VITALITY OF THE DECLARATION. 163 for gratuitous distribution with their constitutions and the Constitution of the United States. Its acceptance has been imposed, with the national Constitution, as the condition of the admission of new States into the Union and it has been cited repeatedly in the platforms of political parties.1 1 The vitality of the ideas contained in the Declaration of Independence is nowhere in our history better illustrated than in the formal citation of the Declaration in the platforms of political parties. No less than seventeen National Conventions have inserted in the party platform a clause claiming the Declaration as an exposition of party doctrines. It is significant that this claim has been made by all parties and by different parties at the same time. The list is as follows: Democratic, New York, January, 1836. Democratic, Baltimore, May 5, 1840. Liberty party, Buffalo, August 30, 1843. Free Soil, Buffalo, August 9, 1848. Democratic, Baltimore, June 1, 1852. Free Soil, Pittsburg, August 11, 1852. Democratic, Cincinnati, June 2, 1856. Republican, Philadelphia, June 17, 1856. Republican, Chicago, May 16, 1860. Democratic, Baltimore, June 18, 1860. Republican, Chicago, May 20, 1868. Labor Reform, Columbus, O., February 21, 1872. (An industrial application of Jefferson's doctrines.) Prohibition, Cleveland, May 17, 1876. Social Labor, New York, July 4, 1896. See also the resolution of Senator Allen of Nebraska, submitted to the United States, February 11, 1899, that the doctrine of the Declaration "is not in its application to be confined to the people of the United States, but is universal and extends to all people wherever found, having a distinct and well-organized society and territory of their own;" offered with reference to Cuba and the Philippines; Congressional Globe, Fifty-fifth Congress, Third Session. The reiteration of the Declaration in national platforms proves the fundamental character of its principles, in the opinion of the American people. For the platforms above cited, see the National Platforms of all Political Parties, with the names of all Candidates at each Presidential Election from 1789 to 1896, showing the vote for each Candi 164 COMPLAINTS AND REMEDIES. While the Declaration was in preparation, the State conventions and assemblies were framing the first State constitutions, and these, together, form contemporary documents of the highest interest and value. Nearly every complaint in the Declaration has its remedial counterpart in these constitutions. Taken together, they show how seriously and how firmly the Americans set about correcting old abuses and organizing their governments. The Declaration complained of the royal dissolution of the legislatures; the constitutions provided for their annual meeting, and gave the executive no power to prorogue them. The Declaration complained of the King's persistent efforts to prevent the population of the colonies; of his obstruction of laws for the naturalization of foreigners and of his refusal to pass others encouraging emigration; the constitutions provided for free emigration, for the naturalization of foreigners and for the appropriation of lands to them. The Declaration complained of the cbstruction of the administration of justice by the King; the constitutions organized independent State judiciaries. The Declaration complained that the colonial judges had been made dependent on the Crown "for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries;" the constitutions forbade hereditary offices, and declared that all public officers are public servants, deriving their powers from the people. The Declaration complained that in time of peace the King had maintained armies in America without the consent of the assemblies, rendering the military independent of the civil power and superior to it; the constitutions declared that the authority of the civil power over the military is paramount. date, both Electoral and Popular, etc. Edited by Thomas Hudson McKee. The Statistical Publishing Company, No. 7 Grant place, Washington, D. C. COMPLAINTS AND REMEDIES. 165 The Declaration complained that the Crown had imposed taxes upon the Americans without their consent; the constitutions granted the power of taxation to the representatives whom they might choose. The benefits of jury trial had been denied; the constitutions explicitly guaranteed them. The Declaration accused the King of taking away the charters, of abolishing valuable laws and of fundamentally altering the forms of government; the constitutions declared that the will of the people should be permanently expressed in the written instruments which they might from time to time cause to be framed. The Crown had repeatedly refused to receive the American petitions; the constitutions solemnly declared the inviolability of the right of petition. ernment. It was in its organic connection with the first State constitutions, therefore, that much of the strength of the Declaration consisted. Its great doctrine, the natural rights of man, has received far more attention than has this fundamental relation to these plans of popular govAs a political manifesto, it was nothing more than a rhetorical statement of ideas, which for some time had been freely circulated through the land. Lee's resolution of independence was largely a piece of rhetoric, yet it stood for an idea. The Declaration meant more than a mere outburst of revolutionary enthusiasm. In practical politics it announced the birth of a new nation. Looking back into the origin of our political system, we have already discovered many of its elements. The government of the new Nation must be organized under an appropriate form. Before examining that form and tracing the process through which it was attained, let us inquire what efforts, if any, had been made toward Union, during colonial times. CHAPTER VI. ON THE WAY TO UNION IN COLONIAL TIMES. The advice of Congress to form State governments was easy to follow. Almost from the first settlement of the country the people had been in the habit of electing representatives to assemblies, and, in Rhode Island and Connecticut, to the election of governors. The first constitutional grievance in America sprang from the forfeiture of charters and the consequent deprivation of the power of choosing the executive by popular election. In Pennsylvania and Maryland the executive office was hereditary. In nine colonies it was filled by an appointee of the King. The effect in both royal and proprietary colonies was the same,-a continuous popular outcry against the governors and a struggle between them and the assemblies. These monotonous contests form the subject of much of our early political history. Democracy was not yet sufficiently developed to demand the popular election of judges. Their appointment by the executive for good behavior was accepted as the proper method of keeping them from the turmoil of politics, yet in most of the colonies they were dragged into it. The transition from colony to State signified that the principle of representation was henceforth to be applied in every department of government. The Revolution, measured by its constitutional results, consisted in the organization of a republican form of government in place of one partly republican and partly monarchical. The transition was the more easily made, in response to the advice of Congress, because the monarchical element had become weak. When we think of this civil POLITICAL CONTINUITY. 167 transformation we must not confuse incidents of war with changes in civil affairs. When now the States "took up civil government," their people did not break with the past; they only added to the republican foundation already laid. They brought executive and administrative functions, as they understood them, into harmony with principles which regulated the legislative, and thus established forms of government according to the best political standards of the eighteenth century. There was nothing novel or purely experimental in this transition. The civil experience of the country, since 1619, was its foundation. Colonial legislatures had been passing laws for a century and a half and most of them were in print. Of late, conventions and assemblies had sent forth numberless declarations and resolutions embodying the popular understanding of the principles of government, and since the stamp act no assembly had hesitated freely to express its opinion of the conduct of imperial affairs. During the ten years following the act, these opinions are a running political commentary on the ministry, on Parliament, and on the powers and prerogatives of the Crown. For a dozen years before the clash of arms, the Americans had been in a dangerously critical mood, and were on their way to independence, or the pains and penalties of treason. All their declarations bore one refrain; that taxes could not be imposed upon them without their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives in the assemblies. Members of Congress were not representatives of the people as were assemblymen and the two bodies were never confused in the public mind. The republican form of government now to be chosen was that of the State. Few Americans had gone so far as to conceive of a confederation, much less of a national government. The political revolution rested on the experience of the |