bosom civil liberty, the dictum is radically erroneous. If by republic, however, nothing is meant but a kingless state of politics, irrespective of liberty or the good government of freemen, it is not worth our while to stop for an inquiry. Nothing, indeed, is more directly antagonistic to real selfgovernment than inorganic universal suffrage spreading over a wide dominion. I would, also allude once more to the fact that universal suffrage is, after all, a modus, and not the essence. If, however, it leads to the opposite of self-government, we have no more right to call it "the republic," nor to consider it a form of liberty, than those ancient Germans had a right to be proud of their liberty, whom unsuccessful gaming had led into slavery, if Tacitus reports the truth.

According to the French writer, the Roman republic might be said to have continued under the Cæsars, who were elected by the prætorians, and an elective monarchy would present itself as an acceptable government, while, in reality, it is one of the worst. For it possesses nearly all the evils inherent in the monarchical government, without its advantages, and all the disadvantages of a republic, vastly increased, without its advantages. History, I think, fully bears us out in this opinion, notwithstanding one authority-the only one of weight I can remember-to the contrary.1

1 Lord Brougham, in his Political Philosophy, speaks in terms of high praise of the elective government of the former Germanic empire. Native and contemporary writers have not done so. It was only after the expulsion of the French, and when the German people instinctively longed for German unity and dignity, that, at one time, a poetic longing for the return of the medieval empire was expressed by some. If there be any German left who still desires a return to the elective empire, he must be of a very retrospective character.

CHAPTER XXX.

INSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT THE ONLY GOVERNMENT WHICH PREVENTS THE GROWTH OF TOO MUCH POWER. LIBERTY, WEALTH AND LONGEVITY OF STATES.

UNIVERSAL suffrage is power-sweeping, real power-so vast, that even its semblance bears down everything before it. Uninstitutional universal suffrage may be fittingly said to turn the whole popular power and national sovereignty-the selfsufficient source of all derivative power-into an executive, and thus fearfully to confound sovereignty with absolute power, absolutism with liberty.

Yet the idea of all government implies power, while that of liberty implies check and protection. It is the necessary harmony between these two requisites of all public vitality and civil progress which constitutes the difficulty of establishing and maintaining liberty-a difficulty far greater than that which a master-mind has declared the greatest, namely, the founding of a new government.1

1 Machiavelli-tanto nomini nullum par elogium-says in his Prince, "But in the new government lies the greatest difficulty." This depends upon circumstances. He undoubtedly had in mind the difficulty of uniting Italy, or rather of eliminating so many governments and establishing one Italian state. For there has been no noble Italian, since the times when Dante called his own Italy, Di dolor ostello, that does not yearn for the union of his noble land, and look for the realization of his hopes as fervently as he believes in a God. Machiavelli was one of the foremost among these true Italians. But he had not lived through our times. There are times when the people throw themselves into the arms of any one that possibly may save them from impending or imaginary shipwreck, or promises to do so. Wearied people will take a stone for a pillow, and no persons deceive themselves so readily as the panic-stricken. On such occasions it is easy to establish a new government, especially if

Power is necessary; an executive cannot be dispensed with; yet all power has a tendency to increase, and to clear away opposition. It would not be power if it had not this tendency. How then is liberty to be preserved? A new power may be created to check the first, like the Roman tribune; but the newly created power is power, and how is this in turn to be checked? Erecting one tier of power over the other affords no remedy. The chief power may thus be made to change its name or place; but the power with all its attributes is there.

Nor will it be supposed that salvation can be found in the mere veto, however multiplied. For the veto, although appearing negative with reference to that which is vetoed, nevertheless is power in itself, and to rest civil liberty upon a system of mere vetoes would indeed be expecting life, action, growth, and that which is positive, from a system of negativism. A government without power and inherent strength is like aught else without power, useless for action. Yet action is the object of all government. The single Polish nobleman who possessed the rakosh or veto had a very positive but a very injurious power. It was the pervading idea, in the middle ages, to protect by the requisition of unanimity of votes on all important questions. But, on the one hand, this is the principle which belonged to the disjunctive state of the middle ages, not to our broad national liberty; and, on the other hand, unanimity does not of itself insure protection or liberty. Tyranny or corruption has often been unanimous.

