with a view to overriding a possibly adverse popular majority. The popular vote was reported to the convention as 34,794 for the ordinance, and 11,235 against it. But even before the popular ratification, the convention had appointed delegates to the confederate congress, Feb. 11, and the federal troops in the state had been captured and paroled. The confederate constitution was ratified March 23. One week before that day the convention had declared vacant the office of Gov. Sam Houston, who had shown no inclination to favor the convention or its purposes.

—These seven states, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, were the original seceding states; and the details of their action seem to show that the first three named were the only ones in which convention action represented the majority of the white voters. In Georgia and Louisiana the result was due to the lack of any abiding principle in the unionist representatives for resistance to the earnest body of secessionists; in Alabama, to the control of the convention by the southern portion, or "black belt"; and in Texas, to the revolutionary action of the secessionist politicians. These considerations, however, are not of much practical importance, for in all the states unionists and secessionists alike acknowledged the abstract right of secession, the citizen's paramount allegiance to his state, and the unconstitutionality of "coercion" by the federal government. The secession of even a single state, and an attempt to coerce it, would therefore have brought about the secession of the other states named, as it afterward did in the cases of Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.

—COERCION. It is noteworthy that originally the most extreme particularists had the least objection to the coercion of a state by the federal government. In writing to Monroe, Aug. 11, 1786, Jefferson says: "There never will be money in the treasury till the confederacy shows its teeth. The states must see the rod: perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. * * Every rational citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water." And still more fully, Aug. 4, 1787: "It has been so often said as to be generally believed, that congress have no power by the confederation to enforce anything, for example, contributions of money. It was not necessary to give them that power expressly; they have it by the law of nature. When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it." This was the general ground on which the democratic members of congress, in 1861-5, while still holding the constitution to be a "compact," voted for the prosecution of the war. It may also explain the reason why both the Virginia and New Jersey plans in 1787 (see CONVENTION OF 1787) included a power to coerce disobedient states; and why Madison and others in the convention wished to give the federal government an absolute veto on the legislation of state governments, to remove the necessity for any forcible "coercion."

—Either of these plans would have been hazardous. Madison himself said that "the use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound." This expression, justified as it is by common sense, has often been quoted as a condemnation of "coercion." But it must be noted that no such "use of force against a state" was ever authorized by the constitution. That instrument gave an indirect and far safer power of coercion, 1, in the case of states, by extending the power of the federal judiciary to state laws involving the construction of the constitution (see JUDICIARY, I.); and 2, by giving the power to compel individuals to obey the federal government in any conflict with the state.

—Nevertheless the opinion was strangely prevalent in 1860-61, that, because congress had no power to "coerce" a state, secession could not be interfered with. The simplest argument for this view can be found in President Buchanan's message of Dec. 3, 1860. It was the main encouragement to secession by a single state; it was announced again and again by the border states during the winter of 1860-61; and the consciousness of its general existence threw the Lincoln administration at first altogether upon the defensive. (See BORDER STATES, and the names of their states in detail.) It was not until the popular uprising in the north had taught the administration what states it could rely upon, that the federal government was encouraged to begin the work of coercion by exercising its power to execute the laws and suppress insurrection by means of the armed militia. From that time coercion took the form of repression of individual resistance, the federal government ignoring the action of the state as entirely ultra vires. This is the form which coercion took in its first operation in our history, the "force bill" of 1833 (see NULLIFICATION), and which it must always take. If a state should see fit to form a treaty with a foreign power, the federal government would ignore such action, and would compel individuals to ignore it also, by the use of the courts in cases of mild resistance, and of the army and navy in case of resistance by force. This process of "coercion" could hardly be better stated than in a pamphlet cited below, by Gov. H. A. Wise, of Virginia, published in 1859, though aimed at a very different object. He supposes the state of Vermont gradually coming to forcible resistance against the execution of the fugitive slave laws, her state convention making the arrest of a slave felony, and her magistrates and officers resisting the federal writs of habeas corpus by force. "The president must then command a sufficient force of the army or navy or militia of the United States to overcome the rebellion and treason; and that would not be all. The jailor and judges and governor of Vermont, and all persons guilty with them of rebellion against the faithful execution of the laws of the United States, would have to be arrested and tried according to law, or, if their resistance was serious enough to require it, to be slain in battle of rebellion against the laws of the Union. And I am sure, that, if civil war should thus be brought on to battle and carnage, every patriot and lover of the laws would march to the order of coercing a state, to compel her authorities and her people to obey the supreme laws, to lay down their weapons, and to renounce the state laws and ordinances commanding their rebellion."

—Voluntary secession had really spent its force in carrying Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas with it; but it relied on carrying the other slave states with it on the plea of resistance to coercion, when President Lincoln should call for troops to enforce the laws. In two of them it succeeded fairly: Arkansas passed an ordinance of secession May 6, and North Carolina May 20. (See those states.) In Virginia and Tennessee, another plan had to be adopted. The convention, while nominally submitting the ordinance of secession to popular vote, first formed "military leagues" with the confederate states; confederate troops at once swarmed over their territory; and under their auspices the popular vote became a farce. In this way Virginia's ordinance was ratified May 23, and Tennessee's June 18. Here the current stopped: in Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri much the same plan was tried as in Texas, but it was a failure. (See those states.) In Delaware alone of the slave states, secession seems to have had no advocates.

—The United States supreme court has finally decided that the ordinances of secession were entirely void, and that a state government steps out of its sphere when it undertakes to organize armed resistance to the federal government. Reconstruction by congress does not seem to have been founded on the notion that the ordinances of secession had so far taken the states out of the Union as to require their readmission, but on the theory that the state governments had either been vacated by the fault of the individual citizens of the state, or had been seized upon by usurpers; that in either case the reconstruction must be under the authority of the federal government; and that individuals who had been guilty of treason were estopped from objecting to the methods which congress might see fit to employ. (See RECONSTRUCTION, I.)

—Finally, the suppression of the doctrine of secession by force has established the political existence of the nation, as distinguished even from all the states. It has done so, not by the facts that all the seceding states, in their new constitutions, expressly disavowed any right of secession, and declared the primary allegiance of the individual citizen to be due to the United States; but by the higher fact that the nation has plainly expressed and successfully enforced its will in the matter. For the future, all men are bound to take notice that it is the nation that wills that there should be state governments, and not states which will that there should be a national government. The ultimate results of secession in this way no man can foresee. (See NATION, III.)

—The theory of the right of secession will be found in Centz's Republic of Republics; Fowler's Sectional Controversy; 1 Calhoun's Works, 300; 1 Tucker's Blackstone, Appendix, 187; 1 Stephens' War Between the States, 495; Rawle's Commentaries on the Constitution, 302; Appleton's Annual Cyclopœdia. 1861, 614 (Davis' Message of April 29). The study of Mr. Fisher's theory of "constitutional secession," by amicable agreement between the federal government and a seceding state, will also be found interesting and profitable: see Fisher's Trial of the Constitution, 160, 167. (See STATE SOVEREIGNTY, III.) See also (I.) authorities under NEW ENGLAND UNION, and ALBANY PLAN OF UNION; 5 Elliot's Debates. 276, 278; 1 Benton's Debates of Congress, 172; 4 Jefferson's Works, edit. 1853, 111; 1 von Holst's United States, 196; authorities under KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS; 3 Jefferson's Works, edit. 1830, 394; 2 Schouler's United States, 192; Quincy's Life of Quincy, 206, 210; Adams' Documents Relating to New England Federalism (see, under index, "Northern Confederacy"); 4 Upham's Life of Pickering, 53; 3 Sparks' Writings of Gouverneur Morris, 319; 1 Story's Life of Story, 182; 8 Niles' Weekly Register, 262; Carey's Olive Branch, 7th edit., 416, 449; Hunt's Life of Livingston, 346; authorities under CONVENTION, HARTFORD, and NULLIFICATION; (II.) 1 Greeley's American Conflict, 359; May's Anti-Slavery Conflict, 320; 2 Benton's Thirty Years' View, 613, 698, 733; Cox's Eight Years in Congress, 188; 16 Benton's Debates of Congress, 403, 415 (Calhoun's and Webster's speeches, March 4 and 7, 1850); 2 Olmsted's Cotton Kingdom, 158; (III.) Nicolay's Outbreak of Rebellion; 1 Draper's Civil War, 438, and 2 ibid.; Buchanan's Administration, 108; Greeley's Political Text Book of 1860, 170; McPherson's Political History of the Rebellion, 2; 2 Stephens' War Between The States, 312; ibid., 671 (South Carolina declaration of 1861); 2' Jefferson's Works, edit. 1830, 43, 203; H. A. Wise's Territorial Government, 103; Botts' Great Rebellion, 205, 209; Brownson's American Republic, 277; Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, edit. 1833, § 359; Mulford's The Nation, 334; Goodwin's Natural History of Secession; Hurd's Theory of Our National Existence.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

SEDITION LAWS

SEDITION LAWS. (See ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS.)

SEMINOLE WAR

SEMINOLE WAR. (See SLAVERY, II.)

SENATE

SENATE (IN U. S. HISTORY). This name is given to the smaller of the two branches of the state legislatures, but, when used without distinctive description, usually refers to the smaller of the two houses of congress. (See CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.)

—In the congress of the confederation there was but one house, and each state had an equal vote in it. (See CONFEDERATION, ARTICLES OF.) There was some effort in the convention of 1787 to continue the arrangement of a single house, but it found no influential support, except from Franklin and the "Jersey plan," and was abandoned. The greatest difficulty, which seems very slight now, but was almost insuperable in the beginning of the convention's work, was to find a different basis of existence for the two houses. It was comparatively easy to fix the membership of the house of representatives by fair proportions of the whole population of the country. (See APPORTIONMENT.) But it was then very difficult to hit on any radically different basis for the senate, which should be satisfactory to all concerned. There was no different class, as in Great Britain, from which to select a house of lords (see that title); and the formation of a smaller house, on the same basis as the other, would have ended in the establishment of two houses, both controlled by precisely the same ideas, and the loss of all the advantages of two houses.

—The same difficulty has attended the formation of state senates, and has been met there by the division of the state into different territorial units for the two houses. (See ASSEMBLY.) The convention of 1787 hit upon a simple and natural basis for the senate, and formed a body as efficient in practice as it is apt to strike the imagination of an observer favorably. The senate is certainly the most dignified and impressive part of the American constitutional system, unless we except the supreme court. But this brilliant success of the convention must not blind us to the fact that the convention itself gained it blindly, or was forced into it; that it was the product of no single clear design or desire; and that it was due to the gradual and unwilling compromise of conflicting purposes. (See CONVENTION OF 1787; COMPROMISES, I.) If the scheme of the senate, as we admire it in its final form, had been offered to the convention in the first place, it would almost certainly not have received a single vote.

—The Virginia plan, when first introduced, provided that the senate, without as yet giving it a name or defining its powers or term of office, should be chosen by the house of representatives out of a proper number of persons nominated by the state legislatures. Pinckney's plan proposed that it should be chosen by the house from residents of the various states to serve for three years; that the senators from New England, the middle and the southern states, should constitute three classes, to go out of office on successive years; and that the senate should have sole power to declare war, make treaties, appoint foreign ministers and judges of the supreme court, and decide territorial disputes between the states. Hamilton's plan proposed that senators should be chosen by electors chosen by the people of each state in election districts; that they should serve during good behavior; and that the senate should have the power to declare war and approve treaties and appointments. The New Jersey plan provided for no senate. In the debate three other plans of selection were brought up: 1, by the national executive, out of nominations by state legislatures; 2, by the people; and 3, by the state legislatures; and the last was adopted unanimously, June 7. As yet it was not settled whether the states were to be equally or proportionately represented in the senate, the small states urging the former plan, and the large states the latter. This question, on which, said Sherman, of Connecticut, "everything depended," came up June 11. A motion that each state have one vote was lost, and another for proportionate representation in both branches was carried, the six "large states" in both cases voting against the five "small states." On the next day the term of senators was fixed at seven years. June 13, the committee of the whole reported that the "second branch" was to be chosen for seven years by the state legislatures, according to the population of each state, and to be paid out of the national treasury; its members to be at least thirty years old, and to be ineligible to office under the United States for a year after the end of their term of office. The constitution of the senate, in its first form, was thus completed; and though it still lacked a name, the words "senate" and "senatorial" were frequently used in debate.

—The report of the committee of the whole as to the composition of the senate was adopted by the convention, June 24-25, except that the term of seven years was changed to six. The convention was then brought face to face with the all-important question, the rule of representation in the senate. For days the debate went on. The five small states, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, knew that they would be outvoted by the six large states in the end; and a motion was made, June 30, that the president of the convention write to the executive of New Hampshire, asking for the attendance of that state's delegates; but it was voted down. Dr. Franklin proposed that each state have an equal representation in the senate, with a vote on money bills proportionate to its share of taxation; but this was not considered. The large states were determined to have a proportional share of the senate; the small states were equally determined to have an equal share. The debates grew unusually warm, for this convention; and one of the Delaware delegates went so far as to declare, that, if the large states should push the matter to an unjust issue, they would dissolve the confederation, and then "the small ones will find some foreign ally, of more honor and good faith, who will take them by the hand and do them justice." The temper of the small states rose so high that the matter was not pushed to an issue. It was settled by compromise, and the equal representation of the states in the senate was the result. (See COMPROMISES, I.)

—July 14, the large states made a fresh effort to apportion senators among the states in numbers varying from one for Rhode Island and Delaware to five for Virginia, or thirty-six in all, but it was voted down. During the debate, Elbridge Gerry threw out the idea, which was afterward adopted, of allowing the senators to vote per capita, instead of by states. From this time the large states yielded, and the equal state representation in the senate was secure. The line of division still existed: the small states usually endeavored to throw as much power as possible into the senate, while the large states did the same in regard to the house of representatives. But the struggle was now most temperate and amicable: "the little states had gained their point." In the report of the committee of detail, Aug. 6, the name "senate" was formally given to "the second branch." Its composition and voting per capita were just as in the final constitution, except that there was as yet no vice-president to preside over it. (See ELECTORS, I.) Its powers were very different: it was to make treaties, appoint ambassadors, judges of the supreme court, and commissioners to give final and conclusive judgment in territorial disputes between the states (see TERRITORIES, I.); but it had not yet the power to try impeachments, confirm the president's appointments, or alter or amend money bills. The introduction of the electoral system, Sept. 4, brought with it, as part of the plan, the power of the senate to try impeachments, and the functions of the vice-president as presiding officer of the senate; but, in case of a failure of choice by the electors, the senate was to choose the president, leaving the vice-presidency to the other person having the highest number of electoral votes. The next day another report from the committee of detail gave the senate power to alter or amend money bills. All these new provisions were adopted in the next three days, except that the election of the president was transferred to the house. The constitution of the senate was not further altered, except that the provision was unanimously added, Sept. 15, that no state should be deprived, without its consent, of its equal suffrage in the senate. As a rough summary, we may say that the fundamental idea of the senate was brought in by the compromise of July 5, and that it took almost complete shape, as it now stands, Sept. 4. Alterations at other periods of the convention were comparatively unimportant; and, since the adoption of the constitution, its provisions with regard to the senate have never been altered, except by giving to that body, in 1804, the choice of the vice-president when the electors failed to choose.

—In the form which it finally took and has since retained, the senate is a body composed of two members from each state, voting per capita. In 1803, Tucker said, of the number of senators, that "it is not probable that it will ever exceed fifty." The number is now (1883) seventy-six, from thirty-eight states. How far this may be increased in the future can not even be guessed. It is true that there are but eight available territories remaining (see TERRITORIES); but there are many indications that the process of forming new states may be turned to the division of old states. (See State Rights, under STATE SOVEREIGNTY.) Senators are to be at least thirty years old, nine years citizens of the United States, and inhabitants of the states for which they are chosen. They are chosen by the state legislatures for six years; and congress may at any time, by law, make regulations, or alter state regulations, as to the manner and time of their election, but not as to the place. For many years there was hardly any field for political manœuvre more fertile than this of the choice of senators by the legislatures. In some states senators were elected by concurrent vote of the two branches of the legislature; in others, by joint convention; in others, a concurrent vote was first to be tried, and then, if necessary, a joint convention. In all the states there were chances for intrigue which were not neglected. A party majority in one house would refuse to go into a joint convention in which it was certain to be beaten; or would resign or absent themselves. (See, for example, INDIANA.) One of the most curious of these manœuvres took place in New York, in 1825. (See that state.) Finally, the act of July 25, 1866, regulated the manner of election. Each house of the legislature is to vote viva voce for senator, on the Tuesday following its organization. On the following day the houses are to hold a joint meeting. If it appears that the same person has received a majority in each house, he is elected. If not, the joint meeting is to take at least one viva voce vote a day during the session of the legislature, until some person shall receive a majority of all the votes of the meeting, a majority of each house being present. In the case of a vacancy occurring during the session of the legislature, the same course of procedure is to begin on the Tuesday after the notice of the vacancy is received. If a vacancy occurs when the legislature is not in session, the constitution empowers the governor to fill it by appointment until the legislature meets.

—When the first senate was organized, ten states were represented. May 14, 1789, they were divided into three classes: one of six members, the other two of seven each. One member of each class then drew lots, the class drawing number one to serve two years, number two to serve four years, and number three six years. The classes were so arranged that no two senators from one state fell in the same class. As the other three states sent senators they were assigned by lot in the same way, a blank being so used as to keep the classes even. As the terms of the classes expired, their successors were elected for six full years. Senators from new states are so assigned as to keep the three classes nearly even. Thus one-third of the senate goes out of office every two years; but there is never any complete alteration of its membership at one time. Theoretically, it has been the same body since 1789, in spite of the periodical changes in its constituent elements. This permanence seems, from the debates of the convention, to have been intended mainly to give foreign nations a sense of security as to the treaty power of the United States, but it has had important influences in every direction.

—In legislative matters the senate holds an equal rank with the house of representatives (see, in general, CONGRESS); it may not originate bills for raising revenue, but it may propose or concur with amendments, as on other bills. Its officers are much the same as those of the house (see HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES); but it has no such binding code of rules of order and debate. In place of them it relies on the "courtesy of the senate." which the older senators of all parties unite in maintaining; and vivacious graduates from the house of representatives are rapidly chilled down to the orthodox temperature of debate in the senate. The vice-president presides, but has no vote, except in case of a tie. In presiding, he is but the spokesman of the senate, and is expected merely to express its will, or in doubtful matters to call upon it for an expression of its will. He addresses the members only as "senators"—a brief and impressive mode introduced by vice-president Calhoun, instead of the form previously in use, "gentlemen of the senate." (For the succession to the presidency, see EXECUTIVE, V.)

—In addition to its legislative functions the senate has peculiar executive and judicial characteristics, which greatly increase its dignity and importance. Its power to confirm the president's nominations is fully treated elsewhere. (See CONFIRMATION BY THE SENATE, TENURE OF OFFICE.) It sits as a court to try impeachments preferred by the house of representatives. (See IMPEACHMENTS.) It has the power to advise and consent to treaties made by the president, and they are not valid until so ratified. (See JAY'S TREATY.) It is even held, on good authority (see Curtis, as cited below), that the senate may propose a treaty to the president; and this interpretation is certainly rather unusual than strained. In transacting its executive business, the confirmation of nominations and treaties, the senate acts in secret. Many unsuccessful efforts have been made to make these debates public.

—The senate chamber is in the centre of the north wing of the capitol at Washington, and its simplicity of appearance harmonizes well with the proceedings of the senate. The senate committees are forty-two in number, the most important being, as a general rule, the committee on foreign relations.

—See 5 Elliot's Debates (index under Senate); The Federalist, lii.-lxvi.; 2 Curtis' History of the Constitution, 417 (and also index under Senate); Story's Commentaries, §§688, 1499 foll.; Poore's Manual of the Senate; the act of July 25, 1866, is in 14 Stat. at Large.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

SERGEANT-AT-ARMS

SERGEANT-AT-ARMS. (See PARLIAMENTARY LAW.)

SERGEANT

SERGEANT, John, was born at Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 5, 1779, and died there, Nov. 23, 1852. He was graduated at Princeton, in 1795, was admitted to the bar in 1799, and was a federalist congressman 1815-23 and 1827-9. In 1832 he was the whig candidate for vice-president, and was defeated. (See WHIG PARTY, I.; ELECTORAL VOTES, XII.) He was again in congress as a whig, 1837-41.

A. J.

SERVIA

SERVIA, Principality of. A semi-sovereign state, the youngest member of the European family, to use the expression of an English publicist, formed of a part of the old Servian empire founded by Douchan the Strong in the fourteenth century, the dismemberment of which followed soon after the death of that prince (1356). After the fatal day of Kossovo (1389), which paved the way for the subjection of the different Slave states of Turkey in Europe, the Servians acknowledged themselves vassals of the Ottoman porte by virtue of particular agreements, the tenor of which recalls the capitulations concluded about the same time between Turkey and Moldo-Wallachia, and which succeeded no better than the latter in protecting the national independence. Deprived of its despotes, or native chiefs, Servia was gradually reduced to the condition of a simple paschalic, until the day when, at the call of Kara-George and Miloch, it rose en masse against its oppressors, and alone, without other aid than its courage and the diplomatic assistance of Russia, forced, after twenty-two years of fight and negotiation (1804-1826), the porte to restore to it a part of its former rights. In 1826 the additional act of the convention of Akkerman (Oct. 7), confirmed three years after by the treaty of Adrianople, raised Servia into a tributary principality of the Ottoman porte, with the privileges of an independent internal administration.

—These privileges were stated and specified in a Hatti-shérif of Sultan Mahmoud, dated Aug. 3, 1830, which fixed the limits of the new state, and recognized, by a berat dated the same day, Miloch and his descendants forever as kniazes (princes) of Servia: a title which had been unanimously conferred upon the liberator three years before the Servian grand skoupchtina (national assembly). A second Hatti-shérif, promulgated in December, 1838, framed the oustav, or Servian statute, in sixty-six articles relative to the government, administration, finances, etc.

—The rights and immunities derived from these Hatti-shérifs received a new sanction by the treaty of Paris of 1856, which abolished the protectorate that Russia had established over Servia, substituting for it the collective guarantee of the contracting powers, and stipulated, at the same time, for the neutrality and inviolability of the Servian territory, as may be seen from articles twenty-eight and twenty-nine, worded thus: "Art. 28. The principality of Servia shall continue to depend upon the sublime porte, in conformity with the imperial Hattis which fix and determine its rights and immunities, placed henceforth under the collective guarantee of the contracting powers. Consequently, the aforesaid principality shall preserve its independent and national administration, as well as full freedom of conscience, legislation, commerce and navigation. Art. 29. No armed intervention shall take place in Servia without previous agreement between the high contracting powers."

—The situation of Servia, stationary during the reign of Alexander Karageorgevitch (September, 1842, to December, 1858), was improved both externally and internally in consequence of the revolution which called the Obrenovitchs to the throne. In 1862 the Turks consented to evacuate the fortresses of the Danube and the Save, with the exception of Belgrade, Semendria and Chabatz, which, in turn, were not long afterward restored to the Servians (1867). Two years after (July, 1869), the oustav was abolished by the skoupchtina, and replaced by the constitution which now rules Servia.

—Political State. It results from the preceding that Servia enjoys exactly the same rights as a state, and is placed in the same position toward Turkey, as Roumania. Like the latter, its government and administration are completely independent of the suzerain power, to which it is only obliged to pay an annual tribute of 4,600 Turkish purses. It furnishes neither troops nor money in time of war. It preserves its national flag of tricolor bands with the arms of the principality embroidered in relief (a field of gules with a cross of silver, strewn with four sabres, and surmounted by a crown), and maintains at Constantinople, like Moldo Wallachia, an agent or resident (kapou kiaïa) accredited to the porte.

—Area and Population. The area of the principality is estimated at 49,500 square kilometres. It forms five great territorial circumscriptions, divided, for administrative purposes, into seventeen departments (eighteen with the city of Belgrade), subdivided into sixty arrondissements, comprising 1,199 communes, of which forty are city communes and 1,159 are rural communes, with 2,200 villages.

—The population amounted, according to the census of 1866, to 1,215,576, as follows: Servians, 1,057,540; native Wallachians, 127,326; Jews, 5,539; and Bohemians (gypsies), 25,171. The domiciled foreigners (6,960) are not included in this number.

—Government. The government is a constitutional monarchy, hereditary in the family of Obrenovitch. The prince, or kniaz, with the title of most serene highness, as well as the domnu of Roumania, exercises the powers and enjoys the prerogatives devolving upon the sovereign in constitutional states, promulgates the laws and ordinances, appoints the public officials, commands the military forces, signs agreements and treaties, and alone represents the nation with foreign powers. He governs with the aid of responsible ministers. The number of ministerial departments, limited to three by the oustav of 1838, was raised to seven by the law of 1861, interior, finances, foreign affairs, justice, public instruction and worship, war, public works. The prince shares the legislative power with the national assembly (skoupchtina). There are two kinds of skoupchtinas: the ordinary skoupchtina, which assembles every year, and the extraordinary or grand skoupchtina, convoked only in certain exceptional and fixed cases. The ordinary skoupchtina is composed of representatives elected by the nation, and of deputies (one-third) appointed by the executive power. Every tax-paying Servian is an elector at twenty-one years of age; every elector paying thirty francs tax is eligible. The constitution guarantees to the citizens equality before the law, individual liberty, religious liberty, liberty of the press, and the abolition of confiscation.

—Administration. The departments (okroujie) are administered by prefects (natchalnik), the arrondissements by subprefects appointed by the government; the communes by kmètes elected by the inhabitants, and fulfilling both the functions of mayors and justices of the peace.

—Justice. Justice is administered: 1, by a court of appeal (Belgrade), divided into three chambers; 2, by a court of appeal also sitting at Belgrade; 3, by tribunals of first resort sitting in chief towns of the departments; 4, by rural courts, established from time immemorial in each commune, and composed of the kmète and two assessors. The jury system was introduced in 1871, but only for certain cases. The proceedings before all the tribunals are public and oral. The death penalty is no longer inflicted in political offenses. Moreover, it is resorted to only in cases of premeditated murder. The duration of the punishment of forced labor of imprisonment can not exceed twenty years.

—Public Instruction. According to published official accounts, there were in the principality, at the end of the scholastic year 1870-71, 484 communal schools, which furnish only elementary instruction, eighteen establishments of secondary instruction, one academy (Belgrade), composed of three faculties (law, science and philosophy); in all, 505 establishments, attended by 27,761 pupils (10,973 in 1861), which is only an average of 2¼ to every 100 inhabitants. But it is only just to remark that before 1830 Servia did not possess a single school, and that instruction was so far from being general, that the two founders of Servia's independence, Kara-George and Miloch, did not even know how to read. Instruction in all the schools is gratuitous; primary instruction is, in a certain measure, obligatory.

—Worship. The prevailing religion is the Greek Catholic. All other creeds are freely professed. The Servian church is autocephalic (autonomous), that is, it governs itself, entirely independent of the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople, by a synod composed of the archbishop of Belgrade, metropolitan of Servia, and three diocesan bishops of Chabatz, Négotine and Oujitzé. The four dioceses together contained, in 1871, 379 churches and chapels, with 742 priests, and 42 monasteries, with 135 monks. The bishops are chosen by the synod and confirmed by the prince. The metropolitan is appointed directly by the synod.

—Internal Relations. The principality maintains official relations: 1, with the Ottoman porte by means of a Servian chargé-d' affaires at Constantinople; 2, with the six guaranteeing powers (France, Austria, Great Britain, Italy, Prussia, Russia) through the medium of agents and consuls general of these powers accredited to the prince at Belgrade; 3, with Roumania, by means of the Servian agency at Bucharest (1862), and the Roumanian agency at Belgrade (1863). The principality also sends a delegate to the permanent river commission of the Danube, established by article seventeen of the treaty of Paris.

—Military Forces. The military forces are composed of two distinct elements, although each completes the other: the standing army, which is, properly speaking, only a collection of the organizations of different sorts; and the militia, the organization of which resembles somewhat that of the Prussian landwehr. The first, which is recruited by lot, does not exceed 4,000 men. The second, composed of all the citizens from twenty to fifty years of age who do not form part of the standing army, is divided into three classes or bans. The first ban, formed of men from twenty to thirty years of age, has an effective force of 68,364 men, infantry, cavalry and artillery, divided into five commands, or voïvodies.

—Finance. There are few countries in which the finances are administered with more wisdom than in Servia. Almost all the budgets show an excess of receipts. Thus the budget year 1870-71 showed an excess of receipts of 1,352,281 francs, out of a total of 14,309,242 francs. The principal sources of revenue are the direct taxes (7,661,200 fr.) and the customs (2,363,296 fr.). Among the expenditures (12,956,096 fr.) figure the general services of the ministries for a total of 10,765,090 francs, the civil list of the prince (504,000 fr.), the tribute to the Ottoman porte (494,027 fr.), the dotation of the legislative bodies (163,461 fr.), etc.

—Commerce. The value of the imports for the four years 1868-71 presents an annual average of about 25,000,000 francs. The average of the exports for the same period was 29,426,100 francs. In 1868, in consequence of the extreme abundance of cereals, it rose to 38,000,000. The principal articles of export are: hogs, cattle, wool, hides, tallow, suet, brandy (plum) and cereals, which, until 1865, figured among the articles of import.105

A. UBICINI.

SESSIONS OF CONGRESS

SESSIONS OF CONGRESS. (See CONGRESS, SESSIONS OF.)

SEWARD

SEWARD, William H., was born at Florida, N. Y., May 16, 1801, and died at Auburn, N. Y., Oct. 10, 1872. He was graduated at Union in 1820, was admitted to the bar in 1822, and entered political life as an "anti-mason." (See ANTI-MASONRY.) He was a member of the state senate 1830-34, and, on the union of the various elements of opposition into the whig party, he became its candidate for governor. Defeated in 1834, he was elected in 1838 and 1840. In 1849, he became United States senator from New York, and at once became the most prominent of the anti-slavery whigs. He bad organized a faction of his own way of thinking in the state, in opposition to the Fillmore, or "silver gray," whigs, and seems to have believed that he would finally be as successful with the national party. The attempt was a failure; but Seward's speeches in the senate made him the acknowledged leader of the new republican party from its first organization. In one of them, he made the startling assertion that there was a higher law in politics than the constitution. But the vigor of his speeches had made him a dangerous candidate for a new party; and, although he confidently expected the nomination for the presidency in 1860, it was given to Lincoln. Nevertheless, he became Lincoln's secretary of state in 1861, and served until 1869. (See ALABAMA CLAIMS, RECONSTRUCTION.) See Baker's Life of W. H. Seward; Welles'Lincoln and Seward; C. F. Adams' Memorial Address on Seward; Jenkins' Governors of New York, 607; Savage's Living Representative Men, 404; W. H. Seward's Works.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

SEYMOUR

SEYMOUR, Horatio, was born in Pompey, Onondaga county, New York, in 1811, studied and practiced law for a time, and was elected mayor of Utica in 1840, and member of the legislature in 1841. He there became one of the leaders of the conservative, or hunker, democrats, supporting Gov. Bouck's administration. In the democratic dissensions which followed, he took no active part on either side, and, in 1850, was unanimously nominated for governor by a united convention of all the factions, and was beaten by about 300 votes in a poll of about 430,000. In 1852, he was again nominated, and was elected. In 1854, he was again the regular candidate in the "scrubrace" of that year, and was defeated by Clark, the fusion (afterward republican) candidate, by 309 votes. In 1862 he was again elected governor, by about 11,000 majority over Wadsworth, republican. (See DRAFTS) His party orthodoxy, together with his moderate and conciliatory course, had long since made him the recognized leader of the New York democratic party; and the inclination toward him spread until, in 1868, the national convention nominated him, against his own desire, for president. He was defeated, and has since refused to take any active part in politics. (See DEMOCRATIC PARTY, VI.) See Savage's Representative Men, 428; Jenkins' Governors of New York, 706; Croly's Lives of Seymour and Blair (1868); McCabe's Life of Seymour (1868).

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

SHAY'S REBELLION

SHAY'S REBELLION. (See CONFEDERATION, ARTICLES OF.)

SHERMAN

SHERMAN, John, was born at Lancaster, O., May 10, 1823, was admitted to the bar in 1844, and entered political life as a whig. He was a republican congressman from Ohio, 1855-61, and United States senator, 1861-77. He then became secretary of the treasury under Hayes, serving with such brilliant success that, in 1880, he was one of the three leading candidates for the republican presidential nomination. (See REPUBLICAN PARTY, III.) See Sherman's Select Speeches and Reports.

A. J.

SHIMONOSÉKI INDEMNITY

SHIMONOSÉKI INDEMNITY. The town of Shimonoséki commands the narrow straits leading into the Inland sea from the sea of Japan, which, at this point, are about a half-mile wide. On June 25, 1863, in obedience to orders from the mikado to close the straits, the clansmen of Ch8otilde;shiu fired on the American steamer Pembroke, but without injury to the vessel. On July 16, by order of the minister of the United States, Capt. McDougall, of the United States steamship Wyoming, attacked the batteries, and sunk two vessels moored under them. French and Dutch vessels, being fired on, also shelled the batteries, the French with a landing force destroying one of the redoubts. On Sept. 5, 1864, a combined squadron of one American, nine British, three French and four Dutch ships of war, with 208 guns and 7,590 men, attacked the forts and destroyed them. The American portion of this force consisted of the chartered steamer Takiang, with one Parrot gun, commanded by Lieut. Pearson, who had 258 men under him; the expenses being in all less than $25,000. The allied representatives claimed from the shögun's government, at Yedo, compensation for damage done, $420,000, or $140,000 apiece to the Dutch, French and Americans, out of the "indemnity" of $3,000,000, to be divided among the four treaty powers, making the share of Great Britain $645,000, and of each of the others $785,000. The bill presented for damage to the Pembroke (loss of time, freight and passengers) was $10,000; the further claim for "annuities to dead and wounded" of the Wyoming, not being allowed. The last installment of the indemnity was paid to the treaty powers by the mikado's government in Tökiö, in 1875. This "Shimonoséki Indemnity Fund," deposited in the treasury of the United States, amounting, in 1882, with interest, to more than double the original sum, has never been applied to public use, the whole business being looked upon, as it indeed was, as iniquitous and extortionate. A bill authorizing the return of this money to Japan, after deducting a small part of it for the officers and men of the Wyoming, has repeatedly passed one house of congress.106

W. E. G.

SHINTO

SHINTO. We shall improve the space at our command by outlining the features of pure Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, which has exerted so great a political influence upon the empire, which is so enthusiastically studied by Anglo-Japanese scholars, which has given rise to a large portion of modern Japanese literature, including the finest works of erudition in the language, which furnishes the basis of some vigorous polemics against advancing Christianity, and the original scriptures of which have been denominated by Basil Hall Chamberlain "the earliest authentic and connected literary product of that large division of the human race which has been variously denominated Turanian, Tartar and Altaic, * * even preceding by at least a century the most ancient extant literary compositions of non-Aryan India."

—The pure Japanese term for the native religion is Kami no Michi, the Way of the Gods; or, Religion of the Kami. The later and more concise Chinese term, Shinto (Shin god, and to doctrine, i.e., theology), was invented to distinguish it from the Way or doctrine of the Chinese sages, or of Buddha. To in Shinto is the same as the Tau of Lao-tse, or Tauism. It seems no longer doubtful that the Japanese islands were peopled by a race from northeastern Asia, who made their way from the continent through Corea, long before Buddhism entered China, or before Chinese culture had greatly influenced the nations around the Middle Kingdom. The invaders found on the soil the Ainos and other tribes, whom they subdued as they moved northwardly and westwardly. They obtained ascendency, not only by their superior arms and prowess, but by their fetiches and religious beliefs. The political order established by the conquerors resembled feudalism, and of the many shrines, established upon the allotted lands by the victors or their descendants, for the reverence of ancestors, some attained great eminence and renown. The invaders professed to have come originally from heaven, and so called themselves the heavenly race, and their ancestors the heavenly gods, while their serfs or conquered people were the earthly race, and their chiefs the earthly gods.

—Until the introduction of writing from China, in the fourth century, the prayers, odes and traditions of this essentially ancestral cult were handed down from mouth to mouth and were not committed to writing until the eighth century. Upon the introduction of Buddhism, in 552 A. D., which served to spread Chinese literary culture, the superiority of both the religious and the literary forms and codes of India and China were so apparent that native developments were smitten with paralysis, and, instead of originating, the people borrowed wholesale. Ancient Japanese civilization may be compared to the wooden caissons, on which modern engineers build their lofty towers of bridge masonry; for soon after the Kojiki (Book of Ancient Records) 711-12 A. D., and the Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan) 720 A. D., were completed, all that was peculiar to ancient Japan was rapidly overlaid by Chinese institutions and culture in every department of human activity, and the old features of national life and faith faded from view. In 927 A. D. the code of ceremonial law, Englishiki, was reduced to writing, though in reality it contains a ritual older in many portions than the historic period, which latter, in the light of present historical research, can not probably be stretched beyond 400 A. D.

—The Kojiki pictures creation as evolution out of chaos, in which matter existed before intelligence, the first imperfectly formed beings springing like sprouts from the warm mud, and arriving at completed spirit and form only after successive stages of advance. Japan was the first created land, and the first pair, Izanagi and Izanami, furnished the Japanese archipelago with everything needful, and populated it with gods, men and animals. Heaven and earth were still united, but gradually a separation took place. The most famous child of the divine pair was a daughter, who became the sun. Her grandson, Ninigi, was sent from heaven to earth to subdue the turbulent inhabitants, who, in multiplying, became rebellious. Descending from the skies to mount Kirishima in Hiuga, Kiushiu, he subdued his enemies, and his grandson, Hohodémi, born of a dragon mother, set out on a tour of conquest, and fixing his seat of government near Kioto, became the first mikado of Japan, being, many centuries afterward, canonized as Jimmu Tenno. By an ediet of the 123d mikado, Mutsuhito, promulgated Dec. 15, 1872, the date of Jimmu's accession to the throne was fixed at 660 B. C., so that the Japanese year corresponding to 1883 A. D. is 2543d of the Japanese empire. The mikado is thus the personal centre of the Shinto religion, which consists in the practice of the worship of ancestors, of the sun and other forces of nature, of the gods of grain, of the trees, of the watercourses, of the roads, and of various local influences. Even animals, trees, swords and jewels were, in the primeval cult, called kami, and thus deified, though not probably worshiped. Some of the kami were evil, some good.

—The Japanese mythology is abundant, fanciful, extravagant, and far from being harmonious in its statements. Three cycles of myths are distinguished by Mr. Chamberlain, having their origin respectively in Kiushiu, Yamato and Idzumo. All the deities of Shinto were once men, and the chief of them are now worshiped by the leading noble families of the imperial court as their ancestors. It is to be noticed, that while ideas or expressions from the Chinese classics are to be detected in the Kojiki, the ancient liturgies are in pure Japanese. In addition to these monuments of the archaic speech, special prayers and hymns are still composed on great occasions, a notable instance being that in Kioto, in 1868. On this occasion the mikado took an oath to form a parliament for the discussion of national affairs, and the most solemn invocations were made to the Heavenly Gods to ratify the august vow which became the foundation of the new government. Yet, notwithstanding its impressive ritual, Shinto, in comparison with Buddhism or the system of Confucius, lacks dogma and formulated codes; teaching no ethics, unless reverence to the dead and unquestioning submission to the mikado's will may be called ethics. Most of the elements composing positive religion are absent, such as precise doctrines, casuistry, a polemic propaganda, and distinctly marked ministers of religion. In its unpainted and ungilded shrines, severely simple, and built on the type of the dwelling house of ancient Japan, are no idols, or emblems, except the notched strips of white paper—the economical substitute for the ancient offerings of white silk. Closets may contain written prayers, and vases the same or folded paper, while offerings of fruits, grain and fish, are made at stated seasons. The ancient torii (bird rest), or perch for the sacred chanticleers, have now become the holy archways through which worshipers approach the shrine. In stone or wood, red or unpainted, these "gateways" are as striking objects in the landscapes of Japan as are spires in northern christendom. Ancient sacrifices, as the liturgies show, consisted of rice-beer, grain, fine cloth, coarse silk, brocade, and boars and cocks, which latter, however, were never slaughtered. Actual lustrations and prayers for cleansing were frequent, and now survive in the washings of the hands and rinsings of the mouths of worshipers. Indeed, the radical idea of offenses was that of defilement, and that of amendment purification. The religious distinction between "good" and "bad" was, in general, "clean" and "unclean." Mr. Ernest Satow, in "The Mythology and Religious Worship of the Ancient Japanese" (Westminster Review, No. ccxxvii., p. 25), says that of the two classes the Asiatic invaders were agriculturists, while the primitive inhabitants were hunters or fishermen, and that the "heavenly" offenses mentioned in the rituals were those peculiar to an agricultural class living among a people pursuing different hereditary occupations, while the "earthly" offenses were more general in their nature.

—Left alone by itself, Shinto might have developed into a perfected system, with all the appurtenances of a religion properly so called. This, however, was not so to be. Instead of resisting Buddhism, it became, in contact with it, weaker and weaker in the struggle for existence. It was not only overlaid by Buddhism, but, in the ninth century, it was practically absorbed by the India cult through the Philo-like irenicon of Kobo, a Japanese priest, learned and perhaps unscrupulous, who, after a professed revelation from the kami, proclaimed that all the chief gods of Shinto, the native heroes and patriarchs, were but previous imperfect manifestations of Buddha to Japan before his avatar as the perfect teacher to India. The native myths, legends and doctrines were explained according to Buddhist ideas, the old gods were baptized with Buddhist names and titles, and henceforth Shinto, as a religious system, except in a few obscure temples, and among a few noble families, among which its purity was sacredly maintained, disappeared from view, and was utterly forgotten by the mass of the people. When, however, in the seventeenth century, the political genius of Iyéyasu gave "the peace of absolutism," after centuries of civil war, and scholars had leisure for research, a school of zealous Shinto scholars arose. The ancient texts were unearthed, deciphered, edited and lectured upon with literary acumen and polemic zeal. Shinto was again set forth in its primal purity, appealing alike to patriotism and the religious instinct. The logical consequences followed. The conviction flashed itself upon the minds of those who especially hated the despotism of the Tokugawa rulers at Yedo, that if the mikado was the descendant and representative of the Heavenly Gods of the Divine Country (Japan), he ought, by virtue of his divine descent, to reign as emperor, as well as pope, and rule his people without a lieutenant between himself and them. Reverence for the mikado and hatred of the usurper increased, forming a public opinion hostile to the duarchy. When the revolution of 1868 broke out, the most potent moral force behind the cannon balls of the imperialists was the belief in the divinity of the mikado and in his right to govern in person, and expel the alien from the polluted Land of the Gods (Japan). The shogunate was abolished, and duarchy ceased. No sooner was the new government established in Tokio than the Buddhist emblems and ritual war purged from the ancient Shinto temples, and in place of incense, gilding, images and altars, were seen the austere simplicity of virgin wood, white paper and natural offerings. A vigorous propaganda throughout the empire ensued, and for a time it seemed as though Japan was to be led back to the ideas and mental attitude of a world that had passed away fifteen centuries before. But such a miracle was not to be wrought. Experience soon showed the mikado's ministers that in the nineteenth century men could not be born again into the primitive barbaric age. The foreigners refused to be expelled.

—With the revolutionary movement came the multifarious demands of complex government, foreign relations and popular rights. Practical politics jostled state religion aside, and the ancient Council of the Gods of Heaven and Earth (Jin-gi Kuan) which had once outranked the Council of the Great Government (Dai-jo Kuan) was reduced first to a department, then to a bureau, again to a sub-bureau, and finally, in 1880, abolished utterly. Nevertheless, Shinto is still a living force with millions of the Japanese: and the grave problem now before the minds of earnest patriots is the transmutation of the old popular reverence for the throne and person of the mikado as divine, into the new loyalty of intelligent respect. The period between the disintegration of old sanctions and motives and the inrooting and growth into strength of new political habits of thought, is always a period fraught with peril, but it is to be hoped that with the decay of the old may come a purer and stronger religious faith as well as new political theory and fabric, and that the throne of the oldest living dynasty on earth may find even a securer foundation than the stilts of myth, when resting upon constitutional foundations "broad based upon the people's will."

—LITERATURE. Nearly all the best writing upon Shinto is found in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, by Ernest Satow and Basil Hall Chamberlain. See also Westminster Review, July, 1878, and The Mikado's Empire, New York.

WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS.

SIAM

SIAM. When first known to the Portuguese explorers of the sixteenth century, this country, full of brown-skinned people, or "Moors," was called Siam, from a Malay word (Sâyâm) meaning "brown race," and quite unknown as a proper name to the Siamese, who call their land Muang Tai, "The Free Kingdom." This national designation of the Tai people is significant of the victory of Buddhism, which knows no caste, over Brahmanism, in which men are fixed, as by decrees of predestination, in various ranks of subordination to the Brahmans. Tai (Siam) constantly rejoices in its deliverance from the dogmas of caste, and in the purity of its Buddhism, which is of the "southern" or less modified form of Shaka Muni's teachings. Occupying the heart of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, Siam proper is, geographically, the basin of the Meinam river. A long, narrow strip of land, which runs southward from the head of the gulf of Siam to near latitude 4, forms the isthmus of Kraw, and nearly half of the lessening "Malay" peninsula. The other frontagers of Siam are the wealthy Chinese province of Yunnan on the north, and Annam and Cambodia on the east and south. Siam is thus an axeshaped country, with an extreme length of 1,350 miles, with a breadth varying from 60 to 400 miles, with a coast line nearly equal to its land frontiers. The greater portion of the kingdom is an unexplored wilderness of forest land, the settled portion consisting of teeming alluvial plains, which in many respects resemble the Nile lands of Egypt. The reports of the area vary from 320,000 to 180,000 square miles, a fact which is due partly to genuine ignorance of topography, and partly to the elastic nature of boundaries in those portions whose inhabitants fluctuate in their loyalty to the lord of the golden umbrella. Politically, the neighbors of Siam are the British in Burmah and Wellesley province, the Malays in the peninsula, the Chinese, the Cambodians, the Annamese, and the French who are near enough for possible close relations. The vassalage of some of the people under Siamese rule is of a nominal character; but the tendency is to the increase, rather than the contrary, of Siamese supremacy. Two seasons, the wet and the dry, rule the year. Most of the habitable portion of the Meinam's basin is overflowed from June to August, by which latter month the snows of Thibet have fully melted, and the cities and villages rise like islands out of the Nilelike flood, the people living in boats and moving over the crops beneath. This abundance of neverfailing water in a tropical land makes it a perpetual garden. Plant life attains its maximum, and animal forms are abundant. The dry season lasts from November to April. The thermometer ranges from 64° to 99°, averaging 81°. On the whole, the climate is salubrious, though malarial disorders prevail during the wet season. Europeans, with an occasional visit to a cooler climate, can maintain health, and work during most of the days of the year. Food is excessively cheap, clothing light, and shelter easily erected. The people manifest the traits of a weak and passive race. Their bodies are frail and slim, and their minds quick rather than strong. Their virtues and vices are those usually found in a climate in which nature is an over-indulgent mother, and are fostered by a religion that, like southern Buddhism, of which Siam is the citadel, is full of intellectual subtlety, but allows little outward manifestation.

—Most of the land was formerly held on a semi-feudal tenure, the farming population being kept in practical serfdom, and compelled to work at forced labor during portions of the year. This system of debt-slavery which formerly prevailed, by which millions of debtors in bondage to creditors were branded with the seal or mark of their owners, is now radically modified, and is in course of extinction. Yet the rice is still badly cultivated; and, notwithstanding the fertility of the soil, famines are far from unknown. Yet better methods of agriculture are being introduced. The old plan of driving herds of buffaloes over the fields to level the weeds and turn up the soil, which was afterward harrowed with thorny shrubs, has given way to improved labor, which has greatly increased the output of cereals, and made the export of grain possible and profitable. Rice, cotton, sugar, indigo, various woods, gums, spices, metals and ivory are now exported.

—Of the 12,000,000 souls under Siamese rule, one-third only are of the Tai race, another third are Chinese, the remainder being Laotians, Malays, Hindoos, Cambodians, etc. The Siamese are a mixed people, sprung from Mongolian and Aryan ancestors, and possess the mental and physical traits of both the Hindoos and the Chinese. Nearly half of the words in their language have their roots in Sanskrit. The written language has an alphabet of sixty-four letters, of which forty-four are consonants and twenty vowels. Like most alphabets or syllabaries of Chinese Asia, the Siamese system has been derived from ancient India by Buddhism, though in this instance mediately through Cambodia, the ancient Cambodian character being still used in their sacred books. The vocabulary, which is meagre and mostly monosyllabic, is eked out by tonic inflections, by which one word does duty for several distinct meanings. The language is simple in structure, with few idioms, and in general features resembles Chinese. The spelling, like that of Corea, and most countries having an alphabet unnecessarily large, is in a state of chaos. Writing is from left to right. The national literature is of local importance only, most of what is excellent in it being borrowed from Chinese or Hindoo sources, or closely formed on foreign models. The Buddhist writings are very voluminous. The homely wisdom and keen wit of the people are best expressed in their proverbs. Education is almost entirely in the hands of the priests, who constitute a large and influential class. Siam for over 1,200 years has been intensely and only Buddhist, and it is estimated that the priests obtain for their personal and bodily support alone, the sum of $23,000,000 annually.

—The government is nominally a duarchy, the supreme king possessing about two-thirds, and the lesser king one-third, of the power, the latter acting as a prime minister or first counselor, though, like the other high nobles, taking semi-annually the oath of allegiance to the supreme king. The legislative power is vested in a council of state and the senabawdi or ministry; the former consisting of from ten to twenty counselors, presided over by the king, with the ministers who sit without voting; and the latter, of the ministers or heads of departments. The king can not promulgate laws without the consent of this council, which also confirms the succession to the throne, which, though nominally hereditary, is not always to the eldest son.

—The untrustworthy annals of the Siamese extend back centuries before Christ, but history, in the modern critical sense, begins with the founding of the capital, Ayuthia, A. D. 1350. The civil era, as used by the ruling dynasty,begins at 638 A. D., so that the present year 1883 is the 1245th of Siam. In the sixteenth century the Siamese extended their sway over Cambodia and the Malay peninsula. Among the people trading with them, or serving in their armies, were the Japanese. Relations with Europe were first established in 1513, when the king of Siam sent an embassy with gifts to the great Portuguese buccaneer Albuquerque, who had conquered Malacca. Commerce with Portugal was established, and in 1604 the Dutch took a share in the profits of trading between Bangkok and Europe on the one hand and Nagasaki on the other. The first English vessel arrived at Ayuthia in 1612. Later on a Greek adventurer, named Phaulkon, who had found his way to Siam, ingratiated himself in the king's favor, was appointed by degrees to high office, and persuaded the Siamese to send an embassy to France. This was done, the envoys visiting Paris, and also London, concluding treaties with Louis XIV. and Charles II. The French king sent out embassies in 1685 and 1687, and through the influence or treachery of Phaulkon, a force of five hundred French soldiers were given possession of the citadel at Bangkok, which they held until 1690, when they were expelled, and French influence suffered a bloody, decisive overthrow. In 1782 the Burmans, having invaded Siam, sacked and burned Ayuthia, the present ruling dynasty was founded, and the capital removed to Bangkok. Since the foundation of Ayuthia, in 1350 A D., forty sovereigns have ruled over Muang Tai. Treaties with the East India company were made in 1822 and 1825. The American sea captain Edmund Roberts, of Portsmouth, N. H, was commissioned by President Jackson to make a treaty with Siam, which was accomplished March 20, 1833. Townsend Harris, in 1856, negotiated a second treaty on behalf of the United States, which allowed greater privileges to American citizens. The court of Bangkok has already signified its intention of sending an embassy to the United States, and of establishing a legation at Washington. The present king, Chulalankarana I., born Sept. 21, 1853, succeeded his father Oct. 1, 1868. The second king is George Washington (Kroma Phraracha). During the past two generations, the American missionaries in Siam have been very active in promoting science, education and the introduction of American ideas, methods and machinery, and have been very influential for good at the court. The present kings are well educated, and have begun a series of reforms which promise a new life for the nation, and show that Siam, like Japan, has begun to abandon Asiatic ideals of civilization, and to put herself in harmony with the political ideas of Christendom. In regard to education, schools after the American model have been established for sons of nobles, and an increasing number of Siamese young men are being educated in western science and literature. Dress and etiquette are less restricted by servile customs, trade is being gradually unfettered, and in place of the old fractional currency in paper promises, bronze tokens, minted in England, form, with the silver coins stamped with the effigy of a white elephant, the circulating medium of commerce.

—In 1880 the foreign trade was valued at $10,000,000, the imports being mainly hardware, machinery, dry goods and opium, with which latter article Americans have nothing to do. An increasing fleet of steamers, and square-rigged vessels in the commercial marine, and war vessels after the British model, and army drilled according to western tactics, the adoption of a national flag bearing the design of a white elephant on a crimson field, the granting of perfect religious freedom, the abolition of slavery and feudal or debt bondage, and the beginnings of a diplomatic usage similar to that of western nations, illustrate the earnestness of the rulers of Siam to enter the comity of nations and pursue national prosperity along the lines marked out by the leading governments of the earth.

—LITERATURE. Crawfurd's Embassy to Siam, London, 1628; Pallogoix, Description du Royaune Thai, Paris, 1854; Bowring's Kingdom and People of Siam, London, 1857; Leonowen's An English Governess at the Court of Siam, Boston, 1870; Vincent's Land of the White Elephant, New York, 1874; Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, 1868.

WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS.

SILVER

SILVER, one of the precious metals, of a white color, and, when polished, of a brilliant, shining lustre, scarcely inferior to that of highly polished steel. It is next to gold in malleability, ductility and resistance to oxidation in air and water. Relatively to gold, its tenacity is about one-fourth, and power of electrical conduction about one-third greater, and its power of conducting heat as 973 to 1,000. In modern chemistry, the symbol for silver is ag., from the Latin name argentum, denoting silver; its atomic weight, 108. Molecular weight, 216; hardness, 2.5-3. Specific gravity, when pure, 10.5. It fuses at about 1873 Fah., and volatilizes at a higher temperature. When melted, it absorbs oxygen, of which it may take up twenty-two times its own volume, and which it expels on cooling with a peculiar sound known as spitting.

—Silver is dissolved by nitric acid at all temperatures, and by hot concentrated sulphuric acid. It can be alloyed with many other metals. Alloys of gold and silver are of a greenish white color, more ductile, harder and more sonorous than either metal; 50 parts of silver in 1,000 are sufficient to lower the color of gold. Silver increases the toughness of gold, and gold coins containing a small per cent. of silver are less liable to abrasion than if alloyed with copper alone. Gold alloyed with 80 per cent. of silver has a greenish color; with two-thirds silver, pale or white. The color of silver is not modified by a copper alloy up to about 850 parts in 1,000. Alloys of silver and copper have a less specific gravity than the mean of the two metals, and are harder and more ductile, elastic and sonorous than pure silver. The maximum of hardness is reached by an addition of 200 parts of copper.

—Silver is found in its native state, and also occurs in combination with other substances in the form of ores and alloys, but is principally obtained from its sulphide, and from those ores of which it is a variable constituent, but existing in such large quantities as to be an object of metallurgical operations.

—The native metal is usually alloyed with a small quantity of copper, gold, and sometimes antimony, bismuth, mercury or platinum. It occurs in masses, and in fine and coarse threads, but generally has the appearance of metallic twigs and branches. A mass taken from the Konigsberg mines, in Norway, in the royal collection at Copenhagen, weighs upward of 500 pounds. A mass discovered at Huantaya, Peru, weighed 800 pounds; while another in Sonora, Mexico, is said to have weighed 2,700. A specimen from Batopilas, Mexico, weighed 400 pounds.

—Metallic silver has also been found in Saxony, Bohemia, Hungary, and in the Hartz, Altai, Ural, and some of the Cornish mines; while in the United States it is found in some of the mines in North Carolina, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. In the Lake Superior region, the silver generally penetrates the copper in masses and strings, and is nearly pure, notwithstanding the copper about it.

—The following are some of the most important silver ores:

Silver in combination with Sulphur.

Argentite—Silver glance—Sulphide of silver. This is the common and most valuable ore of silver, and possesses considerable malleability. It has a metallic lustre, is of a dark gray color, shining streak and an uneven fracture. Its composition is: sulphur, 12.9; silver, 87.1. Hardness, 2-2.5. Specific gravity, 7.196-7.365.

Stephanite—Brittle silver ore. Lustre metallic, color and streak iron-black, fracture uneven. Composition: sulphur, 16.2; antimony, 15.3; silver, 68.5. Hardness, 2-2.5. Specific gravity, 6.269.

Polybasite. This mineral contains from 65 to 75 per cent. of silver, in combination with sulphur, copper, arsenic and antimony. Lustre, metallic; color and streak, iron-black; fracture uneven. Hardness, 2-3. Specific gravity, 6.214.

Pyrargyrite—Ruby silver—Dark red silver ore. The dark red or antimonial variety contains sulphur, 17.7; antimony, 22.5; silver, 59.8. Lustre, metallic, adamantine; color, black, sometimes approaching cochineal red; streak, cochineal red. Hardness, 2-2.5. Specific gravity, 5.7-5.9.

Pyroustite—Ruby silver—Light red silver ore. The light red or arsenical variety contains sulphur, 19.4; arsenic, 15.1; silver, 65.5. Lustre, adamantine; color and streak, cochineal red; fracture, uneven. Hardness, 2-2.5. Specific gravity, 5.42-5.56.

Stromeyerite—Sulphide of silver and copper. Composition: sulphur, 15.7; copper, 31.2; silver, 53.1. Lustre, metallic; color, dark steel gray; streak, shining; fracture, subconchoidal. Hardness, 2.5-3. Specific gravity, 6.2-6.3.

Sternbergite—Sulphide of silver and iron. Composition, nearly equal parts of sulphur, iron and silver. Lustre, metallic; color, pinchbeck brown; streak, black. Hardness, 1-1.5. Specific gravity. 4.21. It resembles graphite, and, like it, leaves a tracing on paper.

Miargyrite—Sulphide of silver and antimony. Composition: sulphur, 21.8; antimony, 41.5; silver, 36.7. Lustre, submetallic; color, iron-black; streak, dark cherry red; fracture, subconchoidal. Hardness, 2-2.5. Sp. gr., 5.4.

Freieslebenite. An antimonial silver and lead sulphide, containing about 24 per cent. of silver. Lustre, metallic: color, steel gray. Hardness, 2-2.5. Specific gravity, 6-6.4.

Silver fahlore—Gray copper ore. A compound of silver, copper, iron, antimony, arsenic, sulphur, zinc and lead, and sometimes gold and mercury, containing silver in variable proportions up to 31 per cent. Sometimes this metal is almost entirely wanting, Lustre, metallic; color, steel gray to iron-black; streak, brown or black. Hardness, 3-4.5. Specific gravity, 4.5-5.1. This ore is quite common, but the silver is obtained from it with the greatest difficulty.

Silver in combination with Chlorine, Bromine and Iodine.

Cerargyrite—Chloride of silver—Horn silver. Composition: chlorine, 24.7; silver, 75.3; but usually contains a small quantity of the peroxide of iron. Lustre, resinous, passing into adamantine; color, pearl gray or grayish green, and when pure becomes a violet brown on exposure: streak, shining; fracture, conchoidal. Hardness, 1-1.5. Specific gravity, 5.552. This ore resembles and cuts somewhat like horn or wax, and will, by rubbing, silver the surface of an iron plate. Its varieties are:

Iodide of silver. An admixture of iodine with 46 per cent. of silver. Lustre, resinous; color, yellow; streak, yellow.

Bromide of silver. An admixture of bromine with 57.7 per cent. of silver. Lustre, splendent; color, bright yellow.

Embolite. Composed of chlorine 13, bromine 20, silver 67 parts.

Silver combined with other Metals.

Bismuth silver. An ore containing from 15 to 60 per cent. of silver. Lustre, metallic; color, grayish white.

Native amalgam. A compound of silver and mercury, the per cent. of silver varying from 26.5 to 86.6, dependent upon the manner in which it is combined.

Dyscrasite, or antimonial silver. Consists simply of antimony and silver; antimony 22, silver 78; and has a nearly white color. Hardness, 3.5-4. Specific gravity, 9.4-9.8.

Silver combined with tellurium, or Telluride of silver (Heasite). Composition: tellurium, 37.2; silver, 62.8. Lustre, metallic; color, steel gray. Hardness, 2-3.5. Specific gravity, 8.3-8.6. It is slightly malleable.

Silver in combination with selenium; naumannite or selenide of silver. Selenium, 20.8; silver, 73.2. Lustre, metallic; color and streak, iron-black.

Eucairite—Films of silver and copper containing selenium Composition: selenium, 31.6; copper, 25.3; silver, 43.1. Lustre, metallic; color, lead gray; streak, shining; so soft that it may easily be cut with a knife. It also tarnishes easily.

—The processes for extracting silver from ore may be grouped into three general divisions: amalgamation, smelting, and lixiviation. In amalgamation, the silver is collected by the use of mercury; in smelting, it is made to combine with lead or copper; and, in lixiviation, is drawn off in a solution containing silver as the base, in combination with acids. Each of these methods has processes which differ, each from the others, methods known by the names of the inventors, or of the localities where first introduced.

—Ores, for their metallurgical treatment, are generally classified in reference to their constituents, as well as the amount of silver contained. Those from which the silver can be obtained by simple mechanical processes, are called "free milling ores." Ores from which the silver can be extracted by fusion at high temperatures and then drawing off separately the earthy materials and metals, as they arrange themselves according to their specific gravities, are called "smelting ores." When ores do not readily part with their silver by fusion, or by the use of chemicals and the ordinary mechanical processes, they are called "rebellious" or "refractory."

—Amalgamation. The method of extracting silver from ores by amalgamating them with mercury, was first discovered in 1557 by Bartolome Medina, a native of Pachuca, Mexico, and has since that time, with some modifications, been in general and continuous use. Ores treated by this process may be divided into classes, dependent upon the amount of silver contained and other substances associated with the silver, and require somewhat different metallurgical treatment. Ores containing silver combined with sulphur, chlorine, iodine or bromine, but free from arsenic and antimony, which largely increase the expense, together with the loss of both mercury and silver, are most easily worked by amalgamation. Such ores containing silver assaying less than $150 to the ton, are generally treated by the so-called Washoe or pan process, in which the ores are first crushed to a suitable size, and then, by means of a stamp mill, are pulverized in water into particles of the size of fine sand, and subsequently are ground in cast-iron pans or amalgamators with hot water and mercury, sometimes with, and sometimes without, the addition of chemicals. The silver and mercury, in the form of an amalgam, are placed in small bags, through the interstices of which the redundant mercury oozes and is strained out. The remainder of the mercury is afterward vaporized and separated, by heating the amalgam in an iron retort. The silver, alloyed with more or less of other metals left in the retort, is melted into bars, while the condensed mercury collected from the retort is again used for amalgam. Ores of this character assaying below $90 to the ton, require, for their treatment, a longer time for amalgamation and a greater quantity of chemicals and mercury. Ores assaying in silver over $150 per ton, and associated with arsenic, antimony or iron, so as to render their reduction difficult, are generally crushed dry, roasted with salt in a reverberatory furnace, and then amalgamated in barrels.

—Smelting. Silver and lead in a state of fusion possess a strong affinity for each other, and advantage is taken of this in the reduction of argentiferous ores. When silver exists in the ore in a metallic state, an alloy is easily made by fusing together the ore and metallic lead, or the ores of lead. In case silver is associated with large quantities of iron pyrites or sulphides other than galena, the ore is frequently fused for a matte, which is then roasted and re-melted with lead, and from the alloy thus obtained the silver is afterward separated. Lead and other base metals are removed by different methods, dependent upon the cost of the agents and material employed, and the use to be made and value of the base metals or of the by-products obtained.

—Leaching. To extract silver from ore by this process the silver must enter into chemical combination with some substance that will form with it a soluble compound. Chlorine, under the proper conditions, readily combines with silver, and has been found the cheapest and most suitable agent for this purpose. The silver is converted into a chloride by roasting the crushed ore in a furnace with common salt, of which from 5 to 20 per cent. is used, according to the richness of the ore. The chloride, being insoluble in water alone, is leached out from the mass by running through it a solution of calcium hyposulphite, from which the silver is afterward precipitated as a sulphide of silver by a solution of calcium polysulphide (pentasulphide). The precipitated sulphide, in the form of black mud, is collected, roasted, dried, roasted and then melted at a high temperature, with an addition of scrap iron, which takes up the sulphur remaining after the roasting, and reduces the silver to a metallic state. The leaching process is quite satisfactory in its results when it is desired to obtain silver bullion of the highest degree of purity.

—Silver Refining. Silver is refined either by the dry method, fire, or the wet process, acid. In refining by fire the base metals are converted into their oxides and flow from the melted silver, or are removed by absorption or dissolved in alkaline fluxes. Where large amounts are to be operated upon, the silver is usually refined by cupellation in a reverberatory furnace. The bullion is placed upon a cupellation hearth, made of suitable material, such as crushed slag, quartz and clay, bone-ash, calcareous marl, composed chiefly of carbonate of lime and silicate of alumina, etc., etc., the chief requisite being that the cupel should be infusible, sufficiently porous to absorb the oxides of the base metals, and contain in its composition no reducing agent. The base metals are oxidized by a current of air, and run off as melted oxides, or are absorbed by the cupel. Silver is brought without difficulty by this process to a fineness of over 99 per cent.

—Refining by the use of oxidized fluxes is conducted in crucibles, and the agent employed is generally nitrate of potash or of soda. The nitrate is decomposed by the heat of the furnace; its oxygen, combining with the base metals, forms oxides, which are dissolved or held in suspension by silicious or alkaline fluxes. Borate of soda is the flux usually employed in the mints in refining.

—Silver is refined by the wet process by dissolving the bullion in acids, precipitating the silver by chlorine, and subsequently reducing it to a metallic state, or by precipitation with copper. This is rarely employed otherwise than as an incident to the parting of gold and silver, or when silver containing base metals can at the same time be advantageously melted and used as alloy for quartation in refining gold. This process is described in the article on GOLD in Volume II.

—Occurrence. Silver, though not so widely diffused as gold, has been found in every grand division and in many of the principal islands of the globe. In ancient times it was obtained from Nubia and other parts of Africa, from western Asia and many countries in Europe, principally Spain, Hungary and Austria, Germany, Turkey, and Russia. Upon the discovery of America rich mines were soon opened in the countries of South America adjacent to the Pacific coast—Peru, Chili and Bolivia—and also in the northern and western portions of Mexico. Of late years it has been found in greater abundance in the territories and western states of the United States.

—Production. Silver seems to have been one of the earliest metals known, and, as money, is the first mentioned by the ancient sacred and profane historians. From the mines known to them considerable quantities were obtained, although the methods employed for treating the ores and refining the metal were crude and expensive. Pliny states that silver was found in all the Roman provinces, and both he and Diodorus mention the Spanish mines as the principal source. From the latter it is said that Hannibal extracted 300 pounds daily (equal to $1,500,000 annually), and that one tunnel had penetrated a mile and a half into the mountain. Although new mines were from time to time discovered, the total annual production of silver, as well as the stock previously accumulated, became gradually reduced until the discovery of America. How much then existed in the world, either in the form of coin or personal ornaments, plate and bullion, is a matter of conjecture. The average yearly production for the first fifty-three years after the discovery of America (1492 to 1545) was, according to an estimate made in 1830 by John White for the secretary of the treasury, $640,000; according to Mr. Alex. Del Mar. formerly chief of the United States bureau of statistics, $600,000; and according to Dr. Soetbeer, $2,716,000. The total production of both gold and silver in the western world, America, Europe and Africa, from 1492 to 1800, on the estimates of Mr. Jacob, would be $5,708,000,000; on those of Danson, $5,482,000,000. Mr. White's estimate of the silver production for the period amounts to $3,725,000,000; Mr. Del Mar's to $4,260,000,000, and Dr. Soetbeer's to $4,855,000,000. Their estimates of the gold production during the same time are: White, $1,675,000,000; Del Mar, $1,872,300,000; Soetbeer, $2,332,000,000; which, added respectively to their estimates of the silver production, would make the total production, according to Mr. Del Mar, $6,560,000,000, and according to Dr. Soetbeer, $7,187,000,000, both of which amounts exceed those given by Danson and White. Mr. Del Mar's estimate of the yearly production of silver from 1800 to 1876 amounts to $2,638,500,000, and adding to this the yearly production for the remaining four years to 1880, as estimated by the director of the mint, amounting to $368,800,000, would bring Del Mar's estimate up to $3,007,300,000, which is $161,000,000 less than Soetbeer's estimate. The total production of silver in the western world, since the discovery of America, would be, according to Soetbeer, $8,034,819,000; according to Del Mar, $7,267,300,000.

—The yield of silver from the mines of all the countries of the world in each century since the discovery of America, has been estimated by Dr. Soetbeer as follows:

—Among the silver-producing countries of the world the United States stands first, and, with Mexico and Bolivia, furnishes four-fifths of the entire amount. Germany is fourth, with a yield from her mines of nearly $9,000,000, followed by Chili with $5,000,000, and Spain with $3,000,000. The amount of silver obtained from the principal silver producing countries of the world in 1882 was stated by the director of the mint to be:

The special report of the director of the mint on the production of the precious metals in the United States for 1882 makes the total yield for that year in the United States $46,800,000. The largest amount was obtained from Colorado, which produced $16,500,000, the greater part from the Leadville mines. Arizona comes next, with $7,500,000, mostly obtained from the Tombstone district; then Utah, furnishing $6,800,000; while Nevada, once first among the silver states, with a production in 1878 of $28,000,000, now stands fourth with but $6,750,000.

—Use and Consumption of Silver. Silver is largely used in ornamentation, manufactures and coinage. For these purposes it is almost invariably alloyed with copper. In the United States the standard for coin is 900 parts silver and 100 parts copper. The English standard, called "sterling silver," contains 7.5 per cent. copper, with a fineness of 925. In France several standards are employed: 950 parts for metals and plate, 900 for standard silver coin, and 850 for bullion and subsidiary coin.

