CHAPTER VIII

RECENT TENDENCIES

In the last half of the nineteenth century there appeared in the United States a group of political theorists differing from the earlier thinkers in respect to method and upon many important doctrines of political science. The new method was more systematic and scientific than that which preceded it, while the results reached showed a pronounced reaction from the individualistic philosophy of the early years of the century.1

Much of the credit for the establishment of this new school belongs to Francis Lieber, a German scientist who came to this country in 1827, and, as an educator and author, left a deep impress on the political thought of America. His Manual of Political Ethics (1838-1839) and Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853) were the first systematic treatises on political science that appeared in the United States, and their influence was widespread.2

1 The discussion of the two preceding chapters has partly anticipated the doctrines here considered.

2 See also the Miscellaneous Writings of Lieber, edited by D. C. Gilman, also Legal and Political Hermeneutics (1837). For an account of Lieber's life, see The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, by T. S. Perry; also Francis Lieber, by L. R. Harley.

Following Lieber, came a line of American political scientists, many of whom were trained in German schools, and all of whom had acquired a scientific method of discussing political phenomena. Among the most conspicuous figures in the new school are Theodore Woolsey, whose Political Science appeared in 1877, and John W. Burgess, who wrote, in 1890, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, and a number of others who have contributed materially to the development of the subject.1

The method of these authorities has already been indicated, and need not be discussed at length. The significant fact about it is the change from the rather haphazard style of discussing political theory in earlier days to a more scientific way of approaching the questions of politics. A far more thorough knowledge of history and a broader comparative view of political institutions are conspicuous in the new system.

1 Among these should be mentioned those writers who were conspicuous at the close of the Civil War, such as Brownson, Jameson, Mulford, Hurd, and others. Somewhat later come A. L. Lowell, Essays on Government (1892); Woodrow Wilson, The State (1889), and An Old Master and Other Political Essays (1893); F. J. Goodnow, especially in Politics and Administration (1900); W. W. Willoughby, The Nature of the State (1896), and Social Justice (1900); see also the works later cited. In the Political Science Quarterly, the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Historical Review, the Yale Review, and the American Journal of Sociology are found numerous con. tributions to the literature of political science.

The doctrines of these men differ in many important respects from those earlier entertained. The individualistic ideas of the "natural right" school of political theory, indorsed in the Revolution, are discredited and repudiated. The notion that political society and government are based upon a contract between independent individuals and that such a contract is the sole source of political obligation, is regarded as no longer tenable. Calhoun and his school had already abandoned this doctrine, while such men as Story had seen the need of extensive qualification of it. Objections to the social contract were strongly urged by Lieber,1 and were later more fully and clearly stated by others. In Lieber's opinion, the "state of nature" has no basis in fact. Man is essentially a social creature, and hence no artificial means for bringing him into society need be devised. Lieber condemned the contract theory as generally held, on the ground that it was both artificial and inadequate. Such an explanation of the origin of the state can be regarded as true only in the sense that every political society is composed of individuals who recognize the existence of mutual rights and duties. Only in the sense that there is a general recognition of these reciprocal claims can we say that the state is founded on contract; and this, of course, is far from what the doctrine is ordinarily taken to mean. As a matter of fact,

1 Political Ethics, I, 288 ff. (2d edition, 1890).

the state may originate, and has originated, Lieber said, in a variety of ways, as, for example, through force, fraud, consent, religion.

Still more strongly is the opposition to the social-contract theory stated by Burgess. The hypothesis of an original contract to form the state is, as he reasons, wholly contrary to our knowledge of the historical development of political institutions. The social-contract theory assumes that "the idea of the state with all its attributes is consciously present in the minds of the individuals proposing to constitute the state, and that the disposition to obey law is universally established." "1 These conditions, history shows, are not present at the beginning of the political development of a people, but are the result of long growth and experience. This theory therefore cannot account for the origin of the state. Its only pos

sible application is in changing the form of the state, or in cases when a state is planted upon new territory by a population already politically educated.

In the refusal to accept the contract theory as the basis for government, practically all the political scientists of note agree. The old explanation no longer seems sufficient, and is with practical

1 Political Science, I, 62. With Burgess compare Woolsey, Brownson, Jameson, Wilson, Mulford, Willoughby, to the same effect. See the comprehensive discussion in Willoughby, The Nature of the State, Chaps. II-VI.

unanimity discarded.1 The doctrines of natural law and natural rights have met a similar fate. In Lieber's political philosophy, it is true, the concept of natural law was still defended. The law of nature he defined as "the body of rights which we deduce from the essential nature of man." 2 The great axiom of natural law is, "I exist as a human. being; therefore, I have a right to exist as a human being." Under this natural law, there are certain natural rights, or as Lieber preferred to call them, "primordial rights," which are inherent in the individual and inalienable by him. But even Lieber, with his leaning toward the old theory, did not

1 F. M. Taylor, in The Right of the State to be (1891), defends a concept of natural law.

2 Political Ethics, I, 68.

8 Ibid. I, 177. Cf. Woolsey, Political Science, Vol. I, Chap. I. In his Civil Liberty and Self-Government Lieber distinguished between what he called "Anglican" liberty and "Gallican" liberty. The Anglican idea of liberty is that of a sphere of immunity from interference, protected by guaranties "at certain points where the experience of the race has shown the individual to be most in danger of attack." The Gallican idea is that all must share equally in voting power, and that the authority of a government based on universal suffrage may be indefinite in extent. One idea is that men are free when they are protected in a certain sphere against all encroachment, private or public; the other idea is that freedom consists in equal suffrage, no matter what the character of the government so based may be. This he thought was the great difference between the English and the French idea of liberty. It is interesting to observe that Benj. Constant, a famous French publicist of the early part of the century, made the same comparison between the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns, among whom he included, of course, the French.