The only way of meeting the difficulty is to prevent the overbearing growth of any power. When grown, it is too late; and this cannot be done by putting class against class, or interest against interest. One of these must be stronger than the other, and become the absorbing one. Nor is the problem we have to solve, discord. It is harmony, peace,

cumbersome conscience is set aside. The reverse of Machiavelli's dictum then takes place, and the greatest difficulty lies in maintaining a government. This applies even to administrations and ministries. All is pleasant sailing at first. A new power charms like a rising sun; but the heat of noon follows upon the morning.

united yet organic action. History or speculation points to no other solution of this high problem of man, than a wellgrounded and ramified system of institutions, checking and modifying one another, strong and self-ruling, with a power limited by the very principle of self-government within each, yet all united and working toward one common end, thus producing a general government of a co-operative character, and serving in many cases in which, without institutions, interests would jar with interests, as friction rollers do in machinery.

The institution is strong within its bounds, yet not feared, because necessarily bounded in its action. What can be more powerful than the king's bench in England, in each case in which it acts within its own limits. Now older than five hundred years, it has repeatedly stood up against parliament with success. Yet no one fears that its power will invade that of other institutions; nor did the people of the state of New York apprehend that the court of appeals might become an invasive power, when in its own legitimate and efficient way it lately declared the Canal Enlargement Law, which had been passed by a great majority, unconstitutional, and consequently null and void.

Seeking for liberty merely or chiefly in a vetitive power of each class or circle, interest or corporation, upon the rest, as has been often proposed, after each modern revolution,' would simply amount to dismembering, instead of constructing. It would produce a multitudinous antagonism, instead of a vital organism, and it would be falling back into the medieval state of narrow chartered independencies. We cannot hope for liberty in a pervading negation, but must find it in comprehensive action. All that is good or great is creative and positive. Negation cannot stand for itself, or impart life. But that negation which is necessary to check and refrain is found in the self-government of many and vigorous institutions, as they also are the only efficient preventives of

1 Harris, in his Oceana, St. Just, in the first French revolution, and many former and recent writers might be mentioned,

the undue growth of power. If they are not always able to hinder it, man has no better preventive. When in the seventeenth century, the Danes threw themselves into the power of the king, making him absolute, in order to protect themselves against baronial oppression, they necessarily created a power which in turn became oppressive. The English, on the contrary, broke the power of their barons, not by raising the king, but by increasing self-government.

We find, among the characteristic distinctions between modern history and ancient,' the longevity of modern states, contemporaneous progress of wealth or culture and civil liberty, and the national state as contradistinguished from the ancient city-state, the only state of antiquity in which liberty existed. These are not merely facts which happen to present themselves to the historian, but they are conditions upon

1 These differences between antiquity and modern times, all of which are more or less connected with christianity and the institution, are:

1. That in antiquity only one nation flourished at a time. The course of history, therefore, flows in a narrow channel, and the historian can easily arrange universal ancient history. In modern periods, many nations flourish at the same time, and their history resembles the broad Atlantic, on which they all freely meet.

2. Ancient states are short-lived; modern states have a far greater tenacity of life.

3. Ancient states, when once declining, were irretrievably lost. Their history is that of a rising curve, with its maximum and declension, Modern states have frequently shown a recuperative power. Compare present England with that of Charles II., France as it is with the times of Louis XV.

4. Ancient liberty and wealth were incompatible, at least for any length of time; modern nations may grow freer while they are growing wealthy.

5. Ancient liberty dwelt in city-states only; modern liberty requires enlarged societies-nations.

6. Ancient liberty demanded disregard of individual liberty; modern liberty is founded upon it.

now.

7. The ancients had no international law. (Nor have the Asiatics The incipiency of international law is, indeed, visible with all tribes, for they are men. The Romans sent heralds to declare war, and the Greek, advised to poison his arrows, declines doing so, "for," Homer makes him say, "I fear the gods will punish me.")