—A considerable amount of silver is annually consumed in the arts, and a larger quantity converted into plate or articles for personal ornamentation. Silver is also dissolved in solutions, or used in combination with acids, metals, or alkaline bases in chemical and medicinal preparations, and for manufacturing purposes, in a manner which prevents its recovery for further use. When silver is used for electro-plating, or beat into thin leaves, but a small proportion, if any, can be again collected. Nearly the whole is practically lost, and unavailable for use in coinage or the arts, although ornaments and plate of solid silver are often remelted and used in coinage. But the statistics of all countries show that the plate and jewelry annually brought to their mints for coinage are less than the amount of bullion of recent production found to be annually appropriated for ornamentation and in the arts, etc. At the United States mints the silver of this character deposited for conversion into coin or bars is scarcely one-tenth of the $6,000,000 estimated to be consumed in the United States in the arts, manufactures and ornamentation.

—Efforts have been made to ascertain the silver appropriated in various countries and in the world for these purposes. In 1830 Mr. W. Jacob published his work on the production and consumption of the precious metals, which contained much valuable information on this subject. He placed the annual consumption of silver, other than for coinage, at $4,000,000 for Great Britain, and of gold and silver for Great Britain at $12,000,000, and for Europe, $28,000,000. The inquiries instituted in 1879 by the United States director of the mint, and continued for three years, to ascertain the amount thus consumed in the United States, elicited replies which for the year 1881 showed that 1,143 persons and firms consumed in their business over $3,000,000 of silver for the purposes and of the character and description stated as follows:

United States coins...	$72,190
Fine bars...	3,127,432
Foreign coin, jewelry, plate, etc...	188,799
Total...	$3,388,421

—Inquiries were also made, at the request of the director of the mint, through representatives of the United States government, as to the consumption of silver in foreign countries. From the information obtained in this manner, and from other sources, the director in 1881 estimated that the annual consumption in the world for uses other than coinage was not less than $35,000,000.

—Upon information contained in official reports, and additional facts collected from various sources, Dr. Soetbeer, of Germany, made a detailed estimate of the consumption of silver in various countries, and placed the net amount in the civilized world at 471,000 kilograms ($19,500,000), distributing that amount as follows:

United States...	$4,239,000
Great Britain...	2,992,000
France...	3,117,000
Germany...	3,117,000
Switzerland...	997,000
Austria-Hungary...	1,330,000
Italy...	790,000
Russia...	1,330,000
Total of above countries...	$17,912,000
Other civilized countries...	1,663,000
In all...	$19,575,000

As by his estimation the United States and seven countries in Europe consumed $17,900,000 of the whole $19,500,000, leaving but $1,600,000 for the remaining countries of Europe, North and South America, while the large consumption of China and India (the latter placed by the director of the mint at $10,000,000) is wholly omitted, the director's estimate of $35,000,000 as the total consumption of the world is probably below the real amount.

—Coinage. Silver coins are reported to have been struck and used in Greece and Rome as early as the third century preceding the Christian era. The amount of silver coined, however, in that period, and subsequently until the discovery of America, is insignificant, compared with the amounts issued from the coinage mints in the nineteenth century. The records of the English coinage show an annual average coinage of silver of less than $35,000 in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, while the value of the silver coinage of Great Britain from 1816 to 1876 exceeded $120,000,000, being over $2,000,000 annually.

—In England, however, as well as in Portugal, where the value of the silver coinage from 1852 to 1880 was $48,174,692, the coin circulation consisted of gold rather than silver; but in France, where silver largely circulates, its coinage in sixty years, 1726-85, is stated to have been 1,500,000,000 livres, while from 1795 to 1880, inclusive, silver to the value of 5,511,952,864 francs was coined, equal to $1,100,000,000, being over $12,000,000 annually.

—The silver coinage in Mexico in 1809 was $26,172,000, in 1812 $4,409,000, then varying with the disturbed condition of the country, but of late years it has averaged from twenty-two to twenty-eight million dollars.

—During the eight years from 1875 to 1883 the silver coinage of a number of the principal countries—the largest portion of which, for the last five years, was executed by the United States, Mexico and India—was as follows:

—In 1882 Mexico manufactured into coin nearly all the silver obtained from its mines, while the United States used for that purpose but seven-twelfths and Germany three-fourths of its silver product. The India mints coined the largest amount. The coinage of silver for the year for the principal countries was:

United States...	$27,972,035
Mexico...	25,146,260
Great Britain...	1,021,381
India...	29,386,322
Germany...	6,407,157
Austria-Hungary...	3,122,819
France...	223,853
Netherlands...	608,312
Norway...	123,280
Sweden...	19,703
Spain...	10,671,842
Japan...	3,294,988
Total...	$107,997,952

—The following silver coins of the United States can now be legally issued, except the trade dollar, the coinage of which was, in 1878, suspended by order of the secretary of the treasury as authorized by law:

—The principal silver coins of chief European countries, now in circulation or coined by the mints in Europe, their weight and fineness, with the quantity of fine silver they contain, are shown in the following table.

—Abrasion of Coins. In all estimates of the amount of silver in the world at any period, an allowance must be made for the loss by abrasion, which will vary with the composition of the coins and the frequency of their circulation. The loss by friction is less when coins are alloyed with copper. Silver coins lose by abrasion, according to Mr. W. Jacob, more rapidly than gold coins. He placed the wear of English standard silver at about 1/200 part annually. Tests were made at the London mint in 1826 to ascertain the loss on silver coins of different denominations respectively in circulation for three brief periods, taking 300 coins of each denomination for each period, with the following results:

—The experiments made by the officers of the English mint in 1787 to ascertain the deficiency in weight of the silver coins in actual circulation at that time, showed a loss upon the crown pieces of 3.3 per cent.; half crowns, 9.9 per cent.; shillings, 24.6 per cent.

—In 1872-3 a quantity of light gold coins were sent to the mint for recoinage; among them 6,000,000 gold dollars were found to be deficient in weight.478 per cent., being little less than ½ per cent. As the issue of these coins was authorized in 1849, and not quite 20,000,000 were issued, and after 1863, during the suspension of specie payments, they were practically out of circulation, twelve years may be considered as the average period of their circulation, which would give a loss by abrasion of about 1 per cent. in twenty-five years. The loss on 5,000,000 quarter eagles was.00506, being a little over ½ per cent. These doubtless were coined since the reduction of the value of gold coins in 1834, and had been in circulation under forty, and probably not over thirty, years; the loss by abrasion was at the rate of a little over 1 6/10; per cent. in a century. The loss on 10,000,000 half eagles was.005214. These may have been in circulation for the same length of time as the quarter eagles, in which case the loss by abrasion would be at the rate of about from 1¼ to 1¾ per cent. in a century.

—Silver Circulation. It is impossible to tell with certainty the amount of silver in circulation at any given period in any particular country, or the total amount used by commercial nations. Mint reports of most countries furnish meagre information as to the character of the bullion used in coinage, and seldom state the country from which it was obtained, or whether it consisted of bars or coins remelted. Where, however, the recent legislation of a country has changed the denomination or legaltender character of its coins, an approximate estimate of the coin circulation can be made by deducting from the total coinage subsequent to the change that portion exported and estimated to have been recoined, and used in the arts. Such an estimate is more reliable where the silver coins are valued relatively to gold higher than the value of the bullion they contain, in which case few will be exported, except to those countries where they pass at the legal home valuation. In this case, and in countries where the customs returns give the amount and character of the coin exports, the silver circulation can be stated with sufficient exactness and reasonable certainty.

—As to the silver circulation of the United States at the present time (1883), it can be stated approximately without much hesitation, because the country had no silver in general circulation in 1873, and its present stock has been accumulated since that time, with the exception, possibly, of five millions. In 1883 the silver coin in the country on the first of October was estimated by the director of the mint to have been 154,000,000 silver dollars, and $81,000,000 in fractional silver.

—Relative Value of Silver to Gold. As the principal ultimate demand for silver has been to coin or use it as money, the legislation at different periods of the world and in different countries, establishing for each country the relative debt-paying power of given weights of gold and silver, has, probably, more than any other cause, affected the market value of the two metals. Tables have been published giving their relative values at various periods; but an inspection of their dates, compared with the legislation of the country, shows that either the relative value of the gold and silver coins, or, in some cases, their value less mint charges, is given as the market value of the metals. The production of silver and gold, and their relative values for stated periods subsequent to the discovery of America and prior to 1881, were examined for each country by the eminent German statistician. Dr. Adolph Soetbeer, and his conclusions have been given to the public. During that period the production of gold and silver, and values relatively to each other, as stated by him, were as follows:

This comparison, as remarked by Seyd, shows that the relative value of the two metals has been largely affected, though doubtless not wholly controlled, by other causes than the relative amount produced. In the legislative changes made by different nations in the relative value as established in the coinage, it will be found that the higher valuation of the one or the other metal, and the course of exchange and balances of trade between nations, have had much to do with the disturbance of their values, and a great, if not a controlling, influence in determining their relative price.

—Alexander Hamilton, in his report as secretary of the treasury to congress on the establishment of a mint, in 1791, clearly stated the effect of such legislation: "If two countries are supposed, in one of which the proportion of gold to silver is as one to sixteen, in the other as one to fifteen, gold being worth more, silver less, in one than in the other, it is manifest, that, in their reciprocal payments, each will select that species which it values least to pay to the other, where it is valued most. Besides this, the dealers in money will, from the same cause, often find a profitable traffic in an exchange of the metals between the two countries. And hence it would come to pass, if other things were equal, that the greatest part of the gold would be collected in one, and the greatest part of the silver in the other. The course of trade might, in some degree, counteract the tendency of the difference in the legal proportions by the market value; but this is so far and so often influenced by the legal rates, that it does not prevent their producing the effect which is inferred. Facts, too, verify the inference. In Spain and England, where gold is rated higher than in other parts of Europe, there is a scarcity of silver; while it is found to abound in France and Holland, where it is rated higher in proportion to gold than in the neighboring nations."

—To understand all the causes which have affected the relative price of gold and silver, it would be instructive to trace the history of the successive changes of each nation, and their contemporaneous valuations. This is not easy to do, because the legal rating of the coins seldom corresponds with the relative amount of bullion necessary to be brought to the mints to obtain them, by reason of deductions for seigniorage to the sovereigns, and fees for the mint officers and workmen. Some of the more important changes have been as follows: For twelve hundred years prior to the time of Xenophon (400 B. C.) the ratio of gold to silver is stated to have been 13.33 to 1. The Greeks and Romans established in their coinage a value of 12 to 1; although it is said that at the time of the return of Julius Cæsar to Rome the value of gold had fallen to the ratio of 7.5 to 1. For the first centuries of the Christian era the relative value of gold in the Roman empire appears to have been as 12.5 to 1. Different countries have from time to time established different ratios, none of which permanently stood, and the rate of valuation was about or a little above or below 12 to 1 until the close of the fifteenth century. But early in the seventeenth century the valuation of gold was raised, first by England to about 13.7, and subsequently by Holland to 13.62, and again raised about the middle of the century by Holland to 14.93, and later, in 1665, by edict of Charles II., to 14.5 in England; and the coinage of both gold and silver, in the succeeding year, was made free to all at current rates, at which time the valuation in Italy and Spain is stated to have been 15 to 1.

—The value of gold and silver in European countries in 1640 is reported by reliable authorities to have been: France, 13¾ to 1; Flanders, 12½ to 1; Germany, 12 to 1; Netherlands, 12½ to 1; Milan, 12 to 1; England, 13 1/3 to 1; Spain, 13 1/3; to 1; France (1726), 14½ to 1.

—In the eighteenth century Great Britain, in 1717, made the value 15.21 to 1. France, nine years later, established the ratio of 14.42 to 1, and Spain, in 1730, 16 to 1. In 1785 France adopted the ratio of 15½ to 1, Portugal had increased the valuation of gold compared with silver to 15.8 to 1, and Spain, first to 16 and then to 16.5 to 1. In 1798 England suspended silver coinage, without, however, changing the ratio. The average valuation during the eighteenth century was a little less than 15 to 1, while the United States adopted as the basis of its value 15 to 1.

—In the nineteenth century the most notable change was made by Great Britain, which demonetized silver, increasing its valuation and the amount to be offered in legal tender, and excluding the public from the right to deposit it at the mint for coinage. In 1834 the amount of pure gold in the gold coins of the United States was reduced, bringing the relative value as nearly 16 to 1. In 1835 gold was demonetized in British India, and silver made the only legal tender. In 1847 Holland demonetized gold, and adopted an exclusive silver standard.

—The increased production of gold, after its discovery in California and Australia, affected prices in Europe, and largely increased the imports from India, necessitating a greater export of money to that country to settle balances of trade. As silver only was legal tender coin, gold having been demonetized, the demand for silver for transportation raised its price in the London market above the French mint value, as compared with gold, of 1 to 15½ and for some years, until a greater supply from the mines was able to satisfy the demand, silver was generally higher in London than its coining value at the European mints open for public coinage. The countries giving the lowest legal valuation to silver were denuded of their silver coins. The scarcity of the latter induced the United States, in 1853, following the example of Great Britain, in 1816, to commence the coinage of silver on government account, and to issue fractional silver coins of reduced weight and limited legal tender. All United States silver coins of less denomination than one dollar, issued since that date, are of a weight that makes the value of the silver contained, compared with gold, as 1 to 14.88.

—In 1870 Germany, and in 1873 the United States, passed laws demonetizing silver and discontinuing the privilege to the public of coining it at their mints. This action was followed later by the states of the Latin union agreeing to suspend the coinage of silver, which, following the large increase in the production of silver from the mines of the United States, largely depressed its value, which, compared with gold, has averaged in the London market, for the eight years subsequent to 1875, about 1 to 18.

HORATIO C. BURCHARD.

SILVER BILL

SILVER BILL. (See HAYES, R. B.)

SINKING FUND

SINKING FUND. This fund may be defined as a financial arrangement intended to redeem or extinguish the public debt upon certain determined conditions, by means of a sum to be annually set aside from the produce of taxes, and to be used in sinking or paying a part of the debt through the purchase of a portion of the public indebtedness. Historically, this is not a strictly accurate definition, but it is generally correct when applied to the financial methods of the present day. The sinking fund has ever been regarded as an instrument for reducing the public indebtedness, but through false systems it has sometimes proved fallacious, and has often even increased the debt. The simplest method of creating such a fund would be by economizing in the expenditures of government, and setting apart the sum saved for the purchase and the cancellation of the state's securities or certificates of indebtedness. But the more common method is to create a special fund, to be controlled and managed by a special board or commission, and to be supplied out of the receipts of taxes.

—Before the beginning of the eighteenth century the general practice in England was to provide a special tax for each new loan, so that the particular loan was said to be "funded," or provided for by a tax. In 1716, however, on the suggestion of the earl of Stanhope, Sir Robert Walpole carried a measure which rendered the taxes formerly distributed among the South sea aggregate and general funds perpetual, and consolidated whatever surplus might be collected by these taxes into a sinking fund, that was to be applied to the discharge of the national debt, and to no other purpose. This fund was still further augmented by what had been saved through successive reductions in the interest of the debt, and between the period of its formation and 1733 discharged £11,648,000 of the debt. Soon after, however, what should properly have gone into the sinking fund was applied to other purpose, and this practice became general. So that, according to the figures of Dr. Price, the amount of debt canceled by this fund between 1733 and 1775 was only £8,500,000. "On the whole," says Hamilton, in his "Inquiry concerning the National Debt of Great Britain," "this fund did little in time of peace, and nothing in time of war, to the discharge of the national debt. The purpose of its inviolable application was abandoned, and the hopes entertained of its powerful efficacy entirely abandoned. "This fund was, in 1786, superseded by Mr. Pitt's new fund.

—The rapid increase in the amount of the debt during the eighteenth century had directed attention to the burden, and not a few predicted national bankruptcy as a result. In 1713 the total debt, funded and unfunded, was nearly £35,000,000. The Spanish, the seven years' and the American wars ran the debt up to a total of £245,300,000. On the proposal of Dr. Price, a parliamentary inquiry into the national finances was instituted, and, as a result, a sinking fund was established, but on a different system from that embodied in the fund 1716. Under this new system the sum of £1,000,000. was to be annually appropriated by parliament to the fund, and this amount was to be expended, either in the redemption of stock, if at par, or, if under par, in the purchase of it in the open market at the current rate. The interest arising from all stock so redeemed was to be added to the principal, and laid out in the same manner, until, by their joint accumulation at compound interest, they should amount to the annual sum of £4,000,000, when this fund should thenceforth continue to be laid out at simple interest only, leaving the amount of interest annually redeemed at the disposal of parliament. (26 Geo. III., cap. 31. See Speech of Mr. Huskisson, March, 1813.) The most extravagant expectations were formed of this law, and the writings of Dr. Price, which had wide circulation, tended to foster such beliefs. "The smallest fund of this kind," he wrote, "is, indeed, omnipotent, if it is allowed time to operate." In order to secure the inviolability of this fund, its management was intrusted to a commission composed of the speaker of the house of commons, the chancellor of the exchequer, the master of the rolls, the accountant general of the court of chancery, and the governor and the deputy governor of the bank of England. In 1792 a change was made in the manner of accumulating this fund, and at the same time a permanent provision was made for future debts by the framing of a permanent system of a sinking fund. "It was enacted," says Ricardo, "that, besides a provision for the interest of any loan which should thenceforward be contracted, taxes should also be imposed for a 1 per cent. sinking fund on the capital stock created by it, which should be exclusively employed in the liquidation of such particular loan; and that no relief should be afforded to the public from the taxes which constituted the 1 per cent. sinking fund, until a sum of capital stock, equal in amount to that created by the loan, had been purchased by it." The wisdom of this provision can not be questioned, as it tended to maintain confidence in the credit of the government, which was then at a low point. It made the government not only a seller of securities (while issuing loans), but also a buyer (while purchasing with the sinking fund). And while the expectation was, that every loan would, under the operations of a 1 per cent. sinking fund, be redeemed in about forty-five years, yet the lower the price of the securities fell, the more efficient would the fund become, so that in proportion to the depression existing at the time, would this sinking fund operate as a check to prevent a further fall, and as a lever to produce, at no distant period, a probable rise in the market. Mr. Huskisson said of Mr. Pitt's plan, that it was "framed with the specific view of holding out to the public a guarantee, that any future debts which the states might have occasion to contract, should from the moment of their being incurred, be placed in a course of liquidation, uniform and unalterable. This plan contained within itself a principle of permanency, which being applied to every loan at the time of making the contract, could not, from that moment, be varied or departed from, without a breach of such contract. * * That every future loan should, from the moment of its creation, carry with it the seeds of its destruction; and that the course of its reimbursement should, from that moment, be placed beyond the discretion and the control of parliament." From 1786 to 1793 the fund effected some reduction in the debt; but in the following years, when through the war the expenditures of government greatly exceeded the income, it was attempted to maintain the annual reductions, it became a wretched piece of jugglery, although the form and machinery were continued.

—It remained for Dr. Hamilton to expose the fallacies of such a sinking fund, and he showed that so far from reducing the debt it had really increased it. "The extent of the sinking fund is artificial, and may be brought, by a mere change in the arrangement of the public accounts, to bear any proportion to the amount of debt, without the slightest advantage, or any tendency to promote its discharge. In time of war we raise a certain sum by taxes for the expense of the year, and borrow what further is wanted. If a sinking fund be maintained, the sums appropriated are deducted from what would have otherwise been expended on the war, and a greater loan is required. We may throw into the sinking fund any share of the revenue we please. We have only to add as much to the loan, and we shall raise a larger sum in the form of loan with the same facility, by the effect of the sums thrown into the money market for the stock purchased by the commissioners. In time of war the sinking fund is nominal; in time of peace a large sinking fund will discharge the debt more quickly; but this amounts to no more than that a continuance of the taxes which we paid in war, after peace is restored, will be attended with a speedier reduction of debt than what would take place if a large part of these taxes were repealed." Hence he was led to assert that the excess of revenue over expenditure was the only fund by which any part of the public debt could be discharged. "The increase of revenue, or the diminution of expense, are the only means by which this fund (sinking) can be enlarged, and its operations rendered more effectual; and all schemes for discharging the national debt, by sinking funds operating at compound interest, or in any other manner, unless in so far as they are founded upon this principle, are completely illusory."

—Dr Hamilton's work was first published in 1813, the very year in which important changes were made in the fund under the administration of the finances by Mr. Vansittart. But the farce of borrowing to supply the requirement of the fund continued. In 1819 Dr. Hamilton's views were so far recognized as to induce the house of commons to resolve, that to provide for the exigencies of the public service, to make such progress in reductions of the national debt as may adequately support public credit, and to afford to the country a prospect of future relief from a part of its present burdens, it is absolutely necessary that there should be a clear surplus of the income of the country over the expenditure, of not less than £5,000,000. In 1822 the committee of public accounts recommended that the annual sinking fund loans be discontinued, and that the whole of the redeemed capital stock of funded debt remaining in the name of the commissioners be canceled. In the following year their recommendation was carried into effect, but the last remnant of the fund was not abolished before 1828.

—This sinking fund had proved an unfortunate and costly experiment: but how costly it had been was not proved until 1869, when it was made the subject of parliamentary investigation. "During the whole period, from Jan. 5, 1793, when the French war broke out, up to 1829, there was only one year (1817) in which money was not raised by loan, in order to aid the sinking fund, besides what was required for war expenditure. After excluding the period from Aug. 5, 1786, to Jan. 5, 1793, during which £8,147,631 was applied to redeem £10,241,100 of 3 per cent. stock, bearing an interest of £307,263 per annum, there remains £321,902,824, which was applied between 1793 and 1829 to redeem £472,942,703 capital stock, carrying £14,488,388 annual interest, the mean rate on the sum paid being almost exactly 4½ per cent. per annum. During the same period the total sum of £702,163,075 was raised by loans, for which £1,052,536,700 capital stock of funded debt was created, carrying £35,301,392 annual interest, or a mean rate of about 5 per cent. per annum. The actual result of all these sinking fund operations, therefore, was, that the total amount of £330,050,455 was raised at 5 per cent. to pay off a debt carrying 4½ per cent. The difference in these two rates amounted, upon the total capital sum of £330,050,455, to £1,627,765 per annum, which may be set down as the increased annual charge of our funded debt, and a real loss to the public from this deceptive sinking fund system; without taking into account the expenses of the management of the sinking fund, and the increased amount of capital of debt consequent upon the practice of borrowing on less advantageous terms for larger sums than were required to meet the actual public expenditure."

—I have described somewhat at length the English sinking fund, because the principles which governed its formation were early adopted in this country, under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton. In December, 1782, he introduced into the congress of the confederation the following resolution. "Whereas, It is essential to justice and to the preservation of public credit, that whenever a nation is obliged, by the exigencies of public affairs, to contract a debt, proper funds should be established, not only for paying the annual value or interest of the same, but for discharging the principal within a reasonable period, by which a nation may avoid the evils of an excessive accumulation of debt; therefore, Resolved, That whenever the net product of any funds, recommended by congress and granted by the states, for funding the debt already contracted, or for procuring further loans for the support of the war, shall exceed the sum requisite for paying the interest of the whole amount of the national debt, which these states may owe at the termination of the present war, the surplus of such grants shall form a sinking fund, and be inviolably appropriated to the payment of the principal of the said debt, and shall on no account be diverted to any other purpose." Thus, four years before Mr. Pitt accepted the plan of Dr. Price, and ten years before he laid down the sound rules of finance embodied in the English act of 1792, the two important principles, that with the creation of a debt measures should be taken to insure its extinguishment, and that debt reduction is efficient only when made with surplus revenue, were clearly enunciated by Mr. Hamilton in the congress of the confederation. Circumstances, however, which chiefly arose from the weakness of the confederation, prevented any attempt to put into practice this resolution, and in the disordered condition of the finances little could be done before the return of peace. Even then the jealousy among the states prevented action, and it was not until the constitution was adopted and the national government formed, that a settlement of the debt question could be looked for. In his report on public credit, Hamilton proposed to apply the revenues arising from the postal service to the purposes of a sinking fund, and he again lays down as a vital principle the necessity of such a fund. "Persuaded, as the secretary is, that the proper funding of the present debt will render it a national blessing; yet he is so far from acceding to the position, in the latitude in which it is sometimes laid down, that 'public debts are public benefits,' a position inviting to prodigality, and liable to dangerous abuse, that he ardently wishes to see it incorporated, as a fundamental maxim, in the system of public credit in the United States, that the creation of debt should always be accompanied with the means of extinguishment. This he regards as the true secret for rendering public credit immortal. And he presumes that it is difficult to conceive a situation in which there may not be an adherence to the maxim." He recommended, as commissioners to administer this fund, the vice-president of the United States, the speaker of the house of representatives, the chief justice, secretary of the treasury and the attorney general. His propositions respecting the postal revenues were not accepted; but congress appropriated to the sinking fund the surplus revenues of the current year, and authorized the president to borrow $2,000,000 with which to purchase stock at its then low value. There was a considerable surplus revenue in 1790, which was applied to debt reduction, and in 1791 the sinking fund had already reached the sum of $1,000,000. The act of Aug. 12, 1790, which constituted this fund, provided, 1, that the surplus of the duties on imports and tonnage to the end of the year 1790 should be applied to the purchase of the debt of the United States, at its market price, if not exceeding par or true value thereof—said purchases to be made openly, and with due regard to the equal benefit of the several states; and 2, that, in addition to this fund, the president should be authorized to borrow any sum or sums, not exceeding $2,000,000, at an interest not exceeding 5 per cent., to be applied to purchases of public debt; provided that, out of the interest of the debt to be purchased, there should be appropriated, annually, a sum not exceeding 8 per cent. of the sums borrowed, toward paying the interest and reimbursing the principal of these sums. It will be seen that the compound interest scheme, which was so eagerly taken up in England, was not embodied in the plan of 1790, which was little more than a direct appropriation of surplus revenue to debt reduction. In 1792, however, an important change was introduced, and a permanent sinking fund was established, to be composed, 1, of the interest of the public debt, purchased, redeemed, or paid into the treasury, in satisfaction of any debt or demand; and 2, of the surplus, if any, which should remain of moneys appropriated for paying the interest of the public debt, after paying that interest. This fund was to be applied, first, to purchases of the debt, till the annual amount of the fund shall be equal to 2 per centum of the whole amount of the outstanding funded stock, bearing a present interest of 6 per centum; second, to the redemption of that stock; and lastly, to purchases of any unredeemed residue of the public debt. To January, 1795, the purchases of stock had amounted to $2,268,022.

—The operations of this and of subsequent sinking funds are fully described in Elliot's "The Funding System of the United States" (28th Congress, 1st Session, Exec. Doc.) The principles so clearly laid down by Alexander Hamilton have been generally applied in this country both with respect to national and to local indebtedness, but the manner of constituting the sinking fund has varied greatly according to circumstances. In every instance, however, the main object was to provide for the extinction of the debt, and, by setting aside a stated sum which was to be inviolably applied to this purpose, to maintain confidence in the credit of the state or borrowing power. Whatever errors, either in the composition of the fund or in its administration, have been made, it has come to be recognized that debt can be canceled only when a state's income exceeds its expenditure. The surplus may with profit be applied to debt reduction. Some of the state constitutions specify the number of years in which a debt is to be redeemed. For example, that of Illinois says: "Any county, city, school district, or other municipal corporation, incurring any indebtedness as aforesaid, shall, before or at the time of doing so, provide for the collection of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the interest on such debt, as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal thereof within twenty years from the time of contracting the same." (Constitution, 1870, Art. IX., § 12.) This would practically involve the maintenance of a sinking fund. The constitutions of other states are more particular. Thus, that of Pennsylvania (1873) recites, that, "to provide for the payment of the present state debt, and any additional debt contracted as aforesaid, the general assembly shall continue and maintain the sinking fund, sufficient to pay the accruing interest on such debt, and annually to reduce the principal thereof by a sum not less than $250,000; the said sinking fund shall consist of the proceeds of the sales of the public works, or any part thereof, and of the income or proceeds of the sales of any stocks owned by the commonwealth, together with other funds and resources that may be designated by law, and shall be increased from time to time by assigning to it any part of the taxes or other revenues of the state not required for the ordinary and current expenses of government; and, unless in case of war, invasion or insurrection, no part of the said sinking fund shall be used or applied otherwise than in the extinguishment of the public debt. The moneys of the state, over and above the necessary reserve, shall be used in the payment of the debt of the state, either directly or through the sinking fund, and the moneys of the sinking fund shall never be invested in or loaned upon the security of anything, except the bonds of the United States or of this state." (Art. IX., §§ 11, 12.) And again, "Every city shall create a sinking fund, which shall be inviolably pledged for the payment of its funded debt." (Art. XV., § 3.)

—In addition to the writings mentioned in the course of the article, the following may be consulted: M'Culloch, Treatise on the Principles and Practical Influence of Taxation and the Funding System; Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury; American State Papers, Finance; State Constitutions; and Congressional Debates.

WORTHINGTON C. FORD.

SINTOOISM

SINTOOISM. (See SHINT8Ouml;.)

SLAVERY

SLAVERY is the right of property of one man in another man, in his family, in his posterity, and in the products of his labor.

—There is no injustice more revolting than slavery, and yet there is no fact so widespread in history. Hence slavery is as old as war, in which it had its origin. Both slavery and war are inexplicable in the eyes of philosophy, if we do not admit, with Christianity, an immemorial perturbation among the members of the human family.

—In antiquity the system of labor was everywhere slavery. It was found in Rome, in Greece, in Egypt, in Assyria, in Gaul, among the Germans, and, it is said, even among the Scythians; it was recruited by war, by voluntary sale, by captivity for debt, and then by inheritance. It was not everywhere cruel, and in patriarchal life it was scarcely distinguishable from domestic service; in some countries, however, it approached the service of beasts of burden; the brutal insensibility with which Aristotle and Varro spoke of slaves is revolting; and the manner in which they were treated by the laws is even more so. These men, who were of the same race, who had the same intellect, and the same color as their owners, were declared incapable of holding property, of appealing to the law, of defending themselves; in a word, of demeaning themselves like men in any of the circumstances of life. Only the law of the Hebrew people tempered servitude by humanity. Doubtless, we might quote certain words of Euripides or of Terence, of Epictetus or of Seneca, colored with a more tender pity and evincing some heart; we find also both in Greek and Roman laws, on the monuments, and in the inscriptions and epitaphs which our contemporaries have so carefully studied; we find, I say, in these the proof that the granting of freedom to slaves, in individual cases, was frequent, and that it was inspired, especially at the moment of death, by religious motives. But the brutal fact of slavery is incontestable. The evil outweighed the good in an enormous measure; servitude remained from century to century, from country to country, during all antiquity, the universal fact, and the legitimateness of servitude the universal doctrine.

—To the rare and barren protests of a few noble souls, Christianity finally added the power of its mighty voice. The brotherhood of men, the dignity of labor, the absolute duty of perfection: with these three principles, clothed with the authority of God himself, the human race entered a new phase, commenced the great battle of good against evil, and, little by little, forced back the scourges which, in the past, had reigned with undivided supremacy. Servitude was destined to be among the vanquished, but it was not without a long and grievous combat, which, at the present time, is not entirely terminated.

—The learned labors of M. Edouard Biot and M. Janoski warrant the affirmation that servitude had almost entirely disappeared in Christian Europe from the tenth to the thirteenth century; but it is only too well known that after the discovery of the new world, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the re-establishment of this odious institution in all the colonial possessions of the nations of Europe. What do I say? The most Christian kings of France, Spain and England did not blush to place their signature at the bottom of treaties intended to assure to them the monopoly of the sale and transportation of millions of human beings. An entire continent, Africa, became like a mine to be worked, charged with furnishing the other continents with the living merchandise, called in diplomatic acts a ton of negroes, just as we say a ton of charcoal.

—To the nineteenth century belongs the honor of waging against servitude a war which is not yet ended, but which has been distinguished, however, by remarkable victories. The revolution is complete as far as ideas are concerned. Morality spoke first, and all the sciences, little by little, came to agree with it. Philosophy gives to all slaves a soul equal to our own, which Aristotle, perhaps, refused to them. Physiology declares blacks and whites, despite important differences, to be members of the same family. History no longer discovers between slave owners and slaves the trace of any legitimate conquest. The law does not recognize any validity of a pretended contract which has no title, the object of which is illicit, and one of the parties to which is not a free agent, and the other party to which is without good faith. Ethnology lifts to the dignity of a beautiful law the radical difference which places in the first rank the races which labor, like the European, and in the last rank the races who make others work for them, like the Turks. Political economy affirms the superiority of free labor to forced labor, and it condemns everything which deprives man of the family. Politics and charity, from different points of view, accept the same conclusion: charity, more tender, detests slavery because it oppresses the inferior race; politics, more lofty, condemns it, above all, because it corrupts the superior race. Thus the revolution above referred to, complete in the order of ideas, is far from being complete in the order of facts.

—At the beginning of the present century England possessed nearly 800,000 slaves, scattered among nineteen colonies, to wit: more than 300,000 in Jamaica, 80,000 in the Barbadoes, 80,000 in Guiana, more than 60,000 in Mauritius, and the rest in the little colonies of Trinidad, Grenada, Antigua, St. Vincent, etc. France, in her colonies of the Antilles, Bourbon, Guiana and Senegal, had 250,000 slaves. There were 27,000 in the little colonies of Denmark, and about 600 in the island of St. Bartholomew, belonging to Sweden. Holland, which knew how to avoid servile labor in Java, preserved more than 50,000 slaves at Surinam and Curaçoa. But these figures are trifling, compared to the number of the enslaved population of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, which amounted to at least 600,000 slaves; of Brazil, which is more than 2,000,000; and of the United States, which, before the American civil war, had 4,000,000 slaves.

—France was the first to give the signal for the liberation of slaves, a liberation which unfortunately was sudden, violent, and did not last. In 1790-91 the constituent assembly, after much hesitation, admitted free people of color in the colonies to the rights of citizenship. The whites resisted, and when the convention tried to have the decree executed, the conflict between the blacks and whites led to the massacres which have been so falsely attributed to the emancipation of the slaves, proclaimed only at the end of 1793, and confirmed by the decree of Feb. 4, 1794, by which the convention decreed with enthusiasm the abolition of slavery in all French colonies. The result of the maritime wars was, to the colonies, disorder or conquest. At the same time, in the mother country, a reaction, aided by glory, carried men beyond the necessities of order. The year 1802, which witnessed the concordat, the life consulate, the peace of Amiens, the legion of honor, and the university, witnessed also the restoration of slavery and even the slave trade by the law of the 30th floreal, year X.

—Commenced with more wisdom, and conducted with more perseverance, the movement of emancipation in England naturally triumphed more promptly than in France. In 1102 a council held in the city of London, under the presidency of St. Anselm, forbade the slave trade. In 1763 an odious treaty assured to England, on the other hand, the monopoly of this traffic. In 1773 a generous Christian, William Wilberforce, first wrote against this public scandal. In 1780 Thos. Clarkson proposed its abolition to parliament, and in 1787 Wilberforce renewed the proposition, which, after having been seven times presented and seven times rejected, finally triumphed in 1806, and became, at the congress of Vienna, a solemn engagement of all the European powers (Declaration of Feb 4, 1815), which was followed by laws promulgated by each of these nations. May 15, 1823, Mr. Buxton proposed the abolition of slavery in all the English colonies. After long hesitation, the act of abolition presented in 1833, in the name of the government, by Lord Stanley, was promulgated Aug. 28, 1833. This memorable law, which devoted £500,000,000 to the ransom of 800,000 men, did not, however, accord them liberty until after an apprenticeship, which was to last from Aug. 1, 1834, to Aug. 1, 1840; but this uncertain system could not be maintained. Lord Brougham proposed its abolition in 1838, and the colonial legislatures spontaneously decreed complete emancipation in the years 1838 and 1839.

—At the same time, 1838, M. Passy proposed to the French chambers a bill with the same end in view, and in 1840 a commission was charged, under the presidency of the duke de Broglie, to prepare the way for the abolition of slavery in the French colonies. At the same time, also, 1839, Pope Gregory XVI. published a bull, condemning slavery and the slave trade. The report of M. de Broglie is celebrated; we may call it a judgment by a court of last resort, which, for the most elevated, decisive and practical reasons, condemned slavery forever. However, the sentence was not executed on account of the hesitation of the government and the resistance of the colonies. Slavery was not abolished in the colonies of France until after the revolution of February, by the decree of March 4, 1848, which M. Schoelcher had the honor of proposing.

—The result of emancipation in the French colonies was the liberation of the slaves in the Danish colonies, proclaimed July 3, 1848. Sweden had set the example of liberation as early as 1846.

—We here give a résumé of the economic and moral results of emancipation in the colonies of England and in those of France. Before emancipation, the colonies of the West Indies produced 3,640,000 quintals of sugar. These figures had sunk during the apprenticeship to 3,480,000 quintals, and after the liberation to 2,600,000. In 1848 the production was 3,795,311 quintals; in 1852, 3,376,000; and in 1858, 3,499,171. The emancipation of the slaves was followed by a diminution in production and an increase in prices, but also in wages; the result of commercial freedom was an increase in production and a diminution in prices, but also in wages. Twenty years after these two great trials the old figures were reached, the net cost was diminished, and if certain isolated colonies suffer still while others prosper, there is no one in England who could have foreseen that two such radical experiments would not be followed by more disastrous and more prolonged consequences.

—Let us dwell a little further on the colonies of France. Despite a triple trial, the emancipation of the slaves, competition in the mother country and a radical revolution, the general movement of affairs of the French colonies was not lowered beyond one-half, while it was lowered more than a quarter so far as all the business transactions of France during the first period of five years were concerned; after another five years, the figures prior to emancipation were very slightly surpassed at Guadaloupe, nearly half at Guiana, more than a quarter at Martinique, and more than a half at Réunion.

—If we look only at production, after 1854, the figures prior to 1848 were surpassed, even for sugar, excepting at Guiana, which was transformed into a colony of consumption. The increase is in slow progress at Guadaloupe, important at Martinique, and extraordinary at Réunion. Wages are very little higher, the price of sale and renting of lands has increased, credit is more easy, thanks to the banks; new resources of credit and laws which permit the importation of cereals, rice, and also of machinery, arrive opportunely with the reduction of the customs duties; the price of sale is higher, the movement of ships has increased one-third, at the same time that the material and methods of manufacture have been changed. To the honor of liberty and that of the colonists, be it said, that, since emancipation, they have courageously made up their minds what to do; they have ceased to sigh, and begun to act. At Réunion tools have been changed, methods of processes improved, and the revenue from colonist settlements doubled; there is no hesitation in hiring a laborer for five years at double the price received at London for the importation of 6,000 coolies; those who bought with colonist settlements in 1848 have realized enormous fortunes, progress has followed wealth, and the general exposition of agriculture in 1862 showed sugar from Reunion which did not need to be refined. In the Antilles people are no longer contented with cursing the indigenous sugar refineries; they imitate them; central refineries have been established where, in 1874, the produce from sugar cane rose from 5 to 18 per cent., and there is hope of still further improvement; machinery and manuring were introduced, drainage has been tried, patents are taken out, landed credit is demanded, agricultural credit is used, free trade is called for; in a word, those routine and ruinous traditions which are the sad accompaniments of slavery are being departed from; and an endeavor is being made to realize these first four conditions of all economic progress: the perfecting of processes, abundance of hands, facility for credit, and the widening of the market.

—As far as the moral order is concerned, all the results of the English experiment may be summed up in the words of Lord Stanley, in 1842, which were substantially as follows: There has been progress in industrious habits, improvement in the social and religious system, and development in individuals of those qualities of heart and mind which are more necessary to happiness than the material goods of life. The negroes are happy and contented, they devote themselves to labor, they have bettered their way of living, increased their well-being, and, while crime has diminished, moral habits have become better. The number of marriages has increased. Under the influence of the ministers of religion, education has become more widespread. In short, the result of the great experiment of emancipation tried upon the whole of the population of the West Indies has surpassed the most ardent hopes.

—In the French colonies, 40,000 marriages, 20,000 legitimate children, 30,000 acknowledged children, the population resuming a regular course and increase, the churches filled, the schools attended; at Guadaloupe and Martinique, 20,000 adults at the night schools; at Réunion, 23 societies of mutual aid among the freedmen, crimes against the person diminished (at least until the arrival of immigrants), justice and the clergy improved, peace maintained with garrisons less strong than before 1848: such are the gifts presented to French colonial society by the emancipation of its slaves.

—It would be too long to show in detail, year by year, the economic and moral results of emancipation, since they became complicated by reason of the effect of political events and attempts at commercial liberty in France. Let it suffice to affirm that civilization has gained much, that wealth has lost little, that its losses have been repaired and more than repaired, at least in all the colonies in which the new régime has been accepted in good faith; finally, that the call of a million men to liberty, in distant lands, did not cause the tenth part of the trouble occasioned in the more civilized nations of Europe by the least important political question.

—European nations quickly understood that the slave trade would never be completely abolished unless slavery itself was suppressed. Unfortunately, the United States of America did not understand this as quickly. The illustrious founders of the Union, fearing a dissolution of it at the very moment of its formation, and hoping, that to suppress the evil it would be sufficient to dry up its source, limited themselves to inserting in the constitution that the slave trade should be prohibited, beginning with the year 1808. As far as slavery was concerned, they had the weakness not even to mention its name, leaving to each state the task of ridding itself of the institution of slavery, which, at that period, was very little developed. In Washington's time, there were scarcely 700,000 slaves within the whole extent of the United States. Washington freed his own slaves by will, and we know from his correspondence with Lafayette that he busied himself with plans of emancipation. Many of the northern states successively freed their slaves; but the progress of the cultivation of cotton, the cession of Louisiana, the purchase of Florida and the conquest of Texas had not been foreseen. Sixty years after Washington's time, the American republic had advanced with giant steps, slavery had grown with it, and the southern states contained 4,000,000 of enslaved blacks. A fact so enormous, so abnormal, produced in the bosom of the Union a profound perturbation. Not only did honor and morality suffer therefrom, but a terrible division took place between the north, which controlled the commerce, the shipping and the tariff of the Union, and the south, which, previous to the American civil war, controlled politics, the congress, and the laws of the Union. Without relating the long and lamentable history of this conflict, without speaking of the fugitive slave law, of the territorial question, of the debates on the right of search, of the projects for an invasion of Cuba, finally of all the electoral struggles for the presidency, let us recall that the question of slavery had become in 1856, and again in 1860, the sole stumbling block of the general elections. In 1856 the south triumphed for the last time in the person of Mr. Buchanan; in 1860 the north bore away the victory in the person of Abraham Lincoln, and the southern states immediately revolted, and declared war. This formidable war had the character of a war of independence; the north fought for the constitution, the south to obtain its autonomy. But for what purpose did the south thus wish to separate itself from a glorious nation? In order to perpetuate, maintain and extend slavery, and to have no more uneasiness as to the fate of that institution which its publicists dared to call the best system of labor. The north was led by circumstances to strike at the very root of the war, by attacking slavery. In its session of 1862, congress successively adopted: 1st, emancipation in the District of Columbia; 2d, the recognition of the republics of Hayti and Liberia; 3d, the measures proposed by the president for gradual emancipation in the states and immediate emancipation in the rebel states, beginning Jan. 1, 1863. We know that the defeat of the south assured the definitive abolition of slavery in the United States. Slavery having disappeared in North America, its foundations were necessarily shaken in South America. The republics separated from Spain have abolished it. Holland delivered its American colonies from slavery by a law of Aug. 8, 1862, and a law of December, 1871, paved the way for its suppression in Brazil.

—This rapid review is confined to Christian countries. In Mohammedan and pagan countries, slavery exists almost everywhere; here more patriarchal, there more barbarous; maintained in the bosom of Africa by perpetual wars and a pitiless traffic. A Mohammedan sovereign, the bey of Tunis, however, abolished slavery in his states, even before France, in 1847; but the scourge of slavery will evidently never disappear from pagan nations, except from contact with, and the example of, Christian nations. We may hope that the nineteenth century will see servitude disappear; this would be its principal glory. The condition precedent to the disappearance of slavery is the persevering accord of all opinions, of all creeds, of all nations, that it should be abolished, and this accord is now an accomplished fact. (See SLAVERY, in U. S. History.)

AUGUSTIN COCHIN.

SLAVERY

SLAVERY (IN U. S. HISTORY). It may be laid down as a fundamental proposition, that negro slavery in the colonies never existed or was originally established by law, but that it rested wholly on custom. The dictum, so often quoted, that slavery, being a breach of natural right, can be valid only by positive law, is not true: it is rather true that slavery, where it existed, being the creature of custom, required positive law to abolish or control it. In Great Britain, in 1772, custom had made slavery so odious that the Sommersett case justly held that positive law was necessary for the establishment of slavery there in any form; but the exact contrary of this rule, of course, held good in commonwealths where custom made slavery not odious, but legal. In these cases the laws which were passed in regard to slavery were only declaratory of a custom already established, and can not be said to have established slavery. The whole slavery struggle is therefore the history of a custom at first universal in the colonies, then peacefully circumscribed by the rise of a moral feeling opposed to it, but suddenly so fortified in its remaining territory by the rise of an enormous material interest as to make the final struggle one of force. In outlining the history of negro slavery in the United States, it seems advisable to make the following subdivisions: 1, the introduction of slavery, and its increase, 2, its internal policy; 3, the slave trade, foreign and domestic; 4 the suffrage clause and the "slave power"; and 5 slavery in the territories, including new states. The final abolition of slavery in each state, in the territories, and in the nation, is treated elsewhere. (See ABOLITION)

—I. INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY, AND ITS INCREASE. When English colonization in North America began, Indian and negro slavery was already firmly established in the neighboring Spanish colonies; and from these, particularly from the West Indies, negro slavery was naturally and unconsciously introduced into the English colonies, the Barbadoes being the steppingstone for most of them. Nevertheless, the first authentic case of introduction was from an entirely different source. In August, 1619, a Dutch man-of-war, temporarily in Virginia, landed fourteen negro slaves in exchange for provisions. This is the only colony in which a first case can be found. Everywhere else we find slavery, when first casually mentioned, an institution so long established as to have lost its novelty. In each of them there are three points to be noted: the first mention of slavery, its first regulation by law, and the establishment, by custom or positive law, of the civil law rule, partus sequitur ventrem, instead of the common law rule, partus sequitur patrem. The latter rule, making children take the condition of the father, was the natural rule for English colonists, would have made negro slavery far more tolerable, and would have established a constant agent for its ultimate extinction, since any connection between a slave father and a free mother would have been comparatively rare. The former rule, that the children should take the condition of the mother, which was everywhere adopted by custom from the beginning, not only relieved the system from check, but even gave it an added horror, of which the variations in color among the inferior race are mute but indelible certificates. In summarizing the introduction of slavery into the original thirteen states, we will begin at Mason and Dixon's line, going first southward, and then northward: its introduction into the new states and territories comes under the fifth subdivision.

—In Virginia the acts passed were at first for the mere regulation of servants, the legal distinction being between servants for a term of years (white immigrants under indentures), and servants for life (slaves). Dec. 14, 1662, the civil law rule, partus sequitur ventrem, was adopted by statute. Oct. 3, 1670, servants not Christians, imported by shipping, were declared slaves for their lives. Slavery was thus fully legalized in the colony.

—In Maryland slaves are first mentioned ("slaves only excepted") in a proposed law of 1638. In 1663 the civil law rule was fully adopted by a provision that "negroes or other slaves," then in the province or thereafter imported, should serve durante vita, "and their children also."

—In Delaware the Swedes at first prohibited slavery, but it was introduced by the Dutch. It was in existence probably in 1636; but its first legal recognition was in 1721, in an act providing for the trial of "negro and mulatto slaves" by two justices and six freeholders. With this exception the system rested wholly on custom in Delaware.

—In Carolina, under the first union of the two provinces, the Locke constitution (see NORTH CAROLINA) provided practically for white slavery: the "leetmen," or tenants of ten acres, were to be fixed to the soil under the jurisdiction of their lord without appeal; and the children of leetmen were to be leetmen, "and so to all generations." This provision, like most of the others, was never respected or obeyed. The 110th article provided that every freeman should have "absolute power and authority over his negro slaves of what opinion or religion soever." This met with more respect, and became the fundamental law of North Carolina without anything further than statutes for police regulation.

—In South Carolina the first slavery legislation, an act of Feb. 7, 1690, "for the better ordering of slaves," took place before the separation. Slaves are said to have been introduced by Gov. Yeamans about 1670. June 7, 1712, slavery was formally legalized by an act declaring all negroes and Indians, theretofore sold or thereafter to be sold, and their children, "slaves to all intents and purposes." The civil law rule was made law May 10, 1740. The police regulations of this colony were filled with cruel provisions, such as the gelding of a male slave who should run away for the fourth time; and yet an act was passed in 1704, and re-enacted in 1708, for enlisting and arming negro troops.

—In Georgia slavery was prohibited at the establishment of the colony, in 1732. In 1749, after repeated petitions from the colonists, the trustees obtained from parliament the repeal of the prohibition. In 1755 the legislature passed an act regulating the conduct of slaves; and in 1765 and subsequent years the laws of South Carolina were re-enacted by Georgia.

—In Pennsylvania slavery is first heard of in 1688, when Francis Daniel Pastorius drew up a memorial against the practice for the Germantown Quakers. It was not until 1696 that the Quaker yearly meeting was prepared to act favorably on the memorial. In 1700 the legislature forbade the selling of slaves out of the province without their consent. The other slavery legislation of the colony consisted of efforts, more or less successful, to check or abolish the slave trade; but, as soon as independence was fairly attained, arrangements were made for gradual abolition. So late as 1795, however, the state supreme court decided that slavery was not inconsistent with the state constitution.

—In New Jersey slavery was introduced by the Dutch, but was not recognized by law until the "concessions" of 1664 (see NEW JERSEY), in which the word "slaves" occurs. In East Jersey slaves were given trial by jury in 1694; and in West Jersey the word "slave" was omitted from the laws. Acts for regulating the conduct of slaves began with the junction of the province with New York, in 1702; but these were never harsh, and the condition of the slave was more tolerable than in any other colony where the system was really established.

—In New York slavery came in with the Dutch at an uncertain period, the Dutch West India company supplying the slaves. So early as 1628 the inhabitants were made nervous by the mutinous behavior of some of the slaves, but there was no legal recognition of slavery until 1665, when the duke of York's laws forbade "slavery of Christians," thus by implication allowing slavery of heathens. Full recognition was given by a proviso in the naturalization act of 1683, that it should not operate to free those held as slaves, and by an act of 1706, to allow baptism of slaves without freeing them.

—In Connecticut slavery was never directly established by statute, and the time of its introduction is uncertain. In 1680 the governor informed the board of trade, that, "as for blacks, there come sometimes three or four in a year from Barbadoes, and they are sold usually at the rate of £22 apiece." They were considered as servants, rather than as chattels, could sue their masters for ill treatment or deprivation of property, and the only legal recognition of slavery was in such police regulations as that of 1690, to check the wandering and running away of "purchased negro servants."

—Rhode Island passed the first act for the abolition of slavery in our history, May 19, 1652. In order to check "the common course practiced among Englishmen to buy negers (sic)," the act freed all slaves brought into the province after ten years' service. Unfortunately, the act was never obeyed; custom was too strong for statute law, and existed without law until the final abolition. The only legal recognition of the system was in a series of acts, beginning Jan. 4, 1703, to control the wandering of Indian and negro slaves and servants, and another, beginning in April, 1708, in which the slave trade was indirectly legalized by being taxed.

—In Massachusetts a negro is mentioned in 1633 as an estray, "conducted to his master." In 1636 a Salem ship began the importation of negro slaves from the West Indies, and thereafter Peqnot slaves were constantly exchanged for Barbadoes negroes. In 1641 the fundamental laws forbade slavery, with the following cautious proviso: "unless it be lawful captives taken in just wars [Pequots], and such strangers as willingly sell themselves [probably indentured white immigrants] or are sold to us [negroes]." The explanations inserted will show that this was the first legal recognition of slavery in any colony. Under it slavery grew slowly, and the rule of partus sequitur ventrem was established by custom and court decisions. Public sentiment, after the year 1700, was slowly developed against the system. In December, 1766, a jury gave a negro woman £4 damages against her master for restraining her of her liberty. John Adams notes at the time that this was the first case of the kind he had known, though he heard that there had been many. In 1768 another case was decided for the master, and thereafter the decisions of juries varied to every point of the compass for twenty years; but it is known that many of the cases in which the slaves were successful were gained by connivance of the masters, in order to relieve themselves of the care of aged or infirm slaves. John Quincy Adams gives 1787 as the year in which the state supreme court finally decided, that, under the constitution of 1780, a man could not be sold in Massachusetts.

—In New Hampshire there were but two legal recognitions of slavery, an act of 1714 to regulate the conduct of "Indian, negro and mulatto servants and slaves"; and another in 1718 to regulate the conduct of masters. There were but few slaves in the colony, and slavery had but a nominal existence.

—Vermont never recognized slavery. (See ABOLITION, I.)

—From all the cases it will be seen that slavery was the creature of custom. The only exceptions are a peculiar provision in the law of Maryland (1663) and Pennsylvania (1725-6) making the children of free-born mothers and slave fathers slaves to their father's master until the age of thirty; and the laws in a few states re-enslaving freedmen who refused or neglected to leave the state. This latter provision was the law of Virginia from 1705, and was put into the state constitution in 1850; and laws fully equivalent were passed during their state existence by North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. In the white heat of the antislavery struggle, laws were passed by Virginia in 1856, by Louisiana in 1859, and by Maryland in 1860, providing for the voluntary enslavement of free negroes; but these were exceptional. Milder provisions, to the same general effect, to punish by fine or sale the coming or remaining of free negroes in the state, were inserted in the constitution of Missouri in 1820, of Texas in 1836 (as a republic). of Florida in 1838, of Kentucky in 1850, of Indiana in 1851, and of Oregon in 1857. (See the states named.) The most troublesome to the northern states were the regulations of the seaboard slave states, under which negro seamen of northern vessels were frequently imprisoned, and sometimes sold. In 1844 Massachusetts sent Samuel Hoar to Charleston to bring an amicable suit there for the purpose of testing the constitutionality of the South Carolina act. He was received in a very unfriendly fashion. The legislature passed resolutions requesting the governor to expel him from the state, and an act making any such mission a high misdemeanor, punishable by fine and banishment. Finally, on receiving unequivocal assurances of personal violence if he remained, Mr. Hoar left Charleston without fulfilling his mission.

—However strongly custom may have established negro slavery in the colonies, it has been suggested that the validity of the system was at least made doubtful by the Sommersett case in England In that country, in 1677, the courts held negro slaves to be property, as "being usually bought and sold among merchants as merchandise, and also being infidels." In 1750 custom had so far changed that the law was again in doubt. In 1771 Charles Stewart, of Boston, took his slave James Sommersett to London, where the latter fell sick, and was sent adrift by his master. Stewart, afterward finding Sommersett recovered, reclaimed him and put him on a ship in the Thames, bound for Jamaica. Lord Mansfield issued a writ of habeas corpus, and decided, June 22, 1772, that the master could not compel his slave to leave England, whose laws did not recognize "so high an act of dominion." If the colonies, by charter and otherwise, were forbidden to pass laws contrary to the laws of England, and if the laws of England did not recognize slavery. was slavery legal in the colonies? It must be remembered that the Sommersett decision was not that the laws of England forbade slavery, but that there was no law in England establishing slavery. There was no attempt to make an English custom override an American custom, and we can not draw any attack on the American system of slavery out of the Sommersett case.

—The colonies, then, began their forcible struggle against the mother country with a system of negro slavery, recognized everywhere by law, moribund in the north, but full of vigor in the south. In the north, where there was a general consciousness that slavery was doomed, the slaves were generally regarded as servants for life, as persons whose personality was under suspension. In the south they were regularly regarded by the law and by private opinion as things, as chattels, with "no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them," with all the consequences arising from the fact that they had not come to America voluntarily, as persons, but involuntarily, as property. In so far the Dred Scott decision correctly stated the feeling of our forefathers. But the feeling was in great measure a consequence of the unfortunate adoption of the rule partus sequitur rentrem: a race to which the rule was applied could be no other than animal, and a people among whom the rule prevailed could never be emancipated from the feeling. For this reason the revolutionary congress made no attempt to interfere with slavery, except in regard to the slave trade, to be referred to hereafter. The state of war itself did little real harm to the system. In Virginia, Nov. 7, 1775, Lord Dunmore proclaimed freedom to all slaves who would fight for the king, and negro soldiers were enlisted by Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. South Carolina refused to follow the recommendation of congress, in 1779, to enlist 3,000 negro troops. A return of the continental army, Aug. 24, 1778, shows 755 negro soldiers, not including the New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut or New York troops. At the end of the war Rhode Island, New York and Virginia freed their negro soldiers, but the system remained as before. The treaty of peace bound the British not to carry away any "negroes or other property of the American inhabitants"; and this collocation of terms is repeated in the treaty of Ghent in 1814. All through the period of the confederation, slavery received no detriment, except in the action of individual states (see ABOLITION, I.), and in its exclusion from the northwest territory, to be referred to hereafter. The states and the nation began their course under the constitution with the same general system as before, but with three modifications: the apportionment of representation to three-fifths of the slaves; the power of congress to prohibit the slave trade after 1808; and the fugitive slave clause. The first of these made the system of slavery itself a political factor, represented in the government; the third offered a tempting and dangerous weapon to use against an opposing section; and the second was the death warrant of the whole system in the double event of the acquisition of foreign territory and the development of antagonistic sections. They are therefore treated in special subdivisions.

—Until this time the difference in the slave systems of the north and of the south had been a difference of degree rather than of kind. The basis and the general laws were nominally the same everywhere; and there was a general agreement that the system was evil in itself, and that it was desirable to rid the country of it by gradual abolition. But, from the beginning, the masterful white race had found, in the colder north, that it was easier to do work for itself than to compel work from the black race, and, in the warmer south, that it was easier to compel work from the black race than to do the work for itself. In both sections the ruling race followed naturally the line of least resistance, and negro slavery increased in the south, and decreased in the north. The process may be seen in the number of slaves in the colonies north and south of Mason and Dixon's line, as estimated by the royal governors in 1715, as estimated by congress in 1775, and as ascertained by the first census, in 1790, as follows. North, (1715) 10,900, (1775) 46,102, (1790) 40,370; South, (1715) 47,950, (1775) 455,000, (1790) 657,527. Before 1790 the two sections had begun to show the contrasting results of pushing, self-interested free labor on the one hand, and shiftless, unwilling slave labor on the other. Gouverneur Morris, in the convention of 1787, thus spoke of slavery at the time: "It was the curse of Heaven on the states where it prevailed. Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the eastern states and enter New York, the effects of the institution become visible. Passing through the Jerseys, and entering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step you take through the great regions of slaves presents a desert, increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings." Nor was the assertion denied by the southerners who heard it. George Mason, of Virginia, said: "Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects Providence punishes national sins by national calamities." And Jefferson, in the same year, after detailing the evils of slavery, added. "Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice can not sleep forever." But this substantial agreement in sentiment was very soon to be broken by an event which entirely altered the paths of the two sections.

—Few influences have so colored the history of the United States and of negro slavery as the inventions of 1775-93 in England and America. In 1775 Crompton's invention of the mule jenny superseded Hargreaves' spinning machine; in 1783 Watt's steam engine was adapted to the spinning and carding of cotton at Manchester; in 1785 cylinder printing of cottons was invented; and in 1786-8 the use of acid in bleaching was begun. All the machinery of the cotton manufacture was thus standing ready for material. Very little had thus far come from the United States, for a slave could clean but five or six pounds a day for market. In 1784 an American ship which brought eight bags of cotton to Liverpool was seized on the ground that so much of the article could not be the produce of the United States; and Jay's treaty (see that title) at first consented that no cotton should be exported from America. In 1793 Eli Whitney, of Connecticut, then residing in Georgia, changed the history of the country by his invention of the saw-gin, by which one slave could cleanse 1,000 pounds of cotton from its seeds in a day. He was robbed of his invention, which the excited planters instantly appropriated; and slavery ceased to be a passive, patriarchal institution, and became a means of gain, to be upheld and extended by its beneficiaries. The export of cotton, which had fallen from 189,316 pounds in 1791 to 138,328 in 1792, rose to 487,600 in 1793, to 1,601,760 in 1794, to 6,276,300 in 1795, and to 38,118,041 in 1804. Within five years after Whitney's invention cotton had displaced indigo as the great southern staple, and the slave states had become the cotton field of the world. In 1839 the export was 1,386. 468,562 pounds, valued at $161,434,923, and the next largest export (tobacco) was valued at but $21,074,038. Was it wonderful that southerners should say and believe that "cotton is king," and that secession could never be attacked by blockade, since the great commercial nations, even the free states themselves, would not thus allow themselves to be deprived of the raw material of manufacture? The reader may judge the reasonableness of the belief, and the magnitude of the temptations to English intervention, by the value of the English imports of cotton from the United States and elsewhere, 1861-3, and the coincident rise in price: imports from the United States, (1861) $132,851,995, (1862) $6,106,385, (1863) $2,300,000; from other countries, (1861) $65,034,990, (1862) $148,358,840, (1863) $213, 700,000; price per lb., (1861) 7 cents, (1862) 13¾ cents, (1863) 27½ cents. From a purely commercial and agricultural venture the cotton culture had taken a different aspect. Those who controlled it felt very much the same importance as a man might feel who had gained control of the magazine of a man of war, and could threaten to blow up the whole ship if he should be interfered with in any way.

—This development of the culture of cotton was pregnant with consequences to both sections. In the north, manufactures and commerce were developed, and the remnants of slavery slid to extinction down a steeper and smoother descent. In the south, the price of slaves was steadily increasing, and the increased profit thus indicated was steadily stamping labor itself as slavery. It is not in financial matters alone that bad money drives out good: wherever slave labor was extended, it tended constantly to expel free labor from the market. Immigration shunned slave soil as if by instinct, and it was not long before the whole population of the slave states was divided into three great classes: the rich whites, who did no work; the poor whites, who knew not how to work; and the slaves, who only worked when compelled to work. The results on the economical development of the country may easily be imagined. No one was under any special incentive to work, to invent, or to surpass his neighbors; slaves, the only working class, could not be trusted to engage in any labor requiring care or thought; success in anything higher than the culture of cotton, tobacco or sugar, meant the inevitable freedom of the laborer; and long before 1850 "southern shiftlessness" had become chronic, hopeless and proverbial, even in the south. The reader who wishes for details will find them (from the census of 1850) in von Holst's third volume, or in Sumner's speech of June, 1860. as cited below; and an instructive description of affairs in 1860 is in Olmstead's two volumes.

—Even on the culture of the soil the influence of the slave system was for evil. Only free labor can get large profits from a small surface, and the unwilling and unintelligent labor of slaves required so much larger area for its exercise that in 1850 there were to the square mile only 18.93 inhabitants in the southern states to 45.8 in the northern states. Slavery, like Tacitus' Germans, demanded empty acres all around it. In 1860 the acreage of improved to unimproved lands in Virginia was 11,437,821 to 19,679,215; in North Carolina, 6,517,824 to 17,245,685; in South Carolina, 4,572,060 to 11,623,859; and in Georgia, 8,062,758 to 18,587,732. The older slave states have been selected; in the new slave states the comparison is equally or more unfavorable. In the old free state of New York the comparison stood 14,358,403 improved to 6,616,555 unimproved; in the new free state of Illinois, 13,096,374 to 7,815,615. Of the free states, all but California, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon and Wisconsin had more improved than unimproved land in farms; of the slave states, only Delaware and Maryland. The comparison of the price of lands is still more unfavorable to slavery, varying in such near neighbors as Pennsylvania and Virginia from $25 per acre in the former to $8 per acre in the latter. The average value of northern farms in 1860 was $29 an acre; of southern farms, $9.80. This constant necessity for elbow room for slave labor was the ground reason for its constant effort to stretch out after new territory. A planter's policy was to take up as much land as possible, scratch the surface until his slaves could or would extract no more from it, and then search for virgin soil; for it was cheaper to pass the Mississippi, or invade Texas, than to cultivate a wornout farm with slave labor. Scientific agriculture, and the revivification of so-called worn-out farms, were never attempted until the overthrow of slavery; and, since they have begun, we hear no more of the need for new territory for cotton.

—The influence of slavery upon the section in which it existed was particularly evil in regard to the possibilities of warfare. Not only did it throttle commerce, manufactures, literature, art, everything which goes to make a people independent of the rest of the world: its influence in checking the natural increase of fighting men is plainly perceptible in the decennial census tables. Even when there is an apparent equality of numbers between the two sections, the equality is delusive, so long as the southern scale is partly filled with a population not only non-combatant but actually to be distrusted as possibly hostile. For this reason, in the following table, taking separately the states which were free and slave in 1860, the population of the free states is given first, then the population of the slave states (excluding slaves), and finally the slaves.

Whatever causes may be assigned to explain the growing disproportion of free population and fighting men of the two sections, it is evident that the slave states were worse fitted at the end of each successive period for a forcible struggle with the free states, and that the sceptre was departing from the south.

—It is not proposed in this article to touch on the moral aspect of slavery, or the absurd Biblical arguments for and against it. the rigid application of the partus sequitur ventrem rule, combined with the material interests of the cotton monopoly, will absolutely distinguish negro slavery in the United States from every system that has preceded it. We may summarize the economical evils of the system, in those points which no one can dispute, in a few words. It paralyzed invention and commerce; it prevented manufactures and the general introduction of railroads, steam machinery, or improved agricultural implements; it degraded labor by white as well as by black men; it stunted all the energies of the people, and deprived them of those physical comforts which were regarded elsewhere as almost necessaries; it dwarfed the military ability of the people, at the same time that it increased the military ambition of the ruling class, and kept the poor whites so ignorant that to them their state was a universe, its will sovereign, and its power irresistible. Every year increased the pile of explosives in the southern territory, and yet the force of events compelled slavery to grow more aggressive as it grew really weaker for war. That a people so situated, with no resources of their own and with little power to draw from without, should have waged the final war as they did, is almost enough to hide in the glory of their defeat the evil thing that went down with them. The enormous strides of the southern states from 1870 until 1880 show what the same people can do under free labor, and nearly all southern writers are agreed that the south was the greatest gainer by the overthrow of slavery. President Haygood, of Georgia, in a thanksgiving sermon of 1880, says: "For one illustration, take the home life of our people. There is ten times the comfort there was twenty years ago. Travel through your own country—and it is rather below than above the average—by any public or private road. Compare the old and the new houses. Those built recently are better in every way than those built before the war. I do not speak of an occasional mansion that in the old times lifted itself proudly among a score of cabins, but of the thousands of decent farm houses and comely cottages that have been built in the last ten years. I know scores whose new barns are better than their old residences. Our people have better furniture. Good mattresses have largely driven out the old-time feathers. Cook stoves, sewing machines, with all such comforts and conveniences, may be seen in a dozen homes to-day where you could hardly have found them in one in 1860. Lamps, that make reading agreeable, have driven out the tallow dip, by whose glimmering no eyes could long read and continue to see. Better taste asserts itself: the new houses are painted; they have not only glass, but blinds. There is more comfort inside. There are luxuries where once there were not conveniences. Carpets are getting to be common among the middle classes. There are parlor organs, pianos and pictures where we never saw them before. And so on, to the end of a long chapter. There are more people at work in the south to-day than were ever at work before; and they are raising not only more cotton, but more of everything else. And no wonder, for the farming of to-day is better than the farming of the old days, first, in better culture, second, in the ever-increasing tendency to break up the great plantations into small farms. Our present system is more than restoring what the old system destroyed."

—II. THE SYSTEM INTERNALLY. The Louisiana civil code (Art. 35) thus defines a slave: "One who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what must belong to his master." This comprehensive definition will show the status of the slave and the rights of the master sufficiently to obviate the necessity of any full statement of the slave laws of the states. For these the reader is referred to the authorities cited below. As slavery rested on custom, its regulation was uniformly by statute, the constitution usually ignoring it, and leaving it wholly in the power of the legislature. Slavery was never mentioned in the state constitutions of Delaware, Maryland (until 1837), Virginia (until 1850), North Carolina (except a mere mention of slaves in 1835), South Carolina (except a qualification of negroes for membership in the legislature in 1790), or Louisiana. In the new states slavery was legalized by that provision of their constitutions which forbade the legislature to emancipate slaves without consent of their owners, or to prevent immigrants from bringing their slaves into the state: such provisions were inserted by Kentucky in 1792, Georgia in 1798, Mississippi in 1817, Alabama in 1819, Missouri in 1820, Tennessee in 1834, Arkansas in 1836, Maryland in 1837, Florida in 1838, Texas in 1836 and 1845, and Virginia in 1850; and these continued in force until the final abolition of slavery. Trial by jury for crimes above the grade of petit larceny was secured to the slave by the constitutions of Kentucky in 1799, Mississippi in 1817. Alabama in 1819, Missouri in 1820, and Texas in 1845, and by various statutes in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Maryland, but was denied in any case in South Carolina, Virginia and Louisiana. There were also provisions in most of the states for the punishment of the willful and deliberate murder of a slave. The benefit of both these provisions, however, was largely nullified by the universal rules of law that a negro's testimony could not be received against a white man, and that the killing of a slave who should resist "lawful authority" was justifiable homicide. As slavery grew more extensive the necessity for repressive legislation to act upon the slaves became more pressing, and the slave codes more severe, until every white person felt himself to be a part of a military force guarding a dangerous array of prisoners. Education of slaves was strictly forbidden, though this provision was frequently evaded or disobeyed in individual cases. The pass system was in full vigor everywhere, and even the younger girls of the master race did not hesitate to stop a strange negro on the road, examine his pass, or order him to a particular house for examination. It was a strange society, always on the alert, always with its hand on the sword, and cruel and evil things were done in it. The burning of negroes as a punishment for heinous offenses was not an uncommon thing, nor was it by any means the most shocking of the crimes in the punishment of which George Mason's prophetic words of 1787 were rigidly fulfilled. Many of the evils had a reflex influence upon the men of the dominant race; but the women, shielded from personal contact with most of the evil, and trained from childhood in the daily exercise of the heroic virtues, developed an unusual force of character, to which much of the stubborn endurance of the war was due, and even more of the sudden rejuvenation of the south after the war.

—Black Codes, or Black Laws. These penal laws of the slave states had a very direct influence upon the legislation of several of the free states, particularly of those to which there had been a large southern migration. Ohio, in 1803, forbade negroes to settle in the state without recording a certificate of their freedom; in 1807 passed an act denying to negroes the privilege of testifying in cases in which a white man was interested on either side; and followed this up by excluding them from the public schools, and requiring them to give bonds for their good behavior while residing in the state. In 1849 these "black laws" were repealed as a part of the bargain between the democrats and free-soilers. (See OHIO.) The legislation of Illinois in 1819, 1827 and 1853, imitated that of Ohio, and in 1851 Indiana inserted similar provisions in her state constitution, which the state courts, in 1866, held to be void, as repugnant to the constitution of the United States. The same provisions were adopted by Iowa in 1851 by statute. and were made a part of the state constitution of Oregon in 1857. Wherever the state constitutions prescribed conditions of admission to the militia, as in Indiana in 1816, Illinois in 1818, Iowa in 1846, Michigan in 1850, Ohio in 1851, and Kansas in 1859, negroes were excluded; and in the states where the composition of the militia was left to the legislature the exclusion was as fully attained by statute. As a general rule, most of this legislation was swept away as rapidly as the republican party obtained complete control of each state, after 1856.

