ing, in lieu of argument and eloquence, the old stage properties of the star-spangled banner and the Genius of Liberty, which have done service on so many Fourths of July -their newspapers raving defiance to England in one column, and publishing records of the utter worthlessness of their troops in another -their President and Commanderin-Chief impelled to premature action by these infallible journalsMrs Beecher Stowe writing letters to Lord Shaftesbury teeming with sanguinary philanthropy-that rabble of Bobadils which they called their army, with its "Fire Zouaves," and its Irish regiments "stripped to their pants," all in desperate career the wrong way, led by those immortal three months' men of Pennsylvania; where we know not whether to pity most the officers who lead such men, or the men who are led by such officers,-all is farce of the very broadest stamp. No satirist ever invented such a gigantic joke as the editor of the New York Herald, rolling his eye in a fine frenzy as he threatened Great Britain and Spain with the vengeance of the troops, "better than French," whose fastest runners were even then beginning to spread dismay in Washington.

Independent of motives of humanity, we are glad that the end of the Union seems more likely to be ridiculous than terrible. To the American people we wish nothing but good. But for our own benefit and the instruction of the world we wish to see the faults, so specious and so fatal, of their political system, exposed in the most effective way. The faults of a system that expires nobly and pathetically are apt to be forgotten in the romance of its end. Had the Union died silent, resolute, devoted, grand, in future ages republican poets and painters might have loved to depict Freedom shrieking at the scene, as she did when Kosciusko fell. But it is impossible to conceive that anything great or noble was involved in the catastrophe of the

grand army of the Potomac, that the muse of history will seriously concern herself even with the Fire Zouaves, or that any poet or painter, whether American or European, will ever depict Liberty as quitting the earth arm-in-arm with the Last of the Presidents. And the venerable Lincoln, the respectable Seward, the raving editors, the gibbering mob, and the swift-footed warriors of Bull's Run, are no malicious tricks of fortune played off on an unwary nation, but are all of them the legitimate offspring of the great Republic.

In past centuries, philosophers and historians were used to feel and grope their way towards political truth with speculations on theories of government. For ages these were only speculations, for mankind seemed to acquiesce in the sentiment of obedience to constituted power. As alchemists in rags dreamed of the absolute, so sages dreamed of equality, of rights of man, of social contracts, of the duties of princes-while all around them the people, ignorant and careless of politics, lived under whatever dispensation Heaven had pleased to bestow, acquiesced in any despotism not absolutely intolerable, as in gravitation, and were dependent for good or bad government on the chance dispositions of their rulers. But the conceptions of these speculators were not without fruit. In the American and French revolutions, in the wars of the French republic and empire and the changes that have ensued from them, and in the constant efforts in our own country to transfer power to the people, we see these theories in action. And now the present day gives us the result. In broad characters, statesman, historian, and philosopher may study, not theories, but facts; they may view, "With eye serene, the very pulse of the

machine".

and even those unreflecting politicians who would disregard the warnings of what might be cannot shut their eyes to what is.

In Austria absolutism has its choice between concession and destruction. In Naples and Rome the alternative was neglected, and the attributes of despotism have vanished, as the coins in the Eastern story turned to withered leaves when the magic spell ceased. Over the semibarbarous peoples of Russia and Turkey the ruling power is still absolute. Judging from these facts taken alone, we might infer that absolutism is only possible, in our time, in the absence of intelligence. But in France we see a people boasting to be more advanced in civilisation than Germans or Italians apparently content to be ruled with a rod of iron. And we know that the reason why such a state is possible to them is, that they have learnt by a tremendous experience to dread the excesses of liberty more than the excesses of power. The empire is not loved, and could not endure, but that there is a class of order in France that prefers it to red-republicanism. Yet, in choosing between the principles whose conflict is represented in the upheavings of society in the present century, the friends of democracy might retort that the system they plead for has never, in France, had a fair trial, and that the excesses of liberty there were owing, not to any vice inherent in the principles of the Revolution, but to the natural violence of the rebound from previous tyranny and long mis-government; and that for those excesses despotism itself was thus ultimately responsible. Thus, it would have been still possible for them to dream of their ideal, but that America has furnished the example necessary to supplement former experience. Here we saw the liberty which enthusiastic sages imagined, realised under the most favourable conditions. A century of mild rule had fostered the principles of freedom planted by the Pilgrims, who had gathered them amid the abundant crop of the great civil wars of King and Parliament, The independence of the Confederated States ensued from a struggle

