politics agree that among the primary objects of a good government is the protection of life, liberty, and property. The property of the British Islands is largely represented in the British House of Peers, and there embodies an interest sufficiently large to justify it in appealing to public opinion against what it considers imprudent, imperfect, or hasty legislation. The history of that body during the last forty years, enforced by a recent instance, shows that it still performs the office of a great balancewheel in the constitution, and that it is as loth to oppose itself to the final, deliberate judgment of public opinion, as any sensible Prime Minister would be to strain the Constitution by creating a new batch of Peers to swamp the House of Lords. It is usual for profound politicians to work out to their probably practical result their proposed changes. If any one of those who propose to abolish the British House of Lords has demonstrated what the result would be if that were accomplished, and the British Peers permitted, with their vast landed property, to come into the House of Commons, and participate directly in the legislation of a single body possessing an absolute, unlimited and unchecked power of legislation, I confess I have never seen the demonstration. This subject of the representation and protection of minorities has engaged the attention of profound writers upon politics, some of whom, in the United States, have proposed that the legislature should be composed of two bodies; that the voters in each electoral district should elect three legislators, but vote for only two candidates; that the two who received the largest number of votes should become members of the first house of the legislature, and the third who received the next highest number should become a member of the second house. The first house would therefore represent the majority, and the second the minority of the people. The minority would enjoy the means of self-protection, and no legislation could be enacted except what was concurred in by both the majority and minority. This would be the best conceivable kind of legislation.

This proposition may be laid down as indisputable: there is no tyranny more insupportable than the unchecked power of an absolute majority.

One of the most potent preventives of hasty legislation provided by the Constitution of the United States, is the power of the veto which the President possesses. By virtue of this power he may refuse to approve a law which has been enacted by both Houses of Congress, and return it with his objections to the Legislative Body in which it originated. If it is then reenacted by a majority of two-thirds of all the members of both bodies, it becomes a law, notwithstanding the veto of the President. If it does not receive such a re-enactment, it fails to become a law. The exercise of the veto power by the President is of very common occurrence. No law has ever been enacted after being disapproved by the President, except during the presidency of the late President Johnson. In Great Britain the Sovereign possesses the absolute power of the veto. But it has not been exercised for the last hundred and eighty years. If the British sovereign is at variance with the House of Commons, one appeal may be made to the people by dissolving the House, and ordering a new election. If not sustained by the people, the sovereign must yield. But if the President of the United States is at variance with Congress, and has a minority in either body sufficient to prevent his veto from being overridden by a majority of two-thirds, he can check the legislation of Congress until he retires from the Presidency at the end of his official term. Such are the strong restraints which the people of the United States have imposed upon themselves, by abdicating, for long periods, not only the executive power, but also the absolute power of legislation. But this has not been considered to be an evil in our polity. On the contrary, there is a strong feeling in favour of extending the term of the presidential office, which is now of only four years. For, as an able British writer has remarked, the people of the United States are always in a chronic condition of contested election. We elect a President, and as soon as he is inaugurated, the contest begins for the election of a successor to displace him at the end of four years, who shall be of a different political complexion. The political

elements are therefore always in commotion. The land has no peace; and there is a temptation to make politics, not only a profession, which is well enough, but also a trade, which is a source of the worst corruption. Such are some of the excellencies and defects of our institutions, as we esteem them.

THE SYNTHETIC CHARACTER OF THE UNITED STATES..