—Insurrections. No slave race has organized so few insurrections as the negro race in the United States. This can hardly be due to the natural cowardice of the race, for its members have made very good soldiers when well organized; nor to the exceptional gentleness of the system, for it was one of increasing severity; nor wholly to the affection of the negroes for their masters, for the great plantation system, under which there could be little affection on either side, had been fairly established in 1860. and yet there was no insurrection throughout the rebellion. It is encouraging to believe that the race, by long contact with the white race, has imbibed something of that respect for law which has always characterized the latter, so that the negroes, however enterprising when backed by the forms of law, patiently submitted to legal servitude. It is certain that revolt, during their history as slaves, was regularly individual, and that most of it was only revolt by legal construction. In 1710 a negro insurrection is said to have been planned in Virginia, but it was balked by one of the conspirators, who revealed the plot, and was rewarded by emancipation. In 1740 a local insurrection broke out in South Carolina, but it was stamped out instantly by the militia. In New York a negro plot was unearthed in February and March, 1741, and as a consequence of the intense popular excitement a number of negroes and whites were hung. and several negroes burned, but the whole story of the "conspiracy" seems now of the flimsiest possible construction. In 1820 Denmark Vesey, a St. Domingo mulatto, organized a negro insurrection in Charleston. It was revealed, Vesey and thirty-four others were hung, and a like number were sold out of the state. In August. 1831. the most formidable of all the insurrections broke out in Southampton county, near Norfolk, Virginia, led by Nat Turner. He believed that he had been instructed by Heaven, three years before, to rebel, the sign being an eclipse of the sun in February, 1831, but, oppressed by a sense of the greatness of the task, he fell sick, and did not begin until August. With fifty associates he then began a massacre of the whites, sparing neither age nor sex. The insurrection was at once suppressed, and Turner, after several weeks' concealment, was captured and executed in November. The total loss of life was sixty-one whites and over a hundred negroes. The Seminole war in Florida partook very much of the character of a negro insurrection. While Florida was under Spanish rule, very many fugitive slaves had taken refuge there and intermarried with the Indians; and the desire of reclaiming them was the secret of many of the Indian difficulties of that region. In 1816 American troops blew up the "negro fort" on the Appalachicola, which was the headquarters of the fugitives. On the annexation of Florida (see ANNEXATIONS, II.), slave hunting increased in eagerness, and the fugitives were pursued into the everglades. In 1833 the Seminoles had about 200 slaves of their own and 1,200 fugitives. One of the latter, the wife of Osceola, was seized while trading at Fort King, and her enraged husband at once began open war. It was conducted with inhuman cruelty on both sides, the most prominent example being the massacre of Major Dade's command, Dec. 28, 1835. The American commanders hardly ever made any secret of the great object of the war, the recapture of the fugitives; and, as the Seminoles refused to make any treaty in which the fugitives were not included, the war was long and expensive. In 1845 a treaty was arranged for the removal of both Seminoles and fugitives beyond the Mississippi, but the claimants pursued the latter with every form of legal attack, secured some of them, and, in 1852, obtained payment from congress for the remainder. The Harper's Ferry insurrection (see BROWN, JOHN) closed the list of negro revolts.

—III. THE SYSTEM EXTERNALLY; THE SLAVE TRADE. 1. Foreign Slare Trade. It has long been a general belief that the colonies, before the revolution, were anxious to prohibit the slave trade, but were prevented by the crown's instructions to the governors to veto any such laws; and the Virginia declaration of June 29, 1776, denounces the king for "prompting our negroes to rise in arms among us, those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of his negative, he had refused us permission to exclude by law." The case is complete enough against the crown. From the time of Hawkins' slaving cruise in 1562 the British government was an active partner in the slave trade. By the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, it secured for one of its monopolies the slave trade from Africa to the West Indies; in 1750 it beneficently threw open the trade to all its subjects; and its consistent policy is well stated in the official declaration of the earl of Dartmouth in 1775. that "the colonies must not be allowed to check or discourage in any degree a traffic so beneficial to the nation." But it is not so easy to clear the skirts of the colonies. The assertion of their desire to suppress the trade rests on the passage of a great number of acts laying duties upon it: the titles of twenty-four of these acts in Virginia are given in Judge Tucker's Appendix to Blackstone. But almost invariably these acts were passed for revenue only, and the Virginia act of 1752 notices in its preamble that the duty had been found "no ways burdensome to the traders." It was not until the opening of the revolution that any honest effort was made to suppress the trade, except in Pennsylvania, where bills to abolish the slave trade were passed in 1712, 1714 and 1717, and vetoed. The Massachusetts general court passed a bill to prohibit the slave trade, March 7, 1774, and another, June 16 following; but both were vetoed. It was prohibited further by Rhode Island in June, 1774; by Connecticut in October, 1774; and by the non-importation covenant of the continental congress, Oct. 24, 1774, as follows: "We will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of December next, after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it." This covenant, ratified by the states, north and south, checked the trade for the time. No further attempt was made by congress to interfere with the trade, and the ratification of the articles of confederation in 1781 gave the states the power to regulate this and all other species of commerce.

—In the formation of the constitution the question of the regulation of the slave trade offered a great difficulty. The three southern states demanded its continuance, alleging that Virginia and Maryland desired to prohibit it only to secure a domestic market for their own surplus slaves. The matter was compromised (see COMPROMISES, III.) by allowing congress to prohibit it after 1808. In the meantime the act of March 22. 1794, prohibited the carrying of slaves by American citizens from one foreign country to another; the act of May 10, 1800, allowed United States war vessels to seize ships engaged in such trade, and the act of Feb. 28, 1803, prohibited the introduction of slaves into states which had forbidden the slave trade by law. Virginia had done so by statute in 1778 and 1785, Georgia by constitutional provision in 1798, South Carolina by statute in 1787 (repealed in 1803), and North Carolina by statute in 1798. Finally, congress, by act of March 2, 1807, prohibited the importation of slaves altogether after the close of the year; the acts of April 20, 1818, and March 3, 1819, authorized the president to send cruisers to the coast of Africa to stop the trade; and the act of May 15, 1820, declared the foreign slave trade to be piracy. It can not, however, be truly said that the slave trade was abolished: it never really ceased before 1865. The census of 1870 assigns Africa as the birthplace of nearly 2,000 negroes, and it is impossible even to estimate the number illegally imported from 1808 until 1865. The sixth section of the act of March 2, 1807, allowed negroes confiscated under the act to be disposed of as the legislature of the state might direct; and southern legislatures promptly directed the sale of the confiscated negroes. This absurd section, which introduced slaves into the south, while punishing the importer, was repealed March 3, 1819, and the confiscated negroes were ordered to be returned to Africa. The claim of British naval officers on the African coast to visit and search vessels flying the American flag, but suspected of being slavers, was steadily resisted by the American government, and led to an infinite variety of diplomatic difficulties and correspondence, which the reader will find detailed in William Beach Lawrence's volume, cited below. It was finally compromised by articles eight and nine of the Webster-Ashburton treaty, Aug. 9, 1842, by which the two governments agreed to maintain independent squadrons on the African coast, to act in conjunction. Difficult as this made the slave trade, it by no means suppressed it; and, as the price of negroes in the south rose higher, importations increased, and so did the difficulties of obtaining convictions from southern juries. The most notorious case was that of the Georgia yacht Wanderer, in December, 1858, but it was not the only one. According to the "Evening Post," of New York city, 85 vessels were fitted out from that port for the slave trade during eighteen months of 1859-60, the names of the vessels being given; and another newspaper of the same city estimated the cargoes introduced by these New York vessels alone at from 30,000 to 60,000 negroes annually. Said a Georgia delegate in the Charleston convention of 1860: "If any of you northern democrats will go home with me to my plantation I will show you some darkies that I bought in Virginia, some in Delaware, some in Florida, and I will also show you the pure African, the noblest Roman of them all. I represent the African slave trade interest of my section." In 1858 an ingenious attempt was made to evade the law. A Charleston vessel applied for a clearance to the African coast "for the purpose of taking on board African emigrants, in accordance with the United States passenger laws." Howell Cobb, secretary of the treasury, refused to give the clearance.

—As we approach the year 1860 we find growing apprehensions of the reopening of the foreign slave trade. It must be remembered that congress was only permitted not directed, to abolish the trade after 1808, and that a simple repeal of the law of 1807 would have made it as legal as any other branch of commerce. The inherent weakness of the system of slavery, which grew weaker as it widened, imperatively demanded the repeal. To retain political power it was necessary to introduce the custom of slavery into the new territories in order to prepare them to be slave states. For this the domestic supply would not suffice; and Alex. H. Stephens, in his farewell speech to his constituents, July 2, 1859, says that his object is "to bring clearly to your mind the great truth that without an increase of African slaves from abroad, you may not expect or look for many more slave states." The repeal of the law of 1807, and the revival of the foreign slave trade, were advocated by the southern commercial convention in 1858 and 1859, by De Bow's "Review," and by a great and growing number of leading men and newspapers. It was even taking the aspect of a new phase of a distinct southern political creed, an effort to repeal that which was a standing condemnation of slaveholding and slaveholders. Before anything definite could be attempted, secession intervened. The constitution of the confederate states forbade the foreign slave trade, and "required" congress to pass such laws as should effectually prevent the same. How long this prohibition would have endured, if independence had been achieved, can not be conjectured, but it is certain that a slaveholding government would have found far more difficulty in enforcing such a prohibition than the government of the United States had found.

—2. The Domestic Slave Trade. Even barring secession and rebellion, negro slavery had always a possible danger in the undoubted power of congress to regulate commerce "between the states." Should this power ever find a majority in congress ready to apply it in an unfriendly spirit to the sale of slaves from state to state, and thus to coop up each body of slaves in its own territory, the system would be injured in a vital point. For this reason the ninth section of the act of 1807 allowed the transfer of slaves from point to point along the coast in vessels of not more than forty tons burden. After the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, American coasting vessels with slaves on board would occasionally be forced by stress of weather into British West India ports, when the authorities at once liberated the slaves. Diplomatic complications followed, of course; but the British government steadily refused to pay for the slaves liberated, except in cases which had occurred before the abolition of slavery in the colonies. (See CREOLE CASE, and the authorities there cited for the other cases.) The domestic slave trade by land was never interfered with until the abolition of slavery, except by the unavoidable operations of war during the rebellion. A bill was introduced by Sumner in 1864 to prohibit it, but it came to nothing. A bill to repeal the sections of the act of 1807 permitting the coastwise slave trade was added as a rider to an appropriation bill, and became law July 2, 1864.

—IV. THE SUFFRAGE CLAUSE AND THE "SLAVE POWER." The constitution (see COMPROMISES, I.) gave to the states in which slavery existed legal representation in the lower house of congress for three-fifths of their slaves. In this provision there was innate an influence which was as potent on the political aspect of the slave system as the cotton culture was upon its material aspect. It must be remembered, that, in spite of the number of slaves in the south, slave owning was not at all general in that section. In 1850 the white population of the south was 6,459,946, and De Bow, superintendent of the census, and a proslavery southerner, gives the number of slaveholders as only 347,525, classified as follows, holders of 1 slave, 68,820; 2 to 5 slaves, 105,683; 6 to 10 slaves, 80,765; 11 to 20 slaves, 54,595; 21 to 50 slaves, 29,733; 51 to 100 slaves, 6,196; 101 to 200 slaves, 1,479; 201 to 300 slaves, 187; 301 to 500 slaves, 56; 501 to 1,000 slaves, 9; over 1,000 slaves, 2. But even this statement, De Bow admits, has an element of deceptiveness, for most of the small holders were not slave owners, but slave hirers; and he estimates the actual number of slave owners at 186,531. In 1830, 90 of the 234 members of the house of representatives were apportioned to the slaveholding states. If we omit from their population three-fifths of the number of their slaves in 1830, they would have been entitled in round numbers to but 70 representatives. The other 20 members represented only the 186,531 slave owners, and the loosest examination of the majorities by which bills passed the house of representatives during the anti-slavery conflict will show that the introduction of these 20 votes was usually the decisive factor down to 1855. This consequence was apparent from an early date. The repeal of the suffrage clause was demanded in 1814 (see CONVENTION, HARTFORD); and the demand grew still stronger after 1833, and never failed to excite the hottest wrath of southern members. Perhaps the occasion which roused the most intense feeling was the presentation by John Quincy Adams in congress, Dec. 21, 1843, of a formal proposal from the democratic legislature of Massachusetts to amend the constitution by repealing the three-fifths clause. In congress it was denounced unsparingly, and refused the privilege of printing, and out of congress the fervor of denunciation was unreportable.

—But the direct operation of the three-fifths clause was far less than its indirect influence. It must be remembered that the 200,000 slave owners necessarily included in their ranks almost all the governors, judges, legislators, and leading men of the slave states, and their senators and representatives also, since the purchase of one or more slaves was the first step of any man who began to acquire wealth; and that all these men were united by a common purpose, the protection of property, which was superior in its every-day operation to almost any other claim. Practically, then, the 200,000 slave owners, recruited from time to time by new accessions, formed a dominant class; and the ninety representatives and thirty senators (in 1850) not only represented them, but were selected from their number. Such a political force as this had never before appeared in American politics: the utmost conceivable evils of the influence of corporations must pale their fires before it; and it is no wonder, that, as it rose gloomier and more threatening upon the southern sky, the instinctive political sense of the people gave it the name of the "slave power." In the nature of things this power could not be conservative: it must be aggressive, for the interest represented by it demanded extension to obtain profit; and yet, as it grew wider, it grew weaker, and needed still warmer support. The general, double-acting rule was: the more slaves, the more territory; the more territory, the more slaves. It was not in human nature for the men who made up the slave power to resist an influence so constant, so natural, so silent and so powerful, and the vicious twist given by it to the whole southern policy grew stronger yearly. No influence, even that of honor, could resist its undermining or escape being argued away. It was progressively successful in transplanting the custom of slavery beyond the Mississippi, in swinging the whole force of the nation upon Mexico for the acquisition of new slave territory, and in violating the condition precedent on which it had obtained the admission of Missouri as a slave state; and it was partially prepared in 1861 to shock the conscience of civilization by reopening the foreign slave trade, to whose suppression the good faith of the nation was pledged. But, before this last effort could be made, its time had come. The internal defects of the combined cotton-slave system could not remain stationary. Nothing is more certain than that, from 1850 to 1860, the number of slave owners was diminishing, particularly in the gulf states, the plantations were growing larger, the cotton culture was becoming less and less patriarchal and more and more of a business, and the slave power itself was growing more compact, grasping and reckless. It might have been that, without secession, this concentrating process would have gone on until the non-slaveholding whites of the south would have united against it; but that possibility was never tried. In 1860 the rising anti-slavery tide of the north and west came into flat collision with the rising tide of the slave power, and equilibrium was at last restored by violence.

—It was not alone the inherent grasping nature of the slave power which affronted the non-slave-holding states and helped to bring about the final catastrophe. It is no reflection upon southern legislators of the present to say that the slave-holding member of congress until 1861 was in general an exceedingly unpleasant personage. His faults of thought, feeling, expression and manner, were long ago explained by Jefferson. "If a parent had no other motive, either in his own philanthropy or in his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose rein to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated and daily exercised in tyranny, can not but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities." However unjust it may be in theory to wage a political crusade against bad manners, it is as certain as anything can be that the political union of the free states in 1860 was largely brought about by the "odious peculiarities" of slaveholding members of congress in debate. Their boisterous violence, their willingness to take liberties of language, contrasted with their unwillingness to allow the same liberty to opponents, their disposition to supplement discussion with actual violence or threats of it, the indescribable and merciless assumption of an acknowledged superiority, made the debates of 1850-60 a shameful record, and are still remembered by their old opponents, with a certain soreness, as "plantation manners." It was bad enough that a senator should be clubbed into unconsciousness for words spoken in debate (see BROOKS, P. S.); it was, if anything, worse that his first speech on his return to the senate should be answered by a South Carolina senator with the remark that "we are not inclined again to send forth the recipient of punishment howling through the world, yelping fresh cries of slander and malice." Southern writers will never fully understand the election of 1860 until they come to study, in the light of the new training, the debates which preceded it.

—A power so situated, in a constantly weakening minority in the nation, and yet supreme in influence in its own states, was necessarily particularist in theory. Where it ruled, the forefathers had said state sovereignty and meant state rights, while their descendants said state rights and meant state sovereignty. (See that title.) And the development of the great cotton interest made state sovereignty even worse than it was by nature: instead of the jarring and comparatively innocuous demands of state sovereignty, it banded together a number of states by a common controlling interest, and evoked the deadly peril of sectional sovereignty. (See NULLIFICATION, SECESSION.) State rights could never have caused a blow; even state sovereignty would have died a harmless and natural death; but slavery and sectional state sovereignty each so acted and reacted upon the evil points of the other that the combined tumor was at last beyond reach of anything but the knife. But, during its existence, slavery never hesitated upon occasion to drop state sovereignty for the time, and use the nation and the national idea as political forces for its advancement; and yet it never did so, except in the case of the acquisition of Florida, without injuring itself. In its infancy it acquired the territory west of the Mississippi (see ANNEXATIONS, I.) by a process which was only defensible on the ground that the powers of the government were given by a nation, and not by sovereign states; and out of this territory grew its subsequent difficulties. (See COMPROMISES, IV.; KANSAS NEBRASKA BILL.) It flung the nation upon Mexico, and the disputes over the territory thus acquired first put the antislavery sentiment into political shape. It forced the passage of a fugitive slave act fatally adverse to state sovereignty and state rights in compensation for the admission of California as a state (see COMPROMISES, V.; FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS), an act whose operation made its moving power the object not only of dread but of abhorrence in the free states. Finally, by transferring theoretical state sovereignty into practical secession, it compelled such an extensive showing of national power that the effects will be felt for generations to come.

—V. SLAVERY IN TERRITORIES AND NEW STATES. It is certain that slavery in the original states was founded on custom only, and the same foundation, if any, must be found for slavery in territories and new states. The modern states of Kentucky and Tennessee, for example, were never colonies or territories of their parent states: they were integral parts of Virginia and North Carolina, and the custom of slavery was established at Nashville or Harrodsburgh on just the same basis as at Beaufort or Richmond. When their separation from the parent states took place, the custom of slavery remained, and they entered the Union as slave states. Granting that no opposition to slavery was felt by the nation at large, the same process might have been repeated anywhere, and custom, unopposed, might have made any territory slave soil, and brought it into the Union as a slave state. It is, therefore, impossible to admit fully the dogma, so popular and useful in the anti-slavery conflict, that the national territory was free soil without any statutory enactment. It might be free, and it might be slave, according to custom. In the cases of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, the cessions of their territory were accepted by the United States from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, under a pledge not to interfere with the existing custom of slavery. The rights of all these states to the territory which they professed to cede, like the rights of New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts to the northwestern territory, were exceedingly doubtful (see TERRITORIES, I.); nevertheless, the pledge was honorably fulfilled.

—The slaveholding states always denied that any act of congress could prohibit the custom of slavery in a territory. But this is as impossible of acceptance as the free soil dogma above stated. The territories were certainly not without law. Their inhabitants were not the law-making power, for then there would have been no distinction between territories and states. On any other subject than slavery, no one, in court or congress, denied that congress was the law-maker for the territories. But slavery was only a custom; and, while no one denies that a custom is valid until abrogated by statute, this has been the only case in which it has been seriously asserted that any custom is above and beyond abrogation by statute. So evident was this in 1787 that the ordinance of that year (see ORDINANCE of 1787) abolished slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio, in whose case no restraining pledge had been given. The articles of confederation, which were then in force, gave congress no power to so prohibit slavery, or, indeed, to hold or govern territory at all. The whole act was so obviously a consequence of the national power to hold and govern its own territory, and was so plain a parallel to the proposal to similarly prohibit slavery in the Mexican annexations (see WILMOT PROVISO), that southern writers have endeavored to avoid it in two ways: 1. They assert that the ordinance was merely an expression of the will of the several states, a new article of confederation, so to speak. This is impossible. The state vote on the ordinance of 1787 was indeed unanimous, but this fact has no bearing on the matter, for the ordinance of 1784, which covered much the same ground (excepting the prohibition of slavery), was not adopted by unanimous vote, South Carolina voting in the negative, and yet its validity was never impeached on that account. Further, the articles of confederation were to be amended by state legislatures only: however we may admit the power of a national convention to override them, we can hardly acknowledge the power of congress itself to amend them. 2. Judge Taney, in the Dred Scott decision, holds that the ordinance of 1787 "had become inoperative and a nullity upon the adoption of the constitution." If this was so, and if it was true, as the same decision holds, that the power of congress to "make all needful rules and regulations" for the territory of the United States was intended to be confined to the territory then owned by the United States, and not to be extended to territory subsequently acquired, the fugitive slave law of 1850 was in a large degree unconstitutional. It was based on the fugitive slave clause of the constitution: but this only allowed the reclamation of slaves from one state to another state. (See FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS.) During the territorial existence of the northwest the ground was covered by this proviso to the prohibition of slavery by the ordinance of 1787: "provided always that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid." If the power to make "rules and regulations" for the territories only applied to the territory owned in 1789, and was intended to supply the place of the fugitive slave clause in the superseded ordinance of 1787, it follows that the fugitive slave law of 1793 exhausted the constitutional powers of congress to provide for the reclamation of fugitive slaves to a territory. All the trans-Mississippi territory was subsequently acquired; and, if the Dred Scott decision was correct, the fugitive slave law of 1850 was unconstitutional in providing for the reclamation of fugitive slaves from it. The consequence must have been that the trans-Mississippi territories, whether slavery were allowed or prohibited in them, would have been a sort of Alsatia, a safe refuge for fugitive slaves; and slavery would have been at a greater disadvantage than under the ordinance of 1787.

—The custom of slavery was already in existence in Louisiana and Florida at the time of their annexation, but the responsibility for its enlargement is directly upon congress. The act of March 26, 1804, provided that no slaves should be introduced into the territory, except "by a citizen of the United States, removing into said territory for actual settlement, and being at the time of such removal bona fide owner of such slave or slaves"; and the act of March 30, 1822, while forbidding the importation of slaves from without the United States, by implication allowed the domestic slave trade. Both acts confirmed the laws then in force in the territories, and not inconsistent with the acts; and as the territorial laws recognized slavery, it continued in force, and Louisiana and Florida entered the Union as slave states. Upon the admission of Louisiana as a state, the continuance of the custom of slavery in the rest of the purchase was practically provided for by the sixteenth section of the act of June 4, 1812, continuing the territorial laws of Louisiana in the new territory of Missouri. Again, when the new territory of "Arkansaw" was created by the act of March 2, 1819, a similar provision continued in the new territory the laws of Missouri, which recognized slavery. The consequences of this long laches, this omission of congress to prohibit the custom of slavery, which had been recognized by French, Spanish and territorial law, had now become apparent in the application of Missouri for admission as a slave state, and the tardy attempt in congress to attack the evil raised a political storm. On the one hand, since the new state had not the ability to compel a recognition of its existence, its recognition was clearly a matter of favor, on which congress could impose such conditions as it should consider needful. On the other, it was hardly just that congress should permit the existence of even an evil custom during its own responsibility for government, and only undertake to abolish it at the instant of giving the state professed self-government. The settlement of the case is elsewhere given (see COMPROMISES, IV.); it resulted in the abolition of slavery in the rest of the Louisiana purchase, above 36° 30' north latitude, and the admission of Missouri as a slave state. As there was no abolition of the custom of slavery in the territory of Arkansas, we must consider the custom left still in existence there. On the application of Arkansas for admission as a slave state in 1836, there were some symptoms of a renewal of the Missouri struggle; but John Quincy Adams and other anti-slavery men agreed that the admission of Arkansas was fairly nominated in the Missouri bond, and the state was admitted. At the same session an increase in the area of Missouri (see that state) made a considerable addition to the slave soil of the United States. Here the extension of slavery stopped, with the exception of the admission of Florida and Texas as slave states in 1845. (See ANNEXATIONS, III.) The area of Texas had been free soil under the decree of Guerrero, the Mexican dictator, in 1829, afterward ratified by the Mexican congress; and slavery is not recognized in the constitution of the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas, or in the provisional Texas constitutions of 1833 and 1835. But American settlers had brought their slaves with them, and fairly introduced the custom of slavery; and the constitution of 1836 formally declared all persons of color slaves for life, if they had been in that condition before their emigration to Texas, and were then held in bondage. This, though the state was not in the Union as yet, was the only instance of the professed establishment of slavery by the organic law of an American state, unless we are to take the Massachusetts code of 1641 as the first. The basis of the system is clearly expressed in a section of the Kentucky constitution of 1850, as follows: "The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction; and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever." It was no more necessary, then, to declare a constitutional right of property in the case of slaves than in the case of horses. in both cases the legislature was to accept and defend the right without question. A slave state was regularly declared such, at its admission, only by the provision forbidding the legislature to emancipate slaves without consent of owners, or to forbid the domestic slave trade.

—As slavery reached the limits of its state extension in 1845, it only remains necessary to recur to its attacks upon the territories. Here the customary basis of slavery makes manifest the weakness of the claims for its extension after 1845. It is one thing to acknowledge the validity of a recognized and unopposed territorial custom in Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas: it is a very different thing to admit, as pro-slavery advocates required, that the custom could not be abolished by statute, or prohibited where it did not exist. Nevertheless, in this respect, the compromise of 1850 (see COMPROMISES, V.) gave the slave states all they then asked. It refrained from prohibiting the custom, and gave the territorial legislature a general right of legislation, subject, of course, to the veto power of congress. But this last was now a meaningless form: it was impossible to obtain the passage of an act by congress and the president, annulling a territorial law recognizing slavery. Congress practically gave loose reins to the territorial legislatures, and they took advantage of it. New Mexico (then including Arizona) passed an act in 1851 recognizing peonage, or white slavery, and another in 1859 recognizing negro slavery; and Utah (then including Nevada) passed an act in 1852 maintaining the right of slaveholding immigrants to the services of their slaves. None of these acts was annulled until 1862. (See WILMOT PROVISO.) The Kansas-Nebraska bill (see that title) in 1854 went a stép further. It took off the Missouri prohibition of 1820, and allowed the introduction of the custom into all the territories. It is at least doubtful, leaving out the good faith of the repeal, whether a custom could properly be introduced in that way; but the climax of doubtfulness was reached when the Kansas struggle showed that the custom had no chance of practical introduction in that territory. The pro-slavery claim (see DRED SCOTT CASE; DEMOCRATIC PARTY, V.; COMPROMISES, VI.) was then advanced that both congress and the territorial legislatures were bound to defend slavery in the territories. If negro slavery was based on custom, and not on organic law, this claim was certainly a novelty in jurisprudence. We can easily understand the recognition or the prohibition of a custom by statute, but the establishment of a custom by statute is beyond conception. Yet this is the sum of the southern demand, when divested of verbiage and reduced to its real essence; and secession was based on the refusal of the demand.

—For the political influence of slavery, see DEMOCRATIC PARTY, WHIG PARTY, AMERICAN PARTY, REPUBLICAN PARTY. For the extinction of the system, see ABOLITION, EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.

—See, in general, Williams' History of the Negro Race; Wilson's Slave Power in America; Hildreth's United States; von Holst's United States; Kapp's Geschichte der Sklaverei; 1 Draper's History of the Civil War; Jay's Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery; Cobb's Historical Sketch of Slavery; Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery; Nott's Slavery and the Remedy; Weston's Progress of Slavery; and, on behalf of slavery, The Pro-Slavery Argument, including Hammond's Letters on Slavery, and Dew's Review of the Virginia Debate of 1832; Adams' South Side View of Slavery; Fitzhugh's Sociology for the South; and Sawyer's Southern Institutions.—(I.) 3 Bancroft's United States, 415; Hildreth's Despotism in America; Hurd's Law of Freedom and Bondage; H. Sherman's Slavery in the United States; Stroud's Laws of Slavery; Goodell's American Slave Code; Poore's Federal and State Constitutions; authorities under the states named, particularly Moore's Slavery in Massachusetts; Ambler's (Chancery) Reports, 76; 11 State Trials, 340, and Lofft's (K. B.) Reports, 1 (Sommersett case); Livermore's Historical Research on Negroes; 5 Elliot's Debates, 392; Jefferson's Notes on Virginia (edit. 1800), 164; 1 Bishop's History of American Manufactures, 355, 397; Pitkin's Statistical View of American Commerce, 110; Cotton is King (1855); Kettell's Southern Wealth and Northern Profits; Turner's History of Cotton and the Cotton Gin (1837); Donnell's History of Cotton (1872); 3 von Holst's United States, 563; 5 Sumner's Works, 1, or Lester's Life of Sumner, 311; Helper's Impending Crisis; Olmstead's Cotton Kingdom; Census Reports, 1850-70; King's The Great South (1875); Haygood's The New South (1880).—(II.) The general authorities; the first seven authorities under preceding section; Horsmanden's New York Negro Plot of 1741; Atlantic Monthly, June, 1861 (Vesey), August, 1861 (Turner); Giddings' Exiles of Florida.—(III.) Clarkson's History of the Slave Trade, 52; Copley's History of Slavery, 113; Andrews' Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade; Carey's The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign; 1 Draper's History of the Civil War, 418; Foote's Africa and the American Flag; Continental Monthly, January, 1862 (Slave Trade in New York); 2 Tucker's Blackstone, Appendix, 49: 1 Journals of Congress, 24; 1 Stat. at Large, 847 (act of March 22, 1794); 2 Stat. at Large, 70, 205, 426 (acts of May 10, 1800, Feb. 28, 1803, and March 2, 1807); Quincy's Life of Quincy, 102; 3 Stat. at Large, 450, 533, 600 (acts of April 20, 1818, March 3, 1819, and May 15, 1820); W. B. Lawrence's Visitation and Search; Cleveland's A. H. Stephens in Public and Private, 647; Sprott's Foreign Slave Trade.—(IV.) The general authorities; Cairnes' The Slave Power; 2 Olmstead's Cotton Kingdom, 192; Census Report, 1850.—(V.) 1 Stat. at Large, 106, and 2 ib., 70, 235 (cessions by North Carolina and Georgia); 4 Journals of Congress, 380 (ordinance of 1784); authorities under ORDINANCE OF 1787; Fisher's Law of the Territories; 2 Benton's Debates of Congress, 221, and 16 ib. (index under Slavery); for the acts in regard to the states and territories, see authorities under their names.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

SMITH

SMITH, Adam. The name of Adam Smith is the greatest in political economy. He has had the singular fortune to stamp his impress ineffaceably on the intellectual world as well as on the world of facts. Adam Smith is not only the acknowledged founder of economic science, but the authority appealed to, and who inspired Sir Robert Peel and Huskisson, those dauntless ministers of his ideas. His life, wholly devoted to study and thought, passed away modestly and peacefully. The information we possess regarding him is small. We shall endeavor more especially, within the limited space allowed us, to bring into relief the facts calculated to make known the character of the man and to explain the works of the thinker.

—The little village of Kirkaldy, in Fifeshire, in Scotland, had the honor of being the birthplace of Adam Smith, who was born there, on June 5, 1723. His father, who was comptroller of the customs, had died several months before Adam Smith was born. His mother watched over his childhood, and she more than once had cause to fear for his life; for his constitution was frail and sickly. When he was only three years old, he was playing before his uncle's house, when a band of gypsies passing by kidnapped him. The alarm was given; his uncle gathered his friends together, overtook the kidnapers in a neighboring wood, and rescued his nephew.

—From the school in Kirkaldy. in which he received his early education, Adam Smith went, in 1737, to the university of Glasgow. He there attended the lectures on moral philosophy of the illustrious head of the Scotch school, Hutcheson, whose teaching made a decided impression upon the mind of Adam Smith. He appreciated the solid and practical worth of it, and all his writings show that he adopted its exalted spiritualism, its solid common sense and its strong morality. He always retained a filial feeling for Hutcheson, and never spoke of him but with the expression of the sincerest admiration and the deepest gratitude.

—Intended by his family for the church, Adam Smith was admitted to Baliol college, at Oxford. The future philosopher at first applied himself, with marked preference, to the study of mathematics and of the physical sciences. He knew not only the theory of these sciences, but had devoted much time to their history. These successive endeavors of the human intellect in the search of truth had a charm which delighted his investigating mind. From the sciences he passed to literature, and, after a stay of seven years, he read with equal facility the Latin, Greek, French and Italian poets. He frequently exercised himself in translating from the French, with a view to his improvement in the art of writing. He regarded this exercise as eminently calculated to perfect one's style.

—After completing his studies at Oxford, he returned to Kirkaldy. Determined to give up the ministry, he decided to live with his mother, in the peace which she alone could bring him, and to limit his ambition to the uncertain hope of obtaining one of those modest offices to which literary talent then led in Scotland. In 1748 he began to put his projects into execution, by opening at Edinburgh, where he came to establish himself, a public course of rhetoric and belles lettres. These lectures attracted a large number of hearers, and in a short time gave him substantial fame; for in 1751 he was appointed to the chair of logic in the university of Glasgow, and the following year to that of moral philosophy, left vacant by the death of Thomas Craigie, the successor of Hutcheson. He filled this chair for thirteen years, and always looked upon this period of his life as the most useful to his fellow-men as well as the happiest to himself. The brilliancy of his reputation gathered around him a crowd of students eager to hear him. The subjects of his course became the fashionable study; and his opinions the principal object of the discussions which entertained literary societies. Certain inflections of the professor's voice even, and certain favorite expressions of his, became matters of imitation. The talents of Mr. Smith, said one of his hearers, appeared nowhere to so great advantage as in the exercise of his duties as professor. In delivering his lectures he relied almost entirely upon his readiness in extemporizing. His style, though lacking, it is true, in grace, was clear, and free from affectation, and as he was seen to be interested in his subject, he never failed to interest his hearers. Each discourse consisted commonly in distinct propositions, which he made it his study successively to prove and explain. These propositions, stated in general terms, had often, from the very extent of their subject, an appearance of paradox. In his endeavors to develop them, it was not unusual to see him at first appear as if embarrassed and not thoroughly master of his subject, and even speaking with a kind of hesitation. But as he went on, the subject seemed to grow before him; his manner became warm and animated, and his expressions easy and flowing. In delicate points susceptible of controversy, you would have recognized without difficulty that he secretly entertained the thought of some opposition to his opinions, and that he consequently felt obliged to maintain them with the greater energy and vehemence. The abundance and the variety of his explanations and illustrations threw light upon his subject, as he handled it.

—He divided his course into four parts; the first three included natural theology and moral philosophy, and particularly the moral principles which relate to justice. In the first part of his course he examined the various political regulations which are not founded upon the principle of justice, but upon that of expediency, and the object of which was to increase the wealth, power and prosperity of the state. From this point of view he considered the political institutions relating to commerce, to finance, and to ecclesiastical and military establishments. What he taught upon these various subjects forms the substance of the work since published under the title "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." This exact evidence proves, that, since 1753, although this part of his course was limited to the consideration of economic legislation, Adam Smith had formed an opinion on the fundamental questions of political economy. It is impossible to determine wherein the opinions of the professor of moral philosophy differed from those of the author of the "Wealth of Nations," since nothing remains to us of his teaching but this indication of one of his disciples. However, Adam Smith only followed the example of his master whom he reverenced, in introducing the consideration of economical order into his course of moral philosophy, and it is perhaps to the single chapter of the "Manual of Moral Philosophy" of Hutcheson, in which he treats of value, of exchange, etc., that we owe the "Wealth of Nations."

—From this period also his friendship with Hume, who had just published the second part of his "Essays" (1752), dates. In the nine discourses on political economy contained in this work, Hume, in attacking the erroneous theories of the mercantile system and of protective duties, determined the true principles of the nature of wealth, the profit of capital, and the solidarity of interests. This friendship, precious to both of them, kept up by their daily relations, to which Adam Smith brought profound convictions and an ardent love of humanity, and his friend a cold and jesting skepticism, which took away nothing from the sincerity of his affection, this friendship, which is a eulogy for both of them in this age of irritable vanity and literary jealousies, lasted until the end of Hume's life, and it is permissible to believe that the author of the "Essays" exercised an influence over his friend favorable to the direction of his thoughts toward political economy. This we know certainly, that the principal merchants of Edinburgh, then a very commercial town, shared Smith's views in the matter of customs, and that he himself drew from their conversation on the subject that knowledge of facts which characterizes his great work.

—Half a century later, the most illustrious propagator of his doctrines, J. B. Say, crossed over to Glasgow. I wished to see, he wrote, the place which was the cradle of sound doctrines in political economy. I was conducted to a long, narrow room, where everything still remained as in Smith's time. An arm chair of old black eather towered between two of the windows, and I confess that I could not seat myself in it without very strong emotion mingled with respect. It is my inmost conviction that sound ideas of political economy will change the face of the world; now, can a man look coolly at the source of a great river? Remarkable coincidence! At the same period at which, in his Glasgow attic, Smith was uttering his first principles on political economy; under the chateau of Versailles, the same ideas were germinating in the head of Quesnay, and prompting his articles in the Encyclopedie (1756).

—It was after he had been for seven years professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, that Adam Smith published his "Theory of the Moral Sentiments." The fundamental principle of this theory is, that the actions of others are the only source of our moral perceptions. The judgments which we pass as to the morality of our own acts, are but a personal application of the judgments which we pass on the acts of our fellow-men. It is this moral approbation which Smith calls fellow-feeling. In the first part of his book he explains how we learn to judge of the conduct of others; in the second, how, in applying this judgment to ourselves, we rise to the idea of a duty to be performed. "Smith is in the right," well says M. Cousin, "when he develops the charms of sympathy, when he urges us to have ceaselessly before our eyes the conditions upon which others sympathize with us, and bestow upon us all that is sweetest to the human heart, to wit, the approbation and good will of our fellow-men. Smith's mistake is to have believed, or to have appeared to believe, that fellow-feeling is itself the good. The two differ in principle; and it is of consequence that this difference should be made manifest, firstly, for the truth's sake, then for the sake of virtue itself; for virtue is impaired at its very foundation, if it pursues an end not its own; and it is all over with virtue, if, when by reason of a going astray of opinion. it comes to be wanting in fellow feeling, and it is no longer able to maintain itself by its own power, and to be sufficient unto itself." For, indeed, sympathy or fellow-feeling, a noble and entirely personal feeling, are only a result of our organization; and Adam Smith, by assigning it the first place as the source of human actions, sacrificed to it the principle itself of which it is only the sign, conscience itself, that rule which subsists invariably and sovereignly obligatory above the caprices of the imagination and of the heart, and above the force of circumstances.

—Singular inconsistency of the spirit of system; it is the philosopher of sympathy, the too exclusive defender of the sentiments of benevolence and commiseration, whom the opponents of political economy have accused of selfishness and of implacable hardness to the misery of his fellow-men! If these blind traducers of economic doctrine did not recall that the economist of Glasgow had written and proved that those who feed, clothe and lodge the entire body of the nation, should have a large enough share in the product of their work to be sufficiently fed, lodged and clothed, they should at least have been careful that their attacks were directed against the philosopher who had made sympathy the only motive of our actions and the law of duty.

—Toward the end of 1763 the wish to visit the continent, and the liberal offers which were made him, determined Smith to accompany the young duke of Buccleugh in the travels which he contemplated undertaking. He sent to the rector of the university of Glasgow his resignation of the office he had filled for thirteen years. Universal regret was felt, and the university recorded its thought upon the register, and said that "the university could not refrain from expressing its sincere regret at the removal of Dr. Smith, whose distinguished virtues and amiable qualities had won for him the esteem and affection of his colleagues, and who had honored the university by his genius and the extent of his knowledge. His elegant and ingenious 'Theory of the Moral Sentiments' had won for him the esteem of men of taste and letters all over Europe. His happy talent of throwing light upon the most abstract subjects, his assiduity in communicating useful knowledge, and the exactness in discharging the duties of his position, which characterized him as a professor, were for the young men intrusted to his care a source of enjoyment as well as of sound instruction." Smith and the duke of Buccleugh embarked for the continent in March, 1764. After a stay of ten or twelve days at Paris, they took up their residence at Toulouse, which had just witnessed the execution of the unfortunate Calus. They spent eighteen months here in the society of the principal members of the parliament of that city. From Toulouse they proceeded toward Geneva, crossing by a circuitous route through the southern provinces of France; after a sojourn of two months in this city they returned to Paris. This was in December, 1765, and they remained there until October of the following year.

—Smith had long been familiar with French literature. He was acquainted with the works of J. J. Rousseau, and from a letter of Hume's we learn that he had read Helvetius' l' Esprit, and Voltaire's Condide. Furnished with letters of introduction from Hume, the Scotch philosopher met with the most flattering reception from Alembert, Helvetius, Marmontel and Madame Riccoboni. He was admitted to the society of the Duchesse d'Anville, and became especially intimate with a son of the Due de La Rochefoucauld. This noble and generous mind began later a translation of the "Theory of the Moral Sentiments," which he did not finish, and the grateful philosopher, who had in his first edition associated the name of the author of the Maximes with that of Mandeville, took care to drop from the second his criticism on the grandfather of his friend.

—The physiocratic school was at this time in all the ardor of the strife against the partisans of the mercantile and restrictive system. It had been for several years in possession of the doctrine which made it what it was; for in 1758 Quesnay had published his Tableau économique, printed at Versailles, under the eye of the king. The very year in which Smith left England, Le Trosne, then king's advocate at Orleans, publicly professed the master's principles in a discourse on the decadence of the magistracy; and during his sojourn in Paris, the Ephémérides du Citoyen, for the purpose of opposing the principles of Quesnay, and the Journal de l'agriculture, du commerce et des finances, under the direction of Dupont de Nemours, to defend them, were established. At this same time one of the most enlightened economists, Abeille, published a pamphlet on exclusive privileges in matters of commerce, which was very favorably received. Thus Smith was witness, during his stay in Paris, of the contest of economical systems. Unfortunately, no details of this period of his life, so interesting in the history of science, have come down to us. We learn from Dugald Stewart that he took pleasure in conversing with Turgot, and that he corresponded with Quesnay, but nothing further. Dupont de Nemours is more explicit, and represents him as having been his condisciple at Quesnay's. "Dupont de Nemours," says J. B. Say, "told me that he often met Adam Smith in that society, perhaps the most respectable in Europe, and that he was there regarded as a judicious and simple man, but as one who had not yet shown what he was capable of." What is beyond all doubt, is the profound esteem which Smith always preserved for the ingenious and thoughtful founder of the physiocratic school. He intended to dedicate his great work to him, and only the death of Quesnay (1774) prevented the realization of this noble thought. It is certain that Turgot conceived a high opinion of his ability, and Condorcet relates, that, after his retirement from the ministry, he kept up a correspondence with Smith. These two great minds, the beauty of whose characters vied with the loftiness of their intellect, were worthy to understand each other, but there remains no trace of this interchange of letters. The papers left by Turgot have revealed none; those of Adam Smith were destroyed before his death by his own order, and his most intimate friends never had any knowledge of this correspondence.

—It is, nevertheless, difficult to suppose, that, during the nine months which he spent in Paris, in society where economical topics were the order of the day, the conversation of so many men in whom he recognized great learning and distinguished ability, and of whom he declared that their doctrine approached the nearest to the truth, should have been without influence on the formation of his principles. But to what extent it is impossible, in the absence of any written document, to determine. Must we infer, as have some, from the solicitous and minute care taken by Smith shortly before his death to have his manuscripts—among which were the lectures delivered at Glasgow on economic subjects—destroyed, that he had an especial interest in leaving nothing from which the succession of his ideas could be conjectured? This is a pure hypothesis, as well as a most improbable one; and does nothing but complicate a problem, the solution of which it is impossible to give.

—Back in England in October, 1766, Smith returned to Kirkaldy, where he lived for ten years near his mother, and in the society of some of the friends of his childhood. His friend Hume, then librarian of the faculty of advocates at Edinburgh, strove several times, but in vain, to draw him away from his solitude. "I want to know what you have done," Hume wrote to Smith, in 1769, "and I intend to exact a strict account from you of the use you are making of your time in your retreat." Four years later, he added: "I will not accept the excuse of your health, which I regard only as a subterfuge invented by indolence and love of solitude. In truth, if you continue to listen to those two little evil advisers, you will end by breaking completely with society, to the detriment of both the parties interested."

—It was from this stubborn meditation of six years that the great work came which was to immortalize his name. The "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," which he had begun to write in 1771, and which appeared in March, 1776, disclosed the secret of his long retreat. A month afterward Hume congratulated him in the following glowing terms: "My dear Mr. Smith, your work has afforded me the greatest pleasure; and in reading it, I emerged from a state of painful anxiety. It is a work, the expectation of which kept in such suspense yourself. your friends and the public, that I trembled to see it appear; but at last I am relieved. Not that—reflecting how much attention this reading exacts, and how little disposed the public is to bestow such—I must not still distrust for some time the first breath of popular favor; but there are in it depth, solidity, subtle penetration, and a multitude of curious facts: such merits should, sooner or later, fix the attention of public opinion. If you were here, at my fireside, I should contest some of your principles. But this and a hundred other things can be discussed only in conversation. I hope that it will be soon, for the state of my health is very bad, and will not admit of a very long delay." These sad presentiments were not long in being realized. Four months later, Hume was no more; Smith felt his death keenly, and has left us, in the touching account which he gave of his friend's death, and in the merited eulogy of his character, the trace of his bitter regrets.

—Hume simply anticipated the judgment of posterity, which, in its admiration, has associated the name of Smith with those of Grotius and Montesquieu. Smith indeed gave to economic science the character of certitude, which these two great men had impressed upon international law and political science. He placed it upon a basis which the progress of the human mind may perhaps enlarge, but never displace. The great principle which is the starting point of all economic phenomena, he lays down in the beginning of his work: The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labor or in what is purchased with that produce of other nations. These words contained a revolution in the order of economic ideas. Breaking with the opinions generally received in his own age, he at the same time separated himself from the partisans of the mercantile system, who made all wealth consist in the precious metals, and from the physiocrates, who regarded the soil as the only source of it. Instead of gold and silver, and the fertility of the land, what does he place at the summit of his science? Man, of whom labor is the manifestation; man with his productive powers, the potency of which is immeasurably increased by the division of employments and the accumulation of capital. The classes of producers who had been regarded by the physiocrates as tributaries of landed property, raised by him to the rank in which their services class them in society, are hence forth respectable and useful by the same title as the others. He invites all, under the rule of the law of labor, to the exploitation of the material world, to the enrichment of individuals and nations, to the fusion of interests, and in subjecting them to the same obligations toward the state, he claims for them liberty in the choice of their work, in the movement of capital and the circulation of products.

—In this framework, in the order which he assigns to them in it, and in a series of searching and concise arguments, his ingenious and profound analyses of the division of labor, the price of goods, the power of saving and the action of capital, credit, banks and duties, range themselves. These different elements of economic science, several of which had already been successfully studied by Locke, Hume, Verri and Turgot, had new light thrown on them by Smith, a light which is diffused over all the parts of the subject of which he treats. Everything is treated with the supreme composure of superior reason and immutable good sense, which, carried thus far, amounts to genius. No contemporary passion disturbed the serenity of his judgment. The principles which he teaches are not a weapon in his hand, but only the generalized expression of facts conscientiously observed. One thing alone inspired him with an indignation which he could scarcely restrain; the spirit of monopoly.—'No one before Smith had shown with more clearness and foresight the advantages of economic liberty, from the point of view of the conciliation of individual and general interest. But the honor of having extolled the principle of liberty, and of having established it upon its true basis, belongs to the physiocratic school. Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," faithful in this to the ideas which he had indicated in his course of moral philosophy, considers liberty as necessary to the complete development of the productive forces, and justifies it by economic usefulness and expediency. Quesnay and Turgot demand it as a right, and present it to us as the expression of justice. In fact, liberty, from the economic point of view, is a right, because it has its source in more freedom, and ends in personal responsibility and positive duties; it is just, because it alone is able to insure to man the remuneration which is really due to his efforts, and to the goods, as a consequence, the price which belongs to them. In the eyes of the physiocrates, liberty is not only the most favorable manner of making an equitable division of the fruits of labor and the most powerful stimulant to man's activity, but the manifestation of his conscience, the sign of his right, and the source of his duties. Notwithstanding the deviations into which they have allowed themselves to be drawn by a vicious method rather than by an error of principle, notwithstanding their adventurous incursions into the domain of natural law, it will be the everlasting honor of these worthy heirs to the Cartesian tradition, to have given as a foundation to political economy the grand principles of property, liberty, and individual and collective responsibility, with which all economic questions are necessarily connected. Smith regarded man as a being exclusively productive; and just as in his system of moral philosophy he did not rise to the superior idea of the good, of which sympathy, or fellow-feeling, is but the result, so in political economy he did not ascend to the idea of the just, that is to say, to the first data upon which the economic life of man and of society rests.

—The fault has been found, and justly, with the "Wealth of Nations," of a lack of proper arrangement of the various parts, which prevents the whole of the doctrine from being clearly discerned from the beginning: questions of the greatest importance are often treated there incidentally and à propos of questions which should have been presented only as secondary ones. Thus the author's ideas on the price of things are intercalated in a dissertation on the value of the precious metals during the last four centuries; his notions on money in the chapter on the treaty of commerce; his principles of commercial liberty in the examination of the mercantile-system. But if this great work offends by a lack of method, it none the less remains the finest monument raised to political economy. What a treasury of true ideas, of ingenious and profound observations, does it not offer us! It is by drawing inspiration from the thoughts of the master that his successors have accomplished all the progress which has since marked the advance of economic knowledge. It was by declaring themselves as his disciples that Malthus, by his theory of population, J. B. Say, by that of outlets, and M. Dunoyer, by his valuable studies on productive services, enlarged the domain of science; and the commercial policy of England, which will one day be that of all nations, was inaugurated under his auspices, and triumphed by the help of his arguments.

—Smith passed the two years which followed the publication of the "Wealth of Nations" in London, in the society of the most distinguished men of England, and in frequent intercourse with Gibbon, Burke and Pulteney. In 1778, having been appointed, through the influence of the duke of Buccleugh, commissioner of customs in Scotland, he returned to Edinburgh. It was in this city that the last twelve years of his life glided away. The leisure allowed him by the business of his office was employed to a great extent in the revision of his works, the successive editions of which he superintended with great attention. He had, it is said, the intention of publishing a critical examination of L' Esprit des lois. This study was undoubtedly connected with a treatise on civil and political law which he had undertaken to write. The death of his mother, whom he lost in 1784, and, four years later, that of a cousin of whom he was very fond, were the cause of a grief from which he never wholly recovered. In 1787 the university of Glasgow conferred the title of rector upon him, an honor which he appreciated very highly. From that time his strength gradually failed. When he felt the first attack of the painful malady which was to carry him to the grave, he ordered all his papers to be destroyed. "I intended to have done more," said he to his friends, "and there are materials in my papers which I might have turned to account; but that is out of the question now." His resolution with regard to this had long been taken, as a letter addressed to Hume in 1773 shows. In the month of July, 1790, after severe suffering, borne with courageous resignation, this great man was taken away from science and the world.

—His character was at once affectionate and reserved, frank and lively, and his habits of a simplicity from which he never deviated at any period of his life. His generous and impetuous soul, under an outwardly cold appearance, rose to enthusiasm, when there was question of the great interests of humanity. He spoke little, and when he was forced into his intrenchments, his speech was embarrassed, and his expositions assumed, without his knowledge, a dogmatic form which gave them the semblance of a lesson. This manner of expressing himself was a result of the habit contracted in his public courses on the science, and not of pretension, which was far from his mind, for never was there any one whose modesty was more easily alarmed than his. He was profoundly versed in the philosophic knowledge of the human heart and mind; but he lacked penetration in his judgment of individuals. The studious and retired life which he had led had familiarized him but little with the character and passions of men. His memory was prodigious, but very far from being a ready one. If Adam Smith did not share the brilliant qualities which fell to the lot of several of his contemporaries, he at least had, in the highest degree, that penetrating exactness and firmness of opinion which are perhaps more useful to the progress of the human mind, and which at the same time confer glory on their possessor.107

M. MONJEAN.

SMUGGLING

SMUGGLING. The offense of importing prohibited articles, or of defrauding the revenue by the introduction of articles into consumption, without paying the duties chargeable upon them. It may be committed indifferently either upon the excise or customs revenue.

—Origin and Prevention of Smuggling. This crime, which occupies so prominent a place in the criminal legislation of all modern states, is wholly the result of vicious commercial and financial legislation. It is the fruit either of prohibitions of importation, or of oppressively high duties. It does not originate in any depravity inherent in man; but in the folly and ignorance of legislators. A prohibition against importing a commodity does not take away the taste for it; and the imposition of a high duty on any article occasions a universal desire to escape or evade its payment. Hence the rise and occupation of the smuggler. The risk of being detected in the clandestine introduction of commodities under any system of fiscal regulations may be always valued at a certain average rate; and whenever the duties exceed this rate, smuggling immediately takes place. Now, there are plainly but two ways of checking this practice: either the temptation to smuggle must be diminished by lowering the duties, or the difficulties in the way of smuggling must be increased. The first is obviously the more natural and efficient method of effecting the object in view; but the second has been most generally resorted to even in cases where the duties were quite excessive. Governments have almost uniformly consulted the persons employed in the collection of the revenue with respect to the best mode of rendering taxes effectual; though it is clear that the interests, prejudices and peculiar habits of such persons utterly disqualify them from forming a sound opinion on such a subject. They can not recommend a reduction of duties as a means of repressing smuggling and increasing revenue, without acknowledging their own incapacity to detect and defeat illicit practices; and the result has been, that, instead of ascribing the prevalence of smuggling to its true causes, the officers of customs and excise have almost universally ascribed it to some defect in the laws, or in the mode of administering them, and have proposed repressing it by new regulations, and by increasing the number and severity of the penalties affecting the smuggler. As might have been expected, these attempts have, in the great majority of cases, proved signally unsuccessful. And it has been invariably found, that no vigilance on the part of the revenue officers, and no severity of punishment, can prevent the smuggling of such commodities as are either prohibited or loaded with oppressive duties. The smuggler is generally a popular character; and whatever the law may declare on the subject, it is ludicrous to expect that the bulk of society should ever be brought to think that those who furnish them with cheap brandy, geneva, tobacco, etc., are guilty of any very heinous offense. "To pretend," says Adam Smith, "to have any scruple about buying smuggled goods, though a manifest encouragement to the violation of the revenue laws, and to the perjury which almost always attends it, would, in most countries, be regarded as one of those pedantic pieces of hypocrisy, which, instead of gaining credit with anybody, serve only to expose the person who affects to practice them to the suspicion of being a greater knave than most of his neighbors. By this indulgence of the public the smuggler is often encouraged to continue a trade which he is thus taught to consider as, in some measure, innocent; and when the severity of the revenue laws is ready to fall upon him, he is frequently disposed to defend with violence what be has been accustomed to regard as his just property; and, from being at first rather imprudent than criminal, he at last too often becomes one of the most determined violaters of the laws of society." ("Wealth of Nations," p. 406.) To create by means of high duties an overwhelming temptation to indulge in crime, and then to punish men for indulging in it, is a proceeding completely subversive of every principle of justice. It revolts the natural feelings of the people; and teaches them to feel an interest in the worst characters—for such smugglers generally are—to espouse their cause, and avenge their wrongs.

—A punishment which is not proportioned to the offense, and which does not carry the sanction of public opinion along with it, can never be productive of any good effect. The true way to put down smuggling is to render it unprofitable; to diminish the temptation to engage in it; and this is not to be done by surrounding the coasts with cordons of troops, by the multiplication of oaths and penalties, and making the country the theatre of ferocious and bloody contests in the field, and of perjury and chicanery in the courts of law; but by repealing prohibitions, and reducing duties, so that their collection may be enforced with a moderate degree of vigilance; and that the forfeiture of the article may be a sufficient penalty upon the smuggler. It is in this way, and in this way only, that we must seek for an effectual check to illicit trafficking. Whenever the profits of the fair trader become nearly equal to those of the smuggler, the latter is forced to abandon his hazardous profession. But so long as prohibitions or oppressively high duties are kept up, or, which is in fact the same thing, so long as high bounties are held out to encourage the adventurous, the needy and the profligate to enter on this career, we may be assured that armies of excise and customs officers, backed by the utmost severity of the revenue laws, will be insufficient to hinder them.

—It would be useless to enter in this place into any lengthened details to prove the truth of these statements. Unluckily, the entire financial and commercial history of all countries abounds with instances in point, many of which must be familiar to every reader. The prohibition of foreign products, or the imposition of heavy duties on foreign or native products, does not take away the taste for them. On the contrary, it would seem as if the desire to obtain prohibited or overtaxed articles acquired new strength from the obstacles opposed to its gratification.

Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso
Ducit opes animumque ferro.

The prohibition of foreign silks which existed in England previously to 1826 did not hinder their importation in immense quantities. The vigilance and integrity of the custom house officers were no match for the ingenuity, daring and douçeûrs of the smugglers. And at the very moment when the most strenuous efforts were made to effect their exclusion, the silks of France and Hindostan were openly displayed in Almack's, in the drawing rooms of St. James', and in the house of commons, in mockery of the impotent legislation by which it was attempted to shut them out. There is, in truth, great room for doubting whether the substitution of an ad valorem duty for the whole system of prohibition was at first productive of any material increase in the imports of foreign silks. The repeal of the prohibition was a most judicious measure; but the duty being unfortunately fixed at too high a limit, it gave an overwhelming stimulus to smuggling. Before the abolition of the duty on silks, the expense of their clandestine importation from France was roughly estimated at about 15 per cent. ad valorem; and as the duty on silks, down to 1845, was double that amount, or 30 per cent., we need not wonder that it was estimated, by well-informed parties, that from a third to a half of the total quantity of imported silks escaped the duty. Indeed, every one is aware that their clandestine importation was carried on, to a great extent, within the port of London, and in the custom house itself, by the corruption and connivance of the officers. And this, we may be assured, was not a solitary instance. The corruption of the officers, is, in truth, an inevitable consequence of the over-tax system.

—The enormous duties that were imposed in England previously to 1823 on home-made Scotch and Irish spirits, produced an extent of smuggling and demoralization of which it is not easy for those who have not attended to such matters to form an idea. At present, however, the duties in that country on tobacco, brandy and hollands, but especially the first, are the great incentives to smuggling. The preventive water-guard is kept at a great expense for little other purpose than to hinder the clandestine importation of these articles. But notwithstanding its efforts, considerable quantities of them find their way into the country without being subjected to any duty. And how should it be otherwise? The price of tobacco in the contiguous continental ports may, on an average, be taken at from 8d. to 10d. per Ib.; and as the duty on tobacco is from 3s. 6d. to 5s. per Ib., need we be surprised to learn, that, allowing for the expenses of smuggling, if one cargo out of three be safely landed, the business is as profitable as it is adventurous and exciting? "But it is not so much by the introduction of tobacco from abroad as by its admixture or adulteration with other articles, that the contraband dealers endeavor to defeat the duty." It may, however, be right to state that it must not be imagined that the mere diminution of an oppressive duty on any article will put down the smuggling to which the duty may have given rise. The diminution may not be sufficiently great; and if so, it will have but little influence.

—These considerations show the degree of weight which should be attached to the statements of those who endeavor to excuse or apologize for exorbitant duties by showing that they have sometimes been reduced without any material increase taking place in the consumption of the articles on which they are laid, or any material diminution of smuggling. In exemplification of this it has been stated that though the duty on tobacco was reduced in England in 1825 from 4s. to 3s. per 1b., the consumption was not increased in anything like the same proportion; and that, notwithstanding the rapid growth of population, a period of ten years elapsed before the tobacco revenue rose to its former level. But no one acquainted with the facts could have anticipated any other result. Taking the cost of tobacco on an average at 6d. per 1b. (which is beyond the mark), the duty previously to and since the reduction has been respectively 800 and 600 per cent. ad valorem. And it is needless to say that the least of these duties holds out an overwhelming temptation to smuggling and fraud. The truth is, that the reduction of duty in 1825 was an ill-advised measure; and there is perhaps no great reason to conclude that the further reduction of the present duty of 3s. per 1b. to 2s. would be much wiser, or that, while it sacrificed revenue, it would be at all sufficient to suppress illicit practices. It is idle, therefore, by referring to instances of this sort, to endeavor to make it be believed that an adequate diminution of taxation is not followed by a corresponding increase of consumption. Had the duty on coffee, instead of being reduced in England in 1808 from 1s. 8d. per 1b. to 7d., been reduced to only 1s. 3d. (the proportion in which the tobacco duty was reduced), the effect would have been all but imperceptible; and instead of the consumption being immediately increased from about 1,000,000 1bs. to 9,000,000 1bs., the presumption is, it would not have been increased to 1,500,000 1bs. In taxation, as in everything else, unless the means be adequate to the desired ends the result will be nothing. If you offer a premium of eight to one on smuggling, do you imagine you will abate the nuisance you have called into existence by reducing the premium to six to one or four to one? It will be found in every case in which a reduction of duty is not followed by a more than corresponding increase of consumption, that the article continues to be overtaxed, or that the duty left upon it either exceeds the cost of smuggling or places it beyond the reach of those who might otherwise become its consumers. We are bold to say that no instance can be found in the financial history of any country of an adequate reduction of the duty on an over-taxed article not being followed by a cessation of smuggling and a great increase of consumption.

J. R. M'CULLOCH.

SOCIALISM AND SOCIALISTS

SOCIALISM AND SOCIALISTS. It is with these words as with all others which express, at a given date, a definite situation, but which, in the long run, either because facts or the state of men's minds has changed, are transformed, and no longer convey their original meaning.108 Hence, to fix their meaning, at their true date, is essential. An analysis of such meaning may be reduced to this: In every human society, whether it advances or retrogrades, modifications more or less profound are always going on, modifications which are more or less perceptible, and which, with or without the knowledge of such society, act upon its economy. Apparently such a society remains the same; but in reality it is daily affected by changes of which it becomes entirely conscious only after time has fixed them in the habits and customs of the people, and marked them by its sanction. This is the course of civilizations which are being perfected or which are declining. The honor of a generation is to add something to the inheritance it has received, and to transmit it improved to the generation which comes after it. To employ what has been acquired as an instrument of new acquisition, to advance from the verified to the unknown: such is the idea of progress as it presents itself to well-ordered minds. But such is not the idea of the socialists. In their eyes the situation given is a false one, and the process too simple. Reforms in detail do not seem to them worthy of attention. They have plans of their own, the first condition of which is to make a tabula rasa of everything that exists, to cast aside existing laws, manners, customs, and all the guarantees of person and property. It seems to them that we have lived thus far under the empire of a misconception which it is urgent should cease; our globe, according to them, is an anticipated hell, and our civilization a coarse outline only. What is the remedy? There is only one—to try the treatment of which the socialists hold the secret. That treatment varies according to the sect. There are socialists with mild remedies, and socialists with violent remedies: the only difficulty is in the choice. But with all their differences, there is one point on which they agree—the formal condemnation of human societies as they are at present constituted, and the necessity of erecting on their ruins an order of things more conformable to the instincts of man and to his destiny here below. In exchange for our real world, the socialists offer us worlds of the fancy. This is their distinguishing trait, and one which makes of them a family apart.

—In this pursuit they have had so many precursors that to enumerate them would be to write the history of the adventures of the human mind. At one time, we have philosophers engaging in that chase in solitary speculations; and at another, sects, trying in abortive essays to realize their dreams; now, a whole population stakes in that chase its existence and repose; here, we find the idea of mysticism prevailing, and curbing instinct to the profit of a system; there, instinct gets the upper hand and breaks therein which all regular government puts on it: everywhere we witness an effort to destroy the old mould, and to obtain a new one. Revolts and factions beget one another while copying one another. First we find Plato with the most captious of models. He invented an imaginary community, which Sir Thomas More reproduced in his Utopia. In both cases, goods were to be in common, and the fruits of labor distributed by means of arbitrary combinations. Campanella went farther. With Plato he admits promiscuity; but, bolder than Plato, he regulates its exercise. Morelli, not content with recommending a community, would force it on men. He establishes for labor a species of obligatory conscription, and condemns to perpetual imprisonment the partisans of property, under pretext of their dangerous dementia. Babœuf treats them as conspirators, and spares them as little as Morelli. For the sake of good example, he expels them from among men when he does not deliver them to the executioner. Willingly or by force, he would have all distinctions of class and all appropriation of goods disappear. He would tolerate only one costume, one table, one ordinary. The great centres of population trouble him, and, with a stroke of his pen, he suppresses them. Luxury has its birth in cities, and of luxury he will have nothing. Homes should be as uniform as possible, in order not to excite jealousy by comparison. There should be like care for the education of all citizens. The state takes possession of them, and abandons them only at death. It makes laborers and workmen out of them. Useful services, and not acts which serve for pleasure, are demanded of them. What is not communicable to all, he says, in his imperative language, must be severely retrenched. The science of government, he says, is to suppress whatever may act as an obstacle, and the best régime is that which is so contrived as to meet with no opposers. It is not difficult to see what advance the idea of the community had now made. With Plato it was only an idyl; with Babœuf it is a yoke of iron; from an ingenuous dream and one far from being ironical, we pass to the dreariest and most degrading servitude; Plato confines himself to advice, Babœuf would act with living force; Plato admits categories, Babœuf endures none of any kind; he takes the lowest level, and wishes to reduce everything to it. This contrast is intelligible: Plato remains in the imaginary, Babœuf enters the real; with a view to the end, he thinks of the means, and fearing defeat, determines on the most energetic means.

—Examples of a common régime were no more wanting in antiquity than the speculations in which such a common régime was offered in perspective. The conventual organization, with its exploitation of mortmain and vows of renunciation, was nothing else. But those who submitted to it were out of the world, not in the world; they lived for heaven rather than for the earth. As much may be said of the Essenes, whose life was almost that of monks. The Moravians preserve more affinity with regular society; their community is neither as narrow nor as exclusive as that of the Jewish sect; they admit of marriage and of the intermingling of the sexes, while the Essenes preserved the strictest celibacy; they recognize private property side by side with collective labor, while the Essenes had nothing of their own. In the Paraguay missions, likewise, the community partook of a mixed character; each Indian had his field and his flock; only a separate domain, the Possession of God, was reserved for cultivation in common, and its produce was intended to meet the expenses for the support of the infirm, for the purposes of worship, and the payment of the tribute sent each year to the king of Spain. Moreover, in these various modes of grouping, there was neither revolt nor formal protest. They were combinations suggested at one time by a particular creed, at another by expediency of a local character. In the case of the Indians of Paraguay, their community was a beginning of civilization; in that of the Moravians and Essenes, as well as in that of the monks and anchorites, it was a means of sanctification. Under these conditions all government is easy; its point of departure is the spirit of discipline and the suppression of the instincts. From these partial communities to a general community the distance is a great one—the distance between the exception and the rule, between a special state of men's minds and the dispositions which animate the other members of the human family. Such cases must be noted, but there is no conclusion to be drawn from them.

—The community of goods has had less offensive apostles, like the Jacques in France and the Lollards in England. The former did not confine their pretensions within the walls of a monastery or the limits of a nation's territory. They had pretensions to empire, and they disguised projects of partition and spoliation under the mask of political rights. Neither did the Anabaptists admit that they entertained similar pretensions. Their religious schism was only a pretext to lead the populace to an assault on property. What a sad memory the Anabaptists have left! They filled with their crimes and their names two full centuries of the history of Germany. Münzer was their first corypheus; he invited the poor to the partition of the spoils of the rich; Mathias, in turn, ordered the sacking of the houses of the bourgeoisie; John of Leyden proclaimed polygamy a law of the state, and was the first to conform to that law by marrying seventeen women. The execution of such bandits did not suffice to extirpate their sect, and after they had disappeared, the ruins with which the land was strewn showed what is engendered. in popular interpretation, by the utopia of the community, and what vestiges it leaves after it. Socialism has no more formidable formula; and, in the end, it is the only one which is susceptible of application. All other formulæ escape the intelligence of the crowd because of their subtlety; this one is as clear as it is powerful. To take from those who have, in order to give to those who have not, is a concise and intelligible proposition, to reduce all positions and fortunes to a level, is one not less so. Both find in the heart of man a bad passion, which answers to them. When they are heard, passion leaves the vague to enter the world of realities; it knows what it wants, and whither it goes. There is no longer a mere anathema falling in a vacuum, but a campaign to be undertaken against society, with the booty in prospect—We have now cast a rapid glance at the men and the sects which, in the past, may be considered as the equivalents of socialism and socialists. With those who in our day are so named, the spirit is the same; only their procedure is different.109 The feeling of bitterness against established civilizations is at least as great, and if there be not as much violence in act, it is because moral force has resisted in time. We must add, that, in the case of almost all, the visions of the brain have been tempered by upright intentions. This is true of Robert Owen, who was the first to open the way. In Owen, there were two men, the man of fact and the man of an idea; the one superior, the other mediocre. A manufacturer in New York, he had the opportunity to found, aided by a benevolence without limit and by the sole power of example, one of the most flourishing industrial colonies that have ever been known. The basis of his system was the thought, borrowed from J. J. Rousseau and Bentham, that the practice of virtue has enough in it to fully indemnify those who devote themselves to it. So far the idea is a correct one, and no kind of success was wanting to the man who put the principle in practice; the error consisted in presuming, that, applied to humanity as a whole, it would succeed, as it had succeeded in a manufacturing centre. The great human family can not be governed as a small flock is governed. It was not long before Robert Owen perceived this. He himself, by exaggerating it, had changed the nature of his method for the worse. From a paternal administration he was imperceptibly led to the abandonment of all social restraint. He not only ended in the community, but he took from the community the only guarantee it possessed, the responsibility of the individual. If we believe him, man, having come accidentally into this world, and being the plaything of accidental circumstances through life, could not, without injustice, be declared responsible for his acts. Fatality alone determined good and evil; with the individual, there could be neither merit nor demerit. Why, then, punishment or reward? It was better to let man and society follow their bent, removing all the circumstances which might lead to evil, and increasing those which might lead to good. So much for this world; and, as to the other, why trouble one's self about it? It escapes our means of knowledge; it is an enigma which no one has been able to solve. Such was Owen's conclusion. Never was negation more absolute stated with greater candor. During fifty years he presented it to rebellious human societies as their only means of salvation; in colonies, in plans, in publications, in voluntary subscriptions, he spent a vast amount of money, without his personal sacrifices being able to make his desolating maxims advance a serious step. They wounded men's souls at too many points to be able to make any great ravages. The inventor of them lived long enough to assist at the obsequies of his doctrine.