in which there was nothing exasperating, from whence the machinery of law and order emerged unharmed, and which had secured to the new nation respect at home and abroad. There was no old nobility to be swept out of the way, and to bear to other lands the tale of spoliation and of wrong. When the royal authority disappeared, there was a clean page to write the constitution on. It was framed with deliberation; the deficiences of the existing Confederation served as a warning, its merits as an example; and the chief who, at the outset, presided over the destinies of the Republic was a man of pre-eminent influence, great good sense, and remarkable moderation. The nation, thus provided with all political safeguards, commenced its career on a theatre where no rival powers existed to perplex or disturb, and where illi-. mitable territory and inexhaustible supplies of material wants were security against the poverty and discontent which form the severest trial and knottiest problem of govern- : ments. Yet, thus dandled and nursed -one might say coddled-by Fortune, the spoiled child Democracy, after playing strange pranks before high heaven, and figuring in odd and unexpected disguises, dies as sheerly from lack of vitality as the oldest of worn-out despotisms.

Amid the crash and chaos of governments and peoples, England still rears her head a landmark for the wrecks of nations. The constitution whose origin goes beyond the ancient records of the state is still fresh, vigorous, and elastic, maintaining freedom amid the rush and whirl of this age as it did five hundred years ago. We still offer to the political Edipus the grand enigma whose solution is liberty; while the constitution framed in the time of our fathers, by the light of all experience, to be the shame of the past, the glory of the present, the example of the future, is gone like a bubble on the stream. From our own history we learn how liberty can come to make her home with a

people. She does not seek to rise by a sudden bound on the ruins of despotism, for that we know leads only to anarchy, and through anarchy back again to despotism. She establishes herself by steps slow and successive. Her path, like the path of a planet, is the result of opposing forces. It is the process of winning privileges from the governing power, and of maintaining them when won, that constitutes liberty. And when all are won-when the governing power is bankrupt then liberty has already departed, leaving only a shadow which a breath will dissipate.

But when a people already free from restraint take counsel how to produce that balance of powers whose regulated vibrations shall define the bounds of liberty, the process that we have passed through is exactly reversed. With us it was at first the people's scale that kicked the beam. In this other case, it is the scale of the government that flies upward. The people now have not to take, but to give. Power is not to be won from the government, but conferred upon it; and the people are much more apt at taking than giving power. And this is the case which American institutions illustrate.

That the people shall bear their full share in legislation, and that the laws so made shall be impartially administered, are important steps towards good government, but still only steps. The laws so made must be executed with certainty and promptitude. But a government that rests only on the moral influence derived from the support of the people, can be efficient only so long as the nation is of one mind respecting the laws that are to be executed. Laws framed for the general benefit are frequently opposed to the desires and interests of classes or sections of the community. The suppression of discontent must be provided for; unpopular taxes must be levied; and, to this end, the executive must be armed with material force. Fora government that depended only

on moral support would, in the case of contending interests, be dependent on a majority; and if, before acting, it should wait to ascertain and appeal to the majority, it would never act at all. Its action must be independent of all disturbing influences; and thus a strong executive becomes an essential condition of liberty. But a government that is independent and strong may assail liberty; and how to prevent that, is a problem that we have practically solved, by committing to the government the power of the sword, and retaining for the people the power of the purse. The strength of our executive needs not to be exactly defined, because the force necessary for the defence of the country will always be more than sufficient for the assertion of the laws. But in America, where no foreign enemy was feared, and where, consequently, the people must tax themselves for the support of the executive with the single object of internal government, the measure of strength that should be allotted was much more nicely calculated. And the limitation of the powers of the President, and the mode of his appointment, formed, accordingly, the grand difficulty of the framers of the constitution.

It is impossible to doubt that those statesmen intended to allot due influence to each power of the state. It is true, the foundation they professed to raise it on was what they somewhat paradoxically termed the sovereignty of the people. But, whatever meaning they may have attached to the phrase, they certainly would not have interpreted it to signify the supremacy of the mob. There were men among them-Washington himself, for instance-proud, dignified, even aristocratic in temperament, severe in discipline, and of steady judgment; and such are not friends to the domination of the many. And one especial object of their labours was to remedy the want of a paramount executive power in the existing confederation of states. But the spirit