Let it be borne in mind that these sparse settlements thus established on the Atlantic coast of North America, two hundred and fifty years ago, actually exercised, even if they did not legally possess, all the powers of sovereignty, as completely as did the demos at Athens. They enacted criminal and municipal laws; they punished crime, and inflicted the penalty of death. But when new necessities prompted them to unite with other like communities for purposes of common defence or security, each surrendered to the new organization that portion of its powers which was necessary for the new purpose. These new communities were at first overlooked, and therefore neglected by the mother-power in England; but after a time she attempted to assume the control of them, and was at first met by passive resistance, and afterwards by the rebellion of 1776, which resulted in the independence of the colonies, and culminated in the Federal Union. How simple the formation of a national government, by the synthetic aggregation of such small, almost infinitesimal communities, advancing from the school district to the national form; yet how complex this minute origin, distribution, and bestowal of executive, legislative, judicial, and ministerial functions! This government, thus built up in stages of always three or four, and sometimes of five degrees, is perfectly understood by us, for it has been our habit, and we have known no other. The source of authority and the distribution of powers is always from below, ascending and concentrating upwards, and not, as in the monarchical theory, from a central point above, from which the rays diverge as they radiate downwards. We are republicans, then, under this form of government because we understand it; because we are accustomed to it;

FORMS OF GOVERNMENT CONSIDERED

9

because it has worked measureably well, and is endeared to us by the tradition of our fathers. But we do not therefore think that a republican government is either the best form of government in itself, or that it is well suited to all peoples. There was a time when we thought otherwise, but this complacent belief has received many rude shocks. The failure of every republic attempted in France, and the general collapse of all the Hispano-American republics has convinced us of our error. There was a time when we should have hailed the establishment of a republic among any civilized people, but we should now probably witness such an experiment with a kind of dread.

GOVERNMENTS MUST CONFORM TO NATIONAL HABITS.

The political habitudes of a people enter into its national life. They embody the traditional experience of the past; they are acted formulas of thought; they are a portion of the personal habits of every one of the people; they cannot be suddenly disturbed without a bewildering sense of change. A form of government is not like a garment, which can be changed at pleasure; it is more like the skin, which can be removed only by slow and almost imperceptible processes of constitutional change.

NO FORM OF GOVERNMENT EITHER GOOD OR BAD IN ITSELF.'

As the science of government in its application to nations ceases to be an abstract science, but becomes a practical art by reason of the complication of divers conditions, it cannot be said that any form of government is, in and of itself, either good or bad. It is good, in any given case, just so far as it accomplishes the purposes of a good government; it is bad, in so far as it fails to accomplish them. The government of Belgium may be cited as an example of a good government, exercised over an intelligent, industrious and virtuous people. Does any thoughtful republican imagine that the institutions of

the United States could be successfully transported there? Holland was once a republic, and is perhaps essentially such to this day; but the kingly form of government was wisely introduced. If Russia had adopted even representative institutions twenty five years ago, would serfdom be this day reckoned among the things of the past? Would she have enjoyed even internal tranquillity? Could she have advanced in her grand strides of civilization, as she has done, during the last hundred and fifty years, under any government except the autocratic? The government of her Hispano-American possessions by Spain, under the Bourbon dynasty, was no doubt vicious, in many respects, and oppressive to the native white races of those colonies; but it was nevertheless a vigorous government, sti-mulating to industry, and protective of life and property. Can it be doubted that it would have been better for those colonies in the aggregate, for the world, and for the cause of human progress and of free institutions, if they had remained under that dominion, bad as it was? In the aggregate, is the term used, for Chile no doubt presents the only, and a most notable exception. As republicans, we are ashamed of the antics which these simulated republics have performed in the name of republicanism, degrading the term, while they possessed no portion of the essence. When France entered upon her career of Revolution, and, after abolishing all oppressive feudal and seignorial privileges and imposts, declared all her citizens equal before the law; under a hereditary king, the depositary of the executive power, with whose sanction the nation enacted laws, whose person was inviolable, and upon whom the highest penalty that could be inflicted, even for treason, was dethronement, "déchéance," we felt that France had advanced far on the way to free institutions. But when we saw, soon afterwards, the kindhearted but weak king put to death for an imputed crime, in defiance of the constitutional position which declared his person inviolable; the massacres of September; the Reign of Terror; the murder of Queen Marie Antoinette; and that most pitiful tragedy in all history, the slow assassination of the boy Dauphin in the Temple-all these atrocities perpetrated in the name of republicanism we repudiated the imputation, and did not need the