—The doctrines of Saint-Simon permitted more consideration to be paid them; the basis of his system was a purely sacerdotal government. No more division between the temporal power and the spiritual; the time had come to confound them. Instead of a pope and an emperor, men were to have a father who would unite the functions of both, and govern in the forum internum and the forum externum. in things spiritual as well as temporal. Thus would cease, between the body and the spirit, a struggle which has lasted from the beginning of the world, and which has maintained disorder in the world. A natural hierarchy would follow on this change. Society would be divided into three classes: savans, artists, and those engaged in industrial pursuits; and the chiefs of these three classes would be the greatest savans, the greatest artists, and the greatest workers in the industrial world. These latter would need no investiture but that of the consciousness of their force. They would not be chosen; they would install themselves in their own position. The human family would know them by their works. Moreover, the new hand of society would be, under this régime, not fear, but affection; and the most loving, placing themselves above others, would necessarily impart their tone to all others. The chain of positions being thus formed, everything would follow in the most natural manner imaginable; each one would take rank in proportion to his capacity, and each capacity would be served in proportion to its works. Thenceforth humanity was to be only one family, and the earth to constitute only one great farm, the fruits of which were to be divided in proportion to rank and services. Such was the Saint-Simonian law, and it added on the condition of woman and the relation of the sexes, certain not over-edifying precepts summed up in the expressive words, rehabilitation of the flesh. We know in what this strange morality ended, so far as the principal disciples of Saint-Simon are concerned. Its public profession cost them a suit in the courts and a sentence. Their religion did not survive this scandal, and was dispersed to the music of hisses. Everything considered, it was not worth the noise made about it. A political papacy invested with discretionary powers, with the sovereign disposal of the lot and rank of individuals in society, preaching the reign of the senses under the lying cover of the equality of the sexes, was not a system, and did not advocate a doctrine, which could long resist the revolt of men's consciences and the decrees of public opinion.

—The same fate was reserved, after a longer defense, for the doctrine of Charles Fourier. Substantially it had the same foundation; but the mode of procedure of Fourierism was different. Fourierism, like Saint-Simonism, wished to substitute a world of the fancy for the real world, and an artificial order for the course of things. Fourier started out with the idea, that from the earliest ages to our own time the passions have been the source of so many evils only because they have been unskillfully suppressed. God, according to Fourier, can not have made anything essentially bad or essentially useless. If the passions, in their actual play, are the source of many disorders, it is not with the passions themselves that we must find fault, but with the medium in which they move, a human medium, and therefore susceptible of modification. "Attractions," says Fourier, "are proportional to destinies," which means that it would be all gain for men to yield to their inclinations. Hence they must be satisfied in an association freely agreed to, and in which all the instincts of man may have room for the fullest play. These formulas of association are the ingenious part of Fourier's work. The association is in groups, which and in series, and these in phalanxes. The group is the cell of the human hive; it is composed of seven or nine persons; it has a centre and wings, and a harmony which results as much from its identifies as from its contrasts. The series comprise from twenty-four to thirty-two groups. The phalaux is Fourier's commune; consisting of 1,800 souls, it lives in a palace which he cells the phalanstery, divided in such a manner as to procure the greatest possible number of pleasures, while avoiding all the prejudices which result from the arrangement of actual households. As to property, it does not incorporate itself in individuals; it is collective. Its value circulates only under the form of coupons, and becomes susceptible of appropriation; products are divided among the three direct agents of production: capital talent and labor. Let us add, that in Fourier's system no repugnance attaches to this labor; it is attended by a love for it, taste and buoyancy; it is done in short sessions, in holiday clothes, with passion and spirit, the task is taken up or dropped at will, and varied so as to produce neither monotony nor weariness. Nor is this all; to these wonders of earth Fourier adds the joys of a heaven of his own. He has his own cosmogony and his own transmigration of souls; he walks his system through the spheres, and requires of our planets the most singular services. The whole of Fourier's system may be summed up thus: a universal government, a perfect world adorned by a perfect society. Beyond this, imagination can not soar. In this land of vertigo, nothing is to be found but glare Again, we have a world to be made over, a civilization to be reconstructed, man and humanity to be renewed in a confused amalgam of the marvelous and the real.

—Here stops the series of socialists at first hand; after them come the plagiarists, and, first of all, Cabet. Like Campanella and Sir Thomas More, Cabet has given us, in his "Icarie", an imaginary community, which unites all perfections in itself, and which found, in the streets of Paris, more than one partisan whom time has disabused. When it became a question to pass from ideas to acts, he perished in the attempt, and learned what becomes of dreams when brought to wrestle with realities. And so it was with Louis Blane. In the silence of his study he had imagined an administrative workshop which would cure industry of the leprosy of competition. He would have the state become entrepreneur (see ENTREPRENEUR) and universal producer; he would have it carry out, at the expense of the public treasury, an experiment in relation to the economy of manual labor. In the workshops which were to be established, the workmen were to share in the profits of exploitation, and these workshops, of different kinds, were to be associated among themselves in such a way that the profits of some might serve to cover, if need were, the losses of others.110 Nothing could be more ingenious on paper; each of these workshops would become a type and a model; free industry would be forced, under pain of death, to draw inspiration from them, and this idea of the absorption and destruction of free industry was discoverable in the spirit of the project. Private activity was destined to disappear before official activity. We know what these specious plans became in the execution of them: by forced deviation the administrative workshop became the national workshop (see ATELIERS NATIONAUX), with an elective head, and a minimum of wages, two features borrowed from the combination of Louis Blanc. A false idea led to applications still more false, so false that the author of the idea vehemently and justly repudiated them. Proudhon was no happier. Is it proper to rank Proudhon among socialists? No one battled them more fiercely than he; he produced the evidence of their contradictions, the emptiness of their plans, and the poverty of their doctrines; he left nothing standing, neither their arguments nor their combinations; and he warmed against them even to the point of invective. But if he was brutal toward the community, he was no less so toward property; and he remains a socialist spite of himself. From the core of what he denies we need only disengage what he affirms, to become convinced of this. Thus, he sacrifices the idea of property to I know not what species of imaginary possession floating in vacuo. And so, after an at-random dissertation on the determination of value, he arrives at imagining a general and uniform tariff for it, both for labor and products, by measuring the price of these latter by the number of hours employed in producing them! Lastly, as a consequence, he proposes to replace money made of gold and silver, by orders payable in kind, in such a manner as to return from gold and silver money to barter, and to deprive capital of one of its most evident powers, the power to produce interest. On all these points Proudhon remains on the staff of the socialistic legion which he so maltreated. To the same staff belongs also Pierre Leroux, as he appeared with a plan of human society in his hand. He admits the family, fatherland and property only on certain conditions. He finds that the fatherland has the drawback of recognizing a chief or head; the family, of recognizing a father and children; and the institution of property, of recognizing rich and poor. Pure despotism! It is all a question of finding a combination in which the family, the fatherland and property shall be such that man may develop in them without being oppressed by them; in other words, that the family should not produce an heir, that the fatherland should have no subjects, and property no proprietor. Such is the problem, such the solution: if to it we add a little of theurgy and metempsychosis, we shall have all the baggage of Leroux, so far as things serious are concerned.

—We have reached the end of those systems, and may judge in what they agree, and in what they differ. Under the names we have mentioned, there now remain but the men for whom socialism was a tool or a pedestal, and the political parties who took up the standard of socialism without seeking to define it. Socialism, indeed, has its day; many were attracted by it as men are attracted by novelty; then the crowd mixed with it with the obscure feeling that it would find its advantage in it, and that in the absence of conviction they should adhere to it from pure calculation. And how could the crowd defend itself against socialism? It was promised higher wages in return for less labor, a quarry to hunt in a society in dissolution, the leveling of conditions, the humiliation of the higher classes, and a general division of private fortunes among all. Is it to be wondered at that such vertigo was contagious, and that it became in some countries, for an instant, an object of alarm? Yet socialism did not deserve so much honor. As a theory, it could not stand examination; as a fact, it was not able to succeed under any circumstances or at any point. The name of Owen is connected with the failures of New Harmony and Orbistan; that of Cabet, with the Nauvoo failure in the state of Illinois; with Fourier's a series of discomfitures which followed on the heels of each other at Condé-sur-Vesgres, Citeaux, in the valley of the Sig, and in America. From the ideas of Louis Blanc, there proceeded only the ateliers nationaux (national workshops), the paternity of which he excepted to; of the boldness and rashness of Proudhon, all that remains is the memory of the bank of exchange or bank of the people, made famous by the most untoward catastrophe. The history of contemporary socialism is but one continual abortion. The principal actors on its stage have disappeared from the scene, and left their places to a few confidants who stammer out their parts. All that socialism and socialists have done is reduced to a few plans of association, to a few commonplaces which are only the weakened echo of their first timorous ideas, to a few formulas whose meaning time changes, and which have become fixed in language as problems or bugbears.

—Thus, all these chimeras gradually depart into the regions of oblivion. It may be that the same vertigo will appear again under other forms and another name; our globe is the seat of an external revolt and of an external wail. But them as now, unless the hour of an irrevocable decline has struck for humanity, the result of such errors can not be doubtful. True, these errors are covered with a mask, the love of the people, the interest of the suffering, the feeling of human perfectibility, the advance of generations to a better state and one less full of shocking inequalities. But behind this mask we find a more living physiognomy. That living physiognomy is the truth of things, whether the inventors of systems be conscious of it or not. Behind the truth of things the public conscience always retreated and always will retreat. This, to its honor, we must hope. The question is of a war to the knife against established civilizations, to the profit of imaginary civilizations; it is a question of destruction for the sole purpose of building up again; it is a question of giddily abandoning ourselves to systems which, scarcely fledged, give battle to one another, and which die out in the shock of rivalry and the weakness of isolation. It would seem, indeed, that socialists supposed that society, such as it exists, is only so much stage scenery which might be made to disappear at the wave of a wand. And what is proposed in its place? Servitude in all its forms. Take all these systems; they have one feature in common, which is to stifle, by their artificial forms, the taste for and the use of liberty. They condemn human activity to carry a yoke of iron. Here man is enticed into a world of fancy, and there he is condemned to devote himself to others without the merit of that devotion being allowed him. He can no longer dispose of the fruits of his labor, nor regulate the employment of his hands or his brain. The state takes possession of his entire person, of his goods, of the products he creates, and determines the portion of them which he shall receive back. Under the régime of socialism the individual disappears, and is absorbed by a collective being. He ceases to be a body or a soul, and becomes a piece of mechanism. Slavery does not more completely than socialism destroy the personality of man. (Compare ATELIERS NATIONAUX, COMMUNISM, FOURIERISM, PROPERTY.)

LOUIS REYBAUD.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

SOCIAL CONTRACT. Is society a human institution? or, is it of natural institution? these are the two questions which must be solved in order to form a clear and exact idea of the rights and duties of man in the civil and political order. Of course I here suppose that man is a free being for every system that denies human freedom thereby denies the possibility of a binding moral law. I suppose it to be admitted, also, that there is an order of the universe, for otherwise creation would be unintelligible, and the destiny of man an enigma; that this order is so imperious that every reasonable creature should respect it and accomplish it in himself and out of himself, which gives his rights and duties the sanction of natural law. Non scripta lex, sed nata. I suppose, finally, that the conception of the ideas of liberty, order and harmony, however high they may be, and precisely perhaps because they are high, are not the final term of human intelligence; that these ideas cause him to take one more step and lift him to the very substance of universal order, to God who gave to each being its constitution and its end.

—If I am met by a refusal to admit these hypotheses as the bases of my investigation, I declare myself powerless, I will not say to solve, but even to discuss, the problem placed before me, for, as a man can not walk on the ground without a point of support, neither can the intelligence move if the very bases of all reason are lacking it. I affirm, therefore, the existence of two laws: one natural, or divine; the other positive, or human; the former immutable, the second variable; from this distinction flows the solution of the problem of man and society.

—God, when creating man, gave him a nature proper to himself. By reason of this nature relations are established between him and his fellows which bind them together and form of them a whole, which is the social state. Society is, therefore, the aggregate of the different being bound together by the relations which spring from their respective natures, and which constitute the law of order. Hence the obligation of every reasonable and free being to regulate his conduct in conformity with these relations. This is what Montesquieu has so well expressed in the following definition, which is a flash of genius: "Laws are the necessary relations which spring from the nature of things". And he indicates by the following phrase what he understands by necessary relations: "Before there were intelligent beings, such beings were possible; they had, therefore, relations, and, consequently, possible laws". In fact, a thing to which laws could not be given would not be a possible thing. Then Montesquieu adds: "God made these laws, because they have a relation to his wisdom and his power". Hence the consequence that when man was created, he was created for society, which was a necessary, fundamental law of his nature; for he was not created alone, he found himself face to face with a being similar to himself, and directly of these two beings there was one of them who owed something to the other, and another to whom something was due. Thence arose immediately between these two beings the right and duty which followed from their respective natures, which last, being equal and identical, necessarily engender equal rights and duties.

—I therefore most energetically deny the social contract in so far as it is affirmed to be a pact entered into at the origin of human society to establish its laws. It was nature, or rather Providence, that willed the establishment of society; it was the wants of man which afterward made the laws after the notions of a superior law, which speaks to the heart of all men, the divine imprint of which is found everywhere the same. "Nec erit", says Cicero, "alia lex Romœ, alia Athenis, alia nune, alia posthac, sed etomnes gentes et omni tempore una lex et sempiterna et immortalis continebit". If this law sometimes varies among different nations, it always retains that which is of its essence. Burke expressed the same idea when he said that there are in nature sources of justice from which civil laws flow like so many streamlets; and that just as waters take the tint and the taste of the soils through which they run, civil laws vary with the regions and the governments of different countries, although they all proceed from the same source.

—The hypothesis of an anti-social state, and of an organization of society according to an agreement entered into, is a system in contradiction with the nature and destiny of man; it would logically imply the right to break the contract, for the benefit of the contracting parties, should it become inconvenient or burdensome to them and to leave the bosom of society to return to the state of nature, which would be the negation of the sacred and eternal idea of order toward which all free and reasonable creatures inevitably gravitate, and also the negation of an obligatory law anterior and superior to the wills or caprices of man.

—Hobbes was the first modern philosopher who professed the doctrine of a state of nature anterior to the social state; man left this state of nature only because it was a state of war; whence the celebrated axiom, "War is the state of nature". But what is society in such a system? It is the creation of a force great enough to substitute peace for war. Peace, therefore, being the end of society, it follows that there are two modes of the formation, or two possible origins, of society. The first is the contract by which a collection of men, or of families, agree to constitute a force superior to individual forces, a force capable of crushing them out and thus of establishing peace at any price. The second mode is to lose no time in collecting the votes of persons interested in putting an end to the state of war, to enter into this so necessary contract. It is sufficient that a man, by force or artifice, succeed in establishing his power over a collection of men, and be able to maintain it, in order to establish straightway the social bond. The right of the stronger establishes this bond as completely as a contract. And this latter method is even the better form of society; for power concentrated in a single hand, affords more guarantees of strength and durability, and is consequently more perfect; its mission being to crush out all individual forces by all possible means, and to maintain the state of peace by the destruction of the state of war which is found in the existence of individual forces; hence the more unlimited power is, the better it is. From this it follows that all limitation is contrary to the end of power and of society, and that, whatever the despot may wish, it is the duty of his subjects to obey, and they have no right to resist. such, in a few words, is the celebrated system of Hobbes.

—Admitting that men are really what Hobbes pretends they are, that is, famished wolves which devour each other—homo homini lupus—it might be maintained against him that the contract which binds them tpgether, whether based on consent or on force, could have no possible existence. The laws would be merely heavy chains, and the sole aspiration of each and every individual would be to break them, to escape from his cage and rush on the chief chosen or imposed on him, who would soon and necessarily succumb to numbers. Whatever be the opinion held concerning the original nature of man, it is evident that the consequences which Hobbes draws from his premises are open to discussion, since, starting from the same point, J. J. Rousseau arrives at opposite conclusions.

—Rousseau consider the state of nature as the ideal of man, and the social state as a contract state. Nature, therefore, "took little care to bring men together by mutual wants; she did little to pave the way for society; she put little of her own into all that men have done". Nevertheless, Rousseau acknowledges that the social state was an advance on the state of nature; he admits that, instead of destroying natural equality, the fundamental pact, on the contrary, substituted a moral and legitimate equality for whatever inequality nature might have placed among men, and that, it being possible for them to be unequal in force or in genius, they all become equal by convention and of right. Thus the contract was entered into to the improvement of the lot of humanity. Not that the law of nature is not superior to positive law, for it comes from God. "Whatever is good and conformable to order is such by the nature of things and independently of human conventions. All justice comes from God, he alone is its source; but if we knew how to receive it from so exalted a source we would need neither government nor law. Doubtless there is a universal justice emanating from reason alone; but this justice, to be admitted by us, must be reciprocal. To look at things from a human point of view, in default of a natural sanction, the aws of justice are powerless among men. * * Therefore conventions and laws are necessary to unite rights to duties, and restore justice to its object".

—We now perceive the profound difference between the system of Rousseau and that of Hobbes. Rousseau elevates man; Hobbes degrades him. The former leads to liberty; the latter to despotism. Applied to governments, the philosophy of Hobbes creates in the bosom of political society the domination of a single will. Around this will are grouped the instruments of obedient and blind forces, which it moves as it pleases. The general will must become an immense holocaust; the caprice of a single man must lead and govern all. It is the image under which we may represent Satan, that rebel angel, seeking eternally to combat against light, that is to say, liberty. Such a system would be the greatest degradation of humanity, a really infernal work from which Christ has saved the world. It is useless for Hobbes to say that power, such as he conceived it, is alone capable of ending the state of war which is at the foundation of society. The society which he depicts is not a hive of men, but a den of wild beasts. The despot whom Hobbes places at the summit of his edifice, far from giving energy to the sentiments which constitute the dignity of the human race, would seek, on the contrary, to stifle them. Liberty! he would dread its smallest spark; for everything must be a piece of mechanism, the motive power of which is held by one. The condition of the subject is to obey; the right of commanding belongs to the despot alone; the man who deliberates is from that very fact a rebel. The certain effect of the arts and sciences is to elevate man's immortal soul, and to give it noble aspirations; the despot is careful to prevent the growth of these aspirations: he therefore paralyzes public education. Under this régime equality is an unknown word; favor is everything, merit nothing. Security does not exist. Everything belongs to the sovereign master—person and property. This want of security destroys all culture, all emulation, all industry. The object being to inspire terror, the severity of penalties bears no proportion to the crimes committed. No; this strong power, which Hobbes praises, can never found a prosperous and peaceful society, for despotism is not a creative but a destructive force.

—Strange contradiction between two philosophers, two thinkers of rare power! while Hobbes deduces from the social contract which he imagines the despotic type, Rousseau infers from it the democratic type. Reason, good sense, if we were obliged to admit this pretended contract, would evidently be on the side of the French philosopher as against the English philosopher; for it is difficult to suppose that men would come together, to agree on a social state which, instead of making them free citizens, would turn them into slaves. Rousseau imagines a people who gives themselves laws, in which they realize all their powers as an artist of genius does in his domain. Tendencies are free in it, objects free, actions free. Proportions are perfectly expressed in that empire. Each organ is a complete whole, which preserves its integrity in the sphere in which it moves. It has its specific force in accordance with which it exercises the functions entrusted to it, though it still obeys a general law, from which, in the aggregate, there results a simple and magnificent harmony. Such is the ideal of Rousseau as opposed to that of Hobbes.

—Why have Hobbes and Rousseau, in starting from the same point, arrived at results so different? Because both constructed a work, not of reason, but of imagination. Instead of constructing this marvelous product called society from the immutable elements of humanity, they constructed it of the changing elements of history. Hobbes lived at the time of the great English revolution. Chance, and perhaps his character, threw him into the party of absolute right. He was the head of a prince he loved fall under the rage of factions. The sight of the revolution and of its excesses stirred his soul. He thought he beheld the dissolution of society, because he witnessed the birth of a new order of things. He concluded from this that a power strong and able to command the waves was necessary in order to curb the popular flood. Rousseau had under his eyes the exact opposite of this. He had seen royalty abusing its power, oppressing peoples, living by the sweat of the people's brow, exhibiting every species of immorality and scandal. Right, everywhere ignored, needed an avenger. Rousseau became this avenger, and thereby lost his country. Hobbes and Rousseau started from a false principle; they ignored the rules of natural law, and they expiated their error by the low estimation into which their doctrines have fallen in the eyes of posterity. Instead of going astray in the regions of the imagination in order to find the origin of society, it would be much simpler to say, with a modern philosopher: "The society of beavers is formed by virtue of the laws of the nature of beavers; the society of men is formed by virtue of the laws of human nature; to reach the true idea of the formation of human society, we must therefore start with a true idea of human nature; all light is there; beyond that, there is nothing but hypotheses and contradictions". Let us therefore seek that light.

—The right considered in its root and its ultimate reason can be found neither in the world of sense nor in the sphere of experience and of history. Right in itself is eternal; it is independent of manners and customs, of religions and climates. Owing to this independence it must extend its sceptre over all the earth, without distinctions of epochs or races. Thus is explained the sovereign power of law. Thus is explained the sovereign power of law. From the fact that law exists, it follows that there is a being to whom it applies, and that that being is a man, that is to say, a moral being, with reason and freedom, and not a brute outside the bounds of reason and of liberty. Now, the sphere of the application of law or right is society. Society, then, is contemporary with man. Why did man institute this power, this product? It was not alone from the point of view of his security. The right to security originates the moment that a certain number of men have taken possession of a corner of the earth, and are confronted by the same wants and dangers. Side by side with the ideal of right and law, there is the ideal of duty. A society has of necessity, from its birth, moral rules which precede positive law, and which may be summed up as follows: Law or right, like duty, spring from conscience, and consequently whatever wounds the conscience is neither a right nor a duty. Freedom as a source of action, is the foundation of right and duty, that is to say, of morality. The circle of rights and duties is as broad as that of the necessary relations which may bind together free beings. Society having an object, each one of its members should divest himself of the rights the personal and independent exercise of which would hinder society from attaining this object. He should accept all the duties which society imposes on him for the attaining of this object; for there would be no society, properly speaking, where there was no constraining power to compel co-operation to attain the final object of society.

—Considered from this point of view, society is as eternal as right, as conscience. History shows us great catastrophes, nations and races which have been swallowed up in the abyss of time; the earth also shows us on every side traces of great physical revolutions, which have ravaged, transformed and renewed it; in like manner the present division of nations bears witness to great political perturbations, which at different times so profoundly influenced the destinies of nations; we everywhere tread on ruins and funeral couches. But did society itself ever perish? Did not its living and sacred image always escape destruction? When Troy, abandoned to the flames, was about to become a pile of ashes, Eneas fled, bearing with sadness into exile the venerated images which represented immortal society, and approaching a new land, he cried out: "Italiam! Italiam!" then, placing his precious relics on a fruitful soil, he founded Rome, the future heiress of the world. Civilizations are thus superimposed one upon another, are amalgamated together, are made or unmade, advance or recede; but society, and an ever better society, rises always up amid the ruins of extinct civilizations, because society is above civilization itself.

—If society were the result of a contract, it might be dissolved by withdrawing the consent which formed it. Otherwise there would be an implied contradiction. Do we not see then what an upheaval would result from such a state of affairs? Do we not see the perturbation that would be caused in the scale of rights and duties? Do we not see that binding moral law would disappear from the world, and that the social force would disappear before individual force? If men who had learned all the advantages of social life, renounced it at once, and retired into forests and deserts, these men would obey the caprices of a disordered imagination and the inspirations of wandering reason, but we could not admit that they acted in virtue of a right. The state of society is therefore an impulse of the moral nature of man, and not the impulse of his intelligence; it is spontaneous, and not the result of deliberation. It comes from above, not from below; it is not of man, but of God, who, in creating man intelligent, also created the earth to satisfy the wants of his intelligent creature, and who distributed among the countries different products, in order to oblige men to exchange the different kinds of wealth of the countries they inhabit, in such a way that they might be forced to labor for each other, and that, from the selfish efforts of a single man, the good of all should necessarily flow, as the system of the universe results from the force of attraction.

EUGÈNE PAIGNON.

SOCIAL SCIENCE

SOCIAL SCIENCE. Society is ruled by natural laws, like the human body and every living organism. The laws of an organism determine the relations between its different parts, between its members and organs; social laws should establish, therefore, the nature of the relations which exist between men, as well as their causes and their effects; and social science should co-ordinate these laws in a systematic manner.

—Social science must not be confounded with political science. The latter has to do with the relations between states, between governments and subjects, and between citizens; while social science takes cognizance only of men, to the exclusion of the external bond which is called the state.

—Now, of what nature are the relations among men? They answer evidently to our needs, which are of two kinds, material and moral. Thus, on the one hand, they answer to the necessity of food, clothing, shelter and defense; and, on the other hand, to man's desire for instruction, and, in general, to a whole series of faculties and passions, which draw men together and put them in contact.

—Society is composed of individuals, and everything that contributes to their preservation helps the preservation of society. But although man is a "sociable animal" or a "political animal" we can, strictly speaking, conceive of the absence of all human society. Many savages live in an isolated manner, in couples or in very small families; they have only material wants to satisfy. But of society may it be said that it "does not live by bread alone," for it is principally the moral wants of men which create and maintain its bonds. In a word, material wants preserve the individual, and moral wants society; to the former correspond the egotistical sentiments, to the latter the affective sentiments, abnegation and self-control. The egotistical sentiments and the affective sentiments (or the faculty of self-sacrifice) are capable of attaining an equal degree of strength. Before the existence of society the affective sentiments acted in a scarcely perceptible manner; later, with the development of civilization, their strength gradually increased, and the more intense they became, the more the bonds of society were strengthened. It even happened at times that these sentiments, or some of them, degenerated into destructive passions, and produced evils great in extent and intensity.

—We have already suggested, that, in our opinion, the affective sentiments are the first cause of abnegation, self-control and sacrifice; paternal and maternal love, filial piety, patriotism, military honor, esprit de corps, furnish numerous examples of this. Abnegation, once disengaged or isolated from the sheaf of human sentiments, develops, and is not slow to offer a counter-weight to every act of egotism. This counter-weight is not always sufficient, far from it; but it is rarely entirely powerless. Its effect is often aided by numerous circumstances, which we can not enumerate here, but if becomes completely of no avail when it consists only of a word, that is to say, when the abnegation is not founded upon a want of our nature.

—Thence comes, also, the inanity of those new social systems, hatched in the brain of a man who pretends to foresee everything, to measure everything, and to assign to everything its relative importance; in other words, in the brain of a man who wished to recognize society according to the ideas of his own idiosyncrasy. For if society is really governed by natural laws, and it would be absurd to doubt it, arbitrariness could have no power over it; to influence it, one would have to begin by submitting himself to those laws which he can control only by making use of their power.

—There is a science which concerns itself with the means of satisfying our material wants; there is another which has to do with our moral wants; the one is political economy, the other moral science; it is, therefore, the union of the two which constitutes social science. An endeavor has been made to establish the relations which exist between political economy and morality by seeking, among economic propositions, those which resemble certain precepts of morality. For example, political economy and morality show, each from its own point of view, the utility of labor and saving; by the aid of comparisons of this nature, it has been easy to show the morality of economic principles. It seems to us that here a wrong road has been followed. The sciences are not moral or immoral; they state laws. Has it ever been examined whether mathematics of chemistry has any relation with morality or with religion? Such preoccupations might lead some ardent believer to excommunicate the earth because it allows itself to revolve about the sun! The sciences have no relation with religion, nor with morality, and a science which studies what may be called the base side of nature or of man, is no less noble than any other. Must we despite the physician because he is occupied solely with disease? Or must we despite the judge because he has to do only with criminals? And supposing that the economist studies the selfish sentiments of man, it does not follow that he is selfish himself. Turgot, Adam Smith and J. Stuart Mill were generous men. The man who studies toxicology is not a poisoner. Man is more or less selfish, according to his temperament or his education. Moreover, we must not speak too ill of selfishness kept within the bounds of justice, of the love of self, since it is a universal sentiment, INDISPENSABLE to the preservation of our species. The economist proves that our wants make us work, and this, not because morality recommends it, but because the satisfaction of these wants is an imperative necessity of our nature. Man must eat or die. The economist, in investigating the laws of labor, permits us to render it more productive and less arduous. The economist establishes also the action of supply and demand. Has he created this action? Does he approve it? No more than the natural philosopher created or approves of the rain. Does one approve or disapprove of a natural law? would you disapprove of the horse, because he walks of four legs, or of the bird because it flies, or of the fish because it swims? Such is their law, and whether it pleases you or displeases you, you can do nothing to change it. Besides, we create nothing; we ascertain facts, and in our relations with these animals, we take into account the established facts, and act accordingly. In the same way, the economist has not created the law of supply and demand, a law which we consider as the most characteristic and strongest expression of selfishness. what is supply and demand, if not a sentiment which can be formulated thus. You need my superfluous goods, well, you shall pay for them, and the more dearly in proportion as your need is the more intense, so long as you are able to give me an equivalent for them? This sentiment is so general that we find it quite simple that the price of an article should rise in proportion to its relative rarity. We are convinced that this action of supply and demand, which is so cruel, renders, upon the whole, great services to society. Are not arsenic, belladonna and many other poisons of service? But were the action of supply and demand an evil without compensation, we ought to study it, and the economist will have deserved well of humanity for having thoroughly examined its mechanism.

—It would be then the task of the moralist to derive advantage from the truths discovered by the economist. He would inculcate on man his precepts protective of society; he would teach him abnegation and self-control. He would say to him: Without doubt your wheat is in great demand, and you can obtain such and such a price for it; but think also of the evil you will produce by using your right in its entire fullness. The moralist will be able to call to his aid every other honest sentiment, capable of counterbalancing selfishness, and in primitive times men did not fail to appeal to the religious sentiment. The conclusion must not be drawn from this division of labor, this partition of powers, that the moralist is above the economist; it suffices to recall the fable once related to the Roman people on the Aventine hill. Morality, even religion itself, may be pushed beyond the limits which healthy reason approves; they may become passionate and fanatical at the expense of very high material interests, and for the good of humanity, the two branches of social science should exercise a perfectly equal influence, and thus establish that equilibrium which is the sign of health.

—Many publicists cultivate both sciences together, and combine political economy and morality; we are glad to be able to state this, but all do not succeed equally well in this combination of studies.

MAURICE BLOCK.

SOCIETY

SOCIETY. "Man," says Aristotle in the beginning of his "politics," "is a social being." This definition is in some sort the point of departure of political science. It destroys at once all the false hypotheses which make society a mere convention. It has been truly said that such a convention presupposes the existence of a state of society in some form, in order that men might be able to come to an understanding with one another. Besides, the state of isolation is impossible. Man would not be able to exist in such a state. The child could not live without the food and care furnished by its mother, the woman could not dispense with the protection and labor of the man. Language, the bond of all society, is born with society and of society, and helps to maintain and extend it. The definition of man as a social being rests, therefore, on his most imperious wants, on his most instinctive sympathies and on his most invincible inclinations. Adam Smith rightly remarks that man is the only being who makes exchanges. Society, from a certain point of view, is merely a series of exchanges, a perpetual communication of material and moral benefits which men hold with each other. To complete the definition, or, rather, to give it all the clearness and truth which should receive, we must add, that if man is born a social being, he unceasingly becomes more social. The family, the tribe, the nation, with its vast development, mark the different periods of society. A moment comes when the division of mankind into nations gives place to a sentiment which expresses sociability in its highest degree; this sentiment is the sentiment of humanity. Man, far from being a wolf to man, homo homini lupus, according to the gloomy definition of Hobbes—adopted by all who see in society an artificial and conventional fact—sees in man a being worthy of his respect and his love, an equal, a brother. Religion and philosophy, by paths which are sometimes different and sometimes identical, lead to this sublime result, while interest, property understood, enjoins it on us to be useful to others in view of reciprocity.

—Society implies associates. We can not, therefore, flatter ourselves that we know the object of society without knowing first the nature of the beings which are its elements. Society itself is but the medium and the means which these beings make use of to develop themselves. What are these individuals? Are they simple units endowed with a vegetative or an animal life, and obeying the laws of fatality? No, they are moral persons, that is to say, free, responsible, whose destiny it is to develop and perfect themselves and rise to the conception and practice of the true and the good; having, in one word, besides material life, a moral and intellectual life. The special character of man, in this world, is to be at once the most social and the most personal of all things. Is it the person which shall be sacrificed to society, or society which shall aid in the development of the individual? It would be absurd to suppose that the diminution of that which constitutes our dignity, our value, our very being, should be the object or the result of the association of our efforts, labors and mutual assistance. In truth, the only object of society is to give value to the individual. By society the individual must become more enlightened, more powerful and more moral; society in turn will be worth only what those who compose it are worth.

—Respect for every right, the practice of every duty, the cultivation of every faculty, the development of human nature: such is the object of society. Society is essentially favorable to the growth, as it is absolutely necessary to the exercise and the guarantee, of all our legitimate inclinations. Thus, by it the family is ordered, property protected and increased, the capital necessary to civilization and material life increased, perpetuated and transmitted. The object of institutions of the civil and political order is to assure this regular development of each and all. But it is important to remember that the state alone is not charged with the attainment of this object. The better part of human nature escapes the state. Religion is no more an affair of state than philosophy. And so with industry and commerce, as well as all the institutions intended to favor saving and to distribute wealth properly. In like manner the various means of instruction and education at the command of the individual and the family, do not depend upon the state. The state protects them, the law guarantees or regulates their exercise, but all these things have a proper and independent life of their own. Otherwise society would go contrary to its object. It would be no longer established to favor but to suppress individual development. Instead of being the putting in common of liberties respecting and aiding one another, it would be slavery organized, either by a powerful majority or a dominating minority.

—Political societies, in so far as they are collective beings, reflect and reproduce everything to be found in the nature of the individuals who compose them; only they reflect and reproduce it on a large scale, which has given rise to the saying that society is merely a big individual. It is true that this has been said of the state also, with truth in some respects, but still with much less truth, for all that enters into society is far from entering the state, as we have already seen. Nothing prevents and everything commands us to consider society as a living whole. There are in society collective rights and collective duties. It has the right to be guaranteed, and the duty of repressing evil and assisting the individual. This it does sometimes through the state, and sometimes by means of free associations. In like manner there is in society, as in the individual, an instinct of preservation and an instinct of progress. The one is attached to tradition, which is of a nature to serve society eternally, or simply to everything which has served it long. The instinct of progress walks in advance of all innovations, welcomes everything favorable to the ulterior development of the human mind and of society; it embraces the future in its views and its hopes, as the instinct of preservation adheres to the past and loves to keep itself within the limits of the present. These two instincts, almost always at war, are both necessary. They are completed, tempered and maintained by each other. From their collisions terrible crises result, the more to be feared, since, if one is devoted to routine, the other easily gives itself to adventure. But in spite of, and sometimes by means of, these crises themselves, humanity advances, launching itself toward the future, resting on the past, and making a starting point for useful progress and dangerous innovations at the cost of more than one laborious work of groping and painful experience. This progress of societies, demonstrated by the philosophy of history, a theory which was framed by a number of writers, notably by Turgot and Condorcet, in the last century, is scarcely denied in our day, although the scope and extent of that progress are continually in dispute. Who doubts in our day that modern society excels the societies of antiquity in justice and humanity, as well as in material development? Property more secure, better distributed, resting on labor as a foundation; the family purified, slavery and serfdom abolished; penalties more humane and more just; well-being increased; the sciences developed; the power of right above brute force: are not these certain results given by historical observation? The amount of evil, whether it be free or fatal, diminishes, no matter how enduring and wide-spread it may be; the amount of good increases: such is the visible revelation of Providence in history. Have we not here the most striking justification of society, the most incontestable proof of its necessity and its benefits? (See CIVILIZATION, SOCIAL SCIENCE, SOCIALISM.)

HENRI BAUDRILLART.

SOUTH CAROLINA

SOUTH CAROLINA, one of the thirteen original states of the American Union.

—BOUNDARIES. The triangular shape of the state, and its natural boundary by the Atlantic on the east, leave but two boundaries to be fixed, on the north and on the west. The former was tacitly fixed about 1698, and more formally in 1732 (See NORTH CAROLINA), and was run by the two states in 1764, 1772 and 1813. The latter led to a boundary, suit between Georgia and South Carolina before the congress of the confederation, which was settled in 1787 by a cession to Georgia of South Carolina's claims west of the Savannah and the Tugaloo branch of it. The latter state then proceeded to cede to the United States her "other " claims west of a north and south line from the head of the Tugaloo, but this, as it proved, was a distance of but twelve miles. (See TERRITORIES.)

—CONSTITUTIONS. The constitutional history of the colony is bound up with that of North Carolina until about 1700. In 1719 the people revolted against the proprietors, and established a temporary government of their own; and, in accordance with their wish, South Carolina became a royal colony until the revolution. The crown appointed the governor; the governor appointed the upper house, or council, and retained a veto power; and the people elected the lower house. The opening years of the revolution were marked by constant conflicts between the governor, Sir William Campbell, and the legislature, so that the legislature was almost constantly prorogued. July 6, 1774, the first popular convention met, and chose delegated to congress; and, Jan. 11, 1775, a provincial congress met, which practically assumed the powers of government. March 26, 1776, it adopted the first constitution of the state. The lower house, or general assembly, was to be chosen by the people annually, in fixed apportionments to each parish; it was to choose the upper house, or council of thirteen members; and the two were to choose the president [governor] and vice president. The congress made itself the first lower house. Two peculiar provisions are that the president, was to have no power to make war, peace or treaties, without the consent of the legislature; and that "the resolutions of the continental congress, now of force in this colony, shall so continue until altered or revoked by them." (See STATE SOVEREIGNTY)

—March 17, 1778, an act of the legislature, put a new constitution in force after Nov. 29. It ordained that "the style of this country" should be the state of South Carolina; gave the government a term of two years, and forbade his re-election; changed the names of the houses to senate and house of representatives, and made them both chosen by the people; left out the section as to national supremacy; and established freedom of incorporation to all societies "professing the Christian Protestant religion."

—June 3, 1790, a more elaborate constitution was framed by a popular convention, without popular ratification. It omitted the treaty clause; made the right of suffrage dependent on a freehold of £50 or a tax of three shillings; recognized slavery by requiring for representatives a qualification of £150 or 500 acres and ten negroes; and omitted all religious restrictions. It was amended in 1808, 1810, 1816, 1820, 1828, 1834, 1856, and 1861, the first, the great compromise described hereafter, being the only important change.

—A new constitution was formed by a convention Sept. 13-27, 1863, without popular ratification. Its main changes were that it gave the governor a term of four years, and made him eligible by popular vote; gave the right of suffrage to free white males over twenty-one, on two years' residence; forbade slavery, "slaves in South Carolina having been emancipated by the action of the United States authorities"; and forbade the legislature to inflict punishment of any kind for participation in the rebellion.

—The reconstruction convention at Charleston, Jan. 14-March 17, 1868, framed a new constitution, which was ratified by popular vote, April 14-16. It declared that all men were free and equal; that their paramount allegiance was due to the United States: that the state should forever remain in the Union, and resist with its whole power every attempt to dissolve it; and that all classes of citizens should enjoy equally all common, public, legal and political privileges. The compromise of 1808 (hereafter detailed) was omitted, and the legislature was to be chosen according to population, the house for two years, the senate for four. Every male over twenty-one was given the right of suffrage, except that no one prohibited from holding office by the 14th amendment was to vote or hold office until his disabilities were removed. Debt contracted in aid of rebellion was repudiated. Presidential electors were to be chosen by the people, thought the federal constitution directs them to be chosen in such manner as the legislature may direct.

—GOVERNORS: John Rutledge, 1776-8; Rawlins Lowndes, 1778-9; John Rutledge, 1779-82; John Matthews, 1782-3; Benjamin Guerard, 1783-5; William Moultrie, 1785-7; Thomas Pinckney, 1787-9; Charles Pinckney, 1789-92; Arnoldus Vanderhorst, 1792-4; William Moultrie, 1794-6; Charles Pinckney, 1796-8; Edward Rutledge, 1798-1800; John Drayton, 1800-2; James B. Richardson, 1802-4; Paul Hamilton, 1804-6; Charles Pinckney, 1806-8; John Drayton, 1808-10, Henry Midleton, 1810-12; Joseph Allston, 1812-14; David R. Williams, 1814-16; Andrew Pickens, 1816-18; John Geddes, 1818-20; Thomas Bennett, 1820-22; John L. Wilson, 1822-4; Richard I. Manning, 1824-6, John Taylor, 1826-8; Stephen D. Miller, 1828-30; James Hamilton, 1830-32; Robert Y. Hayne, 1832-4; George M'Duffie, 1834-6; Pierce M. Butler, 1836-8, Patrick Noble, 1838-40; John P. Richardson, 1840-42; James H. Hammond,1842-4; William Aiken, 1844-6; David Johnson, 1846-8; W. B. Seabrook, 1848-50; John H. Means, 1850-52; John L. Manning, 1852-4; James H. Adams, 1854-6; R. F. W. Allston, 1856-8; William H. Gist, 1858-60; Francis W. Pickens, 1860-2; M. L. Bonham, 1862-4; A. G. Magrath, 1864-5; Benj. F. Perry, provisional, 1865; James L. Orr, 1865-8; Robert K. Scott, 1868-72; Franklin J. Moses, 1872-5;; Daniel H. Chamberlain, 1875-7; Wade Hampton, 1877-9; William D. Simpson, 1879-81; Johnson Hagood, 1881-3; Hugh S. Thompson, 1883-5.

—The state is popularly known as the "palmetto state," from a local dwarf palm, the most northern variety of the order. It has always been a favorite emblem for state flags, etc. The capital of the state is Columbia.

—POLITICAL HISTORY. For a long time South Carolina was divided into two quite distinct geographical and political divisions by the line across the middle of the state formed by the falls of the great rivers. The lower, coast or cotton country, from the falls to the seaboard, was the original colony, settled mainly by English Episcopalians, with a considerable percentage of French Huguenots; the upper country, from the falls to the mountains,was settled mainly by immigrants from the states to the northward, with a considerable percentage of Scotch and Scotch-Irish immigrants. But a more essential difference was in the distribution of the slave population. From the beginning it fell more heavily toward the coast. In 1840, of the 196,222 slaves in the state, 129,814 were in the lower country, and 66,408 in the upper country; and, of the 267,360 whites, 150,994 were in the upper country, and 116,366 in the lower country. The segregation of interests, in its final development, may be seen in the following table of white and slave population, compiled from the census of 1860. Class A is the tier of districts or counties impinging directly on the sea, and including the sea-island cotton district; class B is the tier next to the preceding; and class C is the extreme northern tier; the intermediate districts are more evenly balanced, and are not considered. In all three classes the districts are arranged in order, from west to east, to the North Carolina boundary.

Geological reasons account for the few variations from the general rule in the table. The upper country, on the democratic principle, had the power to tax, and the lower country the property liable to taxation. The compromise by which the two were reconciled is altogether the most interesting feature in the history of the state before 1860.

—Before the revolution the upper country had comparatively little intercourse with the lower country, and hardly any political power. During the revolution it was one of the strongholds of the tory party of the state, and political power was carefully conserved by the lower country. This design will explain the first constitutions of the state, in which the number of delegates in the lower house was so apportioned to the districts as to give control to the lower country; and the choice of other state officers were given to the legislature. As soon, however, as state politics settled down into orderly development, it became evident that no such unilateral arrangement could be permanent. The tendency to the formation of a white democracy, in which the property of the lower country would be at the mercy of the population of the upper country, was so strong, and created so much angry feeling, that, in 1807, a compromise was agreed upon, and, in 1808, it was ratified as a part of the constitution. Its provisions will be found in Calhoun's works, as cited below. In brief, it fixed the number of members of the lower house at 124, 62 representing white population, and 62 taxation. Every ten years the white population and the taxes paid for ten years past were to be ascertained; and each district was to be entitled, for the next ten years, to one representative for each sixty-second part of either the total white population, or the total amount of taxes paid. In this way any undue exercise of taxing power by the upper country would remedy itself; for it would, for the next ten years, increase the representation of the districts on which undue taxes should be levied. To whatever the result is to be ascribed, to this compromise or to the increase of slaveholding influence, it is certain, that, from 1808 until the overthrow of this compromise by the reconstruction constitution of 1868, there were really no separate parties in the state, and no bitterness of party conflict.

—The formation of the federalist and anti-federalilst party division in 1787-8 brought about a curious contradiction to previous history. Many of the leaders of the lower country, who had been ardent whigs during the revolution, had been educated in England, retained no abiding animosity to that country, and, as they represented commercial interests, were federalists by nature, even though the policy of their party might lead to friendship with Great Britain. On the contrary, the spirit of local independence, and a general opposition to the lower country, made the rest of the state as warmly anti-federalist. The division is plainly shown in the vote in the legislature on calling a convention to consider the constitution in 1788. Of the twenty-nine districts or parishes in the state, only five were divided: the parishes on the coast were as generally unanimous in favor of calling the convention as the parishes in the upper country were unanimous against it. The convention was only called at last by a vote of 76 to 75. In the convention the constitution was ratified, May 23, 1788, by a vote of 149 to 73. The division in the vote was not so striking as in the convention, seventeen parishes or districts being now divided; but the line of division was still very perceptible.

—For some years after the adoption of the constitution the federalists retained a general control of the state, due rather to their wealth and ability than to their numbers. They gave three great leaders to the national federal party: Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (see his name); and William Smith and Robert G. Harper, two of the ablest congressional debaters of their party. When the legislature came to choose electors in 1792, they obtained the second votes of seven of the state's eight electors for John Adams. Before another presidential election the opposition had fairly taken form, and in 1796 the eight electors voted for Jefferson and Thomas Pinckney. In 1800, when the battle between federalists and democrats had become general and defined, the popularity of Charles C. Pinckney in his own state gave him the federalist support for vice-president. (See CAUCUS, CONGRESSIONAL.) The democrats in the legislature offered to compromise by choosing electors pledged to Jefferson and Pinckney, and this, as it afterward proved, would have made Pinckney vice-president, instead of Burr. An indiscreet letter, written by Adams, and censuring Pinckney's public conduct, had recently come to light, and would have been a fair excuse to an ordinary politician for abandoning Adams. But Pinckney rejected the compromise, and stood by his colleague; and both fell together. The legislature chose electors, who voted for Jefferson and Burr; and this was the deciding state.

—From this time the state, in national politics, was a unit, its small federalist element disappearing after its first great defeat. In state politics the only element of discord was removed by the compromise of 1808. For half a century the political history of the state is an absolute blank, with the single exception of the nullification contest. (See NULLIFICATION.) In that struggle the nullification leaders were Calhoun, Senator Hayne, Gov. Hamilton, Preston (afterward senator), and Rhett. The "Union party" was led by Poinsett, Huger, Petigru, Legaré, Grimké, Drayton, Memminger, and others; but it must be remembered that the Union party generally by no means denied the right to secede, only the right to disobey the laws of the Union, while remaining in the Union. And, further, the opposition of nullifiers, like Calhoun and Preston, to the Jackson school of national democratic leaders, was a reason for their being often classed as whigs until 1843—4. (See WHIG PARTY, II.) In fact, men of all parties in the state were generally ultra democrats, secessionists in ultimate theory, and differing in practice only.

—After the termination of the nullification struggle the state remained in political repose until 1860. For ten years before that date she was ready to secede at any time upon a promise of support by one or more other states. In 1860, having secured the desired assurances, the state seceded, and became one of the confederate states. (See SECESSION, CONFEDERATE STATES.) With a voting population of 47,000 in 1860, she furnished 60,000 soldiers to the confederate armies, and at the close of the rebellion was well nigh exhausted. The marks of the exhaustion are still visible in the census of 1870, in which the state shows a slight decrease of white population since 1860, in spite of five years' recuperation. Alabama is the only other seceding state which shows the same indication.

—In May, 1865, some feeble efforts at self assertion by the state government were suppressed by the federal authorities, and Benj. F. Porry was appointed provisional governor, June 30. Under his guidance the convention of 1865, which rescinded the ordinance of secession, was held, a constitution adopted, and a governor and legislature elected. The new legislature met Oct. 25, and the new governor was inaugurated Nov. 29. The state government ratified the 13th amendment, and a code of laws permitting and regulating apprenticeship of laborers until the age of twenty-one in males and eighteen in females, and specifying the rights and duties of employers and employed. At the following session of the legislature an effort was made to remove the dislike of the negroes to the "black code" by the passage of a bill giving all civil rights, to sue and be sued, etc., to the freedmen; but the 14th amendment was rejected.

—Under the reconstruction act (See RECONSTRUCTION), Maj. Gen. D. E. Sickles was appointed military governor March 11, 1867. He was removed Aug. 26, and was succeeded by Maj. Gen. E. R. S. Canby. The registration showed 78,982 colored and 46,346 white voters. A convention was ordered by overwhelming votes, the state constitution of 1868 was adopted, and the state was readmitted, June 25. The new state officers had all been nominated by the convention which framed the constitution, sitting as a republican nominating convention. Four of them, Gov. Scott, the state treasurer, N. G. Parker, the comptroller general, J. J. Neagle, and the attorney general, D. H. Chamberlain, were northern men, or "carpet-baggers"; the secretary of state, F. L. Cardozo, was a native freedman; and the adjutant general, F. J. Moses, was a native white. One of them, Moses, has since been imprisoned in New York for theft; all of them, with the exception of their ablest member, Chamberlain, seem to have been personally and shamelessly dishonest. The legislature, composed mainly of freedmen without property, education, political experience, or sense of responsibility, was probably the most openly corrupt legislative body that ever held sessions in the United States. Details of its proceedings would be tedious and useless; they can be most easily reached in Pike's work, cited below. One instance will be sufficient: the state debt was officially reported in 1868 at $5,407,306.27; in 1872 at $17,557,000; and in 1873 at $20,333,901.10. In 1871 a legislative investigating committee reported that the state officers had over-issued bonds and defrauded the state to the amount of $6,314,000; but the legislature, by a large majority, refused to impeach them. One defaulting official defied a legislative committee to indict him, unless the legislature should first pass a bill to enlarge the penitentiary, since he intended to take at least half of them thither with him.

—Ku-klux outrages in the state seem to have fairly begun in 1870, though they were alleged to have taken place previously. In 1871 they had become a prominent feature in elections (see KU-KLUX KLAN), but were unsuccessful in their object of suppressing the negro vote. In 1874 came the first sign of defeat for the dominant party: a part of it refused to support the regular nominations, and the nominations of this faction were supported by the democrats, and defeated by a much smaller majority than usual. In 1876 came the final struggle between property and population for the control of the state. From the beginning it was marked by hardly suppressed disorder. Massacres of negroes took place at several points, in one of which, at Hamburgh, July 9, the assaulting party of whites was led by a negro justice of the peace. Nov. 21, the returning board declared the republican presidential electors successful by an average vote of 91,672 to 90,856; most of the republican candidates for state offices successful by very similar votes; and no party majority in the lower house of the legislature, owing to the board's refusal to give any certificates for Edgefield and Laurens counties, where fraud and violence were charged. In the senate there was a small but undisputed republican majority. On the meeting of the legislature, which was to canvass the votes for governor, Gov. Chamberlain used federal troops to exclude the Edgefield and Laurens members from the state house. Thereupon they, with the other democratic members, sixty-four in all, formed one house, and the fifty-nine republican members another. Dec. 5, the senate and the republicans declared Chamberlain elected, casting out the vote of the two counties above named; a week later the democratic house, with part of the senate, declared Wade Hampton elected. Hampton obtained the office in April following. (See INSURRECTION, II.)

—Since 1877 there has been practically no republican opposition in state elections, nor, generally, in congressional elections. In 1882 one republican congressman was seated after a contest. In the presidential election of 1880, 58,071 republican to 112,312 democratic votes were cast. In the legislature of 1882 the republicans have but two senators out of thirty-four, and five representatives out of 124. How long this state of affairs can last is a difficult question. One answer to it may perhaps be the restoration in some form, by common consent, of the venerable compromise of 1808, which was abrogated in 1868. The effort to exclude property representation altogether has resulted in the entire exclusion of the popular majority from power, an equitable division of power between the two might possibly solve the problem.

—The roll of South Carolina names which have reached exceptional distinction in American polities is very large. The most distinguished are those of Calhoun and C. C. Pinckney. (See their names.) Others are as follows, democrats unless otherwise specified: William Aiken, governor 1844-6, congressman 1851-7; R. W. Barnwell, congressman 1829-33 United States senator 1850-51, and a member of the confederate states senate 1862-5; M. L. Bonham, congressman 1857-60, brigadier general in the confederate army, confederate congressman 1861-2, and governor 1862-4; Preston S. Brooks (see his name); Ædanus Burke, state judge and chancellor 1778-1802, and congressman 1789-91 (see CINCINNATI); Armistead Burt, congressman 1843-53; Andrew P. Butler, state judge 1835-46, and United States senator 1846-57; M. C. Butler, major general in the confederate army, and United States senator 1877-87; Langdon Clieves, congressman 1811-15 (see DEMOCRATIC PARTY, III.), and president of the bank of the United States in 1819; William Drayton, congressman 1825-33; William Henry Drayton, state judge and chief justice 1771-7, and author of a widely circulated whig charge to a grand jury in April, 1776; Christopher Gadsden, a revolutionary leader, delegate to the stamp act congress in 1765, and to the continental congress 1774-6; John Gaillard, United States senator 1805-26, and president of the senate 1814-19 and 1820-25; James Hamilton, congressman 1823-9, and governor 1830-32 (see NULLIFICATION); James H. Hammond, congressman 1835-6, governor 1842-4, United States senator 1857-60, and an ultra pro-slavery author and debater; Wade Hampton, governor 1876-9 and Unites States senator 1879-85; R. G. Harper, federalist congressman 1795-1801 (see MARYLAND); Robert Y. Hayne, attorney general 1818-22, United States senator 1823-32, and governor 1832-4 (see NULLIFICATION); Ralph Izard, commissioner to Tuscany 1777-9, delegate to congress 1781-3, and United States senator 1789-95; Lawrence M. Keitt, congressman 1853-60 (see BROOKS, P. S.), killed at Cold Harbor in 1864; Henry Laurens, delegate to congress 1777-80, minister to Holland 1780-81, and one of the negotiators in 1782-3; Hugh S. Legaré, attorney general 1830-32, chargé at Brussels 1832-6, congressman 1837-9, and attorney general under Tyler; William Lowndes, congressman 1811-22 (see DEMOCRATIC PARTY, III); George M'Duffie, congressman 1821-34, governor 1834-6, and United States senator 1843-6; John McQueen, congressman 1849-60, and confederate congressman 1862-4; Charles G. Memminger, confederate secretary of the treasury, 1861-4; Arthur Middleton, delegate to congress 1776-8 and 1781-3; Henry Middleton (son of the preceding), governor 1810-12, congressman 1815-19, and minister to Russia 1820-30; James L. Orr, congressman 1849-59, confederate senator 1862-5, governor (republican) 1865-8, and minister to Russia 1872-3; Francis W. Pickens, congressman 1834-43, minister to Russia 1858-60, and governor 1860-62; Charles Pinckney, delegate to congress 1777-8 and 1784-7, and to the convention of 1787, governor 1789-92, 1796-8 and 1806-8, United States senator 1797-1801, minister to Spain 1803-5, and congressman 1819-21 (see ELECTORS); Joel R. Poinsett, congressman 1821-5, minister to Mexico 1825-9, and secretary of war under Van Buren; Win. C. Preston, United States senator 1833-42, president of the college of South Carolina, and an eloquent speaker; Robert Barnwell Rhett (name changed in 1837 form Smith to Rhett, to obtain a legacy), congressman 1837-49, U. S. senator 1851-2, and a leader in secession; Edward Rutledge, delegate to congress 1774-7, and governor 1798-1800; John Rutledge, delegate to congress 1774-7 and 1782-3, governor 1776-8 and 1779-82, justice of the U. S. supreme court 1789-91, and appointed chief justice in 1795, but not confirmed by the senate because of his intemperate opposition to Jay's treaty; William Smith, federalist congressman 1789-97, and minister to Portugal 1797-1801; Thomas Sumter, a famous partisan leader in the revolution, congressman 1789-93 and 1797-1801, and United States senator 1801-10; Waddy Thompson, congressman 1835-41, and minister to Mexico 1842-4; and James L. Trenholm, confederate secretary of the treasury 1864-5.

—See authorities under NORTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, NULLIFICATION, SECESSION, RECONSTRUCTION; 2 Poore's Federal and State Constitutions; Lawson's History of Carolina (to 1714); 2 Force's Tracts; Carroll's Historical Collections of South Carolina (to 1776); Gibbes' Documentary History of the Revolution, chiefly in South Carolina (1764-82); Drayton's Memoirs of the Revolution, as relating to South Carolina (1821); Rivers' Early History of South Carolina; Ramsay's History of South Carolina; Chase's Life of Lowndes; 6 Calhoun's Works, 254; 1 Olmstead's Cotton Kingdom, 206; Simms' History of South Carolina (continued to 1860); Pike's The Prostrate State (1873).

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY

SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. (See CONFEDERATE STATES.)

SOVEREIGNTY

SOVEREIGNTY. I. The Idea of Sovereignty. The state is the embodiment and personification of the power of the people. The power of the people in its highest dignity and greatest force is sovereignty.

—The word sovereignty originated in France, and the idea of sovereignty was for the first time developed by French science. Bodin raised it to the dignity of the fundamental idea of public or constitutional law. Since his time the word sovereignty and the idea have exercised a great influence on the entire development of the constitution of modern states as well as on politics.

—During the middle ages the expression souveraineté (suprema potestas) was used in a still wider sense. Every board or authority competent to give a final decision, so that an appeal to a higher authority was impossible after such decision, was called a sovereign board. The highest courts of justice were called cours souveraines. Thus there were a great number of sovereign offices and corporations within the state. But gradually this name ceased to be given to mere offices and positions in the different branches of the administration, and it was finally given only to the highest power in the state, the power which controlled the whole. Hence the idea of sovereignty came to have a higher meaning and to signify the concentrated fullness of political power or of the power of the state. The definition of the term sovereignty was controlled completely by the centralizing tendency of French politics, beginning with the sixteenth century, and by the struggle of the French kings for absolute power. Bodin had explained sovereignty as absolute, perpetual political power (puissance absolue et perpetuelle d' une république). Sovereignty was subsequently understood in this absolute sense. Not only Louis XIV., who called himself the state, but even the Jacobin convention of the French republic of 1793, attributed omnipotent political power to itself, as Louis had to himself. Both were wrong in doing so. The modern representative state knows nothing of absolute political power; and absolute independence does not exist anywhere on earth. Neither political freedom, nor the rights of the other organs and component parts of the state, are compatible with such unlimited sovereignty; and whenever men have sought to exercise it, history has condemned such usurpation. The state itself, as a whole, does not possess such omnipotence; for even the state is limited externally by the right of other states, and internally by its own nature, by the rights of its members, and those of the individuals within the state.

—The characteristics of sovereignty are: 1. The independence of the power of the state of all superordinated political or state authority. Even this independence is to be understood as relative, and not as absolute. International law, which binds all states together by common rights, is no more in conflict with the sovereignty of states than is constitutional law, which limits the exercise of the power of the state within the boundaries of the state. This renders it possible for certain territorial states to be still considered sovereign states, although in essential things, as for instance, in their foreign policy, etc., they are dependent on the greater aggregate state. 2. The highest political or state dignity, or what the ancient political language of Rome understood by the term majestas. 3. The plenitude of political or state power in contradistinction to mere partial authority. Sovereignty is not the sum of separate special rights, but the political aggregate right; it is a central idea with an energy similar to that of property in private law. 4. Further, the sovereign power is, by virtue of its nature, the supreme power in the state. Hence it follows, that no other political power within the state can be superordinated to it. The French seigneurs of the middle ages ceased to be sovereign when they were again compelled to subordinate themselves to their liege lord, the king, in all the essential relations of political independence and rank. The German electoral princes, after the fourteenth century, were able to claim sovereignty in their territories, because they really possessed, in their own right, the supreme political authority within the same. 5. The state being an organized body, the unity of sovereignty is accordingly a requisite of its well-being. The partition of sovereignty leads in its consequences to the paralysis or dissolution of the state, and hence is not compatible with the health of the state.

—II. State Sovereignty (Popular Sovereignty) and Regent Sovereignty. To whom does sovereignty belong? The different political parties are inclined to answer this question in an entirely different sense, and science also has to remove many kinds of obstacles, and to overcome many prejudices, before it can succeed in reaching a simple and true solution of the question.

—1. A widely spread opinion, particularly since the time of Rousseau and the French revolution, answers: To the people; and declares itself in favor of the principle of the so-called sovereignty of the people. But we must first inquire, What does this opinion understand by the "people"? By the "people" some understand simply the sum total of the individuals who find themselves brought together in the state; that is, they, in thought, resolve the state into its elements, and attribute the highest power to the inorganic mass, or the majority of these individuals. This extremely radical opinion is manifestly in contradiction with the existence of the state, which is the foundation of sovereignty. Hence it is not compatible with the constitution of any state, not even with absolute democracy, of which it pretends to be the foundation; for even in an absolute democracy it is the regular assembly of the people, and not the atomized multitude, that exercises the state power.

—2. Still others understand by "people" the collective, equal citizens of the state, who, assembled in commonalties, give expression to their will; that is, they understand by people the sovereignty of the demos, in democracy. When limited to this form of the state, the principle of popular sovereignty, thus understood, has certainly some sense and truth in it; it is then literally synonymous with democracy. But even in the case of representative democracy the principle loses its application in great part, because in the regular action of the state the supreme power is not exercised directly by the citizens, but indirectly by their representatives. The principle is entirely incompatible with all other forms of the state on which it makes the strange claim that the head of the state should place himself on an equality with the meanest citizen, and that those governing, being the minority, should subordinate themselves to the governed, or the majority. In the body politic this principle assigns to the feet the place of the head, and to the head the place of the feet.

—3. It sometimes happens that the two opinions are not sharply distinguished from one another, but that they fade one into the other. The one is anarchical, the other absolute-democratic. Their defenders, however, maintain the universal validity of both. Yet the danger of this theory consists precisely in the fact, that is recognition presupposes and demands in principle the complete overthrow of all other forms of the state, with the sole exception of direct democracy, and the transformation of the former into the latter.

—This opinion, accordingly, has been advocated by decidedly antagonistic parties, but still (if indeed consciously) only by those who were dissatisfied with the existing political organization or government, and strove to undermine and overthrow it. Hence it became a terrific weapon of destruction in the hand of the French revolution. Even the national assembly, in its declaration of war of April 20, 1792, officially proclaimed Rousseau's theory: "The French nation has undoubtedly declared, that sovereignty belongs only to the people, who, limited in the exercise of its highest will by the rights of succeeding generations, can not confer any irrevocable power; the nation frankly acknowledges, that no tradition, no legal decree, no declaration, no contract, can subject the society of men to any authority in such a manner that the nation should no longer have the right of revoking such power. Every people has alone the power to give itself its laws, and the inalienable right of changing its laws. This right, in its fullest extent, belongs either to no one or to all." The subsequent convention disclosed the further consequences of this principle after the destruction of the monarchy. But even in our own days we have heard the proclamation of the same principle at the Paris Hôtel de Ville.

—In February, 1848, the constitutional monarchy was abolished, the republic proclaimed, and the dictatorship of an improvised government appointed by a similar sovereign act of the excited Parisian population. In an official declaration drawn up by Lamartine himself, we read: "Every Frenchman who has reached the age of manhood is a citizen of the state, and every citizen is a voter. Every voter is a sovereign. The law is equal, and is absolute for all. No citizen can say to another: You are sovereign to a greater extent than I; consider well your power; be prepared to exercise it; and be worthy of taking possession of your lordship."

—4. The endeavors of certain French statesmen to oppose to this ruinous idea of the sovereignty of the people (an idea which either destroys all constitutional and public law, in order to give a foundation to the majesty of the state, or which transforms all states into democracies) the idea of a sovereignty of reason and justice, were indeed well meant, but they did not prove satisfactory. By appealing to either reason or justice they thought they could do away with the abuse which the people might make of its sovereignty. This notion, however, overlooks the fact that the right belongs only to the person, but sovereignty only to a political personality, by which it must be exercised according to the principles of reason and justice. To the error which recognizes in absolute democracy the only fundamental form of the state, we thus find opposed here another error, the error of idiocracy, with its well-meant intention of guiding the majority of the people by the supremacy of an idea. But this contradiction remains without result, because the power of personality is stronger than any fiction.

—5. Another opinion calls the nation, considered as a unit, and as capable of organization, even if it be not yet organized or only insufficiently organized, with its instincts, its language and its social differences, the people, and ascribes to the nation the right to change the form of the state at its pleasure. A nation has a tendency to constitute itself into a people, and hence into a state (See NATIONALITIES, PRINCIPLE OF); and therefore we must admit that the germs of sovereignty lie in the nation, and that the nation had a tendency to develop sovereignty out of them; but that it shall develop sovereignty is only a possibility. (See NATION.) Popular sovereignty, in this sense, or, more correctly, national sovereignty, is accordingly an unripe, undeveloped, ante-state idea, which had to await the actual growth of states in order to become realized in a state form.

—6. But in a political sense we may and even must understand by people, the ordered aggregate of head and members which we recognize as the living soul of the personality of the state. In so far as the state appears as a person, independence, the highest honor, the plenitude of power, supreme authority, and unity, that is, sovereignty, undoubtedly belong to it. The state as a person is sovereign. Hence this sovereignty is called the sovereignty of the state. Sovereignty does not exist before the state, nor outside the state, nor above the state; it is the power and majesty of the state itself. It is the right of the whole; and as certainly as the whole is more powerful than any part of that whole, just as certainly is the sovereignty of the whole state superior to the sovereignty of a single member within the state. If, through the strife of parties, language had not been distorted, it would seem perfectly legitimate to call state sovereignty, as here defined, the sovereignty of the people, understanding by "people," not a loose multitude of individuals, but the politically organized whole, in which the head holds the highest position and has the highest duty to perform, and in which every individual fills the place and performs the task best suited to his nature. In this sense French publicists have called this sovereignty souveraineté de la nation. But nowadays this designation would be liable to the most deplorable misunderstandings, and for this reason we have preferred the unequivocal expression state sovereignty. This state sovereignty manifests itself both externally and internally; externally as the self-dependence and independence of every single state in respect to every other single state, and in relation of the secular power to the church; internally it manifests itself as the legislative power of the whole body of the people. In this sense the English are wont to ascribe sovereignty to their parliament, at the head of which is the king, and which represents the whole people. Yet this is not a peculiarity of English constitutional law, but a fundamental view of the constitutions of modern representative states in general, a view which does, indeed, regard the prince as the head, and for that very reason as a member of the people, and which ascribes the highest actual exercise of sovereignty, legislation, not to the head alone, but to the head in connection with the representative body, in other words, to the whole body of the state. The patrimonial doctrine of the state, which regards the states as the property of the prince, and hence attributes sovereignty only to the prince, and the absolutist doctrine of the state, which identities the state with the prince, and thus looks upon state sovereignty as princely sovereignty, alike ignore the important principle that all the power of the prince is essentially only the concentrated and condensed power of the people, and that the people and the state continue a legal entity despite the downfall of princes and the extinction of dynasties.

—7. Besides this sovereignty dwelling in the whole body of the state or of the people, there is also within the state a sovereignty of the head of the state, to wit, the sovereignty of the ruler, or, because it is most apparent in monarchy, what is called the sovereignty of the prince. In relation to all other single members of the organism of the state, and in relation to individual citizens of the state, the supreme head of the nation possesses the highest power and occupies the highest position—a power and position which properly belong to him. Thus, in English constitutional law, the king is in a special manner styled sovereign. Thus, too, in every monarchical state, sovereignty is ascribed to the monarch as such. There is, however, no contradiction between state sovereignty and the sovereignty of the prince, above referred to. Sovereignty is not divided, from the fact that one-half is given to the people, and the other to the prince. Their relation is not that of two jealous powers, struggling for supremacy. In both there is unity and plenitude of power; but it is manifest that the whole, in which the head, in accordance with its highest position in the body politic, is included, is superordinated even to the head considered in itself alone and apart from the whole. The whole people (the state) makes the law, but within its limits the head of the state moves with complete freedom in the exercise of the supreme power that belongs to him. State sovereignty is chiefly the sovereignty of the law: the sovereignty of the prince is chiefly that of government. Where the former is at rest, the latter is active. A real conflict can not easily take place between them; a conflict between them at all points is, in principle, not possible; for such a conflict would be the conflict of the supreme head considered in itself alone with the supreme head in connection with the remaining members of the state; that is, it would suppose a conflict of the same person with himself. While thus there is no conceivable peace between the democratic sovereignty of the people and the sovereignty of the prince, and while the one must necessarily subjugate and abolish the other, there exists between the sovereignty of the state and the sovereignty of the prince the same harmony that exists between the whole man and his head.

—III. What the Sovereignty of the state includes. 1. The people, politically organized, the state, has first of all, a right to the recognition of, and respect for, its dignity and supremacy; or, as the Romans termed it, respect for its majesty. Hence every serious injury to the honor, power and even to the established order of the Roman state, was considered by the Romans as a crimen lœsœ majestatis.

—2. The independence of the state of foreign states is, further, a necessary quality and effect of its sovereignty. When a state is compelled to acknowledge the political superordination of another state it loses its sovereignty, and submits itself to the sovereignty of the latter. Still, all subordination of a state does not completely destroy its sovereignty, because the dependence which that subordination implies is not an absolute one, and because its original independence and self-dependence reappear in many circumstances. In composite states, confederations, federal states and kingdoms, the individual states, although in certain respects subordinated to the whole, still, as states, possess a relative sovereignty, limited, not as to its content, but as to its extent. Thus in Switzerland they speak of cantonal sovereignty when reference is had to cantonal affairs, in contradistinction to the sovereignty of the confederation when reference is had to the affairs of the confederation. Similarly in the United States and in the German Empire we must distinguish between the sovereignty of the aggregate state (union, empire) and that of the states belonging to the confederation. We can, however, speak of the relative sovereignty of individual states subordinated to an aggregate state (confederation or empire) only where the individual state is itself organized as a state, that is, where it has all the essential organs of a state (legislative bodies, governments, etc.,) and a state life peculiar to itself; but we can not speak of such relative sovereignty of the individual state subordinated to an aggregate state when it has to the whole the relation of a mere part of that whole, the relation of a province, for instance. As in all that is relative, there is here, too, a scarcely perceptible transition from the one thing to another. Externally the sovereignty of the state in out time is ordinarily represented by the head of the state, not by the legislative body, but this rather from motives of expediency than from juristic reasons.

