was most influential. Gradually the ancient civil rights of Englishmen, made familiar by charters, came to be considered as natural. Long exercise of charter rights made the notion easy-however unphilosophical. Colonial isolation compelled a liberal interpretation of the clause in the charters permitting Assemblies to pass laws as nearly as may be in conformity with the laws of England. There could be but one consequence-the Americans would ultimately claim that their own Assemblies possessed the exclusive right, constitutionally, to impose taxes, and that local circumstances forbade colonial representation in Parliament.

The Americans had a century and a half of experience in popular government when the first State constitutions were made. During this time they worked out the principles embodied in their first bills of rights, and accumulated an administrative experience which they reduced to three working formulas: the articles on the legislative, on the executive, and on the judiciary. These articles are essentially a political photograph of the colonial governments in those last days, just before transformation into States. But it must not be forgotten that the photograph was corrected, as it were, by adding ideals. Compared with constitutions made at the close of the nineteenth century, these of the eighteenth seemed colonial rather than commonwealth in character.

In as far as they departed from colonial experience, they show the influence of Montesquieu. His Spirit of Laws was published in 1748, and its

Montesquieu's Influence on Our Constitution

influence on America was like that of Aristotle's Politics on the institutions of Europe. The commonwealth constitutions of the eighteenth century were made, nominally, by conventions, though in many instances by Legislatures. It may be said that the twenty-six constitutions of the period were thought out by about the same number of men— the most eminent Americans of the age. Most of these met in the convention that made the national Constitution. They had already participated in a similar work for their own States, and some of them assisted in revising their State constitutions after the national Constitution was adopted and the new government was established.

To these men the Spirit of Laws was a manual of politics powerfully contributing to a general unity of sentiment in the State instruments, and particularly in the Constitution of the United States. In spite of popular disbelief, it is the philosophical thinker who regulates the form of the state. He works out a civil economy, which, corrected by popular experience, at last becomes the form of government in the state. Of less, though of great influence on American institutions, were Milton, Hobbes, Locke, Sidney, Harrington, and Penn. The best of their political speculations. became the common intellectual property of thoughtful Americans, and in political form were incorporated in the constitutions of the eighteenth century, and, slightly modified, are found in all that have been adopted since.

Twenty-five years later than Montesquieu's

ances.

Spirit of Laws, appeared Blackstone's Commentaries-destined at once to become the principal legal text-book of the English race. In spite of its ultra-monarchical ideas, it profoundly influenced American political thought.* Montesquieu was speculative; Blackstone, practical and definitive. The Commentaries, as did no other book, assisted American statesmen in giving legal form to democratic ideas of government. The American Revolution would have wholly miscarried had its principles failed to attain expression in legal form: so much are men controlled by appearThis is well illustrated in a statement in the Declaration of Independence, and repeated in every State constitution, that the people have the right to alter or abolish any form of government that they judge destructive of their rights. All the eighteenth-cent writers emphasize the importance of the form of the government; the form is considered as essential to the right exercise of civil functions. Though acknowledging the right of the people to change the form, neither the constitutions of the period nor the writers upon them hint at any right to alter or abolish the principles on which the form rests. That the monarchical Blackstone so practically contributed to the establishment of democracy in America is a paradox not without parallel in history.

Two other English philosophers whose works

*The first American edition, in four volumes, was brought out in Philadelphia, by Robert Bell, in 1771.

Voltaire and Franklin Considered

appeared with Blackstone's, at the outbreak of the Revolution, profoundly influenced American institutions. Hume anticipated both the French and the American revolutions, and Adam Smith* anticipated the economic course of American life. The most subtle influence on America was wielded by him, to whom, says Lowell, "more than to any other one man we owe it that we can now think and speak as we choose."† Voltaire's influence was that of an institution rather than that of an individual. It largely contributes to that secularization of the state which distinguishes government in America from all other governments, ancient or modern.

America was not lacking instruction from a philosopher of native birth, Franklin, who was scarcely less influential than any of his contemporaries. The characteristic of the political thought of the age was individualism. The state was called into existence to protect the individual. This is the dominant idea of every bill of rights of the eighteenth century, and indeed of all until recent years. The state is not described at that time as having “ancient and undoubted rights" which the

* Washington annotated his copy of Smith, showing careful reading. It now belongs to Joseph Wharton, Esq., of Philadelphia. For an estimate of the influence of The Wealth of Nations, see Lecky's History, Vol. iv., p. 328.

+ Latest Literary Essays (Gray), 1892, p. 12.

Smith read chapters of The Wealth of Nations to Doctor Franklin, as it was composed, for his criticism. This may explain the numerous allusions to America in the work. See Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, Vol. i., p. 533.

individual must respect. He was the centre of the political system. The altruistic function of the individual citizen which is implied and occasionally expressed in the later constitutions was not thought of in Franklin's day, and it was a long day from the accession of Queen Anne to the death of Franklin. His ideas are characteristic of a century later, in that he emphasized the administration rather than the theory of government. His oft-quoted speech in the Federal Convention, in which he said that there is no form of government that may not be a blessing to the people if well administered, suggests the test to which every political proposition must at last be subjected. It is the test which best discloses the difference. between the American and the French constitutions of government. Ours rarely contains a definition, and more rarely political speculation, but is practical and administrative in character. Because of this quality, the national Constitution has survived the fiercest test to which it is possible to submit a political system, the ordeal of civil Had it been a document abounding in political speculation it would now be known only to the collector of curious schemes of government. Franklin's individualism ultimately found political application in the essential doctrines of that great party of which Jefferson is commonly called the founder. His influence for this reason has been, and to this day is, confounded with that of Jefferson and Voltaire. It differed from theirs in being more conservative. Its conservatism consisted

war.