raised in the revolution was too strong for them. The doctrines of the freedom and equality of all men, however serviceable in a revolt against monarchy, were found very embarrassing in the effort to frame a strong government. Men who had borne a considerable part in the revolution were bound to show the world a constitution not only more perfect, but also essentially different, from that which they had repudiated. Thus, whatever their natural predilections might be, their own successes dictated their course. Moreover, a powerful influence was exercised on them by the States' legislatures, too jealous of the executive that was to be paramount, to permit it to be strong. These considerations obliged the constructors of the Union to cast their weight into the scale with the sovereignty of the people. They treated their President as a very disagreeable necessity. They restricted his powers, not only by narrow limits, and by checks and counterchecks on the exercise of authority, but by the conditions of office. The man thus to be elevated from amongst the people was, in four years, to sink back again amongst the people. No opportunity would thus be allowed for him to extend his powers beyond their limits by his personal influence. To confer on him the appearance of independence, they caused him to be chosen by electors, who were presumed to be free in their judgment. But when the electors themselves came to be elected, who could answer for the constituency? So it came to pass that the electors were merely the nominees of particular interests, who had already made their own selection of a candidate for the presidency. "Experience," says Duer, an American writer on constitutional jurisprudence, "has proved that the electors do not, in fact, assemble for a strictly free exercise of their own judgments, but for the purpose of sanctioning the choice of a particular candidate previously designated by their party leaders. In

some instances the principles on which they are constituted have been so far forgotten, that the individual opinion of the elector has submitted to the dictation of those by whom he was chosen; and, in others, the electors have even pledged themselves beforehand to vote for a candidate prescribed to them by the managers of their party; and thus the whole foundation of the elaborate theory on which this part of the constitution was built has been subverted in practice." In this way the choosing of a chief officer of the state came to resemble a gigantic Marylebone election, where the candidate who solicited the voices of his countrymen could claim insignificance as a merit, and could make it his highest aim to be, not the impartial executor of the laws, but the obsequious representative of a party. Thus, fearing to make the executive their master, the Americans tried to make it their servant, and ended by making it their puppet.

Founded on consent, the government, in the absence of adequate controlling power, continued to exist by consent. We have said before that a government dependent on the moral influence thus derived can be efficient only so long as the nation is of one mind respecting the laws to be executed. As party spirit runs higher, the executive is more and more weakened, and its action retarded. Of late years the strife of party has been inordinately fierce and persistent, and it culminates every four years in the election of a president. The danger to the executive, in such a condition, is foreshadowed in a passage of Washington's Farewell Address, which, as much as any portion of that celebrated document, attests his sagacity and foresight.

"There is," he says, "an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This, within certain limits, is probably true; and in governments of

a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favour, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”

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There would seem to be, theoretically, no impossibility in a government founded on consent, yet strong enough to be independent. The sovereign people might abdicate some of their sovereignty to strengthen the hands of their executive, keeping, of course, the approved security against the misuse of force. Trust in human nature must be bestowed somewhere in a government — a great deal must be left to the moderation and virtue of the depositaries of power. And it would seem safer to confide in the conscientiousness of a selected official than in the chance impulses of the multitude. But the Americans did not think so. They fancied they saw in the weakness of the executive the measure of their own liberty -accordingly it was left weak; party spirit grew strong, and the dissolution of the fabric was a question only of time and occasion.

With laws made with the concurrence of the people, administered by officers independent both of people and government, and executed by an authority strong to enforce, but not to contravene them, it would, at first, seem as if we had all the conditions of a free constitution. Yet there may still be an important, perhaps fatal, defect. For the laws themselves, though framed in accordance with the letter of the constitution, may be opposed, not only to the wishes, but to the rights of a portion of the community.

They may even be opposed to the general interests of the community. Thus, the executive may be forced to support the laws, in conformity with the constitution, against the general interests. But this is not liberty-it is oppression; and it will depend on the magnitude of the interests involved, and the spirit and power of the oppressed, whether civil war shall or shall not ensue. Hence, to fulfil, as far as may be, the conditions essential to the maintenance of liberty, the constitution must provide for something beyond the balance of the powers of the state. It must endeavour-and it can only endeavour-to secure a predominance of wisdom, independence, justice, and public spirit, in the national councils. It is not sufficient that all classes should be represented, for some might, and would, predominate to the detriment of others; but there must be a sufficiency of the higher intellect that looks beyond class interests to the wide horizon of the general welfare. If it were not so-if the mere impulse given to a constitution at the outset would suffice, and if once adjusted, it might be set going like a watch, with a certain result, then the Farewell Address of Washington would be a dead letter. For why should he so earnestly implore the people to maintain that which was able to maintain itself?

Thus, as might have been anticipated, liberty, the dream of generous philosophy, the love of which is so passionate a sentiment in the human breast, and the realisation of which has so rarely been accomplished, for the delight and example of mankind, is of too fine an essence to be secured by any framework of rules or limitations devisable by statecraft. Its existence depends, not on the action of a definite ascertainable machinery, but on a continued accession of vital influences. And these influences are among the noblest, and therefore among the rarest, attributes of man.

In our own history the conflict has