—3. At home, sovereignty finds its chief expression in the right of the people independently to determine the forms of its political existence, and, in case of need, to change them. What can not be conceded to a part of the people, to the mere majority of the people without the government, undoubtedly belongs to the aggregate people in its political organization. The individual subject should not oppose the ordinances of the people, even his political rights are injured by such ordinances: for if the state is to preserve its unity, its cohesion and order, the individual, in the domain of public law, must subordinate himself to the highest power in the state.

—It certainly is not a matter of indifference, in passing a moral or legal judgment on the change, whether it takes place by the way of reform or of revolution. Reform supposes, first, that the change is introduced by the organism empowered by the constitution to make it, and hence, that in constitutional representative states, it is introduced by the legislative body representing the whole nation: that is, that it is made formally conformable to law. Second, that even in the transformation of the law the spirit of the law is respected; and hence, that the law which it is proposed to change or repeal, should be set aside only to the extent that it has become obsolete or unsuitable, and that new law should be allowed to come into force only in so far as it seems to be mature and to have its foundation in the new circumstances of the people's life. If either the form of the constitution is disregarded, or if the principle of right be violated in the change, such an act is not reform, but revolution. The right of reform is a necessary expression of the vital energy of the state. To contest this right, is to deny the development of the people, and to cause revolution.

—But the radical doctrine of the state also maintains the right of the people to revolution. The idea of public law. however, opposes this assumption; for revolution is either a violent breach of the existing constitution of the state, or else a violation of the principles of legal right. For this reason revolutions, as a rule, are not legal acts, although they may be powerful natural phenomena which changes public law. Which the unchained natural forces which are passionately excited in the nation produce and determine a revolution, the regular efficiency of public law is disturbed. In the face of events of this kind, public law is powerless. It is unable to draw the revolution within the sphere of its norms and laws. One of the greatest tasks of politics is to guide a revolution which has broke out into the regular paths of reform and political order. If the law was too weak to prevent, or reform too slow to anticipate, revolution, neither the one nor the other, nor both together, can now control it. Hence we can speak only by way of exception of a right of revolution, and only in the sense of a right of self defense of the people, to save its existence, or to realize its necessary development, when the avenues of reform have been closed. The constitution is, after all, only the external organization of the people. If by the constitution the state incurs the danger or ruin, or if by it the life of the people has been paralyzed, or the vital interests of public well-being have been endangered, the principle of self-defense should be applied. "Necessity knows no law"

—4. State sovereignty embraces the power of making the necessary laws. The legislative power, in the narrower sense of the term, like the constitutive power, flows from the sovereignty of the state, and is at the same time its regular revelation.

—5. But further still, on the sovereignty of the state, in principle, rest all other powers of the state for which reason the constitution and legislation limit and regulate all other expressions of sovereignty.

—6. Irresponsibility. From the higher point of view, there really exists no irresponsibility of men in regard to their doings or omissions. In fact, the eternal judgment of God of this world excluded the idea of the irresponsibility even of nations. Even on earth, in the destinies and sufferings of peoples, this responsibility is not unfrequently painfully felt. But it is impossible within a state to establish a tribunal before which the whole people, or its representatives, as holders of the supreme power of the state, can be called to account. If this were attempted, the state itself would to that extent at least be subject to this tribunal, and thus a member would be placed higher than the body, the part above the whole. But if a state, in the execution of its sovereignty, should be responsible to another state, its sovereignty on that account would be a limited one, and subordinate to the higher sovereignty of the judging state. Only by the further development of international law, or by a higher political organization of the world, before which individual sovereign states would have to bow, as to an aggregate empire, could the political responsibility of individual states be organized. It may be reserved for the future to realize this idea. At present it is only an idea.

—7. All particular state powers, on the contrary, are responsible to the sovereignty of the state.

—IV. The second kind of sovereignty, the sovereignty which belongs only to the head of the state, is recognized in modern public law only in monarchy. Only the monarch, not the president of a republic, although the latter exercises rights of sovereignty, has, according to modern public law, a personal claim to be regarded as sovereign.111

J. C. BLUNTSCHLI.

SOVEREIGNTY

SOVEREIGNTY (IN U. S. HISTORY). (See POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.)

SPAIN

SPAIN. This country, which occupies the greater portion of the Iberian peninsula, and included the Balearic isles and the Canaries, extends over 507,036 square kilometers, and contained, according to the census of 1860, 15,658,000 inhabitants. Spain had perhaps sixteen millions in 1873.

—The last general enumeration of the population took place on Dec. 31, 1877, the returns showing that at that date the kingdom, including the Balearic and Canary islands ("Baleáres" and "Canárias" each considered a province), and the small strip of territory in North Africa, facing Gibraltar, had a total population of 16,625,860, comprising 8,134,659 males and 8,491,201 females.

—The vast majority of the inhabitants of Spain are natives of the country, the aliens being less numerous than in any other state of Europe. According to the census returns of Dec. 31, 1877, there were at that date only 26,834 resident foreigners, the mass of them in four provinces, namely, Barcelona, Cadiz, Gerona and Madrid. The number in the province of Barcelona was 4,392, comprising 2,490 males and 1,902 females; while in the province of Cadiz the number was 3,321, comprising 1,866 males and 1,445 females.

—The progress of population did not amount to more than 75 per cent, in the course of the last hundred years. In 1768 the population was calculated to number 9,307,800 souls; in 1789 it had risen to 10,061,480; and in 1797 it exceeded 12,000,000 souls. In 1820 it had fallen to 11,000,000 but in 1823 it had again risen to 12,000,000, and in 1828 to 13,698,029. At a census taken in 1846 the population was found to be 12,168,774, and it was 16,301,851 at the census of 1860. Finally, at the census of 1877 the population amounted, as before shown, to 16,625,860, being an increase of 324,009 in the course of seventeen years, or at the rate of about ¼ per cent, per annum. The present density of population is considerably less than half that of Italy, and less than one-third that of The Netherlands.

—There were, at the census of Dec. 31, 1877, fourteen towns in Spain with a population of over 50,000. The following is a list of these towns, with the number of their inhabitants:

Madrid...	397,690	Granada...	76,108
Barcelona...	249,106	Carthagena...	75,908
Valencia...	143,856	Cadiz...	63,028
Sevilla...	133,938	Xeres de la Frontera...	64,533
Malaga...	115,882	Palma...	58,224
Murcia...	91,805	Lorca...	52,934
Zaragoza...	84,375	Valladolid...	32,206

—Nearly 46 per cent of the whole surface of the kingdom is still uncultivated. The soil is subdivided among a very large number of proprietors. Of 3,426,083 recorded assessments to the property tax, there are 624,920 properties which pay from 1 to 10 reals; 511,666 from 10 to 20 reals; 642,377 from 20 to 40 reals; 788,184, from 40 to 100 reals; 416,546,from 100 to 200 reals; 165,202,from 200 to 500 reals; while the rest, to the number of 279,188, are larger estates, charged from 500 to 10,000 reals and upward. The subdivision of the soil is partly the work of recent years, for in 1800 the number of farms amounted only to 677,520, in the hands of 273,760 proprietors and 403,760 farmers.

—1. Constitution. At the end of the last century there was left no tradition of the ancient cortes of Castile, Aragon, Valentia and Catalonia, which were so powerful during the middle ages. The only vestiges of them which remained did not go beyond the empty ceremony in which an oath was taken to the prince of the Asturias.

—The war of independence roused the Spanish nation, which had been accustomed to absolute monarchy, from its slumber. Deprived of its kings, the necessities of the time obliged it to appoint a regency, which, in order to gain more prestige and a greater authority convoked the cortes. The deputies, assembled at Cadz, dictated the constitution of 1812, which was the origin of representative government in Spain.

—It would be vain to look on their work as the restoration of Spain's ancient liberties, which now belong exclusively to history. Nothing will be found in it but an echo of the ideas proclaimed by the French revolution of 1789. The spirit which reigns in it is the spirit of democracy, as is shown, beyond a doubt, by the establishment of a single chamber and the suspensive veto.

—Once on the throne again, Ferdinand VII. re-established the ancient régime pure and simple. A military insurrection in 1820 restored a breath of life to the liberal system, which in 1823 fell a second time under the influence of internal dissensions, aided by the intervention of France on behalf of absolute monarchy, on which Europe looked complacently.

—It was easy to foresee, that, with the death of Ferdinand, an inevitable change would take place in the form of government. Isabella II. succeeded him, at the age of three years, under the guardianship of her mother, Maria Christina, of Naples. The infante Don Carlos, brother of the king, and representative of the party opposed to all reform, considered himself injured in his rights, and the quarrel which ensued made it necessary to strengthen the new legitimist order by the support of liberal opinions. Still, there was no thought of restoring the constitution of 1812; it was believed that the people could be satisfied with something less; and in 1834 the royal statute was promulgated and a charter granted, establishing two chambers, the one of the grandees of the nation (estamento próceres), the other of its representatives (estamento de procuradores), to whom was conceded not the initiative in the drawing up of bills, but the simple power of deliberating on those which might be presented to them by the ministers, together with an altogether derisive right of petition.

—While war desolated Spain, disorder was increased by the manœuvres of the more or less ardent partisans of political progress. In 1836, an insurrection having broken out at Granja, Maria Christina was forced to sign a decree restoring the constitution of Cadiz until such time as the nation, represented in the cortes, should reject it or frame one in harmony with the wants of the time. In 1837 the constituent chambers were assembled, and drew up a constitution very similar to that at present in force in Belgium. Later, the moderate party, having obtained power, undertook to correct, according to its doctrines, the work of the progressive party, and formed, with the assistance of the ordinary cortes, the constitution of 1845, which, with certain amendments (1857), is the constitution that continued in force until 1868, and which has a great resemblance to the French charte, amended in 1830.

X. Y.

—Spain, after the Revolution of 1868. In September, 1868, a revolution put an end to the dynasty of the Bourbons. The revolutionary juntas undertook, first of all, to secure public order, a necessity imposed on every well-organized society. It was besides necessary, for the organization and concentration of power, to establish the unity of the government, and to call on men experienced in the management of public business to take the initiative in this task. The revolutionary junta of Madrid, therefore, delegated its powers to Gen. Serrano, duke de la Torre, whom it intrusted with the formation of a provisional government. He did this by raising to the first places in the state those men who had labored for the triumph of the revolution by the sword, by their words or their acts. The provisional government convoked constituent cortes. The people hastened to the polls; universal suffrage was for Spain an accomplished fact. It was necessary, to give a legal character to the general acts of the provisional government, to establish a political constitution different from those of 1812, 1837 and 1845, and to bring it into harmony with the new wants of the nation, and the political interests of popular parties. The cortes, in a number of sessions, some of which have remained memorable, finished the task which they had undertaken, and transformed the provisional government into an executive power.

—The constitution of 1869 was the cause of great progress in political institutions. The first title provided for individual liberty, the inviolability of a man's domicile, and the secrecy of letters, unless in case of offenses punishable by law. It also accorded the right of assembling and of association for all purposes not contrary to public morals. Every Spaniard, by its terms, acquired the right of expressing his ideas and opinions freely by speech, or through the press. The right of petition was recognized as belonging to all citizens except to the army. The nation pledged itself to maintain the Catholic religion and its ministers. The free practice of every other religion, in public or private, within the bounds prescribed by the general rules of morality and law, was guaranteed to all foreigners living in Spain. This provision applies to Spaniards professing a religion different from the Catholic.

—That constitution guaranteed liberty of the press, and abolished its preliminary censure, etc. It allowed any one to found schools without the permission of the authorities. An important provision is that abolishing the requirement of a special permission to summon before the ordinary tribunals, public officials for any kind of misdemeanor. In case of a clear and evident violation of the provisions of the constitution, the official can not shield himself against responsibility by alleging an order emanating from his superiors.

—Every Spaniard is obliged to take up arms in defense of his country whenever called upon to do so by law; to contribute to the expenses of the state in proportion to his means; in return he may aspire to every office and public employment, according to his merit and capacity.

—Constitutional guarantees can not be suspended in the whole or in any part of the kingdom unless by law and for a given time, in extraordinary circumstances, and when demanded by public safety. Except in those extreme cases in which public safety might be endangered, the government has neither the right to exile nor to transport a Spanish citizen, nor to remove him farther than 250 kilometres from his domicile.

—It is provided that every association, which, by its object or by the means which it employs, imperils the security of the state, shall be dissolved by law.

—The constitution recognizes three public powers: the legislative power, the executive power and the judicial power. Sovereignty resides essentially in the nation, from which all powers emanate. The cortes make the laws; the king sanctions and promulgates them. The cortes are composed of two legislative assemblies, the senate and the congress (chamber of deputies), equal in power, except that the popular chamber has the priority in all discussions relative to taxation, public credit and recruiting. Congress is renewed every three years, and one-fourth of the senate during the same period. The cortes must remain in session at least four months each year, not including the time spent in organizing. They must be convoked before Feb. 1. Senators and deputies can not be arrested nor called before the courts during the time in which the cortes are in session, without the permission of the legislative body of which they form a part, except in case they are taken flagrante delicto. The cortes have the right to appoint or to discharge, at will, the members of the court of accounts of the kingdom. In the case in which, in accordance with the vote of the congress, there is occasion to impeach a minister or a ministry, the senate constitutes itself a court of justice. In this case the chamber of deputies chooses a commission intrusted with conducting the impeachment. This commission and the members impeached may challenge one-third of the senators called to sit in judgment; the latter can not be chosen except from senators who have entered on their duties before the impeachment of the ministers.

—Deputies are elected by universal suffrage. Every Spaniard aged twenty-five years, not having been sentenced for any crime, is a voter, and eligible to office. Election in two degrees is resorted to in the case of senators: they are nominated by commissioners chosen by universal suffrage, and by the members of the deputations or provincial assemblies.

—King Amadeus, son of the King of Italy (duke of Aosta), was elected by 195 votes in the session of Nov. 19, 1869, and on Feb. 2 following he made his solemn entry into Madrid. The same day the regent of the kingdom resigned his powers into the hands of the assembly, and the king took the oath of fidelity to the constitution before the president, Don Manuel Ruiz Zorilla. The cortes pronounced their own dissolution in their capacity of constituent cortes.

F. H.

—Republic of 1874. The reign of King Amadeus lasted only until Feb. 10, 1873. A royal message explained the reason of the abdication. On Feb. 11 of the same year the cortes accepted the abdication, by 256 votes against 32, and proclaimed the republic. A deputation accompanied the king and his family to the frontiers.

M. B.

—Restoration of the Monarchy in 1874, and present Constitution. At the beginning of 1874 the republic was set aside by Serrano's regency. In the meantime the uprising in favor of Don Carlos had assumed greater dimensions. A dislike for the latter, and a desire for quiet and an orderly state of things, rendered the return of the younger branch of the Bourbons to the throne possible. Alfonso XII., son of Queen Isabella, and her husband. Francis de Assisi, was proclaimed king. Dec. 30, 1874, and he succeeded in again restoring the monarchy to an orderly state.

—The present constitution of Spain, drawn up by the government, and laid before a cortes constituyentes, elected for its ratification March 27, 1876, was proclaimed June 30, 1876. It consists of seventy-nine articles or clauses. The first of them enacts that Spain shall be a constitutional monarchy, the executive authority resting in the king, and all power to make the laws "in the cortes with the king". The cortes are composed of a senate and congress, equal in authority. There are three classes of senators: first, senators by their own right, or senadores de derecho propio; secondly, 100 life senators, nominated by the crown; and thirdly, 130 senators, elected by the corporations of state, and by the largest payers of contributions. Senators in their own right are the sons, if any, of the king and of the immediate heir to the throne, who have attained their majority; grandees, who are so in their own right, and who can prove an annual renta of 60,000 pesetas, or £2,400, captains general of the army; admirals of the navy; the patriarch of the Indias and the archbishops; the presidents of the council of state, of the supreme tribunal, and of the tribunal of cuentas del reino. The elective senators must be renewed by one-half every five years, and by totality every time the king dissolves that part of the cortes. The congress is formed by deputies "named in the electoral juntas in the form the law determines", in the proportion of one to every 50,000 souls of the population. By a royal decree issued Aug. 8, 1878, the island of Cuba received the privilege of sending deputies to the cortes, in the proportion of one to every 40,000 free inhabitants, paying 125 pesetas, annually, in taxes. Members of congress must be twenty-five years of age; they are re-eligible indefinitely, the elections being for five years. The deputies can not take state office, pensions and salaries; but the ministers are exempted from this law. Both congress and senate meet every year. The king has the power of convoking, suspending or dissolving them; but in the latter case a new cortes must sit within three months. The king appoints the president and vice-president of the senate from members of the senate only. The king and each of the legislative chambers can take the initiative in the laws.

—The constitution of June 30, 1876, further enacts that the king is inviolable, but his ministers are responsible, and that all his decrees must be countersigned by one of them. The cortes must approve his marriage before he can contract it, and the king can not marry any one excluded by law from the succession to the crown. Should the lines of the legitimate descendants of Altonso XII. become extinct, the succession shall be in this order: first to his sisters; next to his aunt, and her legitimate descendants; and next to his uncles, the brothers of a Ferdinando VII., "unless they have been excluded". If all the lines become extinct, "the nation will elect its monarch".

—The executive power is vested, under the king, in a council of ministers of nine members.

F. M.

—II. Administrative Organization. The administration has been entirely remodeled since 1868: centralization has given place to self-government. The government, the provincial assemblies and the municipalities (ayuntamientos) constitute the three degrees of the administration. The government, in conjunction with the cortes, administers and executes the laws. The provincial assemblies have within their jurisdiction benevolent institutions, prisons, education, roads, canals; they have the initiative in all projects of public utility within their respective boundaries. The municipalities with their juntas of associates, have within their jurisdiction the tribunals of the justices of the peace, the colleges and free universities, and the levying of taxes; and are really sovereigns within the limits fixed by the law.

—The constitution of 1869 has defined these limits by regulating the laws creating these different bodies according to the following principles. 1, the government and management of the local affairs of the province by local provincial corporations; 2, publicity of the sessions of each corporation; 3, the publication of budgets, financial management, and the most important decisions; 4, interference by the king, or, in default of the king, by the cortes, to prevent the provincial and municipal assemblies from exceeding their powers, to the prejudice of general and permanent interests; 5, verification of their resources arising from taxation, to prevent the provinces and the municipalities from coming into opposition with the financial system of the state.

—Municipal assemblies, elected by universal suffrage, and whose councilors elect the alcalde, previously appointed by the governors or the king, may establish hospitals, almshouses, lying-in-hospitals and colleges, and regulate everything capable of contributing to the scientific, industrial and progressive movement of the locality.

—The provincial assemblies form a species of congress. Provinces, whose population does not exceed 150,000 inhabitants, have twenty-five deputies, and one more for each 10,000 up to 300,000; those which reach this figure have forty deputies, and an additional one for every 25,000 inhabitants; those which have 500,000 inhabitants have forty-eight deputies, and an additional one for every 50,000 inhabitants. Permanent provincial commissions are chosen from these assemblies, and renewed every year. Provincial assemblies hold two sessions, one in the month of April, and the other in November, to regulate and discuss the budget, to balance the preceding budget, and to perform all acts within their competence. The permanent commission has charge of the execution of the decisions of the assembly, decides urgent questions which may arise in the interval of the sessions, on condition that these decisions shall be submitted to the approval of the provincial assembly at its earliest meeting. The provincial assemblies, as well as the municipal councils, can exercise their functions only within the precise limits assigned them by the laws. The wants of each province, not within the exclusive jurisdiction of the state, are regulated by the provincial assemblies. Those which are special to each municipality are within the jurisdiction of the municipal councils.

—Political questions are forbidden to the two assemblies. Consequently the government has a representative in each province, the civil governor, to prevent the municipal and provincial assemblies from exceeding their powers. Thus functionary, essentially political, and liable to be removed by the government, supervises, in its name, the execution of the laws, and presides over the provincial assemblies. He has power to suspend their decisions, rendering, at the same time, an account of his acts to the government which, on the advice of the council of state, confirms or rejects his decrees of suspension. The civil governor has, within his sphere of action, political affairs, the public safety, the postal service and telegraphs, economic establishments (agricultural, industry, commercial and others), custom house guards for the prevention of fraud, the civil guard for the protection of persons, and the inspectors charged with the maintenance of public order. We thus see that in the civil order no functionary has so much power and responsibility as the governor.

—There are in Spain 9,361 municipal districts, with an equal number of councils. There are as many provincial assemblies as provinces, with the exception of the Basque Provinces, which, in virtue of their fueros (franchises), have a general assembly that is renewed every three years. These fueros were confirmed in 1839, at first by the general-in-chief, Baldomero Espartero, prince of Vergara, afterward by the national cortes. They (thefueros, or franchises) consist in the exemption from personal tax, from the tobacco monopoly and from stamped paper. They compensate for the exemption from customs by a voluntary gift of three millions of reals each year, for everything which these provinces import or export without being subject to governmental inspection.

—Navarre also possesses franchises (fueros) which were limited by the law of Aug. 16, 1814 since that year this province is subject, like others, to a direct tax.

—One of the most important privileges enjoyed by the Basque provinces is the exemption from military service. But, when the country has to carry on a national war, they are obliged to furnish a division, armed and equipped at their own expense, to defend the honor of the Spanish flag, which they did in the African war and the Cuban expedition.

—Public education, in so far as it relates not only to elementary instruction but to middle-class schools, is placed entirely in charge of the municipal councils and the provincial assemblies. It is true that the law requires conditions of fitness for the masters and professors, but it is the assemblies which pay them. The state reserve to itself the universities, the high schools and special schools, without prejudice to establishments of the same kind, founded to compete with those of the state, by virtue of freedom of instruction. The clergy maintain seminaries for the instruction of young men intended for the priesthood.

—III. Judicial Organization. The judicial organization corresponds to the requirements of civil and criminal justice. Its tribunals are classified as follows: 1. municipal tribunals, or justice of the peace; 2, tribunals of the first resort; 3, courts of appeal; 4, supreme court (court of cassation). Justices of the peace are intrusted with all registers of the civil state and of marriages. Formerly, marriage was exclusively canonical, and could only be contracted before the priest of the parish and witnesses. The proclamation of civil liberty has authorized civil marriage contracted before the municipal officer, leaving to Catholic couples the right of converting the civil contract into a sacrament at the church. Disputes of voluntary jurisdiction are brought in the first instance before justices of the peace, whose duty it is to conciliate the litigants. No case can be brought before the tribunals without having been submitted previously to the tribunal of conciliation. Judges of courts of first resort decide all civil and criminal questions, concerning which they pronounce decisions, supported by reasons and considerations. Audiences are courts of appeal, before which are brought the decisions and sentences of the lower tribunals, and which have to pronounce opinions in criminal cases. The supreme court of justice, or court of cassation, decides questions of jurisdiction, appeals in cassation, and abuses of power; and fixes the common law of the land by its decisions, published in the official journal of the government. There are fifteen audiences (courts of appeal), 548 tribunals of the first resort, and as many of justices of the peace as there are districts administered by alcades.

—Individual rights being incompatible with the policy of prevention, it was necessary to replace the latter by the repressive system, which can only be properly exercised by tribunals to insure all the certainty and publicity which the legal proceedings and the judicial decisions require. The organic law of the tribunals, voted by the constituent cortes, in establishing a new system, the system of the municipal tribunals, courts of investigation, courts of apportionment, courts of appeal, and the supreme court, separated the magistracy of the bench from that of the public prosecutor, by conferring permanence of tenure on the former. The progress of juridical science and the organization of justice in other countries rendered this classification and this distinction between magisterial functions necessary. Every judicial sentence must be pronounced in open court. Trial by jury exists in Spain.

—The court of accounts, whose members are chosen by the cortes, is charged with auditing the accounts of the state, the provinces and municipal districts, when the amount reaches a given sum. This court is placed under the supervision and inspection of the two legislative assemblies, and no deputy or senator can be a member of it. Jurisdiction in case of disputes between the administration and private persons, formerly belonged to the provincial councils and the council of state; it belongs now to the authority of the audiences, and to the fourth chamber of the supreme court of justice.

—The army is subject to a special jurisdiction for offenses and misdemeanors committed by the accused in their military capacity. Jurisdiction belongs, according to the case, either to a council of war, or to the supreme council.

—The tribunal of the rota takes cognizance of all ecclesiastical or religious cases which concern Catholics or ministers of worship.

—IV. Ecclesiastical Organization. The ecclesiastical organization consists of the papal nuncio, who is not only the representative of the holy see, but also president of the tribunal of the rota; the archbishop and bishops, chapters and parishes. The archbishops of Spain are nine in number. The archbishop of Toledo is considered primate of the church. The transmarine provinces have two archbishops, one at Santiago de Cuba (Havana), and the other at Manilla (Philippine islands). The peninsula has forty-four suffragan bishops, Cuba two, Porto Rico one, and the Philippines four. Ecclesiastical administration is the only one which does not correspond to the civil divisions of the country; it has retained its ancient boundaries. Certain provinces contain three or four bishops; on the other hand, there are provinces which form parts of several bishoprics, and certain bishoprics have parishes in four, five and even eight different provinces. The number of parishes is 19,397 in Spain, and 603 in the transmarine provinces; altogether, 20,000 parishes. According to the new concordat, eight bishoprics were suppressed, and two created, one at Madrid, the other at Ciudad-Real.

—The budget of public worship amounts to about fifty millions of francs. The cortes, with the view of reconciling the interests of the treasury with the wants of the church, decided that the municipalities and the provincial deputations should bear a part of the expenditures for worship and the salaries of clergymen; the state contributed its share by an annual subsidy of thirty millions of francs. The ecclesiastical expenditures in each parish are not to exceed 2, fr. 50 cent. for each inhabitant. When this sum is exceeded, the state pays the difference.

—The chapters are organized in the following manner: a dean, four canons in office, a greater or less number of canons freely elected by the crown, the pope or the prelates, and, finally, beneficed canons appointed in each cathedral according to the needs of worship. The seminaries for the higher education of the clergy are supported by the chapters. There are religious corporations in Spain devoted exclusively to civil education; such are the Escolapian Fathers.

—The clergy enjoy the same political rights as other citizens. Priests may express their ideas freely, by speech or through the press, may take part in all associations, and vote in the electoral colleges. If guilty of any misdemeanor, they are tried in accordance with the provisions of the penal code; offenses against canonical rules are tried by prelates. The state does not interfere in affairs of the church, except when they are of a nature to affect public tranquility and with a view to the legitimate defense of national institutions. The constituent cortes of 1869 subjected ecclesiastics to the oath which is considered a condition preliminary to the payment of the salaries assigned them as public functionaries. The clergy not wishing, in the great majority of cases, to submit to this formality, the payment of these ecclesiastical salaries was suspended. According to the terms of the new law on the clergy and worship, the oath of allegiance to the fundamental law of the kingdom was declared necessary.

FAUSTINO HERNANDO.

—V. Public Charity.112 From remote ages numerous institutions, established and maintained by Christian charity, existed in the peninsula. In the thirteenth century the knights of the order of St. James had hospitals for the pilgrims visiting the apostle-patron of Spain, and the first monks dispensed a generous hospitality. Later, alms and rich legacies furnished the means of founding great hospitals, which the bishops supported so freely with their revenues that these revenues could be considered as savings banks for the poor. At present, charity is regulated in Spain by the law of June 20, 1849, supplemented by general regulation. Charity is considered as public when it is supported by the revenues of the state or the product of taxation, and as private when it is carried on exclusively at the expense of foundations.

—Public establishments are classed as general, departmental and communal. General establishments are those for the insane, deaf mutes, the blind, and the incurable. The law puts hospitals, houses of refuge, lying-in hospitals and foundling hospitals in charge of the departments; and small hospitals, provisional almshouses, ambulances, domiciliary aid and asylums in charge of the communes. According to the law of June 20, 1849, the state is obliged to support at least two hospitals for the blind, two for deaf mutes, and eighteen for incurables and the infirm old.

—The general direction of public charity belongs to the ministry of the interior (de gobernacion); it is exercised through the agency of the governors (perfects) and councils of provincial and communal charity. At Madrid there is a central general council. The departmental and local councils supervise the administration of hospitals, public as well as private, and report violations of the law to the governors. It is their duty to audit the annual accounts and budgets, and provide for deficits in case of necessity.

—Private as well as public charitable institutions are subject to such visits as the president of the central council or the governor may prescribe. They are obliged to report their economic condition, and all papers and documents which concern their administration. Bishops have also the right of visiting institutions of charity in their dioceses, and of reporting such observations to the governors or to the central council as these visits suggests to them.

—The functions of the committees of administration and of the councils of supervision of charitable institutions are performed gratuitously, except those of the secretary. There are also committees of ladies for foundling hospitals and lying in hospitals, and brotherhoods for the assistance of the poor.

—The resources of institutions of charity consist of the revenues from their property; and when these are sold, of the interest on state bonds, as well as alms, gifts, legacies, collections and grants voted in the general budgets, departmental as well as communal. The government has the right to create or suppress institutions of charity, but only after having taken the advice of the committee of supervision of the department, of the central council and the council of state. There is reason to believe that the sum employed by private charity greatly exceeds the total of public charity.

COUNT DE RIPALDA.

—VI. Public Instruction. Spain attracted attention, in the middle ages, by her love for the sciences, and the success with which they were cultivated in her ancient universities. Salamanca was, with Paris, Oxford and Boulogne, one of the great lights of Christian civilization. Universities constituted, in Spain, a species of scientific and literary municipalities, as the guilds did industrial and commercial municipalities. Kings founded some, endowed others, protected all, recompensing with a liberal hand their masters and doctors, and placing them by honorable privileges in the same rank with the nobility. In consequence of the powerful influence of the court of Rome and the eclat and great honor and profit attaching to ecclesiastical studies, instruction had fallen into the hands of the clergy, and, in the collation of academic grades, the pontifical authority was on a level with that of the king. At the period of the political regeneration of Spain, the government undertook the secularization of studies, by opening the universities to modern sciences, and appointing lay professors. The bishops, nevertheless, retained an indirect right of interference, as guardians of the purity of the faith and of good morals.

—There are three grades of instruction: primary, intermediate, and academic instruction. The first is supported mainly by the ayuntamientos (municipalities), which are obliged to support one or more schools for boys and girls, in proportion to their population and resources. Every agglomeration of persons, consisting of more than 500 souls, must have a school for boys completely organized, and a school for girls. Those which do not reach this number are grouped together to form a district, provided with an elementary school. The government devotes a certain sum each year to aid poor municipalities. The law declares as "civilly obligatory" the moral duty of parents, guardians and trustees to give their children or their wards primary instruction from the age of six to nine years, charging the alcades or mayors to see to this. Ordinary instruction is paid for; it is gratuitous only for the children of parents too poor to pay the small fee charged. No one may perform the duties of teacher without having obtained a diploma given by the government on receiving specific guarantees of capacity and morality; this applies also to private schools. The law favors the establishment of asylums (parrulos) and institutions for the blind, and for deaf mutes.

—In 1867 there were about 22,000 public schools (including 1,021 schools for adults and 282 asylums), with more than 1,200,000 pupils; and 4,218 private schools, with 198,943 pupils. Of these 1,400,000 pupils, there were 830,000 boys and more than 550,000 girls. In 1872 Spain had, for primary instruction, 24,144 public and 4,188 private schools, forming a total of 28,332, attended by 1,425,339 pupils of both sexes, about 9.1 per cent. of the inhabitants.

—Intermediate instructions is given in institutes founded in each capital of a province, and in every other city which has obtained the authorization of the central power to establish such an institution. These cities must have shown the convenience and feasibility of founding such an institute, and that they have satisfied the laws relating to primary instruction. There are also institutes founded and directed by private persons, according to the laws and regulations of the state, for this degree of instruction. The following figures are official. The number of students in the sixty five colleges and institutes were: in 1865-6, 10, 164; 1866-7, 6,688; 1867-8, 6,385; in private institutions, during the same years: 13,576, 18,335, 18,903 pupils; home instruction was enjoyed by 2,695, 1,936, 3,410 pupils. Secondary instruction has forty-six official and a great number of free establishments, with 20,000 students.

—Academic studies are pursued in the universities under the immediate direction of the deans and rectors appointed by the head of the state. There are ten universities in Spain—an excessive number, difficult to reduce, because each finds certain good means of self-defense, either in its past glories, or its distance from every other literacy centre; in the number of people who surround and frequent them, or in the wishes of the cities in which they are situated, and which consider them as property belonging to them and which can not be removed without injustice. Each of the universities has a number of faculties; that of Madrid, in the centre of the country, the first in Spain in dignity and splendor, has them all; it alone is able to continue or extend studies which qualify one for the degree of doctor. University studies are pursued only in state institutions. The whole number of students was, in 1866, 16,545; in 1867, only 12,104; in 1868, 12,269. In 1872, 12,269 students received matriculation in the universities of the state.

—There are, besides, higher and professional studies. To the first belong the schools of bridges and roads, of mines, agriculture, industry, fine arts, diplomacy and the notariado. To the second, those of commerce, navigation, veterinary art, overseers (maestros de obras) machanics (aparejadores) and surveyors; and, finally, there are normal schools.

—Such is a picture of public instruction in Spain, according to the law of Sept. 9, 1857. It is completed by the protection and subsidies given to the academies, libraries, archives and museums, as a means of promoting the progress of science. The government supports the ten universities and other institutions of public utility; the provines and municipalities contribute 1,500,000 reals to the maintenance of the archives and libraries, and to the development of higher and professional education. The sixty-three subsidized institutions of secondary education cost 7,560,000 reals. The income from academic dues amounts to 1,260,000 reals, the rents to 900,000, and the deficits covered by the provinces and municipalities to 5,400,000 reals. The treasury spends two millions of reals in subsidies to provincial institutions and special schools, as well as for archives and libraries.113

MANUEL COLMEIRO.

—VII. Finances. The constitution of 1869 provided, that, in the ten days following the opening of the cortes, which takes place Feb. 1 of each year, the budgets of receipts and expenditures shall be presented, and that in no case, and under no pretext, shall any payment be made, unless authorized by law, and ordered by the minister of finance. All the laws relative to public receipts and expenditures are considered as forming a part of the budget, and are published under the same heading. All the discussions to which it gives rise, and, in general, all the questions in which the interests of tax payers are involved, must be first laid before the chamber of deputies, and, in, case of disagreement between it and the senate, the opinion of the chamber prevails.

—As it may happen that the cortes can not always discuss and approve the budget and authorize the collection of taxes, either on account of the numerical insufficiency of the deputies present, or in consequence of the closing of the legislative session, or for any other cause dependent on circumstances, the constituent cortes have decided, that, if deputies and senators, having met together at the place appointed by the constitution, neglect to vote the taxes, the receipts and expenditures shall be made in accordance with the conditions established by the budget of the preceding year.

—This provision has been criticised. Many think that it destroys the constitutional principle, according to which no one is obliged to pay a tax not voted by the cortes, or the collection of which does not take place according to the forms prescribed by law. "According to the same principle, every public functionary, who seeks to exact or exacts payment of tax not regularly authorized, is liable to the punishment provided for illegal exactions." There are also persons who consider this provision contrary to the rights of legislative power. But on examining the question dispassionately, it is clear that this article is simply a complement of the fundamental law, and is applicable only in cases, really very rare, which the cortes could not or would not vote the taxes and authorize their payment. In other words, it is a law dictated by foresight, a conditional law, to meet cases in which the article of the constitution in question can not be carried out. It is in no way opposed by the prerogatives of the cortes, its action is to avoid continuing political parties in power indefinitely; it establishes merely a common rule for the administration, the government and the country, so that these three moral powers may always continue living and active. The administration makes its action felt in all parts of the social body, the government supervises all, and the country pursues its labors, trusting confidently in the public powers.

—But to return to the budget. Each ministry fixes the budget of the expenditures of its own department, and presents it to the minister of finances, who alone has authority to lay it before the cortes, accompanied by a statement of the receipts, that is to say, the means of meeting all obligations. The budget is divided into two parts: the ordinary and the extraordinary. The first includes the expenditures and receipts which have a permanent character, though their amount may be variable. The second includes the transient or temporary receipts and expenditures. They are both divided into chapters, comprising all accounts of the same nature, and then divided into as many headings as are necessary for the determination of all details. As regards the budget, there are general and constant rules, sanctioned by time and by the laws.1, the government can neither suppress nor modify the receipts voted by parliament, nor decree new ones; 2, it can not apply funds to any other use than that determined by the law; 3, the budget extends over one year, from July 1 to June 30, inclusive; accounts remain open for the following six months, for final settlement, for the collection of outstanding sums, and the expenditures voted for the said year; 4, in case it is necessary to incur expenditure for which the legislature has provided no credit, or when the sum granted is insufficient the government must, in the former case, ask the cortes for an extraordinary credit, and, in the latter, an additional credit, stating the means of covering it; 5, if the cortes are not in session, and if the expenditure for which a credit has not been votes has a character of urgency, the government may authorize it, on its own responsibility, either by transferring a credit from one chapter to another in the section to which the expenditure belongs, after having first informed the financial section of the council of state of its action, and deliberated upon it in the council of ministers, or by an extraordinary or a supplementary credit, covered (the council of state consenting) by the fund of the floating debt of the treasury; 6, the government is obliged to lay before the cortes, during the first month of the session, a bill approving the credits made during their absence: 7, every head of a department, and every functionary, to whatever class he may belong, is responsible to the treasury for every amount paid beyond the credit granted; 8, payments are made every month, after the approval of the council of ministers. Besides these financial rules recommended by legislation, there are others whose utility has been recognized in recent years and which have at present the force of law. They are the following. 1, in each law relating to the finances, the sum which the floating debt of the treasury should reach during the year must be indicated in precise manner—it constitutes, ordinarily, the third of the general budget; 2, the government should transmit to the court of accounts all the documents drawn up for the purpose of procuring funds, so that if the court discovers any illegality in them, it may report such irregularity immediately to the cortes, 3, the same court has to examine the grant or grants of credit, and give its opinion on their legality. The ministers are responsible, and are subject to criminal prosecution for any collection of money not authorized by the cortes. Each minister orders the expenditures of his own department; but the orders for payment are made by the minister of finance, except so far as concern the expenditures of the ministry of war and marine, considered as military bodies. These two ministries are responsible for all payments unduly made, unless the ministry of finance declares them valid. No court can issue a writ of attachment or an execution on funds of the state, either capital or interest. Every sum due by the state, recognized and audited, the payment of which is not demanded for five years, is confiscated to the benefit of the treasury

RUIZ GOMEZ.

—There have been no accounts of the actual public revenue and expenditure of the kingdom published since the year 1870-71, but only budget estimates. These differ, as will be seen from the subjoined tabular statement, giving the budget estimates of five financial periods, to an extent such as to allow not even an approximate judgment of the real receipts and disbursements. There are, indeed, accounts of public revenue and expenditure published monthly; but the public accounts have not been approved by parliament since 1865-7; and the tribunal de cuentas has not audited the accounts later than 1868-9. According to official returns, the following were the estimated revenue and expenditure for the financial years 1877-82:

—The following are the budget estimates for the year ending June 30, 1883:

REVENUE
	Pesetas.
Direct taxes...	230,979,000
Indirect taxes...	164,409,000
Customs...	115,458,000
Stamps and excise...	221,585,000
Revenue from national property...	28,860,225
Various...	21,706,000
Total...	782,997,225

EXPENDITURE
Civil list...	9,800,000
Cortes...	1,859,250
Public debt...	223,023,056
Indemnitioes and pensions...	47,750,065
Ministry of president of council...	1,101,600
Ministry of foreign affairs...	3,580,900
Ministry of justice...	51,625,675
Ministry of war...	126,272,700
Ministry of marine...	36,127,300
Ministry of interior...	45,369,000
Ministry of public works...	90,117,400
Ministry of finance...	20,531,925
State monopolies...	124,957,875
Various...	522,520
Total...	782,639,250

—The minister of finance declared, in presenting the budget for 1871-2, that the state was "on the verge of bankruptcy," from which it could be saved only "by the most strenuous exertions, devoted both to raise the revenue, by the imposition of new taxes and otherwise, and to depress the expenditure to the lowest possible point." The latter recommendation has in recent years become difficult of execution, on account of the large expenditure connected with the civil war. In the budget for 1870-71 the cost of the war department was estimated at £4,730,321, while it was set down in 1874-5 at £9,840,000 being about one-half of the total revenue which it was expected would be raised. But the army expenditure fell again to under five millions in the budget of 1877-8, and remained the same in the budgets of 1878-82. Although in 1881-2 the budget estimate of the revenue was £31,320,000, and the expenditure $31,306,000, still, as in previous years, there was a large deficit, and in October, 1881, the minister of finance spoke in strong terms of the mismanagement of his predecessors, and proposed a new basis of financial administration, by which to rectify past deficiencies and secure a surplus in the future. He proposed, as seen above, a budget for 1882-3, with a revenue of 782,997,223 pesetas, and an expenditure of 782,639,250 pesetas. Efforts were made again, in preparing the budget for 1883-4, to adopt extraordinary means to increase the revenue, but without satisfactory results.

—The large and constantly increasing annual deficits, dating from the reign of Queen Isabel, were covered, partly by loans, partly by extraordinary taxation (such as "exemptions from military service," figuring in the budget of 1874-5), and partly by the sale of national property, formerly belonging to churches, convents and monasteries.

—The following is a statement of the Spanish debt on Sept. 1, 1881:

	Pesetas.
5 per cent. consolidated, due to United States	3,000,000
3 " consolidated, due to Denmark...	3,250,000
1 " external debt...	4,092,894,000
1 " internal debt...	3,245,160,194
1 " bonds inscribed in favor of corporations...	20,784,433
1 " bonds inscribed in favor of clergy	14,332,005
2 " bonds for public works...	21,578,000
2 " subventions to railways...	614,409,000
Old debts convertible into internal 3 per cents	204,088,175
2 per cent. external redeemable debt...	254,402,000
2 " internal redeemable debt...	471,647,821
1 " bills...	170,326
Arrears...	9,567,895
3 per cent. securities of guarantees...	2,685,486,250
Total...	12,503,327,576

—In a report of the government of the king Alfonso XII., dated July, 1875, it was stated that none of the national creditors could hope to be satisfied "without having recourse to credit operations at an enormous rate of interest, which in a short time doubles the original debt." By a complicated process of conversion, arranged in 1881-2, the various classes of Spanish debt are to be converted into "new 4 per cents," where by the actual capital will probably be reduced to £338,000,000 bearing an annual charge of £9,500,000, equal to about 11s. per head of the population. In addition to this, the state has incurred obligations in respect to the island of Cuba, estimated at over £10,000,000.

F. M.

—VIII. Army and Navy. The Spanish army was composed, in 1874, of 70,000 infantry, 13,000 cavalry, 3,000 engineers, 14,000 artillery; besides 40,000 infantry of the reserve, 12,000 custom house employés, 12,000 police and 3,000 militia of the Canary islands. In these figures are not included the 23,000 to 24,000 men of all arms then garrisoned in Cuba, the 3,400 at Port Rico, and the 11,000 of the Philippine islands.

—The law of February, 1873, on the reorganization of the army abolished conscription by lot, and replaced it by voluntary recruitment. The recruitment takes place in the capitals of the provinces, in proportions to be fixed annually by a special law of the cortes. The voluntary recruit must not be less than nineteen nor more than forty years of age. The duration of service is two years for a new recruit, and one in case of re-enlistment, with a chance for the recruit of remaining for life in the active army, and enjoying the benefit of promotion in the order of merit and seniority. Voluntary recruits receive pay amounting to one piécette (1 franc) per day, payable weekly. The reserve (which remains at home) comprises all young men who, on the first of January of each year, shall have completed their twentieth year. The government may mobilize the reserve forces within the limits of the province to which they respectively belong, by a simple decree of the government; it may also mobilize them in their respective military districts, by decree, when the cortes are not in session; but in this case the government must inform the assembly as soon as it resumes its labors. In all other cases mobilization can take place only by virtue of a law.

—The requirement of a certain stature, as a condition for military service, is abolished in the regular army; it is only necessary to show that the recruit is sufficiently strong and robust in health to form a part of the military force. Voluntary recruits for the active army are exempt from the reserve. The term of service in the reserve is three years. The first year is spent in the ranks, to receive military instruction. During the other two years, young men enrolled in the reserve may be called to active service, in case of war, in which contingency a law of the cortes is necessary. Young men of seventeen years may also be admitted into the reserve, if their physical constitution permits them to enter the service.

—Instruction is given to soldiers of the infantry, artillery and engineers, by the officers of the corps; but the cavalry must pass through training institutions. In each corps there are schools for soldiers, non-commissioned officers, and officers, in which they are instructed in their own duties and in those of the grade immediately above them. In the infantry cadets are admitted, whom an officer instructs in the branches necessary to pass the examination as sub-lieutenants. The places of sub-lieutenant not filled by non-commissioned officers and cadets, are reserved for the graduates of the infantry college at Toledo. These graduates, admitted at the age of fourteen or fifteen years, remain, after examination, three years at school, then enter the regiments, where they pass successively, in the course of six months, through all the inferior grades, before they are appointed sub-lieutenants. A similar college exists at Valladolid for the cavalry: the graduates follow the same course to become cornets. The artillery has its college at Segovia, the students (who lodge there as in the preceding two) remain four years, at the end of which time they become attendants of the school of application, from which, after two years, they issue as lieutenants of the corps. The school of engineering is at Guadalajara. Applicants for admission must be from sixteen to twenty-five years of age, and pass an examination to enter as day scholars, according to their merit, either in the preparatory course, or in that of the first year. After the course of the second year, those not already occupying that rank are made sub-lieutenants; after four years they obtain the grade of lieutenant. For the staff school, situated at Madrid, the conditions are nearly the same as for the school of engineering. At the end of four years the lieutenants pass into the infantry, then into the cavalry, in order to familiarize themselves during fifteen months with all the details and accounts; they visit the different military establishments during six months, before receiving their final appointment. There is also a college at Madrid for aspirants to employment in military administration; the course there lasts four years.

—Justice is administered, in the case of soldiers, by military councils of war, presided over by commanders of corps, or the local governor, according to circumstances, and composed of six members. The sentence is laid before the captain general, who, aided by his auditor, affirms or reverses it; in the latter case it is referred to the supreme tribunal of the army and navy. In the case of officers, the council is composed of general officers, and presided over by the captain general, assisted by the auditor, who does not, however, take part in the deliberations. The head of the state decides in the last resort, on the advice of the supreme tribunal. The sentence may be carried into immediate execution, and without appeal, if it does not involve loss of employment or life; nevertheless, it is always submitted to the approval of the chief of the state. Offenses and ordinary misdemeanors are judged by the captain general, assisted by his auditor; the case is then presented to the king. Directors general may order investigations against officers; they then present the case to the king, who decides, with the advice of the supreme tribunal. The artillery, engineers and the military administration have special tribunals. Besides the auditor and the procurator connected with the chief towns of the district, the military governors are obliged to consult an assessor.114

—The navy consisted, according to official returns, of the following vessels afloat and under construction, in 1882

		Guns.
First Class:
5	ironclad frigates...	60
12	screw frigates...	228
2	paddle steamers...	9
Second Class:
5	paddle steamers...	12
11	screw steamers...	39
2	screw transports...	4
Third Class:
1	ironclad monitor...	3
2	floating batteries...	5
19	screw steamers...	35
26	screw gunboats...	26
1	paddle gunboat...	1
7	paddle steamers...	14
1	screw transport...	2
4	pilot sailing vessels...	...
Unclassified:
1	steamer...	2
2	cadet corvettes...	40
29	small screw gunboats...	37
2	torpedo boats...	...
132	Vessels. Total guns...	517
Total horse power of engines, 26,067.

—The navy of Spain was manned, in 1879, by 14,000 sailors, and 7,033 marines, and commanded by one admiral, seven rice and rear admirals, and 644 commissioned officers of various grades. The navy, like the army, is recruited by conscription, naval districts for this purpose being formed along the coast, among the seafaring population. The number inscribed on these naval conscription lists of men between eighteen and thirty years was reported to be 72,000 at the end of June, 1875.

—IX. Resources, Trade and Industry. Agriculture is the most important branch of activity in Spain, where there is reason to believe that, of 100 inhabitants, 75 cultivate the soil. The land cultivated comprises 1,150,200 hectares of irrigated land and 25,393,637 hectares not irrigated. The Basque provinces and Navarre refuse all information on this subject. It results from these figures, and from those which may be assigned to the wooded country, that there still remain about ten million hectares upon which human industry has not yet been exercised.

—The total imports and exports of Spain were as follows, in each of the five years 1877-81:

Among the importing countries, Great Britain and France stand first; but in exports, the former holds the first rank.

—The merchant navy of the kingdom consisted, on Jan. 1, 1881, of 2,236 vessels, of a total burden of 560,125 tons, comprising 347 steamers, of 233,686 tons. At the commencement of 1860 there were 6,715 vessels, of 449,436 tons burden, and at the commencement of 1868 the number of vessels had fallen to 4,840, and the total tonnage to 367,790, showing a decrease in the eight years of 1,975 vessels, of an aggregate burden of 81,696 tons. There was an increase in tonnage, it will be seen from the preceding figures, of 192,355 tons, in the thirteen years from 1868 to 1881.

—The length of railways in Spain, on Jan. 1, 1880, was 6,550 kilometres, or 4,067 English miles; and 2,000 kilometres, or 1,242 English miles, were in course of construction. The whole of the Spanish railways belong to private companies, but nearly all have obtained guarantees, or subventions, from the government. During the reign of Alfonso alone 2,000 miles of new lines have been opened, and 3,000 more were in course of construction in 1882.

—The postoffice carried 85,210,000 letters and post cards in the year 1878. There were 2,592 postoffices on Jan. 1, 1879.

—The length of lines of state telegraphs of Spain, on Jan. 1, 1880, was 16,124 kilometres, or 10,070 English miles, and the length of wire 40,405 kilometres, or 25,150 English miles. In the year 1880 the total number of telegraph messages was 2,222,429; one-fourth of the whole number being international, and one-fifth of the remaining number administrative, dispatches.

—X. Colonies. The colonial possessions of Spain, formerly embracing nearly the whole of America, are reduced at present to Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine islands, with scattered settlements in the Atlantic and Indian archipelagos, a small strip of territory in northern Africa, and another strip claimed on the west coast of Morocco. The total area of these possessions is 164,926 English square miles. The total population, according to returns mostly for 1877-80, numbered 6,399,347. These returns state the area and population of the various possessions as follows:

The population of Cuba, at the census of Dec. 31, 1877, was distributed as follows. Whites, 764,164; free negroes, 344,050; negro slaves, 227,902; and Chinese, 58,400. The number of slaves from 1870 to 1877 decreased by 136,000. But the total number of inhabitants also decreased by 20,500 during the same period.

—Spain is the only European state which still permits the existence of slavery in its colonies. A bill for the abolition of slavery in Porto Rico was passed by the national assembly on March 23, 1873, while a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in Cuba was laid before the cortes in November, 1879, supported by the government. The bill provides, that, on the promulgation of the law embodying it, all slaves from fifty-five and upward shall become free; that slaves from fifty to fifty-five shall be liberated on Sept. 17, 1880; from forty-five to fifty, in September, 1882; from forty to forty-five, in 1884; from thirty-five to forty, in 1886; and from thirty to thirty-five in 1888. Those under thirty shall be emancipated in 1890. From 1880 a sum of 100,000 piastres was to be annually set apart in the Cuban budget for defraying the expense of the emancipation of the slaves, the price to be paid to the owners being fixed at 350 piastres for each slave.

—Cuba is divided into three provinces, the southeast and central being the richest and most populous, containing twenty-two cities and towns, and 204 villages and hamlets.

—BIBLIOGRAPHY. NiÑano, Diccionario-geografico, estadistico, historico de EspaÑa y sus provinclas de ultramar, Madrid, 1846-50; Block, L'Espagne en 1850, Paris, 1851; Lestgarens, La situation économique et industrielle de l'Espagne en 1860, Brussels, 1861; Garrido, La EspaÑa contemporanea, Barcelona, 1865; Germond de Lavigne, L'Escagne et le Portugal, Paris, 1867; Thieblin, Spain and the Spaniards, 2 vols., London, 1874; Memorias del instituto geografico y estadistico, Madrid, 1875, etc; Chervin, Statistique du mouvement de la population en Espagne de 1865 Ȓ 1869, Paris, 1876; El movemiento del estado civil in EspaÑa desde 1861 à 1870, Madrid, 1877; Guia official de EspaÑa, Madrid, 1878; Lafuente, Historia general de EspaÑa, Madrid, 1850-67, 30 vols; Tapia, Historia de la civilisazion de ExpaÑa, 7 vols., Madrid, 1861-4; Montesa y Manrique, Historia de la legislacion, etc., de EspaÑa, Madrid, 1864; Rico y Amat, Historia politica y parlamentaria de EspaÑa, 3 vols., Madrid, 1860-62; Alfaro Compendio de la Historia de EspaÑa; 3 vols., Madrid, 1862.

F. M.

SPEAKER

SPEAKER. (See PARLIAMENTARY LAW.)

SPEAKERS

SPEAKERS. (See CONGRESS, SESSIONS OF.)

SPECULATION

SPECULATION, in some form or other, has existed under every commercial system: but the forms under which it is now largely conducted, and the enormous extent of the speculative transactions, are peculiar to the present age. It is with the discussion of these forms—their character, their development, and their more immediate effects—that this article is concerned. (For the more wide-reaching effects of the speculative spirit upon credit, business and production, see articles on COMMERCIAL CRISES, and on OVER-PRODUCTION.)

—Until the present century the chief field for speculative operations was furnished by the difference of price of the same commodity in different places. Mercantile profits were made by buying in a cheap market and selling in a dear one; and with the imperfect means of communicating intelligence, and the slow and generally hazardous means of transportation, such speculations often involved great risks and offered the chance of correspondingly high profits. But the modern development of the postoffice, of steam transportation, and especially of the telegraph, changed all this. Abundance in one market, and scarcity in another, was no longer possible except on a limited scale or through artificial obstructions. The telegraph gives notice of the inequality in its first beginnings; and, long before it can reach an extreme, cargoes have been diverted from the full market to the empty one. Indications which once could be seized only by men of exceptional position and sagacity, are now the common property of the whole business public.

—But the opportunities for men of exceptional position and sagacity have been extended in another direction more than they have been curtailed here. The state of the markets at distant places may be known to every one; but it is still only the few that can foresee their state at distant times. The information that has set narrow limits to speculation in place has furnished the necessary basis to an infinitely more important and wide-reaching speculation in time. The difference in price between New York and Chicago, apart from temporary disturbing causes, can never be greater than the cost of carriage (in its widest sense) between the two places, because we have in the one place telegraphic information concerning the markets of the other. If we had the same certain knowledge of price at future times, the prices of goods to-day and a month hence could not differ by more than the cost of holding those goods for that length of time. It is, of course, impossible to have such knowledge: and the few who have the power to foresee or manipulate the course of the market are enabled to turn these price variations to their own account. Before the invention of the telegraph, such dealing in futures would have been a blind game of chance, now, there is just such a combination of indications and uncertainties as to give scope to business talent of the highest order. Here lies the explanation of what is peculiar in the speculation of the present day.

—In a healthy state of business these variations in price are not very large or rapid; often not large or rapid enough to make speculative dealings pay the interest of the capital required. But such a state of things is almost always disturbed by a sudden rise in the price of certain classes of goods, or perhaps by a general rise of prices. A sudden increase in the demand or decrease in the supply of a particular article will produce the former result; inflation of the currency, increased production of the precious metals, or, sooner or later, the unrestricted extension of business credits, will produce the latter. The holder of goods of the classes affected sees himself nominally the richer for every day that goes by, and with this apparent increase of wealth comes a desire on the part of every one to hold more goods and stocks, even if they have to borrow money to do so. This shows itself, not merely in the operations of the stock and produce exchanges, out in business speculations of every kind; most of all, perhaps, in the extension of speculative production, which lies outside the scope of the present article. This holding for a rise is the form of speculation which presents most attractions for the general public; and a speculative mania is often developed which can only end in a crisis. This mania may attach itself to particular lines of investment, as to tulips in Holland in 1634-8, to South sea bubbles in England in 1720, to manufactures in 1815 and 1825, to the English railways in 1846, or the American railways (among other things) in 1871-3. Often it may be more general in connection with the indiscriminate extension of credit, as in the years preceding 1837 and 1857; or, worse yet, in connection with currency inflation, as seen in France at the time of John Law's bank, 1718-20, in the assignats of the French revolution, or in our own recent experiences; where every exporter or importer, and indirectly, every business man, is obliged to be involved against his will in speculation on gold.

—In such speculative periods, with unsettled and generally advancing prices, the more prudent business men are thus obliged to have recourse to contracts for future delivery of goods at definite prices. The builder can not safely make a contract for a fixed sum unless he knows what his materials will cost a few months hence. The cotton manufacturer can not arrange his basis of production and scale of prices unless he knows what his raw material will cost him from time to time. If a planter or cotton factor agrees to deliver him his material from time to time at determinate prices, the manufacturer knows where he is likely to stand. Here is a transaction, speculative in form as far as concerns the broker, but in reality a defense against the evils of speculation. The manufacturer knows what he can probably afford to pay, the producer knows for what he can probably afford to sell. Of the unavoidable risk, each party takes the part concerning which he can best judge, and against which he can best protect himself. This is an exceptionally favorable case. The majority of those who sell "short," i.e., who engage to deliver goods which they do not hold, rely not so much upon sources of supply which they represent, as upon their judgment concerning the future movements of the market. Yet even in this case their influence may be healthful, and their work legitimate. It has been said that the general public is fond of speculating for a rise. Now, a man of special training, and special sources of information, can often see clearly where the general public is mistaken, and by selling short at the high prices, and obtaining the means of meeting his obligations at the lower ones, may take advantage of the public mistakes, and at the same time render a service to the market in steadying price. As transactions of this kind multiply, it is inevitable that they should fall more and more into the hands of brokers, and that these brokers should organize exchanges for the purpose of more easily dealing with one another. These last are of modern growth. The germ of the New York stock exchange seems to have existed at the close of the last century, but its regular organization dates from 1817. This Chicago produce exchange is scarcely thirty years old. These means of communication have greatly-facilitated bona fide transactions; but, with their growth, gambling transactions have grown up about them to such an extent as often to hide the bona fide transactions from view.

—The first step in this direction has been the habit of dealing upon margins; that is, of not making full payment at the time of the first engagement, but of depositing a sufficient sum to insure the broker against loss by change in the price. It is hard to draw the line where such transactions lose their bona fide character; the deposit of a margin may-simply be a convenient and perfectly legitimate way of extending business credit. But where the marginal idea is carried through the transaction, and settlement is effected, not by an actual delivery and payment, buy by a payment of the difference in price at the two periods, with no delivery at all, we have a complete departure from the original character of the transaction. It is now nothing more than a wager on the change of price of the stocks or goods in question, somewhat cloaked under the forms of legitimate business. In the next stage of speculation, by "puts," "calls," and "spreads," even these forms are cast aside. In the first of these a man buys of a broker, for a small consideration, the right to deliver a certain quantity of stock at a specified price within a specified time; in the second, he buys the right to receive it; in the third, he buys for a considerably larger price the right of delivering or receiving as he may choose. They are thus, even in form, simply wages on the price movement.

—We have spoken of the outside public as generally speculating for a rise, and the more practiced operators for a fall. Of course there are numerous exceptions to the latter; and it is precisely these exceptions, when they take the shape of corners, that make the most impression upon the public mind. In its principles a corner does not differ from any other monopoly. An individual or a ring who once secure the whole or nearly the whole marketable stock of a commodity, have, of course, the power to fix the price as long as that state of things continues. But in the case of ordinary attempts at monopoly the buyers have usually the advantage of being able to diminish their consumption for the time being, and to wait for the advent of competing sources of supply. But the bear, who has sold short, has neither of these advantages. He must deliver a fixed quantity, and must do it within a fixed time. He has no choice but to do that or fail; and the operator who can control the supply of a stock in the market for a comparatively short time can charge any one who has sold that stock short any price up to what will drive him to absolute failure. Just as it is the public fondness for speculating for a rise that makes it possible and profitable for the street to sell futures, so it is the readiness of the street to sell futures that makes it possible and profitable for large operations to engineer a corner.

—In spite of the strong impression that they make upon the public imagination, successful corners in stocks are by no means so common as is generally supposed. The important ones in New York have been the Morris canal corner of 1835, the Harlem corners of 1863 and 1864, Prairie du Chien of 1865, North-Western of 1867, and Hannibal 8 St. Joseph of 1881. Even in these it is not always certain that the bulls make the profits they appear to. For the time being they extort enormous sums; but after the settlement they find themselves holders of masses of stocks, which they have usually bought somewhat above its normal figures; and the price at which they can ultimately dispose of this stock is an important element in the question of their success. But it is extremely difficult to carry a stock corner forward to its completion. The Michigan Southern corner of 1865—apparently a very safe operation, since the cornerer was buying property which he really wanted—was broken by an issue of construction stock. So also in an attempt to corner Milwaukee 8 St. Paul, and so twice in the history of Erie. The substitution of preferred for common stock has had the same effect. A still commoner source of failure, which it is impossible to guard against, is the treachery of individual members of a cornering pool.

—Corners in produce are a growth of the most recent years; yet they already exceed stock corners in frequency, and still more in economic importance. It is but a short time since writers regarded corners in a commodity like wheat as almost an impossibility; so varied are the sources of supply, so apparently impossible is it for one man to control them. But these writers had not foreseen the development of short sales and paper contracts which should make a temporary control of a particular market so thoroughly effective toward securing this end. The extent to which speculative sales of produce have grown is almost inconceivable. The statistician of the New York produce exchange testified that nine-tenths of its dealings were purely speculative. The same fact is more strikingly brought out by a comparison of the quantities of produce actually brought to New York in 1882 with those nominally sold.

As compared with 1881 the increase in these speculative sales is probably more than one-third, while the actual quantity of products delivered has, on the whole, diminished. In fact, flour seems to be the only produce of first-rate importance which still maintains its non-speculative character. The pretended sales of wheat for 1882, as our table shows, were more than fourteen times the quantity received. The sales of cotton were five times the entire crop, fifty times the whole quantity received in New York, and two hundred times the actual deliveries in the New York market. In the oil business it has been even worse. The recorded sales in November alone amounted to nine times the entire stock in the country, or to 135 times the production for the month. (For a fuller exhibit of these facts, see "Public," Jan. 4, 1883.) In Chicago matters are almost the same—three thousand millions of sales on less than four hundred millions of produce in 1882. In Liverpool they are no better, in spite of more apparent compliance with the forms of delivery. A single consignment of a hundred bales of cotton has nominally changed hands one hundred and fifty times before sale for bona fide consumption. When the whole amount available for the year's use in Europe and America has been less than 7,000,000 bales, the year's contracts for future delivery have amounted to 80,000,000 bales. Thus Liverpool has been the centre of cotton corners in the latter half of successive years beginning in 1879, and seriously disturbing legitimate business. Meantime, we have had in America (usually centring in Chicago), the wheat corners of 1879, 1881 and 1882, the pork corner of 1879 and 1880, and more or less successful attempts at many others, scarcely less wide-reaching than these in their effects.

—The attempts to meet these evils by legislation have had little success. Legislative inquires, like that of the New York committee on corners, have proved abortive; enactments like those of Illinois in 1874 have been inoperative. Only to a limited extent have the courts been able or willing to interfere, by making it impossible for speculators to sue on their contracts. It was indeed held, in a few English cases in the early part of the country, that a contract of sale for future delivery of what a person does not now hold, was void; but in the business development and necessities of the time it was of course impossible to maintain that doctrine. It is now held, that such a contract is valid if, at the time it was made, either party intended it should be fulfilled. In order that the court should regard it as a gambling contract, it must be proved that neither party regarded it as more than a wager on price variations. But practically the courts do not do much even within these narrow limits. Unless they are supported by the public opinion of the boards of trade and similar organizations, it is in the power of these last to inflict upon any dealer who may have recourse to the courts, penalties in the way of loss of business facilities for which he can obtain no adequate compensation. Add to this, that the courts, as in a recent case in Illinois, have often shown unwillingness to enter upon the consideration of matters of this kind, and we see how inadequate are the legal defenses against the present state of things.

—The difficulty of dealing with the evils of the system is enhanced by popular ignorance as to just what the evils are, and where they really lie; and by a popular prejudice, too often embodied in legislation, against operations which are sometimes necessary, sometimes beneficial, and at the worst only indirectly responsible for the evils which have grown up in connection with them. Of such mistaken legislation a striking instance was offered in the year 1864, when speculation in gold was forbidden. The law, under the pressure of public sentiment at that time, was obeyed; but its results were the very reverse of what the public had anticipated. The event proved that gold speculation had been a means of steadying the market; without it, gold rose 100 per cent. in two weeks, and then dropped 50 per cent. at the hurried repeal of the prohibition. What the speculators did for the gold market was again seen in 1866, when they attempted to keep the necessary stock of gold in the country in view of the increasing European demand; but the treasury department, with less foresight, exerted itself to counteract the rise in the gold premium which these speculators seemed to be producing. It succeeded at the time, but at the cost of a greater subsequent rise, which these speculations would have largely enabled us to avoid. So of the cotton speculators of 1868, who setting the mistake of public judgment, bought up the cotton which we were exporting in Liverpool at a very low figure, and, a few months later, sold at a high figure to the manufacturers, who would otherwise have had to reimport. They made fortunes by so doing, and thus excited public prejudice; but the American public was in every way better off for their operations. The planter obtained a higher price than he could otherwise have done, the manufacturer paid a lower price; the expense of double transportation was saved; the speculative difference of price remained in American hands instead of going to Liverpool; and the chief mistake made by the speculators, in point of serving public interest, was in not carrying their operations still further. ("N. Y. Nation," vol. vii., p. 85.)

—That is a typical case. If a speculator is simply aiming to forestall the movement of the market, and not to manipulate it, he undoubtedly confers a public benefit in so far as he is himself successful; and so great a public benefit that no one grudge him his profit. His work tends to steady prices, to diminish the difference between producers' and consumers' prices in a rising market, to break the shock of a falling market. But it is almost impossible for a speculator to resist the temptation to manipulate as well as forestall price changes; and when he succeeds in so doing, he increase just those evils which he would otherwise diminish. If he works on a small scale, it may be by the circulation of false rumors or the show of false appearances, perhaps even by securing false management of the property; if he works on a large scale, it may be by securing a corner.

—Corners in stocks can hardly be a direct source of evil to the general public. With produce corners it is different. The investor can easily do without a particular stock; he may be glad to take advantage of the high price to sell it. But the consumer can not even for a short time do without his food; and a corner in wheat or pork may become a serious matter to him. A speculative monopoly of this kind is probably no worse than any other monopoly. Permanent monopoly of coal or oil may work more lasting injury than a temporary corner in wheat. The former settles things on a wrong basis. The latter unsettles things from their rights basis. By preventing regular transportation, it prevents cheap transportation; by preventing regular export, it spoils our foreign market. How far it actually disturbs the price paid by consumers remains an open question Witnesses before the New York committee, apparently well informed and candid, differed directly on this point. The Liverpool cotton corners are estimated to have temporarily raised the price paid by manufacturers more than 10 per cent. An able article by H. D. Lloyd in the "North American Review" for August, 1883, shows how in recent corners, flour, a non-specultative article, has varied more than 50 per cent., in sympathy with the variations of wheat. It is not probable that this affects the consumer quite as badly as would at first sight appear; the quantities sold at the highest price are probably comparatively small, and the shock is so slowly distributed among the middlemen that before it reaches the mass of consumers the reaction has already begun. With our present incomplete statistics of retail sales, we must reserve judgment on this point. The gist of the matter is, not that a corner is worse than any other kind of monopoly; not necessarily that it is as bad as any other kind of monopoly; but that, under the present system, men will undertake a corner who could not undertake any other kind of monopoly. If there are ten times as many contracts on a small wheat supply, operators can afford to make ten times the effort to control that supply. If those contracts must be fulfilled within a limited time, the operator has only to control the supply for that time. A system, of short sales makes such a temporary monopoly possible. Each additional speculative contract is so much addition to its possible profits.

—Besides the articles already referred to, see International Review, vol ii., p. 818; Bankers' Magazine(N. Y.), vol. xxxvi. p. 308; Nineteenth Century, vol. x., p. 532

ARTHUR T. HADLEY.

SPOILS SYSTEM

SPOILS SYSTEM, The. This phrase designates a theory of politics and a use of official authority—more especially that of appointment and removal—according to which the merits of candidates and the general welfare are subordinated to the selfish interests of individuals, factions or parties. The range of this subordination is very great. It extends all the way from the case of a party which, honestly holding none but its followers to be fit for a clerkship, selects the best or them, but bars the gates of office against all others down to the faction leaders, who, excluding all but their own henchmen, corruptly make promotions for money, and promise places for votes; all the way from the great officer who, hardly conscious of wrong, accepts for the party the offerings of his subordinates, down to the official robber who mercilessly demands the places or the money of those serving under him; all the way from the head of a bureau or a department who requests more clerks, that they may work for his party, or serve as waiters or coachmen in his own family, down to the legislators who vote appropriations in aid of their re-election, and city aldermen who bribe electors by corrupt contracts, and conciliate thieves, gamblers and grog-shop keepers by winking at their offenses.

—It is doubtless vain to expect that in politics there will ever be such unselfish regard for merit and duty as to exclude every shade of that system, and perhaps there will always be various questions as to the moral aspects of which honest men will disagree. The limits of the spoils system in its practical application at any time can not, therefore, be precisely stated; nor can we any more precisely state where the merit system begins.115 . But it is, nevertheless, a great advantage to have convenient phrases, which, like the spoils system, and the merit system, distinctly mark those extreme and incompatible theories and methods in politics and administration of which the people readily take notice for approval or rebuke. In reference to these systems, all officers and politicians may be readily and usefully classified. Which system does a great politician or officer defend or practice? must always be an important question.

—The phrase "spoils system" appears to have had its origin in an speech made in January, 1832, by Mr. Marcy, of New York, in the senate of the United States, in which (in speaking of the politicians of his day, and especially of New York politicians) he said, "When they are contending for victory, they avow the intention of enjoying the fruits of it. If they are defeated, they except to retire from office. If they are successful, they claim, as matter of right, the advantages of success. They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy" (Gale 8 Seaton's Congressional Debates, vol. viii., part 1, p. 1325.)

—The system of the pirate and the highwayman, thus defended, had been for some years growing in and poisoning our politics. It was only this open and shameless avowal of it which was original with Mr. Marcy. In the article on TERM AND TENURE OF OFFICE some facts are given tending to show that the earliest practice according to that system was in New York. It was not unnatural that the first unblushing avowal of it, at Washington, should be made by a senator from that state. Among the maxims of Col. Burr for the guidance of politicians, one of the most prominent was, that the people at elections were to be managed by the same rules of discipline as the soldiers of an army; that a few leaders were to think for the masses, and that the latter were to obey implicitly their leaders. * * He had, therefore, great confidence in the machinery of a party," etc. (Statesman's Manual, vol.ii.,p.1139.) New York has never lost the art, so aptly and early taught by Burr, of making and running party machines. Jenkins, in his "History of Parties in New York." (p.227), tells us, that "before 1820 the spoils system had been so far matured in that state, that Gov. Clinton, in that year, complained in a message' of an organized and disciplined corps of federal officers interfering in state elections." Mr. Hammond, in his "Political History of New York," and speaking of its early politics, declares, "that party spirit had raged in this more than in any other state of the Union." Mr. Van Buren's relation to the system appears in the article last cited. The unparalleled abuses in past years at the New York postoffice and custom house, and the municipal, judicial and other corruptions associated with the names of Barnard, McCunn, Tweed and Fisk, at the city of New York, have made the consequences of a long and general toleration of that system a part of our familiar history. But it is due to New York to add, that, during the past decade, her citizens have done more than those of any other state to arrest such abuses and to substitute a "merit system" for a "spoils system," both in her own administration and in that of the federal government.

—The politicians and the office seekers readily comprehended the spirit and opportunities of the new system which Marcy announced. The era had not long been closed, even among the enlightened nations, during which the hope of plunder and spoils from captured ships and cities had been regarded as essential alike for securing enlistments and for achieving victories on sea or land. Intense and vindictive partisans, accustomed to treat their political opponents as both personal and public enemies, adopted with equal facility the reasoning of Marcy and the war code of pillage and spoils. Either in the heat of victory or the hope of gain, they forgot or disregarded the fact, that the places, the salaries, the promotions, the profitable contracts which they sought, did not belong to the party they had conquered, but to the people, of which they were only a part. A new force, compounded in about equal proportions of corruption and savagery, was soon made potential, alike in the battle fields of politics, in the methods of elections, and in the process of administration. The proclamation of the spoils system in the senate greatly shocked the better minds of both parties, and alarmed the country at large. Nevertheless the theory of the system (of which "rotation in office, "in order to increase the spoils, was an important part)was, even by men in high places, largely and rapidly accepted. In the debate in the senate in 1835, upon the bill for repealing the four years term of office act of 1820, Senator Shepley of Maine, and Senator Hill of New Hampshire, defended that kind of rotation which requires no fault in an officer to justify a call for his removal, and Wright of New York, following Jackson's first message, declared such rotation "to be cardinal republican principle." But, on the other hand, Webster, Clay and Calhoun, Ewing, Southard and White, and others, denounced the new system as false in theory and demoralizing, corrupt and despotic in tendency.

—The abuse of the power of removal, for the double purpose of weakening and wreaking revenge upon the opposite party (or "punishing enemies," in the phrase of the spoils system war code), and of rewarding party workers and personal friends (or of "making and dividing spoils," according to the theory of that code), was the part of the spoils system which was first fully developed. It was not in New York alone that the greed for offices, the hate of political opponents, the fierce partisanship, and the corrupt selfishness and demagogism from which that abuse springs, had affected the administration, even before Marcy's declaration. If there was space for tracing their first manifestations, we should find Washington much annoyed by them, and in every subsequent administration marks of their presence, if not evidences of their pernicious influence. They gave Jefferson much trouble, and tested the sturdy independence of the younger Adams. But it was Jackson who first adopted a fundamental article of the spoils system code, by making the doctrine of "rotation in office" a cardinal principle of his policy at the beginning of his administration. The significance and the disastrous effects of that doctrine, as illustrating the true character of the system which March justified, is sufficiently explained in the article on REMOVALS.

—If we consider the spoils system in the details of its practical methods and evil effects, they will be found most developed along the great lines of public administration and party activity. In the articles on ASSESSMENTS (Political),CIVIL SERVICE REFORM CONFIRMATIONS, JUDICIARY, (Elective), PATRONAGE, PRIMARY ELECTIONS, PROMOTIONS, REMOVALS, and TERM AND TENURE OF OFFICE, the results of the system along those lines and much of its history are given.

—It was for the purpose of arresting those abuses and substituting a merit system for a spoils system, that the civil service act, approved Jan.16, 1883, was enacted by congress; and for the same purpose the legislature of New York passed a yet more stringent act on May 4 of the same year. Several sections of each of those acts are aimed against political assessments, and both of them direct that impartial tests of character and of attainment (mainly through competitive examinations) be substituted for official favor and political influence as a basis for entering the public service in non-effective offices.

—But in one particular the New York law goes much further than the act of congress. It greatly enlarges the scope of the law against bribery, as it has stood in this country, following, however, in the wake of the bribery and office-brokerage laws long in force of Great Britain. The American bribery laws, of prior date, perhaps without exception, only prohibit the corrupt "use of money or any promise, contract," etc., for the "payment of money," or for the "delivery or conveyance of anything of value." This leaves the corrupt promise or use of places, promotions, official influence for votes, speeches and work, etc., in aid of candidates and parties, as well as removals and official threats of removal for personal and party ends, untouched. These grave abuses, which are among the worst results of the spoils system theory of politics, are made penal by the fourteenth section of the New York law, as they long since were under British statutes. (See Eaton's "Civil Service in Great Britain," pp. 132 to 141.)

—No more space can be given to the origin and growth of the spoils system in this country. But no one should infer that it is of American origin, or that it most naturally flourishes under republican institutions. The work last cited shows the origin of the system in the despotism, corruptions and favoritism of the English monarchy in feudal times, and traces its progress, until the suppression of all its worst features by the substitution in Great Britain of a merit system of the same character, in most particulars, as that which the statutes of congress and of New York aim to establish. There is not an abuse in our politics or administration, connected with the spoils system, which did not exist in a more aggravated form in England before our revolution. In precise form, some of the abuses attending confirmations by senates, could not exist in Great Britain, because such confirmations are there unknown; but a statute (49 Geo. III., chaps. 126,218), far more stringent than any we have on the subject, enacted when our constitution had been but twelve years in force, contains penal clauses against the corrupt use of solicitations, recommendations, bargainings or negotiations for obtaining nominations, appointments or resignations, which might be usefully enacted here. It is also true that the forms of political assessments, as they exist with us, were not known under the old English spoils system. But it was because offices, grants, promotions, decorations and charters were both openly sold for money and corruptly bartered for political services and votes. If offices, after being sold there, were also liable to be annually taxed, as with us, at the will of a party, a great officer or a partisan committee, their value upon the original sale would have been greatly impaired. The British patronage monger preferred to get the full price on the original sale. Within the last half-century the British government has purchased back for itself, for a money price paid in hand, civil offices which had been merchandise for generations. It is hardly twelve years since commissions in the British army were freely bought and sold. And, to this day, the right to be a rector or parson in the church of England (subject to the approval of the bishop) is openely and extensively advertised for sale, and is publicly bought and sold for money. King James had helped to bring gerrymandering to perfection before Elbridge Gerry was born. We have added little to the art of coercing voters, or concealing, or lying about, the false count of votes. Office-mongering and office-brokerage and patronage of every kind, a century ago, had definiteness and an importance in the penal law, the politics and the social life of Great Britain, which they have not yet attained in this country.

—We have only to glance at the essential spirit and methods of a federal and aristocratic despotism, as compared with those of a spoils system according to the theory of Burr and Marcy, to see how naturally the latter grows out of the former. The king reaches the throne through birth and privilege, and not by merit. The lords hold their places by his favor. The aristocratic class, made up of the blood royal, the nobility, the state church officials, the high officers of the army and the navy, and the great land owners, are a part of the party forever in power. They make their political faith, the creed of the state church and subserviency to their wishes, the tests for obtaining and continuing in office of whatever kind. What more natural, under such a government, than that all those who do not respond to these tests should not only be excluded from office, but be denied the privilege of voting? Not merely the political faith of that forever dominant party was for generations essential to holding office, but the acceptance of the articles of the state church as well, and, for a long time, the partaking of the sacrament according to its method, were absolute conditions of office holding. The office-holding noblemen, the bishops, and the king's lord lieutenants of counties, were the patronage mongers, place dispensers and election manipulators of their sections; and their cunning and precedents are adroit enough to be even yet worthy the study of senators, politicians and bosses who act on the theories of those feudal potentates and imitate their methods so far as our form of government will allow.

—With us the party majority is the king of politics. Spoils-dispensing senators, representatives, governors and party leaders are with us the feudal lords of patronage. Our constitution allows no religious creed to be made a test for office. But, disregarding personal merit and common justice almost as absolutely as any feudal aristocracy ever did, the lords of our politics, in flagrant violation of the first principles of a republic and of the plain intent of the constitution, make the faith of the dominant party, its selfish interests and unmanly subserviency to themselves, the conditions of gaining and holding any of the tens of thousands of places where, in federal departments, in state bureaus and in city offices alike, political views are not in the least qualifications for official duty.

—The leaders, under the old English spoils system, claimed the right and used the opportunity of exerting all the authority and resources of the government in their hands to keep their class and party in power and their opponents out of power. Patronage was a prerequisite of a great officer, to be used for himself and his party. Equally with the leaders or our spoils system, they repudiated all demands based on individual merit which they thought inconsistent with the selfish interest of their class and party. They said, in the language of Marcy, We "claim as matter of right the advantages of success." We "see nothing wrong in the rule, that to the victor belong the spoils." Feudal leaders sold the offices in order to get money to be used for keeping themselves in power. Our spoils system leaders annually rob the humble officers under them of a part of their salaries for the same purpose. The use of money thus gained to buy the press, to corrupt the officers of election, and to bribe voters, has been the common offense of both. Each alike made its political creed the paramount qualification for an appointment, and claimed the right to use all official authority for propagating that creed. James II. and Andrew Jackson, Archbishop Laud and Senator Marcy, George III and assessment-extortioner Hubbell agree in this, that the opinions of the dominant party, the favor of its leaders, and subservient work as they direct, are the supreme qualifications for clerks, janitors, office boys and scrub-women, and that each are bound to give time to money to keep those who oppress them in power.

—That phase of the spoils system which consists in the usurpation of the appointing power of the executive, by the legislative department, has been, save in the matter of confirmations, almost identical in Great Britain and in this country. Executive patronage there was for generations as carefully apportioned among the members of parliament as plunder ever was among pirates, or spoils among soldiers. To avoid the intolerable nuisance of having members going the rounds of the departments, bullying and begging for their shares of patronage, a patronage secretary was provided, who kept accounts with each member, and doled out to him his share as regularly as soup is dispensed from a free eating house.

—The greater interest of these facts does not consist merely in the historical analogies between the corrupt and partisan systems of the two countries, but in the further facts, rich in hope for us, that, in the elder country, where that system was founded on the throne, intrenched in feudal principles and class distinctions—where it was buttressed by the army on one side and the state church on the other, and was, therefore, tenfold stronger than with us—it has been, through a steady effort of twenty-five years, overthrown and removed. In our efforts to overthrow such a system, we have but to contend for the fundamental principles of a republic while standing upon all the best precedents of its founders. It would not be a bad definition of a true republic to describe it as a government under which office is secured by merit to the exclusion of favoritism and influence, nor of a true aristocratic despotism, to define it to be a government under which favor and influence secure office, and merit is subordinated to birth and privilege.

—There is another view of the subject which must not be overlooked. That can hardly be said to be a system in political affairs which is but a series of abuses. A system implies an orderly method proceeding from some recognized theory. The theory of the spoils system may be readily outlined.

—1. In a merely superlative and ideal sense, a party may be (what Burke declared it to be) a body of persons agreeing together in the support of common principles, which they seek to carry into effect for the public good; but according to the only practical and sensible use of the word, a party is a highly organized body of politicians constantly engaged in selfish and warlike effort for capturing the government (or for keeping its enemies from capturing it), and for gaining honors, offices and profits for themselves.

—2. Politics is at once a game, a business and a series of campaigns: to be so conducted as to pay the leaders, the fighters and the workers. Profit enough must be got out of the administration to pay the expenses of capturing it and the cost of office seeking.

—3. The theory that a regard for great principles, love of country, and a sense of duty—analogous to those sentiments which support the charities, the asylums and the churches of a nation—are the vital force of a party, is altogether chimerical.

—4. Patriotism, disinterested public opinion and devotion to great principles as a duty, are suspicious and unreliable elements in politics; and, if they ever exist, they are yet generally but a cover for a hypocrite or a doctrinaire. They are indeed very dangerous to good party management and to favorite leaders. Selfishness, patronage and discipline are the great forces of politics. Absolute obedience, and the despotic rule of the majority, are the strength and salvation of a party.

—5. The honors, the offices, the public employments, the political assessments, the profitable contracts, the opportunities of levying illegal fees and political blackmail—these are the spoils, to be divided so as to be made most effective.

—6. Personal merit is not to be wholly ignored, nor public opinion needlessly affronted; but the wishes of the leaders must be accepted as the law of the party, and zeal and work for the party are qualifications for public service paramount to personal merit. The party politics of a door-tender, a cartman, a storekeeper, an office boy, a washwoman and a chimney sweep, are essential to their selection. When either gets an office, a debt to the party is incurred, for which fealty, work and assessments are due as long as the man or the woman holds it.

—7. The leaders must govern secretly and absolutely, after the precedent of the Albany regency, and according to the original semi-military code of Burr. To refuse obedience to them, or to bolt however bad a nomination, is treason to the party never to be forgiven.

—8. Custom houses and postoffices, under the spoils system, are not mere places for doing public work upon business principles by officers having business capacity, but are intrenched outposts of the party, to be manned by its valiant warriors, and to be barricaded against opponents; nor this alone, for these offices are also asylums for broken-down henchmen, sally-ports for carrying elections, and banks of issue for raising assessments.

—9. The party leaders must hold the gates of the primaries as well as all the gates of office; they must fix the conditions upon which any member of the party can vote for a delegate or be allowed to receive a nomination. It is fatal to discipline to allow the primary meetings to be open to all those who are faithful to the principles of the party. The officers of primary organizations should be the compliant henchmen of the senators, governors and chieftains who run the postoffices and custom houses, and they must exact a pledge from all members to obey the leaders, to defend the platform of the majority, and to support every nomination whether good or bad. To allow those ready to support the principles of a party to freely meet, and choose their own presiding officers, and select and send their own delegates to a convention, is fatal to spoils system management.

—10. Senators are the feudal lords of state politics, whose voice should be held supreme in selecting the federal officers to serve within these states; and if a president shall refuse to nominate a senator's favorite for a collector, the senator should resign, go home, and arouse his state against the president. From Burr to Marcy and Jackson, and from the latter to Tweed and Conkling, such has been the theory and the practice under the spoils system.

—11. Clerks, other small officers and laborers paid by the public, though bound to work for the government, are also bound, not only to work for the party, but to pay to it the partisan taxes it chooses to impose. They must not be allowed to serve the people equally and justly at all times, irrespective of political opinions and party interests, but, on pain of removal, must, as far as the criminal law will permit, make every official act bribe or coerce a vote, and bring dollars to the patron age monger or the party that gave them their places.

—12. All attempts, therefore, to compel the use of official authority only for public purposes, all attempts to put persons into the service merely because they are the most worthy, all attempts to put them in without the consent of the party managers or the member of congress of the state or district, all attempts to impartially test their fitness by examinations, all attempts to prevent great officials using patronage as a perquisite of themselves and their party, are utterly utopian and doctrinaire—gross invasions of the discretion of officials and of the rights of parties. When the infamous Judge Barnard, on his trial under impeachment, replied to a question about his use of judicial patronage—"I won this office, and its patronage is mine"—he rivaled Marcy in condensing the whole spirit of the spoils system.

—With such authority and income, with resources for bribery and coercion so ample, a party, following able and unscrupulous leaders, may go a great way in defiance of public opinion. It has honors for the aspiring, authority for the ambitious, profits to bribe the mercenary, removals for overawing the timid, money to pay its own expenses, exclusions from the muster roll of party membership, for intimidating those who threaten to say what they think, or expose what they know to be wrong.

—But the course of events during the last few years has made it plain that the spoils system must everywhere very soon give place to a system under which merit must be the test of selections for appointments, and regard for the intents of the public, rather than those of the party, be made the rule of administration. The people are more and more clearly comprehending that parties must serve the people, and not ask the people to be the servants of a party.

DORMAN B. EATON.

SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY

SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY. (See POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY)

STAMP ACT CONGRESS

STAMP ACT CONGRESS (IN U. S. HISTORY), a body of delegates from all the colonies, except New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, which met at New York, Oct. 7, and finally adjourned Oct. 25, 1765. It differed from the continental congress, which succeeded it, in that it took no steps toward forcible resistance. (See REVOLUTION, II.)

—The delegates from New York were named by the committee of correspondence; from Delaware and New Jersey, by informal action of the members of assembly; from the other colonies named, by formal action of the lower house of assembly. The action of the congress was confined to an address to the king, petitions to parliament, and a declaration of the rights and grievances of the colonies. The last named paper acknowledged "all due subordination" to parliament; but declared that the colonies could only be taxed by their own representatives in the colonial assemblies; that the colonists had the inherent right of trial by jury; that the stamp act, and other legislation to extend the jurisdiction of the admiralty court, without trial by jury, had "a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonists"; and that parliamentary restrictions on colonial trade were burdensome.

—The petition of congress was offered in the house of commons, Jan. 27, 1766. It was objected to, 1, as the act of an unconstitutional gathering, and 2, because of its denial of the right of parliamentary taxation. After some debate the order of the day was voted, and in this summary manner the first request of the united colonies for a hearing was passed over.

—The proceedings of this congress are in Niles' Principles and Acts of the Revolution, 451, and in 2 Niles' Register, 337, 353; see also authorities under REVOLUTION.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

STANDING ARMIES

STANDING ARMIES. (See ARMIES.)

STANDING ORDERS

STANDING ORDERS. (See PARLIAMENTARY LAW.)

STANTON

STANTON, Edwin M., was born in Steubenville, O., Dec. 19, 1814, and died at Washington, D. C., Dec. 24, 1869. He was graduated at Kenyon College in 1833, was admitted to the bar in 1836, and practiced at Cadiz, O., until 1839, then at Steubenville until 1847, at Pittsburgh, Penn., until 1857, and thereafter at Washington city. He had always been a democrat, and in December, 1860, he became attorney general under Buchanan. In January, 1862, he became secretary of war under Lincoln, and retained the place until 1868. In this position he showed a devouring energy and capacity for work, which considerably shortened his own life, as well as the war. As the conflict between the president and congress on reconstruction was developed, he took sides with the latter, and President Johnson's attempt to remove him led to the impeachment of the president. (See RECONSTRUCTION; TERM AND TENURE OF OFFICE; IMPEACHMENTS, VI) When the impeachment failed, in May, 1868, Stanton resigned. In December, 1869, he was nominated and confirmed as justice of the supreme court, but died before entering office.

A. J.

STATE

STATE, Department of. This is the oldest, and ranks by long established usage as the first, of the departments of the United States government. Founded by act of July 27, 1789 (1 Stat. at Large, p. 28), the department is presided over by a secretary of state, who is a member of the cabinet, and is sometimes (though erroneously) styled prime minister. The functions of the secretary of state embrace a great variety of responsible duties. He is the organ of the government in all communications of whatever nature with foreign government. Such communications, although in form purporting to emanate from the president whenever important diplomatic matters are concerned, are always prepared at the department of state, and signed by the secretary, although they must first have the president's approval. The secretary conducts all correspondence with the ministers and consuls of the United States residing abroad; he has exclusive charge of negotiations concerning foreign affairs; he only, according to official etiquette, can communicate with the representatives of foreign powers residing in the United States, upon public affairs. He is the official organ of correspondence between the president and the governors of the various states in the Union. He has charge of all treaties which have been made, and conducts negotiations as to new treaties or modifications of old ones. All the laws of the United States are preserved in the archives of the state department as they come enrolled on parchment from congress, after being approved by the president. The secretary publishes the United States laws, resolutions, presidential proclamations, treaties, etc., properly edited, in annual volumes. The secretary of state is custodian of the great seal of the United States, and affixes the seal with his countersign to commissions or appointments to office in the higher grades, to executive proclamations, to warrants for pardon, extradition, etc. He records and issues passports to Americans traveling abroad. He makes annual report to congress (more recently made monthly) on the commercial relations of the United States with foreign countries, based upon information gathered by our ministers and consuls abroad. A register of the department of state is issued annually, with full lists of consular and diplomatic agents, salaries, fees collected, regulations concerning precedence of diplomatic agents, etc. The department also publishes a volume of consular regulations, in frequently revised editions.

—The secretary of state is aided by a first assistant secretary, who becomes acting secretary in his absence, salary $4,500; a second and third assistant secretary, salaries $3,500 each, who are charged with correspondence with diplomatic and consular officers, and with such public business and correspondence as may be assigned to them by the secretary. The business of the department is distributed among seven bureaus: a diplomatic bureau, having charge of correspondence with American ministers residing abroad; a consular bureau, charged with the correspondence with the consulates of the United States; a bureau of indexes and archives, having charge of the mails, the registry and indexing of correspondence, and the preservation of the archives; a bureau of accounts, having the custody and disbursement of appropriations, care of funds and bonds, and of the building and property of the department; a bureau of rolls and library, having custody of the rolls, treaties and laws, with their promulgation and the care of the library and public documents, as well as of the revolutionary archives; a bureau of statistics, charged with the preparation of the reports upon commercial relations; and a law bureau, for the examination of all claims, and of questions of law submitted by the secretary or his assistants.

—This widely distributed business is performed by a force of sixty-two officers and clerks, besides fourteen messengers and laborers, drawing annual salaries to the amount of $112,350 in 1884. The contingent and miscellaneous expenses of the department of state amounted to the very moderate sum of $25,050 the same year. The department is located in the new and commodious granite building forming the south wing of the massive edifice known as the state, war and navy department building, erected in 1871-81. The department of state has had as its secretaries, from the beginning of the government, a series of statesmen distinguished in the political annals of the country. The following list exhibits the names, with the term of office occupied by each:

SECRETARIES OF STATE
1.	Thomas Jefferson...	Sept.	26,	1789
2.	Edmund Randolph...	Jan.	2,	1794
3.	Timothy Pickering...	Dec.	10,	1795
4.	John Marshall...	May	13,	1800
5.	James Madison...	March	5,	1801
6.	Robert Smith...	March	6,	1809
7.	james Monroe...	April	2,	1811
8.	John Quincy Adams...	March	5,	1817
9.	Henry Clay...	March	7,	1825
10.	Martin Van Buren...	March	6,	1829
11.	Edward Livingston...	May	24,	1831
12.	Louis McLane...	May	29,	1833
13.	John Forsyth...	June	27,	1834
14.	Daniel Webster...	March	3,	1841
15.	Hugh S. Legar...	May	9,	1843
16.	Abel P. Upehur...	July	24,	1848
17.	John C. Calhoun...	March	6,	1844
18.	James Buchanan...	March	6,	1845
19.	John M. Clayton...	March	7,	1849
	Daniel Webster...	July	22,	1850
20.	Edward Everett...	Nov	6,	1852
21.	William L. Marcy...	March	7,	1853
22.	Lewis Case...	March	6,	1857
23.	Jeremiah S. Black...	Dec.	17,	1860
24.	William H. Seward...	March	5,	1861
25.	Elihu B. Washburne...	March	5,	1869
26.	Hamilton Fish...	March	11,	1869
27.	William M. Evarts...	March	12,	1877
28.	James G. Blame...	March	5,	1881
29.	Frederick T. Frelinghuysen...	Dec.	12,	1881

A. R. SPOFFORD.

STATE RIGHTS

STATE RIGHTS. (See STATE SOVEREIGNTY, II.)

STATE SOVEREIGNTY

STATE SOVEREIGNTY (IN U. S. HISTORY), the theory of the relation of the states to the Union on which was based the right of secession. It held that all the rights and powers of sovereignty were vested in the thirteen states, or commonwealth, which originally formed the American Union; that the peoples of these commonwealths had authorized their state governments to form the confederation in 1777-81 and the constitution on 1787-9; that the peoples of the individual commonwealths thus formed a voluntary union, retaining to themselves the whole essence of sovereignty, but yielding to the new federal government certain of the insignia of government, previously held by the state governments; that the people of any state, by withdrawing from the federal government its grant of powers, ipso facto dissolved the only bond which united them in a continuously voluntary union with the other states; and that there is, and can be, no "sovereignty" in the people of all the states, considered as a nation, in internal affairs, and no insignia of sovereignty in foreign affairs, except what is granted to the federal government by the real sovereignties, the peoples of the individual commonwealths, or states. The above is the doctrine of state sovereignty pure and simple, as it includes the right of secession. There is a much more popular and far milder doctrine, of which Madison was the strongest supporter: it holds that the states were sovereign until the ratification of the constitution; and that they then ceased to be entirely sovereign, a government partly national and partly federal taking their place. A variety of the first theory was also upheld, particularly in 1861-5: it held that the states were still truly sovereign, but that their international responsibility and comity forbade them to secede even from a voluntary union on trivial grounds, and authorized the other states to war upon them and compel their return.

—In considering the question it is as well to begin by examining the word sovereignty itself, though examination must be brief. Mr. John Austin defines it thus: "If a determinate human superior, not in the habit of obedience to a like superior, receive habitual obedience from the bulk of a given society, that determinate superior is sovereign in that society, and the society (including the superior)is a society political and independent. To that determinate superior the other members of the society are subject. * * The mutual relation which subsists between that superior and them may be styled the relation of sovereign and subject, or the relation of sovereignty and subjection." This carefully guarded definition evidently implies that sovereignty resides in some small class, and it will settle the question of the sovereignty of the dukes of Burgundy in the middle ages, or of the princes of Servia in modern times. But its fundamental idea must be modified in the United States, where every governmental agency is supposed to be "in the habit of obedience" to the will of the people, expressed in written constitutions. The question for us must be, whether the people of the state, the commonwealth, or the people of the nation, has been habitually superior when it has seen fit to declare its will. This will show us whether the ultimate sovereignty, the absolute independence of action in domestic and foreign affairs, the uncontrolled power of decision in the last resort, is in the people of a state or in the national people.

—No theory of the nature of the American Union can be suggested against which arguments from authority, from the declarations and opinions of leading men, legislative bodies and conventions, can not be levied in array. The feeling of the American people has always been so strongly individualistic, their conventions and legislatures have been so much inclined to put confidence in their own assertions without regard to opposing facts, and their public men have been so influenced in feeling and language by their environment, that it is not difficult to bring arguments from authority in support of every variety of theory. This series of articles, relying on the facts of our history, and practically disregarding authority, is founded in a belief opposed to all the theories above enumerated: that the Union is not "voluntary," in the sense implied in state sovereignty that it has always been compelled by force of circumstances, common interests, and everything that goes to develop a national will and make up a nation; that the nation has existed, by its own will maintained by arms, since the first shot was fired at Lexington; that it has since continually asserted its existence with a steadily growing certainty of success; but that the expression and assertion of its existence is limited, according to its own will and the political instincts of the people, by the controlling necessity for preserving state lines, state government and "state rights," properly so called. (See CONGRESS, CONTINENTAL; DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: NATION.) This article will therefore be confined to 1, the leading arguments for state sovereignty, as advanced by its supporters; 2, the historical arguments against it; and 3, "state rights."

—1. The word "people" is the x of American political algebra. All parties agree in the assertion that sovereignty is inherent in the people, not in the government; and in so far the unanimity of belief is almost startling, considering the diversity of results to which it has led. But the unanimity disappears as soon as we undertake to define "the people" Is it the people of all the states, of the nation, that is sovereign? Is it the people of each individual state that is sovereign? Jefferson Davis and his associates in 1861 held the latter view, and each, when the sovereign people of his state declared for secession, obeyed the behest of the only "people" known to him, even to the waging of war on the United States. The dominant party of the north and west held the former view, and justified the people of the nation, through its constituted agents, in suppressing rebellion by war. The democratic party of the north and west generally supported the war measures of the government, but did so on the ground of the third doctrine above mentioned, that the government was the agent of the non-seceding states in offsetting by war the unfriendly act of secession. If the doctrine of state sovereignty is correct, if each individual state is the only nation which its citizens can know, the southern states in 1860-61 undoubtedly exercised a constitutional and inalienable right in seceding, if they believed that the welfare of their citizens and their own preservation would be imperiled by remaining in the Union; and the suppression of the rebellion was a revolutionary transformation of a voluntary into an involuntary Union. And the argument of southern writers in favor of state sovereignty is, in general, as follows.

—1. They direct attention to the slow and steady growth of the states along the Atlantic coast, the nucleus of each being widely separated from the others, and none of them ever mingling with its neighbors or losing its own identity; to the fact that each had its distinct government, the king being the common executive; and they conclude, that, when the connection between the colonies and the king was "severed by rebellious swords, each colony became a living soul, and each necessarily possessed sovereign political will over its own territory and people." In support of this assertion their appeals are mainly to authority; and if this form of argument could be accepted as conclusive, the doctrine of state, sovereignty would be very strong. The word "People" as used at the time, was almost invariably applied to the people of a state; and the people of all the states are loosely referred to as "the continent," "the generality," "America in general." When independence was finally declared, the instrument was carefully entitled "The unanimous declaration of the thirteen united (sic) States of America," showing that "thirteen independent wills became unanimous on the great occasion"; and in declaring the independence of "the states" these bodies are always referred to in the plural: "that as Free and Independent States they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, Establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do." The idea may be indicated by the full title of Dr. Ramsay's "History of the Revolution of South Carolina from a British Province to an Independent State" And the language of the constitutions adopted by the several states during the revolutionary period is even stronger in the same direction. "The people of this state, being by the providence of God free and independent, have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign and independent state; * * That this republic is and shall forever be and remain a free, sovereign and independent state." (Connecticut act of 1776, establishing the charter as a constitution, preamble and article 1.) "The people of this commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign and independent state". (Massachusetts constitution of 1780, still in force, art. 4.) "This convention, therefore, in the name and by the authority of the good people of this state, doth ordain, determine and declare that no authority shall, on any pretense whatever, be exercised over the people or members of this state but such as shall be derived from and granted by them". (New York constitution of 1777. art. 1.) "That the style of this country (sic) be hereafter the state of South Carolina". (South Carolina constitution of 1778, art. 1.) When we add to such expressions as these the emphatic caveat of the second of the articles of confederation, "each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence," the whole makes up a formidable mass of contemporary testimony in favor of the "sovereignty" of the individual states; and it is re-enforced by the unconscious and ingenuous testimony given by the almost invariable language of men of the time in official and unofficial positions. And, finally, in the treaty of peace which closed the war, the high contracting parties joined in declaring, not that the United States as a nation was independent, but that the several states, Naming them in order, were "free sovereign and independent states".

—But, after all, what is all this argument from authority worth more than the impotent protests of a drowning man in the midst of a resistless current? His declarations that he will not drown can hardly save him without the added exertion of swimming. If "sovereignty" could be maintained by resolutions alone, the argument from authority would be of weight; but neither is true. Reams of resolutions would be of little avail in maintaining the "sovereignty" of Ireland or Poland, unless the resolvers are ready to back their resolutions by physical force; and no such readiness was ever shown by the individual states. Massachusetts came nearest to it in the sudden levy of troops and siege of Boston which followed the fight at Lexington; but even Massachusetts, while fighting the enemy with one hand, was with the other beckoning to the nation for help, and her delegates, as soon as the continental congress met in the following month, successfully urged the adoption of her troops as a "continental army". In resolutions the states were prolific: when it came to war, the highest and most dread attribute of "sovereignty", all instinctively shrank back, and pitted the true nation against a king, sovereign against sovereign. The mass of evidence above summarized goes just far enough to prove that the individual states were sovereignties in posse; and had any one of them ever ventured on the next essential step, and maintained its separate sovereignty by physical force, no sane man could have denied that it was at last a sovereignty in esse. But this last step has always been wanting, and, while that is the case, all is wanting. That states, thus cowering like frightened chickens under their mother's wing, should have gone on calmly ignoring in words their mother's existence, and asserting by resolution the sovereignty which they dared not maintain by force, only shows the inability of even the wisest men to see clearly all the phases of contemporary history. That able men should still argue that a sovereignty in posse can be transformed into a sovereignty in esse by such a cheap and easy weapon as a resolution, only proves that prejudice is still frequently of stronger weight than obvious fact. That the nation should have quietly tolerated such open denials of its very existence, only proves the national indisposition to apply unnecessary force. An imperator or a czar must suppress the least impeachment of his sovereignty: the American republic will still calmly allow even an open denial of its existence—always provided that the denial is confined to theory.

—But it must not be supposed that the argument from authority itself is so overwhelmingly in favor of state sovereignty as the summary above would imply. We may pass by the unofficial exhibitions of national spirit in revolutionary times, and still have a reserve force of authority to show the universal consciousness that the controlling, though always self-controlled, power was in the national people. Congress, in its declaration of July 6, 1775. says: "We exhibit to mankind the remarkable example of a people [not of thirteen peoples] attacked by unprovoked enemies". The same body formulates its proclamation of Dec. 6, 1775, thus: "We, therefore, in the name of the people of these United Colonies"; and thus begins its declaration of July 4, 1776: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them". This last step, this assumption of a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth, is the only means by which "sovereignty" can properly be asserted; and it never has been so asserted by a single state. The real national revolutionary nature of the declaration, and the subordinate part played by the states in it, are well stated in the address of congress to the people, Dec. 10, 1776: "It is well known to you, that, at the universal desire of the people, and with the hearty approbation of every province, the congress declared the United States free and independent". If we are to trust authority, we may cite the sweeping assertion of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Jan. 18, 1788: "The separate independence and individual sovereignty of the several states were never thought of by the enlightened band of patriots who framed the declaration of independence, the several states are not even mentioned by name in any part of it." And no man in the South Carolina legislature at that time said him nay when he denounced the claim, "that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy."

—Again, in its commission to its ambassadors to France, Oct, 23, 1776, congress remarks: "A trade upon equal terms, between the subjects of his most Christian majesty and the people of these states will be beneficial to both nations"; and the ultimate treaty of Feb. 6, 1778, refers regularly to "the two parties" or "the two nations." The treaties with the Netherlands, Sweden and Prussia, in 1783-5, use the same phrases. Nor did congress hesitate to bring the national power into plain view, when necessary. Dec. 4, 1775, it resolved that "in the present situation of affairs, it will be very dangerous to the liberties and welfare of America, if any colony should separately petition the king or either house of parliament." Dec. 29, 1775, it resolved that "the colonies of Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina be permitted to export produce to any part of the world, except Great Britain," etc. Finally, May 15, 1776, the congress recommended the various assemblies and conventions of the colonies "to adopt such government as shall in the opinion of the representatives of the people best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular and America in general"; and the national power which thus brooded over the state governments themselves is indicated in an address of congress to the people of the United States, May 8, 1778: "Your interests will be fostered and nourished by governments that derive their power from your grant." Even the state constitutions which declare the sovereignty of the state show the underlying consciousness of the delegates that a national power was in existence, though it was more prone to show itself by acts than by words. The constitutions of Delaware, Georgia, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, all refer expressly to the previous action of congress, and particularly to its resolution of May 15, 1776, as the justification of their action: and the four state constitutions (of Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina) which do not expressly refer to it, do so tacitly by their long delay until congress took the initiative. The preamble of the South Carolina constitution of 1778 even assigns, as a reason for a new constitution, that "the United Colonies of America have since been constituted independent states * * * by the declaration of the honorable the continental congress, dated the 4th day of July, 1776." But the first constitution of South Carolina, March 26, 1776, strikes the deadliest of all possible blows at the theory of state sovereignty, whose essential dogma is that the United States exists in a state only by the continuing will of the state. On the contrary, article twenty-eight of this constitution declares that "the resolutions of the continental congress, now of force in this colony, shall so continue until altered or revoked by them [congress]." The resolutions of the national congress in force in South Carolina, prior to any declaration of the "sovereign" will of South Carolina! Certainly Calhoun had no hand in framing this constitution.

—Having stated the arguments, pro and contra, this article can only conclude that the arguments from authority are quite evenly balanced, but that the argument from fact is overwhelmingly against "state sovereignty." The states declared themselves sovereign over and over again; but calling themselves sovereign did not make them so. It is necessary that a state should be sovereign, not that it should call itself so, while still sheltering itself under a real national authority. The nation was made by events and by the acts of the national people, not by empty words or by the will of sovereign states; but the sovereign will of the nation has always been that there should be states, that the people should act politically through them, and that their rights and privileges should be respected.

—2. If the argument from fact, that the separate states were never more than sovereignties in posse, and that they never ventured to become sovereignties in esse, is sound, it, of course, disposes of state sovereignty not only in the birth of the nation and in the formation of the confederation, but in the adoption of the constitution also. If a sovereignty was created by general and national obedience to the resolutions of a revolutionary national assembly, unlimited by any organic law; and if that sovereignty was maintained by a successful national war, there is no argument to the contrary in the fact that the new sovereignty allowed its agents, the state governments, to shape the articles of confederation, and to appoint delegates to the convention of 1787. The national sovereignty thus created might have disintegrated and died; New York or Virginia might have broken away and sustained herself as a sovereignty in esse as well as in posse; but there was in fact no such result. The national feeling held the nation together, and forced the unwilling state governments to stand sponsors to a new national assembly. Such a body was the convention of 1787. It could not have been an assemblage of ambassadors from sovereign states, for, as is noted hereafter, no state constitution ever purported to give its legislature power to send such ambassadors or make such a treaty, and no governor even ventured to assume such a power. And the convention, when it met, proved its national character by disregarding altogether the articles of confederation, which were never to have been even amended, except by unanimous vote of all the legislatures: and by giving the ratification of the new form of government to state conventions, not even allowing the legislatures a voice in the matter.

—Nevertheless, state sovereignty adduces a great mass of argument from authority in all the transactions which led to the adoption of the constitution, and in the constitution itself. The convention itself struck out the word "national" from the first resolution proposed to it, "that a national government ought to be established." Its debates are marked by frequent use of expressions relating to the sovereignty of the states. "That the states are at present equally sovereign and independent has been asserted from every quarter of this house," said one delegate. The expression "We, the people of the United States", in the preamble to the constitution, and the omission of the names of the states, are usually cited as decisive proofs against state sovereignty. Undoubtedly the people of the nation were making the constitution, but it is very doubtful whether many of the delegates were aware of the fact: most of them probably still applied the word to the people of their own individual state, and felt, as the "Federalist" (No. 39) expressed it, that "each state in ratifying the constitution is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act". The omission of the names of the states seemed decisive to so respectable an authority as Mr. Motley, but unluckily the omission cuts the other way. In the first draft of the constitution, as reported by the committee, Aug. 6, 1787, the preamble reads, "We, the people of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts", etc. [naming them in order], and the names were left out in the final draft from the apprehension that one or more of the states named might, by virtue of its supposed "sovereignty", right the constitution, drop out of the Union, and compel an after alteration of the preamble. To the same effect is the seventh article of the constitution, as finally adopted. "The ratification of the conventions of nine states shall be sufficient for the establishment of this constitution between the states so ratifying the same". What, then, was to be the status of the states which should refuse to ratify? Were they still in the Union, perhaps as territories? Or were they to secede from the Union? Or had the other states already seceded and left them to keep warm the ashes of the old confederation, if they could? Was the constitution itself a successful secession from the confederation? or did it only provide for necessary secession in this seventh article? Such questions as these have always had an obvious fascination for the advocates of state sovereignty, while their opponents have usually avoided both Scylla and Charybdis by going overland and ignoring them altogether. But, in any candid discussion of the subject, they must be met and answered; and, in order to answer them, the effort has been made to state them fairly and strongly.

—Such questions, with their tacit implication that "sovereignty" is a mere affair of words, that any body of men, in order to be sovereign, has only to call itself, or be called, sovereign, afford silent but weighty testimony to the peculiar natural advantages which the American people enjoy, and have always enjoyed. If the proximity of more powerful neighbors had ever compelled the American people to sacrifice one or more states or parts of states as the price of a treaty of peace, the fallacy of state sovereignty would have been exposed. But this has never been necessary, except in the partial example of Maine in 1842 (see MAINE); and annexation, which is the complement of such territorial sacrifice, is always ignored by the advocates of the doctrine. Free from dangerous neighbors, the American people did not, until 1861, learn the truth which bitter experience had made familiar to less favored quarters of the globe, that sovereignty is always potentially an affair of "blood and iron"; and that it needs not only men who know, or think they know, their rights, but men who, "knowing, dare maintain". Sovereignty is indivisible, as any controlling will is indivisible. As between the nation and the states, the only question must be, Which was the sovereignty? And it can only be answered by asking. Which dared to go alone, to carve out its own path, and achieve its own destiny? The question answers itself. Two states, Rhode Island and North Carolina, refused to ratify, and the constitution went into force without them. There could have been no more excellent opportunity than this to convert a sovereignty in posse into a sovereignty in esse; but this first and last test for sovereignty compelled each of these states to answer, "It is not in me". Within two years both were confessedly in their natural places as part of the nation, both had ratified the constitution nominally as their voluntary act and deed, but actually, like other states, under stress of circumstances. We can not know how far Rhode Island was influenced by unofficial propositions to carve up her territory between Massachusetts and Connecticut, or how far North Carolina was influenced by official propositions in congress to suppress or restrain her commerce with the neighboring states. (See SECESSION.) We can only see the patent fact that these two states had and shrank from the opportunity to attempt to become sovereign in very truth.

—But the constitutional phrase, "between the states so ratifying the same", brings up the further question, Where were Rhode Island and North Carolina between March 4, 1789, and their respective ratifications in 1789-90? Were they in or out of the Union? Unless the nation existed, and these states were still a part of it, we are completely at sea. The nation which had by successful war extorted from Great Britain a recognition of its boundaries, would not have been slow upon occasion to compel Rhode Island and North Carolina, and Vermont as well, to respect those boundaries, and to recognize themselves as included within them. But no such occasion arose, and no argument can fairly be drawn from a forbearance of the nation to enforce its sovereign will. Failure to overcome an open defiance would have been a different matter; but a father's authority is not to be fairly impeached from his forbearance in allowing a recalcitrant son an hour for consideration. In point of fact, Rhode Island and North Carolina finally ratified the very constitution which they had at first rejected, without a single amendment to commend the chalice to their lips. There was no escape for them: they had to ratify; but the forbearance of the nation gave them an opportunity to do so "voluntarily". That the new scheme of government should have been defeated by the will of two states, or that these two should remove themselves without successful war, from the boundaries fixed in 1783, would have been equally impossible; but the nation had been guilty of an oversight in allowing state legislatures to form the articles of confederation, with their absurd provision for a unanimous ratification of amendments, and the nation scrupulously atoned for its oversight by forbearing to press even the weakest of its states. There is of course a still stronger argument drawn from the nature of the constitution, but that will best be considered under the second head of this article.

—It would be unfair to deny that the various conventions which ratified the constitution in 1787-90 considered themselves as acting for "sovereign states". The debates of the Virginia convention show that the word "people" meant the people of the several and individual states, and not of the nation, in this declaration, which was a part of the ratification: "That the powers granted under this constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them, whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression"; and these words, in their literal meaning, have the essence of the doctrines both of state sovereignty and secession. But these words, again, are mere "authority", void as against facts. Whose was the uncontrollable will, the sovereignty, that extorted ratification from an unwilling majority in Virginia, New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and, later, in Rhode Island and North Carolina? Was it the will of any state? or was it the will of the nation, acting, according to its own preference, through state organizations? The question answers itself, provided the questioner will confine himself to the facts of our history, and turn a deaf ear to the conflicting arguments from authority, the opinions, sometimes correct and sometimes incorrect, of the actors in the history. But the question is often triumphantly asked, What would have happened if a part of the states had refused finally to ratify? Either the recusants would have left the constitutional number of ratifying states (9), or less than that number. In the latter case the condition placed upon ratification by the national will would not have been fulfilled; and the whole scheme of the constitution would have failed. In the former case, the pressure upon the recusant states would have been gradually increased until the alternative of ratification or force would have been distinctly presented. In either event, that of general confusion or that of the forcible maintenance of the national will, the sword, the ultima ratio of sovereignty, would have made its appearance; and, whatever the result of the struggle might have been. "state sovereignty" would certainly have received before 1800 the quietus which it finally received in 1865. One sovereignty, or two, or three, might have emerged from the chaos, but state sovereignty, and even state rights, would hardly have survived. In this point of view the ratification debates of 1787-9 show the usual contradiction between authority and fact, between the constant assertion of state sovereignty and the ever-present fear that force might dispel the illusions of the assertion. A contemporary tradition is, that Washington, while signing the constitution, thus struck the key-note of this feeling: "Should the states reject this excellent constitution, the probability is that an opportunity will never again offer to cancel [substitute] another in peace: the next will be drawn in blood". "I fear a civil war", said Gerry. "Apprehending the danger of a general confusion and an ultimate decision by the sword, I shall give the plan my support", said Charles Pinckney. "Is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and convulsion on the one side, and the chance of good to be expected from the plan on the other"? asked Hamilton. "Suppose", said Thompson, in the Massachusetts convention, "nine states adopt this constitution: who shall touch the other four? Some cry out, Force them. I say, Draw them". In the Virginia convention Patrick Henry unconsciously drew a pregnant parallel between the forbearance of the nation in forming the confederation and in forming the constitution: "During the war America was magnanimous. What was the language of the little state of Maryland? 'I will have time to consider. I will hold out three years. Let what many come, I will have time to reflect.' Magnanimity appeared everywhere. What was the upshot? America triumphed". (See TERRITORIES.) Where was the sovereignty, then, the uncontrollable, though self-controlled and "magnanimous", power in the cases of Maryland under the confederation, and of Rhode Island and North Carolina under the constitution? Finally, Dec. 14, 1787, in a public letter, Washington used the following language, which sums up the case against state "sovereignty" in framing the constitution: "should one state, however important it may conceive itself to be, or a minority of the states, suppose that they can dictate a constitution to the majority, unless they have the power of administering the ultima ratio, they will find themselves deceived."

—As a summary, we may say that the ratification of the constitution by the conventions of six of the states, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Virginia and North Carolina, was not at all voluntary; that it was extorted by the evident preponderance of the national will, including minorities in their own states, as well as majorities in other states, and by a fear of arraying a pseudo sovereignty against a real sovereignty; that the whole process was a national act; and that the strongest arguments from authority can not avail against the facts of the case. Nevertheless, there is one expression of opinion which should be cited here, not as an argument from authority, but as giving exactly and tersely the writer's belief. It is that of James Wilson, in the Pennsylvania convention of Dec. 4, 1787. "My position is, that in this country the supreme, absolute and uncontrollable power resides in the people at large; that they have vested certain proportions of this power in the state governments; but that the fee-simple continues, resides and remains with the body of the people". He who asserts the contrary, who holds that the will of a state is, or has ever been, uncontrollable, must prove it by adducing facts, not opinions, whether contemporary or subsequent to the revolution.

—3. After 1789 state sovereignty entered upon the seventy-five years struggle with the national idea which ended in 1865. (See KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS; CONVENTION, HARTFORD; JUDICIARY; ALLEGIANCE; NULLIFICATION; SECESSION; RECONSTRUCTION; NATION.) Throughout this struggle almost every state in the Union in turn declared its own "sovereignty", and denounced as almost treasonable similar declarations in other cases by other states. Where these declarations stopped, and were intended to stop, at naked assertion, they come properly under our third head of "state rights". In this form they have always been common, and probably will again be common, though they have much decreased in frequency since 1865. So late as March 19, 1859, on the occasion of a supreme court decision against the Wisconsin "personal liberty law" (see that title), the state legislature passed a series of resolutions, the last of which spoke the following strong language. "that the several states which formed that instrument [the constitution], being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infractions; and that a positive defiance by those sovereignties of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument is the rightful remedy". References to sovereign states and the sovereignty of the states have since been by no means unusual in legislative resolutions and judicial decisions. A good example is in the message of Gov. Robinson, of New York, June 14, 1878, vetoing a bill to enable creditors of other states to sue through New York state officers: "It requires the state to lay down its dignity, its honor and its integrity as a sovereign state of the Union, and to become a collecting agent for speculators in state bonds". In none of them has there been any apparent notion of a possible maintenance of the so-called sovereignty by force in case of opposition to it. We are interested only in the cases where this final test of sovereignty has been brought in question. It is fairly doubtful whether the New England opposition to the embargo and the war of 1812 fails in the former or in the latter class. The probability is that it really meant state sovereignty to a few of the leaders, but only state rights to the mass of the leaders and followers. The action Pennsylvania in the Olmstead case, in 1809, and of Georgia in the Cherokee case, in 1830-32 (see that title), inclined toward the forcible maintenance of the state's will. In the former case the national authority was enforced, and in the latter it was yielded. South Carolina's nullification of the tariff act in 1832 fulfilled every requisite of the theory of state sovereignty by employing a formal state convention to declare the uncontrollable will of the state. This was therefore the first fair and open attempt in our history to maintain the doctrine to its logical consequences, and it was a failure. The inability of the state to maintain its ground was so evident that an unofficial assemblage suspended the sovereign will of the state to a point beyond the designated time. From this time state sovereignty became inextricably blended with slavery, until the growing union of both ended in secession in 1860-61. (See SLAVERY, SECESSION.) It is very true, as most southern writers assert, that the fundamental issue on which the seceding states waged war in 1861-5 was the maintenance of "the right of self-government", that is, of state sovereignty; and that, in comparison with this, slavery was of little importance. It is true, that, when a state had once pronounced its will to secede, both the supporters and the opposers of secession felt bound to maintain the will of the state, even to the extent of war against the United States. But it is equally true, that no such issue would ever have been presented but for slavery and its progressive influence in arraying the will of the state against the will of the nation. When the issue was at last presented, it could no longer be avoided. There was no room for forbearance, or, as Patrick Henry termed it, "magnanimity"; sovereignty was brought to the touchstone, and state sovereignty was found wanting.

—In the subsequent process of reconstruction (see that title), there was very much that was at variance not only with state sovereignty, but with state rights as well. The power over the militia, the elective franchise, the state courts, and the police regulation of cities and towns, which the universal national will decrees to be in the states, was for a time withheld from the lately seceding states. If this was intended in any way as a certificate of burial for the defunct theory of state sovereignty, it served the further purpose of bringing into plainer view the healthy doctrine of state rights; for the punishment was so abhorrent to the national instincts that it was very rapidly abandoned. Out of all the struggles of the past has come the unanimous will of the nation, equally opposed to state sovereignty and to centralization, that it shall be an indissoluble Union of indestructible states.

—II. Under the first head the effort has been made to show the baselessness of state sovereignty from the single historical fact that the will of the nation has always been the controlling power, though it has always been forbearing in non-essentials. It is necessary further to adduce some other more isolated facts, all showing that the states were never sovereigns.

—1. It is essential that a sovereignty should have complete power of independent action in external affairs as well as in internal affairs. Foreign nations, in their intercourse with a state, look, not to assertions of sovereignty, but to the fact, and regulate their recognition and diplomatic relations accordingly. What are we to think of a "sovereignty" that never declared or waged a war, never concluded a peace, never sent or received an ambassador, never flew a recognized flag, and never formed a treaty or an alliance? And yet this is the history of nearly if not quite all the states. The few exceptions, the New England union (see that title), the Indian wars and treaties of New England and the south, the pine tree flag and coinage, were sub rosa appropriations of the insignia of sovereignty, unrecognized by any others than the appropriators, and most of them occurred in colonial times, when sovereignty, other than the king's, was unthought of. Even when the colonies became states, the usual American political sense showed itself through all the declarations of state sovereignty: none of their state constitutions purported to give the state governments any of the powers above enumerated, nor was this withholding of power the consequence of any agreement in the articles of confederation, for all the state constitutions were framed before, most of them five years before, the articles of confederation went into force. It was the consequence of the instinctive national sense that these belonged to the real sovereignty, the nation. There is a single remarkably exception, the twenty-sixth article of the South Carolina constitution of 1776: "That the president [governor] and commander-in-chief shall have no power to make war or peace, or enter into any final treaty, without the consent of the general assembly and legislative council." But even this (unaltered until 1790) must be taken as only an argument from authority, since the implied treaty power of the state was never maintained in fact.

—2. The states have nowhere shown their lack of the essentials of sovereignty more conspicuously than in their self-confessed inability to stand alone. At the very outset of the struggle between the nation and the king, in 1775, the boldest of the states, Massachusetts, was the loudest in calling upon the continental congress for help to maintain her integrity. The first state to form a constitution, New Hampshire, did so only after seeking the patronage of congress, and all the other states, except South Carolina, waited, before taking the same step, for the general recommendation of congress, May 15, 1776, referred to above. In the articles of confederation each state legislature undertook to covenant with all the others for protection. This was found to be too weak a safeguard, and the nakedness of state sovereignty was fully exposed in the adoption of the constitution: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion and * * * against domestic violence." Even in 1861 the seceding states, which so loudly declared their sovereignty, were at the same time contradicting the assertion by their instinctive efforts to form a new nation for the protection of state sovereignty. A sovereignty incapable of self-maintenance, and always under the protection of a higher power, is a contradiction in terms.

—3. A still stronger objection is the nature of the governments, whether they be called federal or national, which have been formed in, for and by the Union. The first, or revolutionary, government of the continental congress, was absolutely opposed to state sovereignty. The armies which were mustered, the navies which were created, the war which was waged, the flag which was displayed, the treaties which were made, and the debt which was contracted, were all exclusively national, and depended for their credit on the will of the whole people. Congress even showed its national nature by declaring independence without the assent of New York, and by practically making Washington dictator in 1777. Even the articles of confederation, though they declared the sovereignty of each state, contradicted the assertion by leaving the insignia of sovereignty to the national government. When we come to the constitution, the objection becomes absolutely insuperable. The prohibitions upon the states in section 10 of article 1. are all prohibitiors of the exercise of sovereign powers; the states, then, were not in fact regarded as sovereignties, either by themselves or by others. The same argument can not be applied to the preceding section, prohibiting the exercise of certain powers by the United States; for these are all matters of routine, not sovereign powers. Under the constitution the states were not to have even the appearance of sovereignties: the powers to declare war, to make peace, to conclude treaties, to suppress insurrections, and to punish treason, were now placed where they belonged, in the national government. If states formed the constitution, they stultified their own assertions of sovereignty. The conclusion must be, not that states, state governments or the federal government is sovereign, possessed or uncontrollable power, but that the people of the nation, divided by its own will into states, is sovereign.

—The idea that the sovereignty of the states was only suspended by the formation of the constitution, ready to be revived at any moment by the will of the state, though it was the general southern doctrine after about 1803 (see SECESSION), is altogether too fine spun for practical use or recognition. The idea of a comatose sovereignty, of a sovereignty which sleeps like Rip Van Winkle, but wakes at the exercise of its own suspended will, of an uncontrollable will which still exists though it has resigned its essence to another, of an abdicated sovereign peaceably reviving its own sovereignty, is certainly an extraordinary political dogma; and its evident fallacy is enough to disprove the notion that the states were ever sovereign.

—Above all, the provision for amendment by three-fourths, not by all, of the states, is a flat negative to state sovereignty. There is, with the obsolete exception of the retention of the slave trade until 1808, and with the always controlling retention of state lines, no limit upon the power of amendment. Can we imagine real sovereignties not only "suspending" the exercise of their own wills on points certain, but agreeing to accept as their own the unlimited and indefinite future will of three-fourths of their associates? And yet the only alternative for state sovereignty is to imagine the states as making the agreement without the intention of keeping it. This one provision for amendment is sufficient to outweigh all the arguments from authority that could be adduced.

—4. It is usually assumed that state sovereignty is essential to a federal government, and is only denied because of the desire to introduce the idea of a national or centralized government. In fact, the government is both national and federal: not, as the "Federalist" asserts, partly national and partly federal, by the will of the states; but together national and federal, by the will of the whole people. Powerful enough to have established the most centralized government, if it had been foolish enough to desire it, the national will has always, of its own motion, limited itself to such a government as the states should agree upon, a federal government. When the nation's first instruments, the state legislatures, proved unfit, the nation was strong enough to wipe out their work and substitute a better; but it still pledged itself to maintain the states intact, and to make no change in the constitution on which three-fourths of the states could not agree. This universal American predilection to a federal form of government has made it possible to argue in favor of the sovereignty of the original thirteen states, but the case is altogether different when we come to the sates which have been subsequently admitted under the constitution. So difficult is it to ascribe their existence to their own uncontrollable will, or to anything else than the uncontrollable will of the nation, that the advocates of state sovereignty here find (and evade) their Scylla and Charybdis. Take the state of Missouri as an example. Its territory was sold by France to a sovereignty, the United States, not to any or all of the states. It was bought by the nation as a sovereignty, not by any permission given by the states in a written constitution. Its original acquisition, its erection into a territory, its government as a territory, were alike the results of the national will. And when its population had grown sufficiently to justify hope of stability, the national authority regulated the formation of a state government, established its boundaries, and finally, in its own time and on its own terms, admitted the new state to the Union. Will any man be bold enough to specify where and when the sovereignty, the uncontrollable will, of Missouri came into this long process as a factor? To whom, then, do the people of Missouri owe what would still often be called their "sovereignty," the absolute power over their own affairs, which they have enjoyed since 1820, but did not enjoy before 1820? Evidently, to the national will. There is not a state, old or new, in this Union, whose will has been considered in the establishment of its own boundaries. The boundaries of the original thirteen states and of Vermont were fixed by the royal power and its agents; the boundaries of new states, and the rearrangement of the boundaries of the old states, have been fixed under the supervision of the new national sovereignty; and neither of these classes of pseudo sovereignties has ever had the power to add one cubit to its area of its own uncontrollable will. Indeed, one of them (Iowa) was refused admission until she would accept the boundaries which the national will had fixed for her. The only fair arguments to the contrary are Rhode Island and Texas. (See those titles.) But these were only apparent. The long resistance of the former to the encroachments of her neighbors was passive, not active; and the boundaries of the latter, which her own power had been unable to establish as she claimed, were finally fixed by the United States. Texas, indeed, is a good deal of an anomaly in her entrance to our system. An undoubted sovereignty previously, she was rather united to the Union than admitted to it. Some of the whigs, who were opposed to the admission, even claimed at the time that it was a fair question whether the United States had annexed Texas, or Texas had annexed the United States; that the junction of the two republics had properly abolished the constitutions of both, and vacated the offices of their respective presidents; and that a new constitution and a new president were necessary, for the new nation. But the overwhelming superiority of one of the two parties was taken as a sufficient offset for all legal informalities, and the "annexation" was consummated. Barring this anomalous case, the origin of state sovereignty in new states is a field of inquiry which the advocates of the theory of state sovereignty can not be induced to enter. The ablest and latest of them, in his "Republic of Republics," cited below, has a chapter of eight pages on "Sovereignty in the new states," in which the whole question is evaded carefully and successfully. Its only attempt at argument is in the closing sentences of the chapter: "Can you think, dear reader, of any political difference between Ohio and Connecticut, Virginia and Missouri, New Jersey and Texas, Georgia and California, as to status, capacity or rights?" And the answer must be: There is no difference; each and all owe their status, capacity and rights to the power which won them, by force or purchase, from Great Britain, France, Spain or Mexico, and which has since maintained them, the nation.

—In fact, state sovereignty is the deadliest of all enemies to a federal government. In a government without the federal principle, the entrance of the error is impossible, or extremely difficult. As soon as the federal principle enters, its parasite enters with it, and usually succeeds in destroying it. A permanent federal Union, based upon the uncontrollable will of the states which composed it, would be as impossible as permanent connection between man and woman without lawful marriage. The sovereign power of the nation, by the certainty which it gives to the bond, places in the category of the impossible countless grievances which, without a national power, would soon be magnified by state jealousy and state demagogues into good reason for dissolution of the bond. He, then, who denies state sovereignty, but upholds state rights, does so not in defense of the national power, which is perfectly able to defend itself, but in defense of the most beautiful and yet delicate of all schemes of government, the federal system.

—III. STATE RIGHTS. From 1800 until 1865 the phrase "state rights" looked directly or indirectly to but one of the supposed rights of a state, the right of secession. The political revolution of 1800 was caused very largely by the revolt of the mass of the people against the federalist idea that the federal government was sovereign, a very different thing from the assertion that the nation is sovereign. The new party that then assumed control of the federal government did so on the theory that the federal government was the servant of the states, and that the Union was wholly voluntary on the part of the states. This theory was summed up in the name "state rights democrat." In the north and west the theory had disappeared in reality long before 1860, and men in those sections who called themselves "state rights democrats" were hard pressed to reconcile their party name and their support of the war against the rebellion. In the south the name and theory were kept in complete sympathy by the multifarious influences of slavery until state sovereignty and slavery went down in a common overthrow in 1865. "State rights" may now take its proper signification, that which belonged to it in reality even while "state sovereignty" was given as its formal name.

—In reading the debates of the period from 1775 until 1789, no one can help noticing the peculiar way in which the word "sovereignty" is used. The same men who recognize at every step in fact the existence of a national sovereignty, continue to refer to the states as "sovereignties." The same Wilson, whose exact and satisfactory statement of the ultimate national sovereignty has been used above, speaks thus in another place: "The business of the federal convention * * * comprehended the views and establishments of thirteen independent sovereignties." And such apparent contradictions are not the exception, but the rule. "The American Statesman's Dictionary," says von Holst, "was written in double columns, and the chief terms of his vocabulary were not infrequently inserted twice: in the right-hand column, in the sense which accorded with actual facts, and was in keeping with the tendency toward particularism; in the left, in their logical sense, the sense which the logic of facts has gradually and through many a bitter struggle brought out into bold relief, and which it will finally stamp as their exclusive meaning." If they endeavored to "outdo the mystery of the Trinity by making thirteen one, while leaving the one thirteen," it was because they were conscious that the thirteen were thirteen by the will, protection and support of the one. It is by the citation of one member of each of these verbal contradictions, that the advocates of state sovereignty have built up their argument form authority, making the "fathers of the republic" the fathers of their theory, while ignoring the practical application by which the fathers aforesaid explained their apparent contradictions. The contradiction will disappear if we take in set terms what the fathers took in practice, that the states were not sovereign of their uncontrollable will, but that they possessed absolute power in their own sphere by the will of the nation. "State sovereignty" then takes its proper form of "state rights." The nation may diminish or enlarge the sphere of the states: it has repeatedly done both by amendments; but, whatever the sphere of the states may be, they are supreme within it. It may be said that this reduces the states to the rank of counties, but the objection will not hold. The will of a state, to which the nation has abandoned the control of cities, towns and counties, is easily expressed and exercised: but the will of the nation can only be expressed and exercised with such enormous difficulty that the states are practically safe from it, unless an unusually great emergency calls it forth. What present hope is there for any suggested amendment to the constitution? It may further be said that such a theory allows the possible establishment of a monarchy in the United States. Be it so: pray, who is to prevent it if the national will should incline to a step so foolish? He who assumes to prevent it must do so by force. Who could have prevented it in 1775 or in 1787-9, if the nation had willed it? The report was common in 1787 that a part of the convention's plan was to call an English prince of the blood to the throne of the United States. Had the report been correct, and the step been ratified, the only difference in the result would have been that Rhode Island and North Carolina would have felt from a selfish royal personality a pressure very different from the magnanimous forbearance which a republican government could afford to exercise. But the sovereignty would have been alike in both cases, and its exponent the same in kind, differing only in degree.

—And how in reality does this assail the dignity of the states, since it plants their authority on a base so broad as to be practically immovable? Federal government and state governments are alike exponents of the national will, and the effort to secede on the one hand, and to unconstitutionally oppress a state on the other, are alike defiances of the national will, though, if successful, the latter may be atoned for, while the former can not. It is notorious matter of fact, that, in a peaceable and legal struggle between the federal government and a state government, the national sympathy is rather with the latter than with the former; and the state government, supported by the consciousness of this general sympathy, and aided by its own greater intensity of interest, has a much greater probability of success. If the struggle verges toward a settlement by force, national sympathy for the state government decreases, until the distinctive federal authority is formally or actually acknowledged; and then the controlling national feeling shows itself by marking as a victim for political punishment any department or officer of the federal government that has been instrumental in thrusting upon a state the alternative of force or submission. The national will approved the federalist measures of 1798, the action of President Adams against Georgia in 1824, the nullification proclamation drawn up by Edward Livingston against South Carolina in 1832, and the forcible suppression of ku-klux disorders by the Grant administration in 1871-3; and in all these cases the national sympathy almost instantly showed itself against the authors of the acts which had been approved. Even in ordinary politics, there is no greater danger to an American administration than the well or ill founded belief that it is endeavoring to coerce the will of its own party in a state. "[American] men," said Hamilton, bitterly, "are rather reasoning than reasonable animals"; and the national devotion to a federal system must be fully taken into account by any one who would attempt to study American political history.

—And we can not doubt that the national feeling is justified by reason, by the events of the past, and by the probabilities of the future. It is so obviously impossible for any mere centralized government to consult wisely and well the diverse interests of California, Maine and Florida, as far apart in distance and climate as London, Teheran and Morocco, that the absolute necessity of the federal system is everywhere recognized without question. The people of each state feel that the principle on which their own happiness and comfort rest would be destroyed if they should connive at an encroachment by the federal government upon the sphere of another state. They know instinctively that in so vast a country the choice is between the federal system and disunion, for the most solidly based centralized government could not hold the nation together six months; and in the train of disunion come diplomatic relations, international wars, standing armies, and the subordination of the many to the few. Rather than admit the first appearance of such evils, they have denied to the states the power to recall their senators; rather than suffer the reality, they have surrendered the dearest prejudices of their nature, and conquered and reconstructed a protio of the states of the Union. They perceive that a federal system, so far from being in any need of state sovereignty, is injured by the first appearance of state sovereignty and the diplomatic relations implied in it; but that any abandonment or infringement of state rights is an insult and an injury to the nation, and a subtle attack upon the federal system, in which alone the nation can maintain its unity. And the lessons which the past has taught are of such a nature that the future can only add force to them. State sovereignty, with its shifting possibilities of rearrangements of federal associations, disunions and reunions, might have been possible in a limited area, with small population, slight internal interests, and no foreign intercourse; but it was impossible even in 1775, and every doubling of population and wealth since has only made the impossibility more patent. And in exactly the reverse order, the maintenance of state rights, comparatively unimportant in 1775, has grown every year more essential to the well-being of the people, whether viewed as states or as a nation. The area of the state of New York is closely similar to that of England, and there seems to be no great reason why New York should not expect to rival England in population and in wealth. At any rate, every advance toward that point is a stronger reason not only why the welfare and happiness of the increasing population of New York should be consulted, but also why the rest of the country, with its increasing stake in the welfare of New York, should consult it by maintaining the state rights of New York.

—In this essential respect, there seems at present to be little fear for the future. It is, of course, not so easy for one who is in the current of events, as for one who looks from the outside, to calculate exactly their force and direction: but so far as can be seen now, the intensity of the national predilection for state rights is increasing, not diminishing. Mr. E. A. Freeman, in his magazine article, cited below, lays stress on the general American substitution of the word "national," since 1860, for the word "federal." "It used to be 'federal capital,' 'federal army,' 'federal revenue,' etc.; now, the word 'national' is almost always used instead. This surely marks a tendency to forget the federal character of the national government, or at least to forget that its federal character is its very essence." The argument would be very strong if the change had taken place in a period of peace, but the change really shows no sign of permanence, and is only one of the last waves of the tremendous exertion of national sovereignty in 1861-5, never, it is to be hoped, to be again made necessary. A stronger argument is drawn from the passage of laws by congress, such as the national banking law, the general election law, and a few other statutes, which conflict with what were long considered state rights. But these are exceptional cases, due to causes entirely outside of state rights. It is far more noteworthy that state rights, even of the conquered states, have come unscathed through the storm of a desolating war directed against a number of the states. It would be difficult to specify any point in which the theory of government by states has been seriously marred since the adoption of the constitution. Wherein do the people of New York or Virginia govern themselves less now than in 1789? The only fear to the contrary is in the encroachments of the federal judiciary; but these would punish and correct themselves by so clogging the federal courts with business as to compel their reformation by the national will. And while the outlines have been maintained, the state's power has grown pari passu with that of the nation: New York is now a stronger and richer state, a more powerful government, a more valuable friend in peace, a more formidable enemy in war, than the whole United States in 1789. Under the silent but potentially omnipotent sovereignty of the nation, New York has always enjoyed a power of self-government which her own sovereignty could not have made more absolute, and might easily have made much more doubtful. Under the shadow of the powerful commonwealths of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the little states of Rhode Island and Delaware are living their own peculiar life, under the national agis, with an absolute fearlessness of interference from their neighbors for which many a stronger state elsewhere might well have bartered the Philistine armor of "sovereignty." The very same cause, the steady growth of the states in population, wealth and material interests, which would have made state sovereignty yearly more dangerous and hateful to the nation, makes state rights dearer and more evidently essential.

—And it does not require a very close scrutiny of passing events to see that the same cause which has just been mentioned is actually developing a deeper shade of particularism than even state rights. As the state grows more populous and wealthy, a growing diversity of interests in different parts of the state develops a particularist feeling within the state itself. The germ of the feeling has always existed in some of the states. Western and eastern Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina have quite regularly taken opposite political directions, and in one of them (Virginia) the fissure, expanding under the force of open war, has resulted in the formation of a new state. But in all the larger states, there are indications of the steady growth of the feeling; and the probability is, that, as soon as population becomes dense, the pressure of conflicting interests will be relieved by the throwing off of new states. Already New York has three fairly defined sections, the west, the north, and the southeast, any one of which is a potential state. The enormous and diversified area of Texas was never made for a single state; and only increasing density of population is needed to make the same thing evident in other cases. The silent growth of the feeling may be estimated from a single instance. In 1794 the so-called "whisky insurrection" (see that title), in western Pennsylvania, was suppressed by militia, a part of the force being drawn from New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia. In 1877 the same region was the scene of a part of the railroad riots, and the attempt was made to employ militia from the eastern part of the state in restoring order. Let him who remembers the delirium of passion with which men of all classes resisted the attempt, ask himself what the result would have been if New Jersey, Maryland or Virginia militia had again been introduced, and say whether the particularist feeling is less strong in that region now than in 1794. It is even evident that the particularist feeling is not confined entirely to sections of states, but that the great cities which have been growing up on our soil are also developing a particularism of their own. The shibboleth of "home rule," the abandonment of state and national parties in local elections, which has of late years developed so strong a following in Philadelphia, Brooklyn and New York city, is only a phrasing of this new and deeper shade of particularism, which will come out to full view as soon and as fast as it is needed. Mr. Freeman, in the article before referred to, notes this very peculiarity: "An American city is more thoroughly a commonwealth, it has more of the feelings of a commonwealth, than an English city has." Such evident tendencies may well offset a temporary exaggeration of the word national. They seem to show that the people of the United States are justified in their abounding confidence that their political machine has the power to correct its own errors and to guard against its own dangers.

—A complete definition of state rights is an impossibility. Theoretically, they consist of all the powers of government which the nation has not transferred to the federal government or forbidden the states to exercise. (See CONSTITUTION.) By leaving the states and their governments in situ at the outbreak of the revolution, the nation confirmed to them a power over their own territory practically unlimited at the time; but the rights and powers which they have since lost have gone to the general government by direct transfer. The rights of the federal government and of a state government must be ascertained by two directly opposite questions: in the case of the former we must ask what rights have been directly transferred to it by the federal constitution; but in the case of the latter, what rights and powers have been forbidden to it by the state or federal constitutions. In the case of doubtful powers the presumption is against the federal government and in favor of the state, for the nation has given the federal government a limited charter, while it has only circumscribed the state government in certain particulars. The onus probandi is upon the asserter of federal authority and the denier of state authority. The state's direct and indirect powers cover all the field of daily life and interests, while multitudes of persons live and die without once coming directly in contact with federal power or practically realizing the existence of the federal government except by participation in biennial elections. But even this does not quite express the sum total of state rights. The states still assert a power to punish for treason, though the power in offenses against the United States has been transferred to congress (see TREASON); and there are certain powers, such as the passage of insolvency laws, and the regulation of congressional elections, which they exercise in default of action by congress. And, in general, they have whatever powers their courts may define as their right, and may succeed, by persistence or ingenuity, in maintaining against the federal courts, always provided that the controversy does not take the aspect of force: in that case the state must yield to the more direct representatives of the national will. Even in this latter case, the chances are still decidedly in favor of the state; for it has, unless it is very evidently in the wrong, the pronounced sympathy of the nation, which works in its favor in innumerable ways. Conflicts of this kind are not uncommon: one is in progress at the present writing (1883) between the federal and state courts in New Jersey. They are always compromised or evaded, and results will show that the state court, by claiming more than its right, regularly obtains all it can fairly ask. (See, in general, CONSTITUTION, Art. I., §§ 4, 8-10; Art. III., §§ 2, 3; Art. IV., §§ 3, 4; Art. V.; Art. VII.; and Amendments, Arts. X.-XV.)

—The theory of state sovereignty is best stated in 1 Tucker's Blackstone, Appendix, note D, and in Story's Commentaries, §§ 310-318. For the arguments in favor of it see, "Centz"'s Republic of Republics; 1 Calhoun's Works; 2 ib., 197, 262; 3 ib., 140; 1 Stephens' War Between the States (see index); Fowler's Sectional Controversy, 351; Harris' Political Conflict in America, 212; Pollard's Lost Cause, 33. For the Madison theory, see Federalist (No. 39); North American Review, October, 1830, 537; 2 Curtis' History of the Constitution, 377. See also 1 Austin's Province of Jurisprudence, 226; 1 von Holst's United States (Lalor's trans.) 1-63; 5 Bancroft's United States, 500; 6 ib., 351; Greene's Historical View of the Revolution, 119; Prince's Confederation vs. Constitution; 2 Rives' Life of Madison, 371; Hurd's Law of Freedom and Bondage, cap. xi.; 3 Webster's Works, 448; 1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, 360: Brownson's American Republic, 195, 239; Mulford's The Nation, 310; Goodwin's Natural History of Secession; H. Adams' Life of Randolph; Poore's Federal and State Constitutions; Journals of Congress (under dates named); 1-3 Elliot's Debates (under dates and states named); Dillon's Notes on Historical Evidence; 2 Whig Review, 455; Freeman's Impressions of America; Harper's Magazine, June, 1880 (G. T. Curtis' article); 1 Bancroft's History of the Constitution, 146; 2 ib., 47, 332; Hurd's Theory of Our National Existence, 104, 526.

A. J.

STATE

STATE, The. Although natural, and founded on what is most imperious in our sympathies and our wants, society is not maintained and preserved without an effort. The bond which holds it together would be weak indeed and forever in jeopardy if a protective power were not established superior to individual wills to keep them within bounds and to defend the persons and the rights of each against the attacks of violence. Men may wish to see the authority here referred to invested with this form or that; they may attribute to it this or that historical origin: but all agree that it is indispensable to the maintenance of human society, and that only perfectly wise or perfectly brute creatures can do without government.

—But it is clear that there is a great difference between the purely repressive authority with which the elders of a tribe are invested, and the complicated and powerful organism called the state in nations advanced in civilization. When society has reached a certain degree of development; when the cultivation of land possessed in common or appropriated by individuals requires security; when foresight inspired by offensive or defensive war has engendered the habit in a people of making certain preparations in common in view of common danger and enterprises in common; and when certain ideas, beliefs and feelings, held by all the members of a given society, have given birth to the moral unity of the nation, the nation is necessarily developed, and assumes a character of solidity, duration and permanence. It extends its sphere of action, and is completed by the addition and regular working of numerous wheels, each having a distinct existence, and all functioning in harmony. The living personification of the fatherland, the instrument of its strength at home and abroad, the author and enforcer of the law, the supreme arbiter of interests, judge of peace and war, the protector of the weak, the representative of all that is general in the wants of society, the organ of the common reason and of the collective force of society: such is the state in all its power and majesty. Superior to all it governs, the state nevertheless owes to its own citizens all that it is. But it is absolutely necessary that we should remark: what society has confided to the guardianship of the state as a precious deposit depends no more upon society than it does upon the state—the sacred deposit of justice. (See JUSTICE.) Justice does not emanate from the individuals who compose society; it imposes itself on them as their rule of action. In vain do certain publicists maintain that the state can do everything because it is above everything. Nothing is more destitute of foundation than such an assertion. Its rights would be limited by its duties even if they were not limited by positive guarantees written in the laws. The state, too, has a rule and bridle in justice. The law emanates from the state. But the power to make the law and to employ force in its service, does not imply that the state has the unlimited power to make what is unjust just, or the just unjust, at its pleasure. Human beings are subject to moral laws, against which the state has no more power than it has against the physical laws which govern matter.—(See NATION, CHECKS AND BALANCES, GOVERNMENT, GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE, LEGISLATION, REPRESENTATION.)

STATES

STATES, Constitutional and Legal Diversities in. Nothing more forcibly evinces the complex character of American political institutions than the numerous variations in the constitutions or fundamental laws of the states forming the American Union. The controlling power of the federal constitution in matters where it is made the supreme law of the land is fully treated elsewhere in this work. But the large variety of powers relating to the internal polity of states, to local administration, revenue, expenditure and taxation, to the laws to property, to corporations, municipal or private, to the administration of justice, to the domestic relations, etc., come within the cognizance of the several state constitutions, and of the laws made in pursuance thereof by state legislative bodies. States exercise not only the right of eminent domain within their own boundaries, limited only by the power granted to congress to regulate commerce between the states (a power of hitherto undefined and unknown extent), but they are continually adding statute to statute for the regulation of the community in every conceivable direction, until their constitutions and the body of laws enacted in each state form a vast and sometimes unwieldy mass of legislation, rendering it difficult to ascertain with precision the actual law on any subject, in any state. Still more complicated and vexatious, to the stranger studying our institutions, is the divided jurisdiction between the national and the state governments, and between the latter and the counties or municipalities and towns which combine to make up the state. A citizen of the United States, besides his allegiance to the national government, which manages foreign relations, and legislates for commerce and navigation, public lands, pensions, patents, copyright, money, tariff and internal revenue, and other objects of national control, also owes allegiance to the state government, which taxes him to maintain a large body of legislative, executive and judicial officers, and extensive public school system, institutions for the care of the unfortunate classes, for the punishment of crime, and sometimes for a system of public and internal improvements of great extent, besides other collateral objects of expenditure. To this is to be added a citizen's share in local government and expenditure, including highways and the administration of justice, besides, in frequent cases, taxes for public buildings, bridges, or other objects of county necessity or ambition. Then, to close the chapter of his divided political allegiance, after he has discharged his obligation to the United States, to his state, and to the county to which he belongs, the citizen is still further subject to participation in the maintenance of a city or town government in the place of his immediate abode.

—It had been designed to treat, under the head of Constitutions (variations of State), in the first volume of this work, the diversities prevailing in the political regulations of the various states of the Union; but it was found that very many of these variations are controlled by statute, and noy by direct constitutional provisions. To sum up in connected order the more important differences which prevail in the various states in matters of the widest public interest, is the object of the present article. For greater convenience the several topics will be treated the alphabetical order.

—ALIENS. Most of the state constitutions exclude aliens, or the subject of foreign governments, from suffrage, until their residence is judged to have been long enough to familiarize them with our political system. But in fifteen states, aliens who have declared their intention to become citizens are invested by the constitution with the right to vote at elections, on the same terms with natives or actual citizens. These states, thus relaxing the rule which excludes from political power aliens who have not fulfilled the prescribed term for naturalization, are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin. (See ALIENS, 1 Cyc., p. 60.) Aliens have the right of purchasing, holding and conveying real estate and personal property by the laws of nearly all the states.

—AMENDMENTS. (See Constitutions and Constitutional Amendments.)

—BALLOT. With the single exception of Kentucky, the constitutions of all the states require the vote at the popular elections to be taken by ballots. Kentucky's constitution provides that the people shall vote viva voce, which, however, is suspended in the case of congressional elections by the United States law requiring congressmen to be chosen by ballot. Voting in state legislature, however, is almost uniformly viva voce, and this is a constitutional requirement in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Taxes. (See BALLOT, 1 Cyc., p. 198.)

—BANKS. Some of the state constitutions prohibit absolutely the incorporation of any banks issuing circulation (e.g., California, Illinois, Indiana, Oregon and Texas). The Wisconsin Constitutions prohibits the charter of any banks, except on approval by a majority of the qualified voters of the state at a general election. In most of the older state constitutions, adopted before the congressional legislation establishing the national bank system, the legislature is empowered to provide for the organization of banks by a general banking law. In ten or twelve states the constitutional provides for the individual liability of the stockholders to the bank creditors to an amount equal to their respective shares. (See BANKING, 1 Cyc., p. 204.)

—CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. (See Death Penalty.)

—CAPITATION TAX. (See Poll Tax)

—CENSUS. While the constitution of the United States requires a decennial census, which is at intervals so far removed as greatly to lesson its value in a rapidly growing country but few of the states have made provision for taking a state census in intermediate years. Constitutional provisions in the following named states require the legislature to provide for an enumeration of the people at the dates named respectively: New York and Wisconsin, in 1855, and every tenth year thereafter; Indiana (of voters only), in 1853, and every sixth year thereafter; Michigan, in 1854, and every tenth year there after; Kentucky (voters only), in 1857, and every eighth year thereafter; Kansa, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oregon, in 1865, and every tenth year following; Tennessee (of voters only), in 1871, and each tenth year thereafter; Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada and South Carolina, ["if deemed necessary"] in 1875, and each tenth year thereafter; Colorado, in 1885, and every tenth year thereafter; Louisiana, in 1890, and every tenth year thereafter: Maine and Mississippi, once in ten years, to be fixed by the legislature. The constitutions of New Jersey and Rhode Island permit the taking of census by act of the legislature, and this was last done in 1875. No constitutional provision on the subject exists in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. The constitution of Maryland, Ohio and Vermont, permit the taking of a census, but no legislative provision has been made for it. It thus appears that in less than half the states is there any provision for a general enumeration of the people which might serve at once as a check upon the national census, and a supplement to its statistics, of incalculable economic value for purposes of comparison. In several states whose constitutions formerly provided for a census, this requirement has been dropped out in new constitutions adopted within the last decade. The failure on the part of state legislatures to take an interest in a proper periodical census of their state resources, is to be attributed mainly to a spirit of false economy. Such great commonwealths as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois, while providing for certain classes of statistical reports through state officers, have no provision whatever for the record or publication of vital statistics, or of a complete periodical census of their populations. An attempt has been made by congressional legislation to encourage the state governments in the work of taking account of their population and resources by providing (act of March 3, 1879), that any state or territory which shall complete a census in 1885, 1895, etc., according to the forms used in the census of the United States, shall be paid from the treasury 50 per cent, of the expenses of actual enumeration in such state at the United States census, increased by one-half the percentage of gain in population in such state or territory between the two United States censuses next preceding.

—CITIZENSHIP. (See Suffrage.)

—CONSTITUTIONS AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. All the state constitutions have certain common characteristics, while there are great diversities as to political regulations and the distribution and details of legislative, executive and judicial powers. The great cardinal features found in all embody (in some form) a declaration of rights; an assertion of the sovereignty of the people through a representative system; the creation of three co-ordinate departments of government, divided into legislative, executive and judicial; a prescription of the qualifications for the right of suffrage; and a recognition of local self-government. The latter, however, is usually implied rather than formally declared. Constitutions are not the source but the result of personal and political liberty; they grant no rights to the people, but define the rights which they already possess, and provide a systematic organization of governmental powers for their protection. A written constitution is to be viewed in the light of a limitation upon the powers of government in the hands of agents delegated by the people.

—How far state constitutions shall enter into the details of government is a matter determined by the public opinion of the time, as reflected in the popularly elected conventions which frame them. While the earlier constitutions, adopted at the period of the American revolution and later, were more general in the scope of their provisions, many of the more recent ones descend into the particulars of governmental control in each department. The tendency has been to restrain the legislature from passing special acts, and all measures conferring corporate rights or special privileges. It may be said, general, that, with the fewest exceptions, the states of the Union revise their constitutions in from ten to thirty years, each new constitutions growing more democratic than the preceding. The southern states have had much more frequent adoption of new constitutions, since the civil war, growing out of the temporary ascendency of influences and opinions fully treated elsewhere. It is of course a cardinal principle in the making of a constitution that it must be ratified by the people, who alone possess the power of sovereignty. The only exception is in Delaware, whose constitution may be amended by the act of two successive legislatures. The long established usage, when a constitution is revised or superseded by a new one, is for the legislative branch of the government to submit to the qualified voters the question of calling or refusing to call a constitutional convention. The method of doing this is prescribed by the constitution itself, which is to be made the subject of revision. The provision in the constitutions of the various states differ widely as to the proportion of the legislative body required to submit to the people the question of amendment or revision; as to the time fixed for deliberation upon the proposed changes; and, finally, as to the majority of the popular vote required to call a constitutional convention, or to amend the constitution directly. The following analysis exhibits the requirements as to the recommendation and adoption of constitutional amendments in each of the thirty-eight states. Two-thirds of both houses of the legislature must concur in order to propose amendments to the constitution to the popular vote in the following states; Alabama, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas and West Virginia. In Florida and South Carolina a two-thirds vote of two successive legislatures is required to submit amendment. In Massachusetts a majority of the senate and two-thirds of the house of two successive legislature are required, and in Vermont two-thirds of the senate and a majority of the house, confirmed by a majority of the next legislature. In Vermont, also, constitutional amendments are adopted by a majority of the votes of the citizens voting thereon. In Delaware the constitution may be amended by vote of two-thirds of each house of the general assembly if the proposed amendment shall be ratified by three-fourths of the next succeeding legislature. This is without direct reference to the people, although the legislature must "duly publish in print" the proposed amendments, "for the consideration of the people," before the election of the legislature which is to pass upon them. Three-fifths of the legislature are required in Maryland, Nebraska, North Carolina and Ohio to propose constitutional amendments. A majority of the members of both houses is sufficient to propose constitutional amendments in Arkansas, Minnesota, Missouri and Rhode Island. A majority of two successive legislatures is required in Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. In Connecticut a majority of the house of representatives may take the initial step of referring proposed amendments to the next succeeding legislature, and two-thirds of each house must concur in recommending them to the popular vote. In New Hampshire the constitution provides for no legislature action, but requires the selectmen of towns to take a vote in town meeting every seven years whether a convention shall be called to revise the constitution. A majority of voters can order a convention, but two-thirds of the popular vote are required to adopt a constitutional revision or amendment. There is no submission of amendments without a convention. In Kentucky there is no provision for direct amendment, but a majority of the legislature may submit to the people the question of calling a convention; and this requires a majority of legal voters to be carried.

—The provisions as to the popular vote requisite to ratify amendments to the state constitution also vary in different states. Thus, a majority of the whole number of qualified voters is required in Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Oregon. Rhode Island requires a majority of three-fifths of the votes cast to ratify constitutional amendments. Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee require a majority of the votes cast for the general assembly to ratify. In South Carolina alone, of all the states, amendments of the constitutional require in order to their adoption not only a majority of the qualified voters of the state, but they must after ward be ratified by two-thirds of each house of the general assembly next succeeding. In the remaining states, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin, constitutional amendments are ratified by a majority of the votes cast on the question of amending the constitution. It very frequently happens in states requiring for ratification a majority of the voters qualified, instead of those actually voting, that the amendments proposed are lost from sheer lack of interest in them. Popular indifference to constitutional questions is very general, and a majority of all the voters has frequently elected candidates for office, while at the same poll constitutional amendments have been lost because failing to receive the required majority of the qualified voters. In the following states a convention to frame a new or revised constitution may be ordered by a vote of a majority of the votes cast: Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. In Maryland, New York and Ohio the question of calling a constitutional convention must be submitted to the people once in every twenty years and a majority of those voting thereon legalizes it. In Michigan the question must be submitted every sixteen years, and in New Hampshire every seven years. In the latter state the town meetings acts directly on the question, without intervention of the legislature. In Rhode Island three-fifths of the qualified electors must vote to call a convention. In Delaware, Indiana and Kentucky a majority of the legal voters is required to call such a body. In Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan and Mississippi a majority of those voting at the same election for members of the legislature is required to call a constitutional convention.

—CORPORATIONS. Most of the more recent state constitutions restrict the power of the legislature to create private corporations by special act, but permit their organization under general laws. The aim is to prohibit or curtail special privileges. Stockholders are generally made liable to creditors for the full amount of their respective interest in the stock.

—COURTS. The court of highest power or final jurisdiction, called in a few states the court of appeals, is designated in nearly all as the supreme court. The mode of appointment, the tenure of office, the number of judges constituting the supreme court, and their compensation, differ greatly in various states, In all, the constitutional fixes the mode of appointment and the jurisdiction, both original and appellate, with power usually given to the legislature to modify the latter; in a few states the number of judges, and in most states their salaries, are left to be fixed by the legislature. The table on page 804 exhibits these variations in a succinct view. It will be seen that only four states provide a life tenure for the judges of the highest judicial tribunal; and in these the incumbents are removable by the legislature for cause or by impeachment. In the remaining thirty-four states the terms for judicial office vary from two years in Vermont, which is the shortest, up to twenty-one years in Pennsylvania, which is the longest, elective term prescribed; although in New Hampshire the judges must retire upon reaching seventy years of age. In all the states judges are re-eligible to that high office. The people elect the judges in twenty-four states; in six states they are chosen by the legislature; while in eight states the governor appoints the supreme court, subject to confirmation by the senate or the council.

—DIVORCE. (See Marriage and Divorce.)

—DUELING. This barbarous practice can not claim to be in any popular favor in the United States, since the mark of reprobation has been placed upon it by the constitutions of twenty-five states. The giving or accepting a challenge to fight a duel, or engaging therein either as principal or accessory, is made a disqualification for office by the constitutions of Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. The constitutions of nine states go further, and declare that a duelist (actual or intended) shall forfeit the privilege of voting at elections, viz., Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Several state constitutional further require that the legislature shall make laws to enforce these disabilities, and to visit other punishments upon offenders. In most of the remaining states special statutes have assigned to dueling a place in the rank of infamous crimes.

—EDUCATION. The constitutions of all the state, except that of Delaware, contain provisions designed to favor the increase of knowledge and the creation of intelligent citizenship through the education of the young. While any system of compulsory education or of training in the higher branches of learning is much controverted, it is generally conceded that the state has the right to require that every child should receive some degree of elementary education. This is directly recognized in all the later and in most of the earlier constitutions, and the general assembly is required to legislate for the establishment and maintenance of a public school system. State school funds are created and invested in most states for educational objects, and the lands granted by congress to the states for school purposes, with their proceeds or income, constitute in many the basis of this fund. Various other funds are pledged to educational purpose in some states. The supervision of common schools in instrusted to a state officer, variously known as superintendent of public instruction, commissioner of common schools, or the secretary of the state board of education, who is usually elected for two years (sometimes four) by the people of the state. Several states devote the entire proceeds of the capitation tax to the school fund e.g., Alabama, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Many states devote a specific quota of every dollar of tax raised to the fund for public instruction, which is regularly apportioned by the treasury among the county or local officers. Many state constitutions prohibit the legislature, and the counties, towns and school districts, from devoting any school funds to institutions controlled by any sect. Colorado, Florida, Mississippi and Virginia have a state board of education, composed of the superintendent of public instruction (president), the secretary of state, and the attorney general. Missouri adds the governor to these three officers. The constitution of North Carolina provides that the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, superintendent of public instruction and attorney general shall constitute a state board of education. In Texas, the governor, comptroller and secretary of state constitute the board of education.

—Educational statistics do not come within the purpose of this article, but the variations of what is fixed by law as the school age in the different states may here be noted. In Connecticut the age for enrollment in the public schools is from four to sixteen years; in Florida and Maine, four to twenty-one; in Oregon and Wisconsin, four to twenty; in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, five to fifteen in California, five to seventeen; in New Jersey, five to eighteen; in Maryland, Michigan and Vermont, five to twenty; in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York and Virginia, five to twenty-one; in South Carolina, six to sixteen; in Georgia, Louisiana and Nevada, six to eighteen; in Kentucky and Missouri, six to twenty; in Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia, six to twenty-one; in Alabama, seven to twenty-one; and in Texas, eight to fourteen.

—Regarding compulsory attendance in the public schools, although it has been strongly urged for many years, no wide foothold for the system has yet been acquired in the United State. Connecticut enforced the first practical compulsory education law by its colonial code adopted in 1650; at present, however, even in the "land of steady habits", the difficulty of enforcing the law, with a large school population of foreign birth, is very great. The amended law forbids manufacturers to employ minors under fourteen, unless they have attended school at least three months in each year. Massachusetts has a similar law, and compels parents and guardians to send children between eight and fourteen to school, for twenty weeks every year, unless otherwise under instruction. The Maine school law authorizes towns to enforce the attendance of scholars between six and seventeen. In 1871 New Hampshire and Texas passed laws requiring compulsory school education. In 1872 Michigan passed a compulsory school law, requiring at least twelve weeks' schooling yearly of all between eight and fourteen, nor other wise taught. Nevada, in 1873, passed a law requiring sixteen weeks' attendance. In 1874 similar compulsory laws were passed by California, Kansas, New Jersey and New York. The New York law (unlike the others) specified the studies in which the child is to be instructed; namely, spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and English grammar. Laws enacting some degree of compulsion to attend school also exist in Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont and Wisconsin; though in some of these states they are generally disregarded. In no other states, so far as known, are compulsory education laws enforced.

—ELECTIONS. The time of holding elections for state officers is fixed in some states by the constitution, while in others it may be prescribed or altered by the legislature. By act of congress (March 3, 1875) elections of representatives in congress are required to be held on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November every second year, in 1876 and following years. The states which had different seasons for election of state officers have by degrees assimilated their laws so as to hold all state elections on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the only exceptions being Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia. Annual elections formerly prevailed in most states; but the tendency has been steadily toward electing state officers and legislatures biennially, and the former even once in every four year only, as in California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon and West Virginia. The only states now holding annual elections are Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

—ELECTORS. (See Suffrage.)

—EXEMPTION. (See HOMESTEAD AND EXEMPTION LAWS, 2 Cyc., p. 464.)

—GOVERNORS. The following table gives the variations as to length of terms of office and salaries of governors of the various states:

See Pardoning Power, Succession, Veto Power.

—HOMESTEADS. (SeeHOMESTEAD AND EXEMPTION LAWS, 2 Cyc., p. 464.)

—INSOLVENCY. The general subject of bankruptcy has been treated to vol. I., p. 223. In the absence of any general of the United States, most of the states have provided acts regulating insolvency and assignments for the benefit of creditors. The states which have no laws for insolvent debtors are Alabama, Colorado and North Carolina. In California the act of 1880 provides for both voluntary and involuntary bankruptcy through the courts. In the following states assignments of property for the benefit of creditors do not discharge the debtor, except upon the amounts paid, the balance of liabilities standing against him: Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Virginia. In Connecticut the debtor can procure a discharge from liabilities to creditors when his estate pays 70 per cent., but not otherwise. In the following states, debtors making assignments can be released only upon the consent of all the creditors': Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas. Louisiana provides for a discharge of debtor upon the consent of a majority of his creditors in number and amount. In New York and insolvent debtor is discharged on the concurrence of two-thirds in amount and value of his creditors. In Maine, creditors representing three-fourths of the indebtedness must agree in writing to accept a certain percentage, before the debtor can have his discharge. In Massachusetts, voluntary insolvency is provided for, on giving up all property not exempted by law. In voluntary proceedings against a debtor may be instituted by any creditor, on proof of insolvency of fraud. If the assets pay 50 per cent. the debtor is entitled to his discharge; if not, he must obtain the written consent of a majority in number and value of his creditors. In Vermont, the provision of the insolvent law are similar. In the following states a discharge from indebtedness is granted to the debtor upon surrender of his entire estate for the equal benefit of creditors: Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

—INTEREST AND USURY. The legislatures of all the states in the Union have fixed what shall be the legal rate of interest on money. In thirteen states, however, any rate of interest that may be agreed upon between borrower and lender is legalized; in twenty-four states, there are two interest rates legalized, the lower one to prevail in all cases in the absence of contract, the higher rate to be legalized upon express agreement in writing. Usury is punished by various forfeitures, in thirty-two states and territories. The following table exhibits the various interest rates and penalties for usury in the thirty-eight states, the eight territories, and the district of Columbia:

—JUDGES. (See Courts

—LEGISLATURES. All the state constitutions limit and define more or less fully the legislative powers of the body variously styled "the General Assembly," "the Legislature", and (in Massachusetts) "the General Court". The qualifications required for membership in state legislature vary considerably, prescribing a greater or less term of residence in the state, a limit of age (in certain states only), and, in nearly all cases, the requirement of being qualified voters. The number of senators and representatives prescribed in the state constitutions varies greatly in different states. The senatorial bodies are conveniently small, running from nine members only in Delaware, to fifty-one in Illinois, while the members of the other house vary from twenty-one to 321 in number. The popular branch is usually styled "the House of Representatives", but is called "the Assembly" in California, Florida, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin; in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia it is styled "the House of Delegates", and in all the other states its constitutional designation is "the House of Representatives". The legislative sessions were formerly held annually in most of the states. Of late years, however, there has been a steady drift toward less frequent meetings of state legislatures, nearly every constitution adopted within thirty years providing that the sessions shall be held only biennially, unless special or extraordinary sessions are called. The states whose legislatures still meet every year are six only: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and South Carolina. In Ohio, however, the legislature holds adjourned sessions practically amounting to annual meetings. Some constitutions limit the length of session to terms variously running from forty days to 150. In sixteen states, however, the legislature is without limit save its own discretion as to length of session. The following table exhibits the numbers, terms of office and salaries of state legislatures:

—LIBEL, AND LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. The declaration of rights in nearly every state constitution prohibits any laws to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press. Many constitutions couple this with a provision that in all prosecutions for libel the truth may be given in evidence to a jury, and if they find the matter charged as libelous to be true, the party shall be acquitted. This clause is a part of the constitutions of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas West Virginia and Wisconsin. In the constitutions of the following states the jury is empowered to determine both the law and the facts in cases of libel: Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

—LIEUTENANT GOVERNORS. In twenty-seven states the lieutenant governor is ex officio president of the senate, and succeeds to the office of governor only upon the death, disability or resignation of that officer elect. The constitutions in eleven states provide for no such officer as lieutenant governor, viz., Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee and West Virginia.

—LIMITATIONS, STATUTES OF. Limitation laws are designed to fix a reasonable time within which a party is permitted to sue for th recovery of his rights, and imply that his failure to do so furnishes legal presumption that he has no rights in the premises. The following table gives the present state of the laws, barring actions in civil and criminal matters in the various states and territories:

—LOTTERIES. The mischiefs arising from the lottery system, as exhibited in the early decades of this century in many states of the Union, led to constitutional and legal interdiction of these demoralizing games of hazard. In seventeen states the constitution absolutely prohibits the legislature from authorizing any lottery, and in most of them requires it to pass laws prohibiting the sale of lottery tickets. These states are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. In the following eleven states the constitution itself prohibits lotteries absolutely: Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina. In Louisiana alone the constitution provides that "the general assembly shall have authority to grant lottery charters or privileges; provided, each charter or privilege shall pay not less than forty thousand dollars per annum in money into the treasury of the state; and provided, further, that all charters shall cease and expire on the first of January, 1895, from which time all lotteries are prohibited in this state." Kentucky tolerates lotteries by law. In the remaining nine states there is no constitutional provision on the subject, but lotteries are illegal.

—MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. In view of the vast importance of the marriage relation to the moral and material well-being of every community, the hasty and shifting legislation which makes a chaos of conflicting state laws, instead of a uniform system, can not be too much deplored. The recently growing laxity of the laws, and still more, of the practice under them, in many states, has led to an unprecedented multiplication of divorces. It is here proposed to note only he diversities prevailing in the statutes regulating marriage and divorce in the various states.

—Marriage is defined as a civil contract in the codes of fifteen states: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Wisconsin. Whether a marriage by simple consent of the parties (without civil or ecclesiastical formalities) is valid at common law, has been disputed; but the supreme court of the United States decided that the intervention of a clergyman is not necessary, and that in the absence of a statute containing express words of nullity, a marriage by mere consent is valid. (96 U. S. Reports, 76.) In two states only, California and Iowa, do the laws expressly recognize simple consent of the parties as adequate to constitute a binding marriage. On the other hand, three states declare void all marriage not solemnized by authorized persons. In twenty-two states whose laws do not declare such marriages invalid, the courts have usually sustained them, when followed by cohabitation, as valid under the common law. Six states, Maine, Mary land, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennessee and Vermont, do not recognize such marriages, but require consent before a magistrate or a minister. In some other states, both the law and its adjudication are doubtful on this point.

—Whether a valid marriage can be contracted between those of different race and color, is a question variously decided. The statutes of eighteen states prohibit or render void marriages between white and persons of African descent, viz., California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregan, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

—The required ages to render a marriage valid vary greatly. The old common law limit of at least fourteen years for the groom and twelve for the bride, is fixed by statute in Kentucky, Louisiana, new Hampshire, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia; the ages of sixteen and fourteen are required in Iowa, North Carolina and Texas; seventeen and fourteen in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois and Indiana; eighteen and fifteen in California, Minnesota, Oregon and Wisconsin; and eighteen and sixteen in Delaware, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada and Ohio. In other states the common law limit of fourteen and twelve years is upheld without special statute. In seven states, marriage may be annulled because of impotence, and the same disability is made ground for divorce in thirty states. Consanguinity within certain degrees tenders marriage void in twenty-seven states. A marriage between an uncle and a niece is valid in Maryland if contracted before 1878, and absolutely void in Connecticut. In thirty-one states a marriage license or certificate is required, and if the parties are minors, consent of parents must be shown.

—The persons before whom marriage must be solemnized are variously directed to the judges of courts, mayors, justices of the peace, notaries, elders, ministers of the gospel,etc. Public registration of marriages is required by law in thirtythree states, but by no means generally enforced.

—Regarding divorce, three widely different views prevail: 1. That marriage is a sacrament, and indissoluble for any causes arising after marriage. This is the view of the Roman Catholic church. 2. That marriage is a sacred relation, and should be dissolved only for adultery and desertion. 3. That marriage is simply a civil contract, without any religious elements, which, while not revocable by mutual consent, may properly be dissolved for a variety of cogent reasons. The legislation of the various states now recognizes divorce as procurable for cause in all except South Carolina, which, in 1878, repealed all acts permitting divorces. The constitutions of several states prohibit the legislature from granting divorces by special acts; doubtless upon the principle that his is in its nature a judicial act, to be determined on evidence and inquiry, and that legislatures should be restrained from usurping (as the British parliament set the example of doing) the power to declare marriage dissolved. No such restriction of the legislature exists in the New England states, or in New York and Delaware. The latter, however, is the only state where individual cases of divorce are legislatively taken up, and in 1881, thirteen divorces were actually granted. The former law of Connecticut, permitting courts to grant divorces for "any misconduct permanently destroying the happiness of the petitioner and defeating the purposes of marriage," in force for nearly thirty years, produced a scandalous and constantly increasing crop of divorces and was repealed in 1878. Among the legal causes for divorce are; 1, previous marriage, undissolved, in seven states; 2, impotence, in thirty states; 3, insanity at time of marriage, in two states; 4, consanguinity, in five states; 5, pregnancy at time of marriage without the husband's knowledge or agency, in nine states: 6, conviction of an infamous crime before marriage, concealed, in two states; 7, adultery, in thirty-seven states; 8, desertion, in thirty-seven states; 9, cruelty, in thirty-seven states; 10, conviction of or imprisonment for crime, in thirty states; 11, habitual drunkenness, in thirty-five states; 12, neglect or refusal on the part of a husband to provide for his wife in nine states; 13, gross neglect of duty in four states. In New York alone the sole recognized ground for an absolute divorce is adultery. As to desertion, willful absence continued for one year is ground for divorce in eight states—Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin; absence for two years, in nine states—Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada and Tennessee; absence for three years, in thirteen states—Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia; and desertion for five years, in three states—Louisiana, Rhode Island and Virginia. In the other states, no limit of willful absence is specified by statute.

—PARDONING POWER. In most of the states the governor is invested by the constitution with the power of granting pardons, reprieves or commutation of sentence to convicted criminals under sentence; exceptions are made, in the constitutions of twenty states, of treason and impeachment, as cases where no pardoning power can be exercised. In the constitutions of fourteen states impeachment alone withdraws the convicted person from the exercise of the pardoning power. In Vermont alone the crime of murder is added to the two cases just named as beyond the reach of executive clemency. In Oregon the only crime not subject to pardon is treason. In Illinois the governor may grant pardon for all offenses without exception. In Kansas the governor is to exercise the pardoning power only under such restrictions as provided by law. While in twenty-seven states the governor alone is invested with the pardoning power, this power is vested in the governor and council in the states of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont; and in the governor and the senate in Rhode Island. Four state constitutions create a board of pardons, to share the responsibility of exercising this power. In New Jersey this board consists of the governor, the chancellor, and the six judges of the court of appeals, a majority of whom must concur in granting pardons. In Florida and Nevada the governor, the justices of the supreme court and the attorney general, or a majority of them, of whom the governor must be one, my grant pardons. In Pennsylvania the governor may exercise the power of pardon only on the written recommendation of the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and secretary of internal affairs, or any three of them, after full hearing and public notice recorded and filed in the secretary's office. In Connecticut the governor can grant reprieves only until the end of the next legislative session; he has no pardoning power. In California neither the governor nor the legislature can pardon when the convict has twice been convicted of felony, except on the recommendation of a majority of the judges of the supreme court. The states in which the governor alone is invested with the pardoning power are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. In Louisiana the governor can pardon only on the recommendation of the lieutenant governor, attorney general, and the presiding judge of the court trying the case, or of any two of them.

—POLL TAX. While a capitation tax is imposed upon males over twenty-one years of age in most of the states by their constitutions or laws, Kansas, Maryland, and Ohio have prohibited by their constitutions the levying of any poll tax. No capitation tax is levied in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York and Pennsylvania. In the remaining states a poll tax is levied, varying in amount from fifty cents to three dollars per annum. These states are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The payment of this tax is a condition precedent of the right to vote in two states only, viz., Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In Virginia the making the payment of a poll tax a condition of suffrage was abolished by constitutional amendment in 1882. In Nevada the legislature may make such payment a condition of the right of voting. In Delaware and Pennsylvania a county tax must have been paid by all electors to entitle them to suffrage. The constitution of Kansas prohibits making the payment of a tax a qualification for exercising the right of suffrage.

—REGISTRATION. In view of the great importance of a well-regulated registration system to secure fair elections, it is not surprising to find it required by law or constitution in twenty-nine states. The constitutions of Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina require registration as a prerequisite to suffrage. Missouri's constitution requires it in cities only, doubtless on the theory that in country voting precincts fraud is more easily detected, and less probable, than in populous cities, with floating populations. In like manner the laws of New Jersey and New York require registration in all cities of 10,000 inhabitants and upward, but not elsewhere. No registration is required in Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. The constitutions of three states prohibit registration, viz., Arkansas, Texas and West Virginia. In the remaining states a registration system is established by law. It has been asserted (though not generally sustained) that acts of the legislature requiring registration as a prerequisite to voting are unconstitutional in states where the constitution is silent as to registry, because it establishes a test for qualifications of electors not found in the fundamental law.

—RELIGION. Most state constitutions embody in a bill of rights, or elsewhere, declaration that no religious test shall be required for the enjoyment of any civil or political right. But persons who deny the existence of God are disqualified for office by the constitutions of Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee; while the constitutions of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas imply a belief in a Supreme Being as a qualification for office. Tennessee goes further in requiring belief in a future state of rewards and punishments as a qualification for office, and this after adopting, in its declaration of rights, a provision that "no religious test shall ever be required." The majority of constitutions declare that no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect; New Hampshire alone provides in its constitution that the legislature may authorize towns and parishes the legislature may authorize towns and parishes to provide for the maintenance of Protestant teachers of religion. Connecticut gives the same guarantee to every society or denomination of Christians. The free enjoyment of all religious sentiments and modes of worship is guaranteed in nearly all constitutions. The constitutions of the following states declare that no witness shall be held incompetent to testify because of his religious opinions: California, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Clergymen are ineligible to the legislature by the constitutions of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York and Tennessee, and in several of these states they are excluded from any civil office.

—SUCCESSION. Various methods of providing for the succession to the chief magistracy, in case of the death, resignation or disability of the governor, prevail in the different states. Eleven states have no lieutenant governor, and in nine of these the constitution devolves the office of governor upon the president of the senate and the speaker of the house, successively, in case of vacancy. In Maryland the general assembly must elect a governor, if in session when the office is vacant; otherwise, it is filled as in other states. In Oregon, vacancy or inability in the office of governor, devolves it on, 1, the secretary of states, 2, the president of the senate. In nine states the succession falls, first, to the lieutenant governor; second, to the president of the senate pro tempore; third, to the speaker of the house. In twelve states the same constitutional provision exists, except that there is no provision for a vacancy in the third degree. In Wisconsin the vacancy is filled, first, by the lieutenant governor, and secondarily by the secretary of state. In Massachusetts, if the offices of governor and lieutenant governor both become vacant, their duties devolve upon the council. In case of a double vacancy, the constitutions of Indiana, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia require the general assembly to provide by law what officer shall act as governor.

—SUFFRAGE. The right to participate in elections is fixed in each state by its own constitution and laws; these being subject only to the 15th amendment to the constitution of the United States prohibiting any disabilities as to suffrage on account of color or race. While aliens are generally excluded, fifteen states admit to the suffrage foreigners who have declared their intention to become actual citizens. Other qualifications for suffrage embrace in some states registration (see above), and in all, a certain time of residence within the state and locality where the voter seeks to exercise the suffrage. The constitution of Kentucky requires two years' residence in the state before one can vote; and this is the longest residence required by any state. The constitutions of Maine and Michigan require only three months' residence in the state; and this is the shortest period anywhere required. Nine states require six months' residence, viz., Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire and Oregon. All the other states require one year's residence within their boundaries before conferring the right to vote. Residence within the country is required for periods varying from one month to one year, and within the voting precinct for various times running from only ten days to six months. The restrictions upon the right of suffrage are somewhat numerous, but of late years are becoming steadily lessened in number. A property qualification, which formerly prevailed in some states, now exists only in Rhode Island, where the possession of property to the value of 134 dollars in real estate over all incumbrances is required, or (as an alternative) the payment of a tax to the amount of one dollar. The payment of a tax is a prerequisite to the right of suffrage in Delaware. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. In all the states voters must be male citizens of twenty-one years of age or upward, although a limited suffrage has been extended to women, enabling them to vote at school district elections only, in Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and some other states. Illiteracy, it has been widely claimed, should be a bar to suffrage, but this view has prevailed continuously in two states only; Massachusetts requiring that a voter shall have the capacity to read the constitution and to write his name, and Connecticut that he shall be able to read the constitution or statutes. Among the most widely enforced disabilities, idiots and insane persons are expressly excluded from the suffrage by the constitutions of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Paupers are excluded in Delaware. Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Persons convicted of crime are excluded by the constitutions of all the states except Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Vermont. In most other states the laws make the same exclusion. Persons under guardianship are excluded in Florida, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. Bribery, or offer to bribe an elector to influence votes, is made a disqualification for suffrage or office by the constitutions of Alabama, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin. Most of the other states have provided by law severe penalties for bribery, including, in some cases, exclusion from suffrage for a term of years or indefinitely.

—SUNDAY. The laws against desecration of the first day of the week have no constitutional sanction except the recognition of Christianity (in the constitutions of a few states) and the permission to the legislature to make laws promoting religion and morality. The prohibition of labor or sports on Sunday, although found in the laws of most states, is not rigidly or continuously enforced in any. While these laws may be defended on authority and long custom, the fact that their enforcement has more and more fallen into desuetude, is too palpable for denial. These laws may rest either upon specially religious grounds, or upon the humane argument that experience shows one day's rest in seven to be needful to human welfare. Many judicial tribunals, in applying the Sunday laws, have preferred to rest their enforcement upon the second ground rather than the first, but if this utilitarian view of enforced Sunday rest as a benefit to the individual is to prevail, the argument against special Sabbath laws, made by those who rest on the seventh day of the week, is unanswerable. The Jew may urge that the law discriminates against his religion, and is therefore unconstitutional in most of the states. Sunday as a religious obligation properly rests upon the consciences of the community; and the sanction thrown around it by state laws, while of indefinable extent, and often incapable of enforcement, marks the deference that is shown to the habits of the majority in the state. Contracts made on Sunday are void by the laws of many states, though by no means of all.

—USURY. (See Interest and Usury.)

—VETO POWER. In thirty-four states the assent and signature of the governor are required by the constitution to enact any law. The uniform provision is, that, in case of disapproval of any act by the governor, he shall return it to the house in which it originated, with his objections; the vote must then be taken in both houses by yeas and nays. In nine states the constitution provides that a majority of the whole number of members of the legislature shall be sufficient to enact a law not withstanding the objections of the governor, viz., in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia. In twenty-three states two-thirds of the members of each house are required to pass a law over the governor's veto, namely, in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. In two states, Maryland and Nebraska, the constitution requires three-fifths of the legislature to make a law without the approval of the governor. The constitutions of four states confer no power on the governor to veto any act of legislation; these are Delaware, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island.

—WOMEN. The separate rights of married women to their property acquired before marriage, as well as to that acquired afterward by gift or otherwise, are guaranteed by the constitutions of eleven states, including the provision that the wife's property shall not be liable for the debts of her husband. Essentially the same provision has been incorporated in the statutes of nearly all the states. Women are made eligible to offices connected with schools by the constitutions of Louisiana, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, while the right to vote in the election of school officers is conferred upon women in Colorado, Massachusetts, and several other states.

A. R. SPOFFORD.

STATISTICS

STATISTICS. From the numerous definitions of statistics which have been given since Achenwall, the learned professor of Göttingen, established this science and gave it a name, we might think that it is very difficult to define its nature and the extent of its domain. Such is not the case, however. The most different definitions have served as introduction to the most similar works, and the ordinarily informed person is no more ignorant than the adept, that, without figures, without "numerical terms", there is no statistics. The quantity of explanations, developments and deductions which can be added without encroaching upon some neighboring domain, is all there can be any discussion about.

—The question whether statistics is a method or a science, as if it could not be both, will also be discussed. As a method, it is an instrument of observation; instead of saying that the use of such and such a remedy succeeds often or sometimes in such and such a disease, the professor of medicine should say to his pupils: According to the experiments made up to the present time, the remedy has produced its effect in 63 cases out of 100, or in such and such a settled proportion. As a method of observation, it is applied only to large numbers. To speak of 33 per cent. or of 25 per cent. when only three or four experiments have been made, is to abuse scientific forms, and sometimes knowingly to deceive the public.

—As a science statistics embraces all social and political facts presented in their numerical relations to one another, as well as to space and time. As there is no political or social fact without men, we need not add, as certain authors have done, that all statistical facts must have relation to men.

—It seems that there are here well-determined limits, and that there is no need of so many definitions. If no author has been satisfied with the definition of his predecessors, it is not because he wished to see his own figure in the introduction to treatises on statistics; it is because statistics, since its origin, has followed a two-fold tendency. The one gave rise to descriptive statistics, as Achenwall defines it: the thorough knowledge of the respective and comparative situation (status) of each state; or of which Schlözer said that it was history at rest, while history is statistics in motion (in other words, statistics is the situation of a people taken at a given moment); finally, what Napoleon I. called the budget of things. Statistics thus understood is a more or less reasoned inventory. The other tendency which statistics has followed would prove relations, discover laws; it is what, in the last century, was called political arithmetic. It was probably from this point of view that Goethe viewed it when he said: "If figures do not govern the world, they show at least how it is governed." For this purpose the inventory is not sufficient; it is necessary to go to the bottom of "numerical terms", to scrutinize them, compare them, draw deductions from them; according to some, averages, and according to others, laws. Here is M. Guerry's definition: "General statistics * * excludes descriptions, and consists essentially in the methodical enumeration of variable elements, whose average it determines". And M. Dufour's: Statistics is "the science which teaches how to deduce from analogous numerical terms the laws of the succession of social facts".

—Thus, some make of statistics a descriptive science more or less allied to geography; others, a science of deduction, employing mathematical processes, and notably the calculation of probabilities. We believe that it is very easy to combine these two points of view. People always commence by describing the present; this is one of the forms of established statistics. When many descriptions have succeeded one another, it is possible to compare the present situation with previous situations; this is done for the whole of the facts as well as for one of the details; from this comparison is drawn a theory, averages, laws; and this is how the form of statistics, once called political arithmetic, is developed.

—This term leads us to the consideration of another subject of discussion. Are "numerical terms" applicable to political facts or to social facts? William Playfair says of statistics, that it consists of investigations into the political material of states. The definitions of Penchet, Gioja, Schubert, Quétélet, Villermé and many others, insist chiefly upon the political application, while, with M. Dufour, M. Moreau de Jonnès applies statistics only to social facts. He says: "Statistics is the science of social facts, expressed in numerical terms. Its object is the thorough knowledge of society, considered in its elements, its economy, its situation and its movements". Nevertheless, the discussions maintained as to the distinctions between the political domain and the social domain, are so trifling that perhaps none of the authors whom we have cited have had the least scruple to pass from "political facts" to "social facts", and vice versa. Moreover, are not these two categories of facts most frequently confounded? We will not stop, therefore, at these useless distinctions.

—Let us limit ourselves to a few words upon another point, which has been very much debated. M. Moreau de Jonnès maintains that "statistics without figures, or whose figures do not enumerate social facts, does not merit the title which it borrows". Statistics without figures is like a river without water, but a statistics consisting only of figures is not the ideal one; in this shoreless sea, where can the ship land? A text is therefore necessary. But there is no general rule as to the amount of explanations which must accompany the "numerical terms". In addressing specialists, accustomed to study political and social questions, few should be given; they should be given more amply when it is intended to enlighten or convince that portion of the public whom figures repel, and who find "numerical terms" very dry, and, to speak plainly, perfectly wearisome. It is therefore only a matter of judgment, of tact.

—This settled (and we have commenced by clearing the ground of obstacles easily removed), we approach a much more delicate point. Let us again quote an author: we are so fond of leaning upon something, even upon a cane which bends under our hand. M. Moreau de Jonnès says: "It [statistics] proceeds constantly by numbers, which gives it the character of the precision and certainty of the exact sciences". This is a quality which people do not tire of denying to statistics. Rightly or wrongly? Rightly and wrongly. In fact, numbers are always precise, but they are not always exact. It is not difficult, however, to know what figures are exact and what are not; we have only to find out how they were obtained. That is the whole secret. If the verification has been made in a positive and material manner, by counting, measuring and weighing, the exactness is absolute, and no one has the right to attack such figures, unless because of false entries in the public accounts. A great deal of information is obtained in this manner for the wants of public administration. Thus the amount of the finances rests upon mathematical elements, and error is impossible. The case is about the same with the statistics of hospitals, prisons, births, marriages and deaths, justice, means of communication, the post-office and other similar things. But there are statistics, like those of agriculture, industry, consumption, the revenue, and, in general, of all facts which can not be determined by exterior, palpable signs, which often leave something to be desired on the score of exactness, and give occasion for serious criticism. However, there are two kinds of exactness; one is absolute, the other approximative. The approximation is a makeshift; but at bottom it is makeshifts which rule in life; the absolute contrary of the makeshift would be the ideal. But we do not insist upon this. Every one understands that approximation is sufficient for almost every use, even when there is question of information which can be obtained with great exactness. For example, if we should say: The budget of receipts is 2,450,000,000, would it not be generally satisfactory? and would it be necessary to give it to a cent? We said, for almost every use, and notably for the descriptive part of statistics; mathematical exactness is indispensable only when it is intended to state laws. For the rest, it is necessary to beware of the evil tendency of certain authors to set up statistical laws, and to have ever present to the mind that an average is not a law. Averages only show that there are constant relations between such a fact and such another; this constancy permits us to think that these relations are necessary, and often this conjecture will be seen to be well, founded, but the indication of figures has need of confirmation. Therefore, leaving out of the question all bad faith, there are statistics naturally exact, and others more or less so, according, 1, as the external signs of the facts to be collected are more or less evident; 2, as individuals are less interested to dissimulate; and 3, as agents bring more skill, knowledge or conscience to bear upon their statements. But there is also a secondary cause of inaccuracy, or rather of apparent contradiction, in the statement of statistical facts, namely, that different figures often bear the same title. It often happens that one lays stress, without knowing it, or saying so, upon the net product, another upon a gross product, a third upon a product still more gross. Again, one will understand by the word England only the country which bears that name, a second will add to it the principally of Wales, a third the islands, a fourth may go so far as to confound England with Great Britain or even with the United Kingdom: this confusion often occurs in ordinary conversation. We could cite examples by the hundred in which there was no question of ignorance, or of bad faith, or of negligence, but of too great conciseness or a lack of precision.

—These examples explain, in some measure, the reproach so often brought against statistics, of furnishing arms at once both for and against the same proposition. To the extent that this reproach is founded—and this extent is not large—it is deserved by the statistician, and not by statistics. Thus, the art of grouping figures is only a branch of the art of maintaining all theses, of having arguments for all paradoxes and all sophism. When one wishes to defend his point of view at any cost, he chooses figures, or makes some prominent, and leaves others in the shade. The enthusiastic man may sometimes proceed thus with the best faith in the world: passion blinds. Still, beyond the art of grouping figures, there remains also, to justify the difference of conclusions, the possibility and even a certain facility of interpreting the same fact in different ways. It is wrong to say of a fact or of a set of figures that it is brutal. A man stretches out his hand to another: is it to give him an alms or a thrust with a dagger? A man places a sum of money in the hand of his companion: how will you interpret the act? Is he giving aid, or the price of a crime? In such a year 100,000,000 kilogrammes of meat were consumed in Paris: was it evidence of plenty or of dearth? The fact or the figures alone mean nothing; it is the interpretation which renders them eloquent. Now, the field of interpretation is vast, and commentators can often launch out in opposite directions; so much the worse for the one who is deceived and for those he deceives. To sum up: if statistics gives arms for and against, it is not because of the nature of statistics, but because of the nature of our mind, for the same reproach is applied to religion, philosophy, the law, and to all moral and political sciences, and, in a less degree but still in a degree great enough, even to the sciences called exact.

—Statistics must have a very certain utility, if it has been able to withstand all the attacks of which it has been the object, attacks which embrace in their generality at once the accurate part and the inaccurate part of the science of "numerical terms". In fact, it remains always true that statistics is the budget of things, that inventory which no government can dispense with. It is no less true that the comparison of many well-proven facts makes us find, or at least catch a glimpse of, truths which might have escaped us. The faults of the instrument impose upon us a prudence which is nowhere out of place, but do not oblige us to renounce its employment. Fortunately, it is not with this instrument, as with many others, whose use is prohibited for fear of abuse. The person who does not know how to manage it, does not touch it, therefore no one will be wounded through his awkwardness; the only inconvenience which it can have is to remain inert in hands which have not learned the use of it. In other words, figures are a language which everybody does not know how to read, and from which few know how to draw all the information contained in it.116 .

MAURICE BLOCK.

STEPHENS

STEPHENS, Alexander H., was born in Wilkes (now Taliaferro) county, Ga., Feb. 11, 1812, and died at Atlanta, March 4, 1883. He was graduated at the university of Georgia in 1832, and was admitted to the bar in 1834. On the formation of the whig party in the state from the old state rights, or Troup, party, he became one of its prominent leaders. After six years' service in the state legislature, he became congressman from his state, 1843-59, taking rank as a whig leader in congress until the whig party was dissolved, and afterward as an independent democrat. In 1860-61 he opposed secession earnestly, but yielded when his state seceded. (See ALLEGIANCE, III.) He then became vice-president of the confederacy until the downfall of the rebellion. (See CONFEDERATE STATES.) In 1877 he was again sent to congress as a democrat, where he remained until his election as governor in the autumn of 1882.

—See Johnston 8 Browne's Life of A. H. Stephens (1878); Savage's Living Representative Men, 451; Bartlett's Presidential Candidates of 1860, 179; Cleveland's A. H. Stephens in Public and Private (1886); A. H. Stephens' Constitutional View of the War Between the States, and The Reviewers Reviewed.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

STEVENS

STEVENS,Thaddeus, was born at Peacham, Vt., April 4, 1792, and died at Washington city Aug. 11, 1868. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1814, and was admitted to the bar in Pennsylvania. After serving in the state legislature at intervals from 1833 until 1841 (See BROAD SEAL WAR), he was sent to congress as a whig 1849-53, and as a republican 1859-68. During this latter term of service he became most conspicuous as a leader in the work of reconstruction by congress. (See RECONSTRUCTION, and authorities under it.)

—See Thaddeus Stevens, Commoner, and the Memorial Addresses in the house on his death, published in 1868. Harris' Political Conflict in America was originally designed as a biography of him, but it is written from a very adverse standpoint.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

STOCK EXCHANGE CLEARING HOUSE

STOCK EXCHANGE CLEARING HOUSE. (See CLEARING, And CLEARING HOUSES.)

STOCK JOBBING

STOCK JOBBING. (See AGIOTAGE.)

STORY

STORY, Joseph, was born at Marblehead, Mass., Sept. 18, 1779, and died at Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 10, 1845. He was graduated at Harvard in 1798, and was admitted to the bar in 1801. He served as a democratic congressman 1808-9, and in 1811 was appointed associate justice of the supreme court. In his judicial work he was the founder of admiralty jurisprudence in the United States; and, in conjunction with Chief Justice Marshall, was instrumental in securing recognition for the national existence of the United States by the supreme court. (See NATION, II.; JUDICIARY.) This latter part of his work he put into form in 1833 in his "Commentaries on the Constitution."

—See Story's Life and Letters of Story; Story's Miscellaneous Works; 2 Webster's Works, 297; Story's commentaries on the constitution; and his decisions in Cranch's, Wheaton's and Peters' Reports, and Gallison's, Manson's, Sumner's and Story's Reports (circuit).

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

STRICT CONSTRUCTION

STRICT CONSTRUCTION. (See CONSTRUCTION.)

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS are suspensions of work growing out of differences between employers and employed. Though it is customary to speak of all such interruptions of labor as strikes, some are more properly termed lockouts, there being an essential difference between strike and a lockout. A strike is a suspension of work resulting from a dispute originating in some demand of the employed; a lockout, in some demand of the employer. A stoppage of work, for example, resulting from a demand on the part of employés for an advance in wages, would be a strike; a stoppage resulting from a demand by the employer for a reduction, would be a lockout. An apparent exception to this definition, are those strikes and lockouts entered upon for the purpose of influencing the settlement of other strikes and lockouts, as, when workmen who are satisfied with their own wages cease work, to assist in enforcing the demands of other workmen who are not satisfied, or, when employers "lockout" their employés with whom they have no differences, depriving them to work and its wages for the purpose of preventing them from assisting striking workmen. In these and similar apparent exceptions, however, there is always a formal or implied demand.

—It is frequently difficult to determine whether a labor contest should be classified as a strike or a lockout. Practically the distinction is of little importance, except as it bears on the question of the relative tendency of employer and employed to take the initiative in these industrial conflicts. Unless, therefore, it is expressly stated to the contrary, the word strike in this article will include both strikes and lockouts.

—Classification of Strikes. Strikes and lockouts may be divided into three general classes.117 . They are occasioned by 1, differences as to future contracts; 2, disagreements as to existing contracts; or 3, quarrels upon some matter of sentiment. These contracts may be agreements more or less formal, or customs of the trade and methods of work and administration, which, from long usage, have the force of agreements. The first class named would include strikes arising from differences as to the present and future wages of labor; from attempts to change existing agreements, customs or methods, or to introduce new ones. Disagreements under the second class would arise either upon matters of fact or construction; while quarrels of the third class grow out of the offended amour propre, either of the individual or the class.

—Causes of Strikes. In the early history of labor troubles the causes of strikes were few. They arose chiefly from differences as to rates of wages, which are still the most fruitful sources of strikes, and from quarrels growing out of the dominant and servient relations of employers and employed. While labor remained in a state of actual or virtual servitude, there was no place for strikes. With its growing freedom "conspiracies of workmen" were formed, and strikes followed. The scarcity of labor in the fourteenth century, resulting from the "black death," and the subsequent attempts to force men to work at wages and under conditions fixed by statute, were sources of constant difficulties, while the efforts to continue the old relation of master and servant with its assumed rights and duties, a relation that English law recognizes to this day, were, and still are, the causes of some of the most bitter strikes that have ever occurred.

—With the rise of the craft-guilds, the opportunities for strikes were increased, and the list of causes enlarged. These craft-guild strikes rarely grew out of differences as to wages, but from disputes regarding presumed infringements of privileges, or innovations of trade customs, and were sometimes undertaken for the most trivial causes. The custom of blacklisting or "reviling," as it was termed, practiced by these guilds as a method of punishment, was also a constant source of strikes, the craftsmen refusing to work for the "reviled" master, or with the "reviled" journeyman, until he had made atonement, and had been recognized as honorable by the guild. In many respects strikes growing out of modern trades unionism resemble those of the craft-guilds, which organizations are the precursors, if not the parents, of modern unionism. In addition to these causes named, many of which are still as potent as ever, the changes in the relations of employer and employed, and of workmen to each other, and to their occupations, arising from the modern organization of labor and industry, have introduced new sources of discontent, and consequently increased the list of causes from which strikes may arise. The possible causes of strikes at the present time, therefore, are much more numerous than they were formerly, and the liability to trouble greatly increased.

—While this is true, a careful analysis of the various causes shows that they can all be grouped under a few general heads. Strikes are caused by differences as to: 1, rates of wages, demands for advances or reductions, chiefly; 2, payment of wages, changes in the method, time or frequency of payment; 3, hours of labor; 4, administration and methods of work, for or against changes in the methods of work or rules and methods of administration, including the difficulties regarding labor-saving machinery, piece-work, apprentices and discharged employés; 5, unionism; 6, miscellaneous, including strikes from matters of sentiment, and a few others that do not admit of classification.

—Strikes result most frequently from differences regarding rates of wages. In an investigation into the strikes of 1880, made for the United States census by the writer, a classification according to causes gave the following result:

This exact proportion will not hold good for all years, but it is safe to assert that strikes growing out of disputes regarding rates of wages will always be more than 50 per cent. of the whole number of strikes. The proportion of strikes arising from demands for advances or demands for reduction, the two chief causes of difficulties connected with rates of wages, will vary greatly in different years, depending chiefly upon the condition of business, demands for advances being more frequent in years of high prices, and for reductions in years of low prices. Of the strikes arising from differences as to rates of wages, which were reported upon in the above table, 86 per cent. Were for advances, and 14 per cent. against reductions.

—Conditions Influencing the Frequency of strikes. Our information is too meagre, and what is available too fragmentary and inexact, to justify the formulating of any universal laws as to their frequency, or any unconditional proposition as to their justice or policy. There are, however, certain facts which a study of strikes and lockouts seems to make evident. Consider, first, the conditions that influence their frequency. As has already been indicated, the modern organization of industry and labor has largely increased the possibility of strikes. While I can not accept the definition of some writers, that strikes are "refusals of a number of workmen in combination to work on the terms offered by the employer,"118 there can be no doubt that the opportunities offered for combination by the aggregation of large bodies of workmen of the same trade in the same locality, and the ease of communication between those of the same class employed in different localities, have greatly increased the number of strikes, and made those that have occurred of much greater importance. It will, therefore, be found, as a rule, that in those trades in which a large number of men are engaged in the same occupation, and in localities where large bodies of workmen congregate, strikes are comparatively frequent. There are but few strikes in the agricultural occupations; but many in the mining, mechanical and manufacturing industries.

—Frequently changes in the prices of commodities increase the number of strikes. These render necessary more frequent changes in the rates of wages, and in the relations of employer and employed, and, as it is not possible always to agree as to what these changes shall be, strikes follow. The improved methods of communication and transportation, and the remarkable development of manufacturing industry in modern times, has much to do with these fluctuations, and consequently with the increase of strikes. Under the methods and facilities of some centuries ago, the periods of fluctuations were spread over many years. Agreements concerning work, or "terms of hiring", as they were called, were for the year, and demands for advances or reductions were made at the time of the yearly contracts. This is changed now; fluctuations in prices follow each other at times with the greatest rapidity, and with them come demands for an increase or reduction in wages, which, if not granted, end in strikes or lockouts. It will be found, however, that strikes arising from these fluctuations are not always the most frequent during the period of rapid advances, nor lockouts during a decline, though demands for changes in wages are most prevalent at such times. They generally occur at or near the beginning of such periods, or near their close. When the market is rapidly advancing or declining, the conditions are usually such as to render opposition futile, and a demand made is conceded, but when the advance or decline in price is beginning, or when it is nearing its end, there is so much opportunity for differences, not only as to the existing conditions of business, but as to its future, that a peaceable solution can not be reached so readily as when there is no uncertainty as to the state of prices.

—It is upon the existence of one or both of these conditions, viz., opportunities for combination, and the fluctuations in prices of commodities, and the advantage taken of their presence, that the frequency of strikes and lockouts largely depends. Whatever may be the real or apparent necessity for an appeal to industrial warfare, neither employer nor employed will inaugurate a strike or lockout, except in very rare cases, without a reasonable prospect of success. In estimating these probabilities the strength and character of the combination that the workmen may form, or that the employer must meet, as well as the state of the market, are the chief determining elements. It will be found that it is a belief, that the party making the demand is strong enough to enforce it, or that the condition of the market is such that the party upon whom the demand is made can concede it, and will eventually be forced to do so, that determines whether or not a strike or lockout shall be undertaken.

—Trades Unions and Strikes. Much has been written as to the influence of trades unions upon the frequency of strikes. As has already been stated, there can be no doubt that combinations of workmen, or trades unions, have had a marked influence in increase the number of strikes. Many never would have been undertaken had it not been for a conviction of success through the power of combination. While this is true regarding all combinations, it is very doubtful if it is true of the strong, well-organized unions that have represented certain classes of workmen for some years. While many of these unions are responsible for some of the most determined, hotly contested and important strikes of the century, some of which were totally indefensible, it is also true, as a rule, that their utterances and influence are against strikes. Their refusals to undertake general strikes, or to countenance local ones, are quite frequent. Not only has their positive influence been exercised against strikes, but indirectly they have had a marked effect in reducing their number. Adjustments of wages to which they have been parties have, as a rule, been for longer periods than when rates have been fixed without unions; their strength has made them respected, and deferred demands upon the trades they represented until a real necessity for reductions existed; while their accumulated funds and the force of public opinion, to which they are quite sensitive, have rendered them conservative and disinclined to enter upon a strike until no other course seemed open.

—The Statistics of Strikes. It is manifestly impossible to secure complete and accurate statistics of strikes. Many are never heard of by others than the parties engaged, and when information concerning those that are known is not refused, the statements made are frequently so incomplete and inaccurate, and so evidently colored by the views and supposed interests of the party giving them, that they are far from reliable in many of their particulars. Nor withstanding this, the published statistics of strikes are of great importance. They render available much valuable information concerning the number, character, losses and results of strikes, and furnish many facts necessary to a decision as to their policy and justice. The most important publications on this subject are the "Report of the British Social Science Association" ("Trade Societies and Strikes," London, 1860); a paper read by Mr. G. Phillips Bevan before the statistical society, London, Jan. 20, 1880, the first attempt to give the statistics of the strikes of any country for a series of years; the "Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics" for 1880, and of Pennsylvania for 1882, giving the statistics of strikes in these states for a series of years; and the "Report on Strikes in the United States for 1880", compiled for the United States census by Jos. D. Weeks. The reports of several of the royal and parliamentary committees of Great Britain on labor subjects, and the annual reports of many trades unions also, contain much valuable information on strikes. These latter, however, are not generally available. Mr. Bevan reports on 2,352 strikes in Great Britain, covering the years from 1870 to 1879. The loss in wages alone from 114 of these strikes was £5,067,825. In the writer's "Census Report", statistics more or less complete are given of 762 strikes that occurred in the United States in 1880. In 414 of these, 128,262 person were engaged. The report gives quite full returns from 226 strikes, in which 64,779 persons took part. The time lost was equal to the work of one man 1,989,872 days, and the wages unearned for this time, $3,711,097. Of the direct losses in the remaining 506 strikes no statement was received, nor of the indirect losses to capital, to the workmen not directly engaged, and to the wealth of the country. It is probable that the striking workmen recouped their losses in part from their society funds and from contributions, as well as by working at other employments; but, after all allowances are made, it still remains a deplorable fact that the waste and loss from strikes are enormous.

—Results of Strikes. The history of strikes abundantly proves that as a rule they are not successful; that is, the demand which was the cause of the strike is not conceded. Of 351 of the strikes reported upon by Mr. Beavan in his paper already referred to, 189 were unsuccessful, 71 successful and 91 compromised. Of 149 reported upon by the Massachusetts bureau of labor statistics, only 18 were successful, 109 unsuccessful, 16 compromised, and 6 partially successful. The report of the Pennsylvania bureau on 135 strikes showed 45 successful, 66 unsuccessful, 13 compromised, and 11 partially successful. The census report gives the result of 481 strikes, of which 169 were successful, 227 unsuccessful, and 85 compromised. This report shows also that the workmen are more successful in strikes growing out of demands for advances than they are in resisting demands for reductions. With the exception of the census report on strikes, these statements cover a series of years, including periods of great depression in business, as well as prosperous times, and may, therefore, be regarded as giving fairly average results.

—The Expediency of Strikes. Of the utter folly of many strikes, there can be no question. They have been doomed to defeat from their inception. They have been undertaken in defiance of all economic laws, in ignorance of the real condition of trade, and without any just cause. They have wasted capital and decreased the wealth of the country. They have brought hunger, misery, debt; have broken up homes, served long associations, forced trade to other localities, and driven men and women and little children into the very shadow of death; and yet men, knowing that all of these possibilities are before them, will deliberately enter upon strikes, will cheerfully bear all these privations, and, what is more remarkable still in many instance, the wives of the strikers, upon whom the misery falls with the most crushing force, will be the most determined in their resolution. It would seem that there must be some reason for this, and I believe it will be found that strikes are not wholly wrong, and that even unsuccessful ones are in many ways advantageous to the strikers. Labor has had to fight for every advantage it has gained, and though it is often defeated in its struggles that are called strikes, it has not only learned in these contests how better to wage future battles, but it has so impressed employer with its strength that it has made them shy of encountering antagonists constantly growing more formidable. The most hopeful indication of modern industrial society is the great increase of mutual respect and good-will between employers and employed, as well as greater regard on the par of each for the rights of the other. To this result strikes have contributed in no small degree. They have also asserted the right of combined labor to deal with combined capital, and have denied the claim that the true labor market was found in the "higgling" of capital with all its power, and one individual workman with his weakness and necessities. In addition to this, it will be found that many of the movements that have bid fair to improve the condition of labor, such as co-operation industrial partnerships, boards of conciliation and arbitration, as well as wise rules and policy on the part of trades unions, owe much to strikes.

JOS. D. WEEKS.

SUBSIDIES.

SUBSIDIES. This word has been used in three quite distinct senses. 1. In earlier English constitutional history it is applied to the form of special tax most frequently resorted to until the last century. It was assessed not directly upon property, but upon persons. It most important elements was a land tax of one-fifth the nominal rental. A single subsidy yielded about £70,000. On extraordinary occasions more than one at a time was granted by the house of commons. (Blackstone, vol. i., p. 311.) 2. In the last century and the beginning of the present century, we find the term commonly used to denote payments to anally to assist in carrying on a war. This practice was largely resorted to by England; but since 1815 it has fallen into disuse. 3. In its modern use, dating from about 1840, it has been applied to any direct pecuniary aid rendered by the state to industrial enterprises of individuals. In its widest sense it includes all such government aid, even to mercantile and manufacturing industry, as, for instance, the system of bounties on exports, which holds so important a place in the commercial policy of France. Practically, it is better to apply the term only to grants in aid of transportation interests.

—The earlier form of state aid to these enterprises was by enabling them to secure monopoly rights. These were fully embodied in the early trading charters, the principle survives to this day in the navigation laws of the United States. Our earliest railroads attempted to secure similar provisions. But the development of the transportation system in the present century, and the growing repugnance to monopolies, made this policy more unwise than ever; and the system of subsidies, that is, of direct state aid, was resorted to instead. Such aid may be given either by assuming part of the burden and risk of construction, or by increasing the current receipts for a term of years. The former policy was prevailed for railroads, the latter for steamships.

—Railroad building has been encouraged in three ways: 1. By the state building the lines for the companies to operate for a term of year, either with or without payment of rent; 2. By a guarantee of interest on a part or the whole of the bonded debt, or even on the capital stock; 3. By direct grants, either of money or of public lands. Every large European state, except England, has adopted one or more of these methods. France built the roadbed for most of her main lines, and guaranteed the interest on the bonded debt incurred by the operating companies in building branches. Prussia gave extensive guarantee of interest, until the adoption by her government of the policy favoring state ownership and control of railways. Austria started with a system of state railways, but, between 1850 and 1860, ceded to private companies, for very inadequate compensation, the right to operate most of them for long terms of years. Practically, the results to the companies have been much the same as under the French system. Austria also gave extensive and ill-judged guarantees of interest, on stock as well as bonds. Nearly the same course of events has taken place in Italy. Russia has given interest guarantees, and also direct pecuniary aid in large amounts.

—In the United States payment of money to assist railways have been mainly appropriated by towns and other local organizations. Much has been spent in this way, but in such a manner as not to attract public attention. National aid to railroads has been, with one exception in the form of lands grants. Even before the time of railroads, there had been such grants in aid of canals, two million acres in 1827 being the chief instance. Buy the system really took its start in the year 1850, with the grants to the Illinois Central and the Mobile 8 Ohio railroads. There grants, like those that followed them, were for form's sake not made directly to the railroads, but through the medium of the states of Illinois. Alabama and Mississippi, in which the lands were situated. Similar grants followed in Missouri in 1852, Arkansas in 1853, and in a number of other states in 1856. By these and subsequent concessions nearly fifty-seven million acres of land in organized states were granted in all, of which fully three-fifths have been certified to the corporations. In addition to this, immense tracts of the so-called swamp land, often very valuable, have been appropriated by individual states, for the same purpose.

—The matter took a new shape in 1862, when Thaddeus Stevens in order to bind California closer to the Union, introduced and carried the Pacific railroad bill. By the terms of this act there were granted 12,800 acres of land to each mile of road built (ultimately amounting to about 33,000,000 acres in all); and, in addition, the credit of the United States was pledged to the amount, on an average, of $25,000 per mile, or about half the cost. On the money thus advanced, the United States had paid, up to 1880, principal and interest, about $112,000,000, and had received from the road about $15,000,000 worth of payment. When it came to the incorporation of the Northern Pacific railroad, the promoters would have been glad to cite this as a precedent; but, as they could not obtain the government credit, they secured a double grant of land per mile, 47,000,000 acres in all. Subsequently the two southern routes secured together about 70,000,000 acres. There have been granted to railroads, in all, nearly 160,000,000 acres of territorial land, besides the state lands above mentioned.

—Land concession came to an abrupt end twelve years ago. It is a question whether, apart from its abuse, it was a good system. It advocates claim: 1, that the country was the gainer by the construction of long lines of useful railroad at a much earlier time than would have been possible otherwise; 2, that the government was no loser, because the land was only granted in alternate sections, and the immediate increase in value of those sections retained by the government was more than an equivalent for the much slower increase in the value of the whole which would otherwise have accrued; 3, that the settler was a gainer because he could better afford to pay the additional price for the sake of being near a railroad. On the other side it is charged: 1, that it stimulated unsound railroad schemes and caused too much railroad building; 2, that the provisions intended to protect the government interest were almost systematically disregarded; 3, that the settler, once established so far from markets and from competing transportation routes, was placed at the mercy of the railroad; while the real gainer by these enhanced values was generally the land speculator. The comparative force of these arguments must be decided by the special circumstances of each case where they are applied; but there have been so many mistakes, and so much corruption, that the burden of proof in every case lies upon the advocates of the land-grant policy.

—England never adopted any system of railroad subsidies. Her inland relations were such that her people were only too ready to undertaken the construction of the necessary lines without government encouragement. But England's foreign and colonial relations were such as to force her government to take the lead in the matter of steamship subsidies; and it did so with great promptness. It was not until 1838 that the practical importance of ocean steam navigation was made to appear. Proposals for a line of Atlantic mail steamers were at once invited, and in 1839 the contract was awarded to Samuel Cunard, whose bid was the most favorable. The original contract was for three ships at an annual compensation of £55,000; it was soon modified to four ships of £81,000. This contract was extended and modified to the advantage of the company in 1846, 1834 and 1858; it is only within the last fifteen years that it has been greatly reduced. In 1840 a contract for fourteen ships at £240,000 was made with the Royal Mail steam packet company, for the carriage of the mails to the West Indies and southern United States. This company afterward extended its field of operations to South America. In 1845 the Peninsular 8 Oriental company, which had had for some years a small mail contract, engaged to run seven mail steamers to India for £160,000; and this company gradually extended its engagements with the government, so that for a series of years it has received more than £400,000, and often £500,000, annually. The contracts with these three companies have been by far the most important; of the rest only those with the Pacific steam navigation company and with the Union steamship company, to Africa, need be mentioned. Under contracts like these, England expended in forty years nearly £45,000,000 sterling. The expense is now gradually decreasing, but still amounts annually to some £700,000 sterling.

—These payments are so often cited as an example for America to follow, that we must consider carefully how far they were actually of the nature of bounties for the encouragement of the shipping interest. The early contracts with Mr. Cunard were unquestionably of this nature. Ocean steam navigation was then an experiment; and Great Britain's colonial relations made it a political necessity for her to try the experiment first. Her statesmen were forced to take the burden of risks which no private individual could prudently bear; hence the apparent disproportion of the payments to the cost of the steamships. Nor is there good reason to doubt the candor of the commons committee, who, in 1846, reported, in answer to some complaints on this head, that the service was better performed by that company for the price than it would be by any other. But twelve years later, when the business was thoroughly established, the conservatism of the admiralty allowed the Cunard contract to be renewed at a figure which was then quite in the nature of a bounty, and was felt by the post office to be burdensome and unfair. There was somewhat the same spirit shown in dealing with the Royal Mail company, especially renewing their contract in 1868, when, for certain reason, the business was not thrown open to public competition, as had been the case in all other instances since 1860. The question is a complicated one; but it is impossible to read the correspondence of the authorities with a rival line, and particularly a report for the government by Mr. Scudamore (Parl. Papers, 1867-8, xli.), without feeling that there was an anxiety not merely to have the service well done, but to keep in good condition the line which had done it in the past.

—The company whose case is oftenest cited as an example of what is done by government subsidy, is the Peninsular 8 Oriental. But here there is much less ground for so doing than in the two former cases. The company owed its origin and early development to private enterprise; so far from being favored by government contract, it often seemed as if partiality was shown against it; and when it was finally recognized as the only agency competent to perform certain necessary parts of the mail service, the contracts were awarded grudgingly at a sum which was considered scarcely an equivalent for the extra liabilities and expense incurred. The facts which have given rise to the public impression, are the enormous aggregate sum paid to the company, the renewal of one of its contracts some years before its expiration on terms which seemed especially advantageous, and, above all, the guarantee, for some years in force, of a 6 per cent. dividend on the capital stock of the company. The enormous aggregate pay is explained by the enormous aggregate service. The contract renewal in 1870 was really sought by the authorities to obviate some difficulties under the old contract, which gave them far more trouble than they did the company. The guaranteed dividend requires a word of explanation. In 1867 the company was disinclined to take the government contract, believing that the pay offered would not compensate the service required. The authorities were equally persuaded that it would. As no other company would undertake the work, the matter was compromised; the company taking the contract with the proviso that if they should, under its terms, be unable to pay a 6 per cent. dividend (not 8 per cent., as has been frequently stated), the government should make good the deficiency. Experience proved the company's original estimate a correct one. How the matter was regarded by the government is illustrated by the following extract from Mr. Scudamore's report (Parl. Papers, 1867-8, xli., 131, incl. 3): "It would seem that in dealing with ocean services the postoffice has only two questions to consider: first, what is the nature of the service required; and, second, what is the proper price to pay for it. In the case of communication with the east, parliament has openly declared in favor of a more frequent and equally regular and rapid communication; the postoffice has ascertained that only the company will undertake the maintenance of that communication, and I think I may also claim to say that it has ascertained, with a reasonably close approximation to accuracy, the proper price to pay for it. For the proper price must in every such case be that which, taken together with the revenue from traffic, will cover the working expenses and give a moderate dividend on capital. It is impossible to obtain good service on other terms. The question can not be dealt with a commercial principles, because the conditions of the postal service compel the contractors to disregard commercial principles. * * For the sake of keeping up such communication with the east as the nation requires, they must set commercial principles at defiance; and, cost what it may, the nation must either pay them what they lost thereby, or forego the communication." (See also Rep. of Com. on Affairs of Oriental S. S. Co., 1867, ix.)

—Of England's mail contract system it may be fairly said: 1, that its aims are political and not commercial. It is a necessity for England to have constant communication with her colonies, and she has spent large sums for this object. It is almost equally important for her to have an efficient naval reserve and transport service, and she has made her mail contracts one among several means toward this end. 2. That the incidental commercial advantage to the subsidized companies has not been generally great, except at a very early period of the system. This is evinced by the fact that rival unsubsidized lines have been equally successful, and that the largest contracts have been on terms which made them a matter of indifference to the party receiving them.

—The French government encouraged the Mediterranean steamship service from the first, and in the years 1861-5 extended its operations to the support of lines to North and South America, India and China. The annual amount recently paid under these contracts has been more than four and a half million dollars. These efforts met with some degree of success; but the attempt, by the law of January, 1881, still further to increase the French carrying trade by bounties on ship building, sometimes as high as 60 francs per ton, and by a navigation bounty with a maximum of 1.50 francs per ton per thousand miles, did not produce the desired results. Of other nations, Italy, in 1880, spent more than three million dollars on steamship subsidies; Brazil, one million seven hundred thousand; Japan, half a million. Belgium, in 1878, spent over a quarter of a million; Austria, a mileage rate, with a maximum of about three hundred thousand dollars; Russia, a moderate fixed sum, and a mileage rate in addition. The subsidies of Portugal and Holland are small; those of Germany and Denmark apply only to Baltic steamers. The most successful ocean steamship lines of the continent, those of Hamburg and Bremen, receive no pay from the government other than the very moderate postage rates. (45th Cong., 2d Sess., Ex. Doc. 38; 46th Cong., 3d Sess., House Com. Report, 342.)

—The United States was reluctant to allow England to get the start in ocean steam navigation. In 1841, only two years after the first Cunard contract, T. Butler King, of Georgia, chairman of the house committee on naval affairs, presented a report urging similar subsidies on the part of the United States. In 1845 an act was passed authorizing the postmaster general to make contracts for the carriage of the foreign mails in American steamships. The first line established under this system was from New York to Bremen; the first passage was made in 1847. The steamers ran ultimately twice a month, to Havre and Bremen alternately, for an annual subsidy of $350,000. Mr. King continued to push the subject; and in March, 1847, an act was passed requiring the secretary of the navy to contract for mail service from New York to Liverpool, to New Orleans, Havana and Chagres, and from Panama up the Pacific coast. From these contracts arose the Collins line, the George Law line to Aspinwall, and the Pacific Mail steamship company. In 1848 there were further resolutions in congress looking to the establishment of lines to China, to Antwerp, and to the mouth of the Elbe, but these proposals were never actually carried out. By the act of March 3, 1851, the amount expended for Pacific mail service was largely increased, provision being at the same time made for the Panama railroad; and in July, 1852, the subsidy for the Collins Line to Liverpool, originally $385,000, was increased to $858,000. Oct. 1, 1852, the United States foreign mail service was as follows:119 .

—By far the most ambitious of these enterprises was the Collins line to Liverpool. The United States government had demanded such vessels as would afford a very high rate of speed; therein departing from the English policy, which demanded regularity and great safety at comparatively slow rates, as exemplified in the Cunard and Peninsular 8 Oriental lines. The Collins steamships thus cost a large sum in their construction, and a career of exceptional prosperity was needed to support them even with the assistance of the subsidy. This prosperity they enjoyed for four years, from 1850 to 1854. In September of that year they lost the steamship "Arctic," and little more than a year later the "Pacific." Under the dissatisfaction produced by these disasters, combined with other reasons, the subsidy was withdrawn. The line succumbed, and in 1858 the steamships were sold. The other subsidies were discontinued at about the same time. The Bremen line withdrew its steamships on the expiration of the contract in 1858; the Havre line continued operations until after the breaking out of the rebellion. A considerable portion of the United States mail service was at this time maintained by Vanderbilt's steamships without subsidy; but these ceased in the war time to be employed in this way. At the beginning of 1864 we had no steamships crossing the ocean, and none engaged in foreign trade except the Havana and Pacific lines. (See Memorial of New York Chamber of Commerce, 1864.)

—In that year congress authorized a mail contract for twelve round trips, of vessels of not less than 2,000 tons, from New York to Brazil, at an amount not exceeding $150,000. The most favorable offer was made by J. F. Navarro, representing what afterward became the United States 8 Brazil steamship company. The negotiations dragged on for a long time; there were many irregularities, including most suspicious and persistent efforts on the part of the company to make the government accept unsuitable vessels. In the latter part of 1865 a conditional contract for ten years was entered into and finally ratified. (See 39th Cong., 1st Sess., Ex. Doc. 121.)

—Early in 1865 a contract was made with the Pacific Mail steamship company for a monthly mail service to China, in vessels of 3,000 tons, at an annual payment of $500,000. No further lines were subsidized, in spite of the well-known report of the Lynch committee in 1870, favoring an extension of this policy. But in 1872 an additional subsidy of $500,000 was offered the Pacific Mail for the establishment of a second service per month; this time in vessels of 4,000 tons. But the Pacific Mail was unfortunate in every way. Before the subsidy contract of 1865 it had been a sound and well-managed concern; since that time it had been the plaything of speculators. It lost nine vessels inas many years. Foreign shippers had become dissatisfied with its rates and methods. The shares had fallen from above par to below 40. Nor did the supplementary contract bring the expected relief. It was found impossible to complete the vessels for the new service within the contract time. As there had been apparently no lack of intention on the part of the company, the government hesitated what to do, and seemed disposed to grant the company special favor. But then came the disclosures as to how the contract of 1872 had been obtained, the evidence of vast amounts of money spent for corrupt purposes. Public sentiment was strongly aroused, as was evinced by the vote on Mr. Holman's anti-subsidy resolution. In the face of feeling like this a much better case than that of the Pacific Mail would have had no chance of a favorable hearing; and the decision of the senate judiciary committee that the subsidy of 1872 had been forfeited by non-fulfillment of the contract, was almost a foregone conclusion. (43d Cong., 2d Sess., Senate Rep., 268; House Rep., 674.) The subsidy of 1865 ran on till the middle of 1875. The Brazilian line subsidy expired at about the same time. With that year ended the second systematic attempt at thus supporting steamship lines, even more completely and decisively than the former attempt had ended in 1858. Since that time there has been more or less agitation in favor of subsidies, but without distinct results. Even the Russell committee of 1880, with their obvious leanings in that direction, did not venture to propose anything specific. An attempt on the part of the Pennsylvania railroad company to support a line from Philadelphia to Liverpool by similar payments, was, after full trial, finally abandoned.

—It is urged by the advocates of a subsidy system for the United States steam marine, 1, that we stand almost alone among maritime nations in not doing so; 2, that we lose not merely the carrying trade, but a large part of our foreign commerce; 3, that we are left defenseless in case of war. To this the reply is made, 1, that the example of England does not really apply to our own case, while that of France and other nations can hardly be appealed to as successful; 2, that the loss of our carrying trade and foreign commerce is due to other causes, and can not be remedied in this way. The third point is more difficult to meet directly. There can be no doubt that England's brilliant success in Egypt, and her power of waging distant wars elsewhere, are due to the readiness and efficiency of her transports, and that this reserve transport service was partly connected with her system of mail contracts. Nor is there any doubt that at the beginning of the rebellion the control of a number of really swift steamers would have been of inestimable service to the government. But such a naval reserve is much more needed for offensive than for defensive war, the general carrying trade being, in the latter case, a source of actual weakness. And whether, in the existing machinery of the United States government, and the liabilities to fraud on government contracts, such a naval reserve could be secured by a system of subsidies, is, to say the least, doubtful; whether it would ever be worth the money we should have to spend upon it, is even more doubtful; not to speak of the possibility of obtaining the same result on a larger scale, with less cost and less fraud, by the removal of some of the restrictions upon commerce. (For a strong statement of some of the arguments against subsidies, see David A. Wells' "Our Merchant Marine," chap. viii. See also, ENCOURAGEMENT OF INDUSTRY BY THE STATE.)

ARTHUR T. HADLEY.

SUB-TREASURY

SUB-TREASURY. (See INDEPENDENT TREASURY.)

SUFFRAGE

SUFFRAGE means a vote or a participation in government, and, specifically, the privilege of voting under a representative government, upon the choice of officers, and upon the adoption or rejection of fundamental laws. This privilege has always and everywhere been conditioned, at least, upon age and sex. Universal suffrage, therefore, is an inaccurate though popular description of manhood suffrage—that of males of full age, and there is no right of suffrage except in the sense that this privilege is created and sanctioned by positive law. The object of suffrage is the continuity of government and the preservation and perpetuation of its benefits.

—There are two important theories regarding the basis of suffrage. 1. That it is a privilege granted by the state to such persons or classes as are deemed most likely to use it for the public weal, a device to secure good government whose application must depend upon social conditions, civil institutions and political aptitudes. Most states have acted upon this theory, and, at different times, conditioned suffrage upon age, sex, nativity, religious profession, rank, military service, possession of property, tax payment, character, intelligence, residence. "While the action of a state in determining what political status shall be given to children, women, aliens, inferior races and others, is necessarily arbitrary and artificial, and reflects the convictions of the nation and generation upon the moral claims which arise from the natural facts that differentiate these groups of persons and form their relations" to other groups of persons possessing political power, no disfranchisement is a violation of institutional liberty if it only recognizes natural (physical, mental or moral) inequalities of condition, or of political justice if civil institutions bear equally upon all who are in the same political status, or of equality before the law if due relation is preserved between the political rights and duties that are imposed. 2. That, like life, it is a gift from nature—a natural right of all persons. This political dogma of the eighteenth century is a pure fiction. If this so-called natural right is denied by a state, it can not be enforced: if it exists, it must be unconditioned, but few who affirm it work to secure its enjoyment to females, and none claim that it can be safely exercised by minors. The democratic spirit, formulated in the second theory, and voiced in the American and French revolutions, has been a powerful dissolvent of political privileges justified, in their origin, by the first theory. In one century it has led to a wide adoption of manhood suffrage. Statesmen have sought to direct this movement; demagogues, to profit by it: fools, to stay it.

—Advocates of any extended suffrage claim: 1, that it gives the state the greatest practicable security against internal violence; 2, that the chances of a wise conduct of both its internal and external affairs are increased with every addition of individuals or classes consulted; 3, that each individual and class best knows its own interests and wants; and 4, that no individual or class can be as safely intrusted to protect another's interest as that other itself. These claims are now being tested by manhood suffrage, which is of too recent origin to yield anything more than material for suspended judgment. Yet it is undeniable that the first results of this greatest political experiment of the century are not unmixed good: it has sometimes, especially in cities, borne the evils of ignorant rulers, insecurity of life and property, extravagant and corrupt administration. But good or evil no large curtailment of this suffrage is now possible. The old qualifications are felt to be unjust: the intellectual and moral development of man has made a wide bestowal of the suffrage not only possible but expedient. Any disfranchisement, to be successful, must follow closely the lines of least reasonable resistance, and clearly tend to lessen the enumerated evils. Within such lines there are three such qualifications which may be prescribed by the state with justice, and which only apply the principle that political rights should be correlated to political duties. 1. An educational qualification evidenced by ability to read and write. "No one," says Mill, "but those in whom an a priori theory has silenced common sense, will maintain that power over others, over the whole community, should be imparted to people who have not acquired the commonest and most essential requisites for taking care of themselves—for pursuing intelligently their own interests, and those of the persons most nearly allied to them." Intelligence is not an infallible test of political wisdom, but it is essential to the safe conduct of government; and if it is an admitted evil to withhold the suffrage from any person, the prevention of greater evil demands its denial to the illiterate. So low an educational test can not, with present private and public aid for elementary instruction, long bar any one from the electorate who would strengthen the state. 2. An economic qualification evidenced by maintenance without municipal aid, and the payment of a poll tax. In politics, as elsewhere, only that which costs is valued. The industrial virtues imply self-denial, which prepares their possessors to wield political power; but pauperism raises a presumption of unfitness to share in political power. The person who can not support himself has no moral claim to rule one who can. The payment of one direct tax is a political object-lesson, useful to all, and imperatively needed by those who pay no other tax and occasion the greater part of all police expenditure. In cities an additional qualification—the payment of such taxes or rent as give a substantial interest in the economical administration of the municipality—should be imposed upon the electors of the local body which makes municipal appropriations and lays municipal taxes. Its necessity is fully set forth in the report of the commission appointed in the state of New York, in 1876, to devise a plan for the government of cities. (See CITIES.) "Non-taxpayers," says Mill, "have very motive to be lavish, and none to economize. As far as money matters are concerned, any power of voting possessed by them is a violation of the fundamental principles of free government, a severance of the power of control from the interest in its beneficial exercise." 3. A moral qualification evidenced by habitual obedience to the positive law of the state. Such obedience, practically, is the interpretation given by the courts to the phrase "good moral character." Theoretically the wisdom of thus restricting the suffrage has long been admitted. One of the present state constitutions mentions "good moral character" as one of the conditions to citizenship; the United States statutes require an alien applying for naturalization to "make it appear to the satisfaction of the court admitting such alien, * * that during that term (five years) he has behaved as a man of good moral character." Practically, the enforcement of these constitutional and statutory requirements has been impossible, for the law has never given naturalization courts and registrars of elections any adequate means for the determination of the law-abiding character of applicants for citizenship and registration.

—The political injustice of allowing law-breakers, inflicting heavy taxes upon law-keepers, to become and remain voters, that is, law-makers, is equaled only by its danger, for wherever a bare majority rule, and the will of law-breakers is allowed legal expression, the action of the majority and of the state may be determined by its basest elements. This danger can be diminished by 1, Laws establishing a systematic registration of criminals, with provisions for the publication and exchange of criminal registers. 2. Laws so extending the use of disfranchisement as a penalty for crime for males, that conviction for any felony shall, in addition to other punishments, entail, ipso facto, permanent political disability; and that a single conviction for certain misdemeanors which imply unfitness to discharge the duties of a voter (as, for example, illegal voting and petit larceny), or such repeated convictions for any misdemeanor or different misdemeanors as may by statute law and judicial construction constitute one an "habitual misdemeanant," a "common drunkard," or a "repeater," shall, in addition to any other penalties, be followed by a temporary loss of the suffrage. 3. Laws requiring clerks of criminal courts to report at stated times the names and descriptions of all persons convicted of disfranchisable crimes to clerks of naturalization courts and to registrars of elections, whose duty it shall be to refuse to such persons citizenship and registration until the disability is removed.

—This policy of punishing crime politically, if adopted and maintained, would tend, first, to purify the electoral body by purging it of its most corrupt and corruptible elements, and so preserve the national life by limiting its control to law-abiding citizens; second, to lower taxes by divesting the most wasteful and least productive members of society of all power, directly or indirectly, to appropriate the public moneys, and by substituting, in many cases, an inexpensive disability for an expensive confinement; third, to reform occasional offenders, and to deter the young from criminal acts by appealing to two of the strongest motives to lawful action which operate in a democratic country, viz., fear of permanent political inferiority, and hope of civic honor.

—In the American Colonies, 1619-1789. The original settlers, with unimportant exceptions, all had a voice in public affairs. The founders of Virginia and of New England (the original forces which determined the course of colonial development) were mainly Englishmen, accustomed to self-government, and in each colony homogeneity of character, community of interests and belief, economic conditions, and military necessities, found expression in equality of political privileges till the arrival of men of other blood and religion, of "indented servants," "redemptioners," transported felons, and negroes, introduced social inequalities. From that time electoral qualifications varied greatly, and often in different colonies, the most constant tests being religious profession and possession of property. The influx of immigrants of different religions soon compelled the abolition of the former test, and the economic conditions of the country, tending powerfully to equality of condition, early in the colonial period produced a movement which has been "constant though not steady, and is not yet spent, toward absolute equality of political rights and privileges." The first legislative body that ever sat in America (at Jamestown, July 30, 1619) was elected by all the male inhabitants. Notwithstanding some fluctuation, both before and after, the Virginia colony, from 1670, restricted the suffrage to "freeholders and house-keepers," the reason stated being that the "usual way of choosing burgesses by the votes of all persons who, having served their time, are freemen of this country," produced tumults at the election, and that it would be better to follow the English fashion and "grant a voyce in such election only to such as by their estates, real or personal, have interest enough to tye them to the endeavor of the publique good." The first legislative body in New England (at Plymouth, 1620,) was composed of all the male inhabitants, and this township type and school of government was adopted in other New England settlements. It was ordered, May 18, 1631, before there was a representative body in Massachusetts, "that no man should be admitted to this body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same." This was not repealed until Aug. 3, 1664. It excluded for thirty years three-fourths of the male inhabitants from the ballot box; and a parallel law is found only in New Haven colony, where, June 4, 1639, a fundamental agreement was adopted providing "that church members only shall be free burgesses, and they only shall choose among themselves magistrates and officers to have the power of transacting all public civil affairs of this plantation." The first representative court in Massachusetts, in 1634, ordered "that none but freeman should have any vote in any town." The Massachusetts charter of 1691 restricted suffrage to the possessors of an estate of freehold in land to the value of 40s. per annum, or other estate to the value of £40. At the beginning of the eighteenth century a freehold test had become common in the colonies, though all attempts (see Locke's "Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina," 1669,) to limit political power to hereditary wealth had failed. In some colonies, laws imposed penalties on absentees from town meetings or elections, a survival of which appears in the constitution (article xii.) of Georgia, in force 1777-89. From 1700 to 1776, inclusive, no change occurred in the social condition of the colonies necessitating any radical change in the suffrage, except that parliament, in 1746, substituted for the various naturalization acts which their need of immigrant laborers had induced several colonies to pass before the close of the preceding century, a uniform system of naturalization, on the basis of seven years' residence, at oath of allegiance, and profession of the "Protestant Christian faith." Independence brought about some extension of the suffrage, but, though the demonstrated capacity for self-government of the colonists led to a declaration of the right of self-government in all classes of mankind, the principle was not consistently followed by revolutionary statesmen. "They extended it just so far as the conditions of the time and place at once necessitated and made safe; and sought to shun two opposite dangers: danger to the government from the supremacy of any class, and danger to the government by the exclusion of any class which might have sufficient unity, self-conscious power and independent interest to attempt the same kind of revolution which the colonists had themselves sanctioned. "The last survival of the test of religious profession appears in the constitution of South Carolina (article xiii.)in force 1778-90, which limited suffrage to "every free white man who acknowledge the being of a God, and believes in a future state of rewards and punishments."

—When the federal constitution was adopted, each state was left by its constitution, or by its charter from the crown (under which two states, Rhode Island and Connecticut, continued to act), to prescribe for itself who should have the privilege of voting. No state then granted that privilege to all of its citizens. It was limited to the following classes of persons: in New Hampshire, "every male inhabitant of each town and parish with town privileges, and places unincorporated in the state, of twenty-one years of age and upward, excepting paupers and persons excused from paying taxes at their request"; in Massachusetts, "every male inhabitant of twenty-one years of age and upward, having a freehold estate within the commonwealth of the annual income of three pounds, or any estate of the value of sixty pounds", in Rhode Island, "such as are admitted free of the company and society, "freeholders of estate of the value of $134, and the eldest sons of such freeholders; in Connecticut, such persons as had "maturity in years, quiet and peaceable behaviour, a civil conversation, and forty shillings freehold or forty pounds personal estate," if so certified by the selectmen; in New York, "every male inhabitant of full age who shall have personally resided within one of the counties of the state for six months immediately preceding the day of election, if during the time aforesaid he shall have been a freeholder, possessing a freehold of the value of twenty pounds within the county, or have rented a tenement therein of the yearly value of forty shillings, and been rated and actually paid taxes to the state"; in New Jersey, "all inhabitants of full age, who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate in the same, and have resided in the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election"; in Pennsylvania, "every freeman of the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the state two years next before the election, and within that time paid a state or county tax which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election"; in Delaware "as exercised by law at present, "all resident tax-paying freemen;" in Virginia, "as exercised by law at present, "persons having a freehold estate of one hundred acres of unimproved land, or twenty-five acres of improved land, or a house and lot in a town; in Maryland, "all freemen above twenty-one years of age, having a freehold of fifty acres of land in the county in which they offer to vote, and residing therein, and all freemen having property in the state above the value of thirty pounds current money, and having resided in the county in which they offer to vote one whole year next preceding the election"; in North Carolina, for senators, "all freemen of the age of twenty-one years who have been inhabitants of any one county within the state twelve months immediately preceding the day of election, and possessed of a freehold within the same county of fifty acres of land for six months next before and at the day of election." and for members of the house of common. "all freemen of the age of twenty years who have been inhabitants of any one county within the state twelve months immediately preceding the day of any election, and shall have paid public taxes"; in South Carolina, "every free white man of the age of twenty-one years, being a citizen of the state, and having resided therein two years previous to the day of election, and who hath a freehold of fifty acres of land, or a town lot of which he hath been legally seized and possessed at least six months before such election, or (not having such freehold or town lot), hath been a resident within the election district in which he offers to give his vote six months before said election, and hath paid a tax the preceding year of three shillings sterling toward the support of the government" and in Georgia such "citizens and inhabitants of the state as shall have attained to the age of twenty-one years, and shall have paid tax for the year next preceding the election, and shall have resided six months within the county."

—In the United States, 1789-1884. During this period freehold franchise has given way to manhood suffrage. The French revolution, intensifying the democratic spirit till Americans abhorred all political privileges as British badges; the transfer of political leadership from conservative statesmen of long experience to radical politicians echoing the French dogma of political equality, the vast expansion of territory, with the settlement of new states bidding against each other with political franchises for immigrants; the growth of population, with the rise of large cities inhabited by many uninterested in the soil; the anti-slavery agitation, spreading the doctrine of the "rights of man"; the gradual popular recognition that the principles of the declaration of independence had not been logically applied; the private interest of demagogues, and the fierce competition of parties careful for the next election if neglectful of the next generation; and, finally, the alleged necessity imposed by a war, one of whose incidents was the emancipation of a race—are some of the causes which have united to produce the existing electoral franchise. Eleven of the thirteen original states have abolished the tax and property tests, as follows: New Hampshire, the tax test in 1792; Georgia, the property test in 1798; Maryland, the property test in 1801 and 1809; Massachusetts, the property test in 1821: New York, the property test in 1821, and the tax test in 1826; Delaware, the property test in 1831; New Jersey, the property test in 1844; Connecticut, the property test in 1845; South Carolina, the property test in 1865; North Carolina, the property test in 1854 and 1868; Virginia, the property test in 1850, and the tax test, established in 1864, in 1882. The only new states which have required a property or even a tax qualification, are the following: Tennessee, admitted in 1796 with a freehold qualification, abolished it in 1834; Ohio, admitted in 1802 with a tax qualification, abolished it in 1851; Louisiana, admitted in 1812 with a tax qualification, abolished it in 1845; Mississippi, admitted in 1817 with a militia or tax qualification, abolished it in 1832. Long before they disappeared, tax and property tests had become forms. Parties or candidates paid the taxes of unqualified citizens whose votes were needed and could thereby be had, or conveyed lend to them before election, which was deeded back after election. Thus, by degrees, all native-born white males of age were allowed to vote upon taking the freeman's oath, after a brief term of residence in a state or town, and the competition of new states for laborers led to the gradual extension of suffrage to alien declarants, who now have it is thirteen states. After the rise of the American party, Massachusetts, during 1859-63, denied the suffrage to aliens, unless "they shall have resided within the jurisdiction of the United States two years subsequent to naturalization, and shall be otherwise qualified". Free black males of age, who could vote in some slave states, as Tennessee (Const. of 1834), were disfranchised in some free states, as Connecticut (Const. of 1818).

—In the southern states political power was held exclusively by the property-owning and educated classes till the close of the rebellion. When slavery was abolished by the 13the amendment (see Const. III., Amendments) in 1865, the dominant party in congress apparently had no intention of interfering wit the control of the suffrage in the states. But the inadequate protection given the negro in the southern states, and the unwillingness of the northern states that his freedom should increase the political power of those lately in rebellion, led to the adoption of the 14th amendment (see Const., III., Amendments) in 1868. This conferred citizenship upon the negro, guaranteed to him the same rights enjoyed by white citizens of the United States, and made if for the interest of the southern states to voluntarily extend the suffrage to the negro, by providing that when the right of voting is denied to any of the male inhabitants of any state, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, such state's representation in congress shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. This amendment not being promptly ratified when proposed, in 1866 (see Const., III., Amendments), was followed by the reconstruction act of March 2, 1867 (see RECONSTRUCTION, for temporary political disabilities), which made it a condition of the restoration of the seceding states that new constitutions should be adopted, framed by "delegates elected by the male citizens twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color or previous condition", and securing "to all such persons" the elective franchise, and by the adoption of the 15th amendment, in 1870, which provides that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color previous condition of servitude". The reasons for this amendment were (Cooley's Con. Law, 264, 265; Hunt J., in U. S. vs. Reese, 92 U. S. R., 214, 247): "1. That unless the ballot was given to the freedom, the government of the southern states must for a considerable time be in the hands of those lately in rebellion, and that the existence in a political community of a great body of citizens against whom the laws discriminate in a particular which makes the discrimination a stigma and disgrace, must always be an occasion of discontent, disorder and danger. 2, That it would benefit the colored race by giving them importance, securing to them respect, protecting them against unfriendly action or legislation, and by acting as an educational process." This enfranchisement of the negro is the last of a series of extensions of a suffrage which began in the colonial period, and have ended by nominally conferring political supremacy in some states upon those whose former status as slaves leaves them illiterates and non-taxpayers, unhabituated to the obedience of law.

—The existing conditions of the suffrage in the United States are now the following: The constitution of the United States confers the right to vote upon no one. That right is not a "privilege or immunity" of citizens of the United States: when they possess it at all, even for electing representatives and presidential electors—the only federal officers chosen by popular vote

—it is created by state constitutions and state laws. (Const. of U. S., Art 1., Sec. 2; Art. II., Sec. 1.) The fifteenth amendment to the constitution does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, but it invests citizens of the United States with the right of exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise, on account of their race, color or previous condition of servitude, and empowers congress to enforce that right by appropriate legislation. The power of the state to exclude from the franchise upon other grounds, including those of nativity, sex. illiteracy and non-payment of taxes, remains intact. The power of congress to legislate at all upon the subject of voting at state elections rests upon this amendment, and can be exercised by providing a punishment only when the wrongful refusal to receive the vote of the qualified elector at such elections is because of his race, color or previous condition of servitude. The third and fourth sections of the act of May 31, 1870 (16 Stat., 140), not being confined in their operations to the above-described unlawful discrimination, are beyond the limit of the 15th amendment, and unauthorized.(U. S. vs.Reese, 92 U. S., 214.) Qualifications of electors are defined in the several state constitutions, and no additional qualifications can be required by the state legislature, but the legislature may prescribe by law "such conditions to the exercise of the elective franchise as shall seem reasonable to protect the privilege, and to prevent impositions and other frauds, and also all proper regulations for receiving and canvassing votes."(Cooley's Con Law, 252.) The qualifications prescribed by existing state constitutions are shown in the table on pages 828, 829.120

—Some constitutions require registration; some disfranchise any persons while under guardianship; some, any person while kept in any poor-house or other asylum at public expense, or while confined in any public prison; some, any person stationed in any state while in the military, naval or marine service of the United States; some, idiots or insane persons, but these persons, without express mention, are excluded from voting, as incapable of exercising legal volition. The educational test shown in the table was established in Connecticut in 1855, the Massachusetts in 1857, in Missouri in 1876. The constitutions of Alabama and Mississippi forbid the imposition of such a test. That of Florida allows if after 1880; that of Colorado, after 1890. The economic test shown is at least the prepayment of some tax, in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Tennessee and Georgia. The constitutions of Alabama, Arkansas, California and Mississippi, expressly forbid a property test, and the constitution of Arkansas also expressly forbids a poll-tax test; that of Nevada allows it. Paupers are expressly disfranchised in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. A moral test exists in all the states except four (Colorado, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and West Virginia), but if satisfactory proof of the reformation of the offender is given, the constitutions of ten states (Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Wisconsin) expressly permit restoration to the suffrage; some of them by a two-thirds vote of the legislature, others by a majority vote.

—The table on page 831 shows the offenses for which states disfranchise for crime by the express terms of their constitutions, or for which their legislatures may make disfranchisement a penalty. It shows that conviction of the offenses enumerated, does or may disfranchise, specifically as follows: of bribery, in twenty-three states; of felony, in sixteen states; of infamous crime, in sixteen states; of treason, in eleven states; of dueling, in eleven states; of perjury, in ten states; of forgery, in seven states; of larceny, in seven states; of embezzlement of public funds, or fraud, in seven states; of election misdemeanors, in six states; of other high crimes or malfeasance in office, in six states; of murder, in two states; of robbery, in two states. Conviction of some of the enumerated crimes also disqualifies for jury service in some of the states, while permanent ineligibility to office is the sole political disability that is inflicted upon those guilty of bribery or of dueling in other states. Three states (Nebraska Nevada and Wisconsin) admit the principle of the exterritoriality of crime in their constitutional provisions for disfranchisement.121

—Territories. The ordinance of 1787, for the government of the northwest territory, provided that "so soon as there shall be 5,000 free male inhabitants of full age in the district, they shall receive authority to elect representatives to a general assembly: provided, also, that a freehold in fifty acres of land in the district, having been a citizen of one of the states, and being resident in the district, or the like freehold, and two years' residence in the district, shall be necessary to qualify a man as an elector of a representative." The constitution having given congress power to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States, two forms of territorial government have from time to time been established: 1, by an executive and judges of federal appointment, who together constitute a legislature; 2, by an executive and judges of federal appointment and a legislature composed of representatives chosen by the people of the territory. In the second form of government, the basis of suffrage has been substantially uniform, being limited commonly, as it now is by law in the first election in a territory, to "every male citizen above the age of twenty-one years, including persons who have legally declared their intention to become citizens in any territory hereafter organized, and who are actually residents of such territory at the time of the organization thereof." At subsequent elections the qualifications of voters may be prescribed by the legislative assembly of each territory, provided that the right of voting shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States above the age of twenty-one years, and by alien declarants above that age, who have taken the required oath; that it be not denied to a citizen on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude; and that no person in the army or navy, or attached to troops in the service of the United States, shall be allowed to vote by reason of being on service in the territory, unless it has been for six months his permanent domicile.

—District of Columbia. The government of this district, over which congress has the power of exclusive legislation, was originally vested in a board of three commissioners under the act of July 16, 1790. This board was abolished by act of May 1,1802, and the city of Washington was incorporated by act of May 3, 1802, which provided that its council should be elective " by the free white male inhabitants of full age who have resided twelve months in the city, and paid taxes therein the year preceding." An act of May 15, 1820, provided that both the mayor and the council should be elective by "every free white male citizen of the United States of lawful age, who shall have resided in the city for one year next preceding the day of election, and shall be a resident of the ward in which he shall offer to vote, and who shall have been assessed for the year ending on the 31st day of December next preceding the day of election, and who shall have paid all taxes legally assessed and due on personal property, when legally required to pay the same. "The act of May 17, 1848, re-enacted this qualification, with the addition that it apply to persons assessed "as subject to a school tax for that year (except persons non compos mentis, vagrants, paupers or persons who have been convicted of any infamous crime), and who shall have paid the school tax and all taxes on personal property due from him." An act of March 4, 1855, for the codification of the laws of the District of Columbia, provided for the submission of the proposed code to the votes of "every free white male citizen of the United States above the age of twenty-one years, who has resided in said district for one year next preceding such election." The act of Jan. 8, 1867, extended the suffrage in the District of Columbia to "every male person, except paupers and persons under guardianship of the age of twenty-one years and upward, who has not been convicted of any infamous crime, and excepting persons who have voluntarily given aid and comfort to the rebels, in the late rebellion, and who shall have been born or naturalized in the United States, and who shall have resided in this district for one year, and three months in the ward in which he shall offer to vote without distinction on account of race or color." The act of Feb. 21, 1871, created a legislative assembly for the District of Columbia, consisting of a council and house of delegates, to be elected by " all male citizens of the United States above the age of twenty-one years, except such as are noncampos mentis, and persons convicted of infamous crimes, who have been actual residents of the district for twelve months prior to any election therein, and of the election district, or precinct in which they shall respectively reside, for thirty days immediately preceding such election." This act applied a severe test to the political theories of the advocates of unrestricted suffrage. The white population of the district always contains a large mobile element which has no large interest in its weal; almost the whole black population was ignorant, and without political responsibility. From 1860 to 1870 the white population had increased from 60,763 to 88,278, and the black population from 14,316 in 1860, to 43,404 in 1870. Under these conditions unrestricted suffrage produced extravagance, corruption and other incidents of bad government. Congress was petitioned for relief, and by the act of June 11, 1878, representative government was abolished, a population of 177,000 left without a voter, and the government vested, as originally under the act of July 16, 1790, in a board of commissioners.

—WOMAN SUFFRAGE. The political dogma of the eighteenth century, that suffrage is a natural right, led to an early demand for its extension to woman. Condorcet published July 3, 1790, in Journal de la societe de 1789, a plea for citizenship of women. The constitution of New Jersey, framed in 1776, permitted all inhabitants of certain qualifications to vote, and an act to regulate elections under it passed in 1793, provided that "every voter shall openly, and in full view, deposit his or her ballot, which shall be a single written ticket containing the names of the persons for whom he or she votes." This act was repealed in 1807. Agitation against slavery in the United States gave prominence to the dogma of "natural rights", and small groups of persons before the close of the first half century demanded its universal application. The first woman's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, N. Y., July 19, 1848. It based the claims of woman on the declaration of independence, and demanded equal rights. The first national woman's rights convention was held at Worcester, Mass., Oct. 23, 1850. The attention of the English people was called to the subject of woman suffrage by an article in the "Westminister Review" in 1851, and effective demand for the enfranchisement of woman dates from this time, 1850-51. Its advocates argue that it is a natural right, and that "the consent of the governed" is not "the governed property holders, nor the governed voting men, nor the governed married men." but all the governed men and women; that taxation without representation is tyranny; that the voting of males is no longer conditioned upon military service; that no class is as safe a guardian of the interests of another class as that other class itself; and that woman needs a vote to adequately protect and advance her interests. Its opponents reply, that the suffrage is not a natural right, that in all ages and countries it has been conditioned by qualifications of expediency; that representation of tax-paying women practically exists; that the interests of the family and of the state will be best preserved by continuing the divisions of labor which hitherto has exempted women not only from military service, but from the performance of political duties; that the interests of women are not so distinct from those of men as to make their representation as a class either necessary or expedient; and that their interests can be adequately protected without their having a vote. The agitation has resulted in the limited and tentative enfranchisement of woman in certain states, and for certain purposes. In 1866 the American equal rights association presented the first petition ever laid before congress for woman suffrage. In 1868 the New England woman suffrage association was formed, and the first systematic effort begun for memorializing legislatures and congress, obtaining hearings before these bodies, holding conventions, publishing and distributing tracts and documents, and securing lecturers. The agitation had, by 1870, assumed such dimensions in Massachusetts, that the republican convention, held Oct. 5, 1870, admitted Lucy Stone and Mary A. Livermore as regularly accredited delegates. The Massachusetts republican state convention of 1871 indorsed woman suffrage, and the national republican conventions of 1872 and 1876 resolved that the subject "should be treated with respectful consideration." The legislature of the territory of Wyoming, by an act approved Dec. 10, 1869, granted the right to suffrage to women. The same right was extended to women in the territory of Washington in 1883, and has long been exercised by them in the territory of Utah. Woman suffrage limited to school elections has at various times been conferred as follows: Women may vote a school meetings in Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Vermont, Dakota and Wyoming; at school elections in Colorado and Minnesota; and for members of school committees in Massachusetts; at school meetings in Michigan and New York, if they are tax payers; in Washington territory, if they are liable to taxation. Widows and unmarried women in Idaho may vote as to special district taxes, if they hold taxable property. In Oregon, widows having children and taxable property may vote to school meetings. In Indiana, "Women, not married nor minors, who pay taxes and are listed as parents, guardians, or heads of families, may vote to school meetings." In Kentucky any white widow, having a child of school age, is a qualified school voter; if she has no child, but is a tax payer, she may vote on the question of taxes.

—The first European legislature to give the right of suffrage to woman was the house of keys, in the Isle of Man, which passed an act, approved Jan. 5, 1881, to extend this privilege to women having certain property qualifications. The British parliament, by an act approved Aug. 2, 1869, granted the municipal franchise to women in England and Wales; by an act approved June 3, 1881, extended the municipal franchise in Scotland to unmarried woman, and women not living in families with their husbands; and by an act approved in 1870, extended the privilege of voting for school boards to rate payers, including women. Prior to the passage of these acts, women had, by the custom of London, and the custom of some other parts of England, certain rights of suffrage in municipal affairs.

—A summary of the laws relating to suffrage, in the Dominion of Canada and in the principal countries of Europe, will be found in the books below, cited under the title "In foreign states."

—See, on suffrage: Mill's Representative Government, chap. viii.; Lieber's Civil Liberty and Self-Government, chap. xvi. and app. i.; Woolsey's Political Science, vol. i., pp. 299-302, and vol. ii., pp. 111, 112; Sumner's Theory and Practice of Elections, in "Princeton Review," March and July, 1880. On suffrage in the United States: Poore's Charters and Constitutions: Bancroft's History of the United States, passim; Hildreth's History of the United States, vol. iii., pp. 381, 506; Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, chap. i.; Cooke's Virginia, pp. 222-225; De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, vol. i., chaps. v., xiii.; Cooley's Constitutional Law, chap. xiv., secs. 1, 2; Minor vs. Happersett, 21 Wal., 172, 173; Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wal., 36; U. S. vs. Reese, 92 U. S. Rep., 214; Spencer vs. Board of Registration, 1 McArthur (D. C.) 169. In the territories; Poore's Charters and Constitutions; Revised Statutes of U. S., Secs. 1859, 1860. In the District of Columbia: Const. of U. S., Art. I., Sec. 8; Stat. at Large. On negro suffrage, N. A. Rev., vol. 128, pp.161, 225. On disfranchisement for crime, Journal of Social Science for 1882, No. 17, p. 71. On Woman suffrage Mill's Representative Government, chap. viii., and Subjection of Women; Condorcet's Plea for Citizenship of Women, Fort. Rev., vol. xiii., p. 719: Journal of Social Science, No. 10, p. 42; Stephens' Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, chap. v.; Robinson's Massachusetts in the Women Suffrage Movement, N. A. Rev., vol. 129, pp. 303, 413, and vol. 130, p. 16; Report of Bureau of Education, 1880, xxv., xxvi. In foreign states: Demombynes' Les Constitutions Européennes, 1881; Block's Dictionnaire de l'Administration Francaise, Art. Elections, and at end, Administration Comparée; Martin's Statesman's Year-Book, 1883. In Great Britain: Walpole's The Electorate and the Legislature. In Germany: Report of Foreign Relations of U. S., 1877-8, p. 196. In Prussia, idem, p. 176.

JAMES FAIRBANKS COLBY.

SUMNER

SUMNER, Charles, was born at Boston, Mass., Jan. 6, 1811, and died at Washington, D. C., March 11, 1874. He was graduated at Harvard in 1830, studied law with Story, whose decisions he afterward reported, was admitted to the bar in 1834, and was for the next three years to lecturer in the Harvard law school. In 1837-40 he was absent in Europe and on his return resumed practice. He had always been an anti-slavery whig, but in 1848 became a free soiler; and a coalition of democrats and free-soilers, in 1851, sent him to the United States senate, where he remained until his death. (See MASSACHUSETTS.) In the senate, Sumner Seward, Hale and Chase were at first the antislavery leaders, and among them Sumner was as pre-eminent for polished oratory and radical independence of thought and speech as Seward was for keen appreciation of popular feeling, Hale for powers of sarcasm, or Chase for sound common sense. Southern leaders seem to have felt considerable contempt for the last three; but an active hatred was developed against Sumner, and resulted in a brutal assault upon him in May, 1856 (See BROOKS, P. S.) In 1860 he resumed his seat in the senate; and in July, 1861, he became chair man of the committee on foreign relations. He was now one of the national leaders of the dominant republican party, and took an active part in anti-slavery legislation, in reconstruction, in the impeachment of president Johnson, and in the prosecution of the Alabama claims upon Great Britain. His assertion of the validity of indirect claims, made with his usual force of argument, made him for some time extremely unpopular in England. In December, 1870, he opposed and defeated president Grant's project for the annexation of San Domingo (see that title): and in 1871, through the influence of the administration, he was removed from the chairmanship of his committee, which was given to Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania. The ostensible reason for this action, offered by the state department, was an alleged neglect of Sumner to take action on treaties instrusted to him; but this was entirely disproved. His real offense seems to have been his continuing purpose to maintain the cause of the negro race, with little deference to party considerations or to the dignity of party leaders.

—From this time he was an outspoken antagonist of the administration, his finest speeches being made in February, 1872, on the government's sale of arms during the Franco-German war, and in May, 1872, or the president's abuse of the appointing power. In December, 1874, he introduced a resolution to remove from the army register and flags the names of battles with fellow-citizens. For this his state legislature censured him by resolution, but the resolution was rescinded before his death. (See also AMNESTY, CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.)

—See Lester's Life of Sumner; Harsha's Life of Sumner; Pierce's Memorial and Letters of Sumner; and Sumner's Orations and Speeches(1850), Speeches and Addresses(1856), and complete Works(1875), the first four volumes including the years 1845-60, and the last eight the years 1860-68; The most celebrated of his anti-slavery speeches are, "The Crime against Kansas" (4:127), and "The Barbarism of Slavery," (5:1).

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.

SUMPTUARY LAWS

SUMPTUARY LAWS. (See LAWS, SUMPTUARY.)

SUPPLY

SUPPLY. (See PARLIAMENTARY LAW.)

SUPREME COURT.

SUPREME COURT. (See JUDICIARY.)

SWEDEN.

SWEDEN. A kingdom situated in the north of Europe and in the east of Scandinavian peninsula, about three-fifths of which it occupies. Its area is 444,814 square kilometres, of which more than 37,000 are covered by lakes. The area of Norway (see NORWAY) is not comprised in these figures. The country is mountainous, but its mountains, situated mostly in the north, do not reach the height of those in Norway; the highest mountain in Sweden, Sulitelma, is only 6,342 Swedish feet above the sea level. In Norway more than half the country is 2,000 feet high, while not more than one-twelfth part of Swedish soil reaches this elevation; nearly one-third, especially in the south, does not exceed 300 feet.

—The population, which is of the Scandinavian race, except about 16,000 Finns, 6,000 Lapps and 1,100 Jews, was 4,204,177 in 1872; on Dec. 31, 1880, the population was 4,565,668. In 1867 the total population was 4,195,681; 3,673,828 inhabitants (87.51 per cent.) living in the country, and 521,853 (12.49 per cent.) in the city.

—I. Constitution. Four fundamental laws account for the present political constitution of Sweden: the law concerning the form of government (regerings-formen) dated June 6, 1809; the law on representation (riksdays-ordningen), June 22, 1866; the order of succession (successions-ordningen), Sept. 26, 1810; and the law on the liberty of the press (tryckfrihets-förordningen), July 16, 1812. The union with Norway in regulated by the act of union(riks-akten), Aug. 6, 1815.

—The government is a limited monarchy, hereditary in the agnatic line. The king governs alone, on condition of consulting on all affairs, before arriving at a decision, his responsible ministers, (statsraad, counselor of state) whom he chooses freely among Swedes by birth, members of the evangelical church, and whom he replaces whenever he sees fit; thus they are justly considered to have his confidence so long as they are retained in office. The council of ministers is composed of ten members, seven of whom are leads of departments (with the departments of justice and foreign affairs is connected the title of ministers of state; next in title come the ministers of war, of the navy, of the interior, of ecclesiastical affairs and of finance); three members of the council, without portfolios, have only a consultative vote. The king can not decide any affair on which the council must be heard, unless in presence of three ministers at least, besides the one who reports the affairs or calls attention to the matter. The entire council must be present when important questions are discussed. A protocol or record of all the questions brought before the council is drawn up. The members present are obliged to express and give the reason for their opinions in the protocol; and they are responsible for their opinions. Should the decision of the king happen to be contrary to the fundamental law of the kingdom, the ministers are obliged to protest. Should a minister not give a contrary opinion in the protocol, he becomes responsible for the decision taken. On the other hand, no royal ordinance is binding unless countersigned by the minister whom it concerns. The minister who refuses to countersign, by this fact alone, lays down his portfolio, retaining his salary. He can not resume office until after the chambers have examined and approved this conduct. The ministers are responsible for their advice or their silence; in no case can they make a decision; this always belongs to the king.

—The Swedish constitution does not, as we see, admit of a government of ministers in the modern sense. The royal authority is exercised, in foreign affairs, by this supreme direction of chief questions of diplomacy, and by his right of concluding treaties or alliances, and of declaring war or peace. The king can conclude treaties or alliances after having heard the advice, on the subject, of the minister of state and of foreign affairs, and of another member of the council summoned for this purpose. For war or peace he must assemble the whole council, explain the reasons and circumstances, and ask the opinions of all the ministers, which they give, each one separately, and which is embodied in the protocol, on their responsibility. The king alone can make a decision; but no tax can be laid or loan made without the consent of the diet. There is, it is true, a sum set aside for the requirements of war; but the king can dispose of it only after a special meeting of the diet. Besides, the army and navy of Norway can not be employed in aggressive warfare except with consent of the storthing. The king governs in the interior by officials who derive all their authority from him, but whose salaries depend upon the diet. He was legislative power; the general rule is, that the king and the diet together enact the laws, observing certain forms in enacting them. The king has judicial power. From time immemorial he has been the judge of all; but his right of judging is transferred to his supreme tribunal. The king has the right of pardon, but only after having heard his tribunal does he decide the case in a council of ministers. He can not dispense any one from the law, unless in cases fixed by the law itself. If the king leaves the kingdom to go to a war, or if he visits provinces distant from the centre, or visits Norway, he must appoint three of his ministers, presided over by 2 prince of the royal house or by another minister, to transact the business with which the intrusts them. Under such circumstances, the king reserves to himself certain affairs, and therefore take one or more of his ministers with him. But if he travels outside the kingdom, he can not exercise his authority while abroad. In such case, and also in that of sickness, power is intrusted to the prince nearest the throne, if he has reached the legal age, or if there is not such person, to a government ad interim, composed of the ten ministers of Sweden and the ten ministers of Norway. If this state of affairs does not cease within a year, the diet is summoned, and takes such measures as it finds necessary.

—The representation of the nation, since the law of June 22, 1866, rests not as formerly on the division of the nation into four orders but on election only. Two chambers, having equal authority, compose the diet. The members of the first chamber are elected for nine years by the landstingen (species of provincial assemblies) and by the stadsfullmäktige (municipal counselors) of cities which do not sit in the landsting. A member is elected by 30,000 inhabitants. Candidates are eligible, without reference to place of domicile, who have completed their thirty-fifth year, and who own or have owned for at least three years before the election, immovable property, estimated for taxation at 80,000 rixdalers, or such as have, during the same length of time, paid taxes on at least 4,000 rixdalers of an annual income, either from their capital or their labor. If, after the election, a member of the diet finds his fortune insufficient to render him eligible, he is obliged to resign. Members of the first chamber receive no salary. Members of the second chamber are elected for three years, a member for each jurisdiction (domsaga) of the country, if the population does not exceed 40,000 (if it does, it is divided into two districts); one member for every 10,000 inhabitants in the cities, those having less than 10,000 being grouped into electoral districts of at least 6,000 inhabitants, and at most 12,000. In cities populous enough to send one or more members to the diet, the election is direct; in the others and in the country, it is of two degrees, unless the electors themselves decide by a vote to make the election direct. No man is a voter for and eligible to the second chamber except in the commune where he is domiciled; whoever possesses, in his own right on in usufruct, immovable property in the country or the city, assessed for taxation purposes at 1,000 rixdalers at least, is eligible, or who rents for life, or for five years at least, an agricultural holding valued for taxation purposes at 6,000 rixdalers at least, or who pays taxes on a yearly income of at least 800 rixdalers. To be eligible to the second chamber a candidate must have completed his twenty-fifth year, and have possessed for at least one year the right of election in the commune or in one of the communes in which he is a candidate. The members of the second chamber receive a salary of 12,000 rixdalers per year. If a member resigns after having served some time, his successor is elected only to fix the unexpired part of the term; so that every three years there are general elections for the second chamber.

—The ordinary session of the diet begins each year on Jan. 15, and can not be dissolved, without its consent, before the expiration of four months. The king, however, may exercise his right of calling new elections to one of the two chambers, or to both simultaneously. The king may call and adjourn an extra session of the diet at his pleasure; such a diet can examine only the questions which it was summoned to consider. The presidents of both chambers are appointed by the king. No deliberation is had, and no resolution taken in presence of the king. The ministers may be members of the diet; those who are not members have the right of being present in both chambers and taking part in deliberations, but without a vote. The initiative in the diet belongs in part to the king, who makes propositions to the two chambers, and in part to the deputies, whose motions must be made within ten days after the opening of the diet, unless as to questions concerning constitutional changes, or those caused by facts which have arisen during the session.

—Business is prepared by committees, who give their views to the chambers. There are five permanent committees, which are formed at the opening of each ordinary diet: 1, the committee on the constitution, for all questions of change in the constitution—this committee examines the reports of the council of ministers, and gives its opinions on them; 2, the committee on finance(stats-utskott), which examines the public revenues and expenditures; 3, the committee on taxation, which proposes new taxes, and calculates the income therefrom; 4, the bank committee (bankutskott), which inspects the royal bank and directs its administration; 5, the committee on legislation (lag-utskott), which gives its opinion on everything relating to civil, criminal and ecclesiastical law. Special committees, for the discussion of questions connected with the permanent committees, may also be formed, if the diet thinks necessary. Finally, if a question arises outside the jurisdiction of the permanent committees, a special committee (tillfalligt-utskott) is appointed. The permanent and special committees are appointed half by one and half by the other chamber. Special mention must be made of the so-called secret committee (hemliga-utskott), which is appointed by the two chambers at the request of the king, for the purpose of giving its advice to the king himself on such questions as it shall please him to propose.

—If the two chambers agree in a decision, is becomes the decision of the diet. If they are opposed in opinion, it is for the competent committee to endeavor to bring them to an agreement; should it not succeed, the question is adjourned till another session. If, however, this question concerns the taxes, public expenditure, or the banks, the two chambers vote separately, and the opinion which has the majority of votes, without regard to the chambers, becomes the decision of the diet. In case of necessity, the diet elects the king, the successor to the throne, or the regent. Together with the king, it frames the laws, votes the taxes, fixes the budget, and exercised control over the government and its officials, through the agency of its procurator general (justitie-ombudsman) elected each year by forty-eight electors chosen for this purpose, twenty-four by each chamber. It is the duty of this procurator general of the diet to see that the laws are faithfully executed by all functionaries; he has access to all tribunals and central administrative bureaus; he may have all records or reports brought to him; he publishes each year a general statement, which is printed.— It has been stated that the committee on the constitution is obliged to report on the action of the ministers; if it accuses any one of them of negligence or incapacity, it informs the king of its desire to see such minister removed; or if it discovers an illegal act or a violation of the constitution committed by a minister it orders the procurator general of the diet of summon that minister before the court of the kingdom (risksratt), a tribunal appointed in advance for cases of this kind.

—The administration of financial affairs is controlled by the diet through deputy directors and deputy controllers appointed in the two chambers on the occasion of each diet. The diet, its committee and its members, are inviolable. No deputy can be brought to justice or deprived of his liberty for any of his acts, or for any of his words during the session, unless the chamber of which he is a member gives its consent by five-sixths of its votes.

—Two special establishments are entirely under the management of the diet: the national bank (riksbank), and the office of the public debt (riksgaldkontor). The bank is managed by seven delegates of the diet, elected at each session. The office of the public debt is an institution altogether peculiar to Sweden. It dates, with its present organization from 1789. Gustavus III. had allowed the public debt to increase; the diet, after it had regained something of the power which it wielded under the preceding reign, claimed this branch of the financial management. The duties of the office of the public debt since 1809 are, to see to the payment of the debt, with the taxes set aside for this purpose, to the expenditures and necessary loans made on the credit of the debt. Its revenues are: the contribution called allmanna bevillning, the stamps on newspapers and playing cards, a part of the profit of the bank, etc. It is needless to say that this financial administration of the diet greatly hampers that of the minister of finance, and that continual efforts are made to reconcile them.

—Every three years the diet appoints six members, distinguished for their knowledge and enlightenment, to watch over the liberty of the press, together with the procurator general, their president. These delegates, of whom two besides the procurator general must be jurists, are elected by ballot by twenty-four electors chosen by each of the chambers from its own body, twelve from each. If an author or a publisher sends them a manuscript, asking whether the publication of this writing would cause any prosecution, the procurator general of the diet, and at least three delegates, of whom one is a jurist, must give their opinion in writing. If they declare that the work may be printed, the author and the printer are free from all responsibility; it falls on the delegates entirely.

—Communal liberties, formerly very considerable in Sweden, have become weakened during recent centuries, especially outside the cities, to the advantage of centralization; but they have never become extinct. They are regulated at present by the royal ordinance of 1862, the chief provisions of which are as follows: Parish affairs, in which every tax-paying Swedish subject (except those of the lowest grade) of good moral character has a voice, are of two kinds: those relating to the church and its property, schools, and the salaries of the clergy and schoolmaster, are managed by the church assembly (kyrkostamma), composed of all inhabitants having the right of suffrage and belonging to the Swedish church. The pastor is president. All other affairs are managed by the communal assembly (kommunal-stamma), which chooses its own president, or by municipal delegates. Both councils can levy taxes for objects which concern them. The church assembly has two delegates, the council of the church and the council of the school (kyrkorad skolrad) elected for four years. The communal assembly appoints a communal jury (kommunal-namnd) of from three to elevem members, which exercises executive power in its name, manages the communal property, the income and expenditure. The communal assembly may delegate its right to the kommunalfullmaktige, that is to say, to the members of the communal jury, and to a number three times as great of persons specially elected for four years, by the assembly alone, which can not, however, without consent of the king, convey property of issue loans redeemable in more than two years. Every city (stad forms a commune of itself, its communal assembly takes the name of communal house (allman radstuga). In every city with more than 3,000 inhabitants the right of decision belongs to delegates of the city (stadsfullmaktige), who are elected by the assembly of the communal house for four years, to the number of from twenty to sixty, according to the population. The executive authority in each city, in the name of the commune and the state, is the magistrate (that is to say, a burgomaster, selected by the king from a list of three candidates chosen by the city, and councilors chosen by the city.) The communal property and finances are managed by a chamber of finance (dratselkammare) which appoints the delegates or the members of the city council.

—The most remarkable of new communal institutions which revives under other forms an institution fallen into disuse for about two generations, is the landsting, a sort of general council. In the terms of the royal ordinance of March 21, 1862, every lan is to have a landsting composed of twenty members at least delegated by the cities (stader), by the harads and the tengslags (places inferior to cities) comprised in the lan. However, the cities having more than 25,000 inhabitants, Stockholm and Göteborg, are not included. The landsting examines and decides the communal affairs of the lan relative to general administration, agriculture, ways of communication, public health, education, public order, etc. It meets in regular sessions every year, in the month of September, for eight days, excluding holidays; but it may hold extraordinary sessions of its own motion or by order of the king. The presidents are appointed by the king; its deliberations are public; the initiative belongs both to the royal power and to every member of the landsting. The landshöfding, or perfect of the lan, assists and takes part in the deliberations. The landsting has the authority to fix, according to a budget agreed upon, the taxes or necessary loans. But it must have the royal approval for expenditures involving taxation for more than five years, or loans payable at a time longer than five years, or for the alienation of the domains.

—The relation established between the various communal authorities and the royal power is such that, though a certain number of their resolutions, to be valid, must obtain the consent of the king or of his representatives, a consent which may be refused, communal liberties at least can suffer no prejudice, it being impossible to make any provisions to their prejudice. The royal authority in case complaints are preferred to the king, may annul, administratively, communal decisions if they violate any private right. This new institution of the landsting has perhaps not been in operation long enough yet to be judged accurately. It is probable, however, that it affords an efficient intermediary between the central power and the local authorities.

—II. Finances. Each diet frames the budget of receipts and expenditures for the following year. The expenditures are ordinary or extraordinary, a division which is not expressed in the law regulating the form of government, but which was established by the force of things and has been practiced since 1841. The ordinary expenditures are included under nine principal heads: the civil list, the seven ministerial departments, the pensions, and the retired list.

—The following is a comparison between the budgets of 1869 and 1841: Civil list, in 1841, 1,079,550 rixdalers riksmynt (royal mint), (6.7 per cent. of all the expenditure); in 1869, 1,417,000 r. (3.7 per cent.); increase since 1841, 31 per cent. Justice, 1,034,355 r. (6.4 per cent.); 2,354,100 r. (6 per cent.); 12.7 per cent. Foreign affairs, 338,475 r. (2.1 per cent.); 457,950 r. (1.1 per cent), 32 per cent. War, 6,159,765 r. (38.2 per cent); 9,528,000 r. (24.9 per cent.); 54 per cent. Navy, 1,997,145 r. (12.3 per cent.); 3,963,800 r. (10.3 per cent.); 98 per cent. Interior, 1,268,550 r. (7.8 per cent.); 9,086,500 r. (21 per cent.); 53.7 per cent. Finances, 2,071,155 r, (12.8 per cent.); 6,359,200 r. (16.6 per cent.); 20.7 per cent. Public worship, 1,483,320 r. (9.2 per cent.); 4,714,700 r. (12.3 per cent.); 20.7 per cent. Pensions and retired list, 685,005 r. (4.2 per cent.); 1,321,373 r. (3.4 per cent.); 93 per cent. To sum up: in 1841, 16,114,320 riksdalers riksmynt; in 1869, 38,202,629 r.; increase, 137 per cent. The riksdaler riksmynt is worth 1 franc 429 m., for there are 100 ore in the riksdaler, and a franc is worth 70 ore. (The riksdaler is valued at 1 fr. 41½.) The considerable increase of expenditures for justice is explained, not by the number of crimes and misdemeanors, but by the erection of prisons of a new system. It will be remarked also that one of the principal items of increase was for public instruction. The increase of expenditures touching finances and the postal service is explained by the increase of commercial activity, which also naturally figures among the sources of income. The diet of 1856 marked one of the stages of this transformation by increasing the salaries of officials; the budget of ordinary expenditures was increased that year from 19,315,380 to 25,508,500 riksdalers riksmynt, that is to say, 32 per cent.

—Extraordinary expenditures are voted for one year, and must be paid partly by the office of the state, and partly by the office of the public debt (riksgaldskontor). In 1869 the first had to pay 5,496,371 riksdalers riksmynt for the artillery service and the railroads; the second, 1,187,999 r. for roads, canals, etc. All the expenditures for 1869 amounted, therefore, to 45,086,999 r. Two special credits in view of unforeseen expenditures should also be mentioned: the first of which can only be employed in case of war, the second may be used for other pressing needs. The public revenues, for the greater part, are paid to the office of the state. There is the ordinary income, which combines several varieties of ancient land tax, estimated, in 1869, at 4,693,800 r.; crown tithes, that is to say, that part of the tithes which, at the time of the reformation, was reserved to the crown, and which now amounts to 1,684,200 r.; the poll tax, a personal tax which has become insignificant, 600,000 r.; and the farming of royal domains, 410,000 r. Many of the ordinary taxes have been abolished in recent years, but the produce of those which remain (most of them are paid in kind) are increased by a more exact estimate of prices. The ordinary revenues increased notably in 1869, since that was the first year in which they included the product of the railroad traffic, 6,400,000 r., so that the sum total of receipts was 15,260,720 r.

—Extraordinary resources consist in taxes voted by the diet each year: 1, the customs, which produced, in 1861, 14,857,508 r., and in 1871, 19,116,601 r. 2, the tax on the manufacture of spirits; in 1861, 8,002,669 r., and in 1871, 11,719,493 r.; this tax has become important only since the diet of 1854 provided that this manufacture should pay 50 öre on a measure called kanna, and the diet of 1857 raised this figur

Home

The Forum

Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

The Library

Return to Title Page for Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, vol. 3 Oath - Zollverein

The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

S - John Joseph Lalor, Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, vol. 3 Oath - Zollverein [1881]

Edition used:

Part of: Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, 3 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Copyright information:

Fair use statement:

S

SAINT-SIMONISM

SALARY GRAB

SAN DOMINGO

SANDWICH ISLANDS

SANITARY SYSTEM

SAVINGS

SAVINGS BANKS

SAXONY

SCHOOLS

SCHURZ

SCIENCE

SCOTLAND

SCOTT

SCRATCHING

SEARCH

SECESSION

SEDITION LAWS

SEMINOLE WAR

SENATE

SERGEANT-AT-ARMS

SERGEANT

SERVIA

SESSIONS OF CONGRESS

SEWARD

SEYMOUR

SHAY'S REBELLION

SHERMAN

SHIMONOSÉKI INDEMNITY

SHINTO

SIAM

SILVER

SILVER BILL

SINKING FUND

SINTOOISM

SLAVERY

SLAVERY

SMITH

SMUGGLING

SOCIALISM AND SOCIALISTS

SOCIAL CONTRACT

SOCIAL SCIENCE

SOCIETY

SOUTH CAROLINA

SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY

SOVEREIGNTY

SOVEREIGNTY

SPAIN

SPEAKER

SPEAKERS

SPECULATION

SPOILS SYSTEM

SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY

STAMP ACT CONGRESS

STANDING ARMIES

STANDING ORDERS

STANTON

STATE

STATE RIGHTS

STATE SOVEREIGNTY

STATE

STATES

STATISTICS