ples and methods a constitution can certainly be deduced: Tоreía cannot bear the interpretation of "constitution," as an English-speaking publicist understands the term, and it requires all the weight of Jowett's name to make it do so. Nevertheless, Aristotle's remark applies with singular force to the experience of modern free governments. For though England unquestionably had a constitution previous to the revolution of 1688, it was an imperfect one, and so confused and ill balanced, and so faulty was it in the distribution of political rights and powers, that, until this revolution had wrought a change, the constitutional history of that state can hardly be deemed to have set in. But the revolution over, we behold two things the commons have the preponderance of power, that is to say, the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest; and forthwith the government is called a constitutional government.

Thus, though Aristotle doubtless had in mind a government far more democratic than that of Great Britain, the general truth of his remark is sustained by an illustration from the history of England.1

1 It must be borne in mind that Aristotle could not have had the conception of a constitution nor even one of a state, such as dwells in the mind of an English-speaking man of to-day. The only notion of a state that he gives us, is that of the City-state. "Of Empire of the subordination of several states to one ruling state- he has nothing to tell us; he must have looked on such a form of union as artificial and unnatural, and therefore as beyond the scope of his inquiry. Nor does he treat of federation, or the union of several states under a common government for the common good; to his mind the Citystate should need no help from other states, and in combining with them would only be surrendering a part of its own essential vitality." Politics, 1326 B; Fowler's City-state, 62. Aristotle's state was composed of men who lived the highest life, and whose fealty rested on neither fear nor force, but on enthusiastic patriotism and devotion.

THE WRITTEN CONSTITUTION.

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It was in Connecticut that the written constitution, if not for the first time exhibited to the world, first appeared as the organizing instrument of a new state; and first became indispensable to the formation of society in British America. The circumstances under which it appeared account for its importance. A few congregations, dissatisfied with the exclusive and overbearing action of the Massachusetts oligarchy (notably the imposition of taxation without representation, though, doubtlesss, there were personal and doctrinal antagonisms also), left the shores of the Charles River and sought those of the Connecticut. Buried in the woods, unknown to the revolutionary government in England and uncared for, these dissenters from dissent organized their society into what eventually proved to be a state, and this they did by a written constitution establishing representative democracy. About the same time, other dissenters from dissent settled the colony of Rhode Island with the avowed purpose of founding a commonwealth where all should be equal and no man should be called to account for matters of conscience. Thus side by side grew up communities, one of which had under its care the fostering of a state founded upon representative democracy and the doctrine that the governor was accountable to the governed for the exercise of his power, and the other had for its object equality of citizenship and the development of absolute freedom of inquiry. Across the line remained Massachusetts, the colony from which the others had departed, where

Such a state would afford scope too restricted for a modern constitution. "The Politics," says Newman, I, 485, "is at once the portraiture of an ideal state and a statesman's manual."

state and church were not so much in conjunction as they were one and the same thing; where freedom of inquiry was regarded as a bane of social life, and where government was merely rule by the few. Intolerance flourished luxuriantly in Massachusetts, and democracy and free inquiry had hard work to keep their footing alongside of her, in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Yet the necessities of those rude days compelled the few handfuls of New England zealots 1 to confederate the first step towards the Union that was to follow a century and a half later. Thus we behold in this remote spot, written constitutional government, and the shoots of representative democracy, accountability of the governing power, free inquiry, and union, taking root at the same time. In the South we find the conservatism of the landed classes, and, in the middle colonies, at a later period, the free inquiry, and, strange to say, the equality of citzenship of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, although under a government almost purely palatine.

It was these things which entered into the political life of the several colonies, which found voice in the state constitutions, and which, at a later day, were stored up in the federal Constitution. In them lie our vital forces, and in them consists the real federal Union that plant of slowest growth, but of completest maturity known to our institutional race.

The most noteworthy contributions of the United States to the science of government, have been the elements of union between separate states and repre

With the exception of rejected Rhode Island and the disdained settlers along the north coast.

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.

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sentative democracy. Federations there had been long before this government was organized, and representation was of high antiquity; but representative democracy had its inception in this land, and here it is, also, that the principle of federation for the first time assumed the character of that which is now known as "the American Union." Union, in this sense, means a combination of sovereign states, wherein a central power, created by the members, acts for all combined into one whole in its external relations, and, in their inter-relations and internal administration, has jurisdiction of such matters only as are prescribed by the constitution creating this power. In America it is essential to the notion of federal union, that the central government should possess sovereignty as far as it is delegated; that it act upon the individual citizens alike in all the states; that it should act upon the states; that it have the three great divisions of political power, to wit, executive, legislative, and judicial; that its legislature, in the popular branch, should represent the people of each and every state; and that its upper house should consist of the representatives of the states themselves; that the constitutionality of any law of such legislature, or Congress, should be determined by the courts, and that the chief executive officer should not be clothed with so much as a vestige of sovereignty, though he is to execute the powers of government. This Union, like each of the states composing it, rests upon the principle that sovereignty lies in the people.

Such, in a few words, is the notion of a federal union conceived of in America. It is the principle of federation carried to the latest stage of development

to the stage where it is in combination and in equilibrium with the principle of nationality. First in historical order comes the grouping of neighborhoods, no matter how formless, as were the Connecticut towns. Next is the combination of political bodies, no matter how loose, so long as the parties to the combination act as political units, are unrestricted, and do declare the purposes of combination, which purposes are purely political; this is confederation, such as that of the United Colonies of New England in 1643, and that of the United States of America in 1781: so far, however, we see no central body or government embracing the three functions of government, and none which can compel the compliance of individual citizens; but next, and lastly, such a body or government does appear; the citizen owes obedience in two jurisdictions, and that which an American calls “a Union" exists. The principle of federation, in the course of its development, has finally assumed the characteristics and the attitude of a power, whose chief function in internal affairs is to preserve in harmony the conflicting principles of localism and nationalism. Historically, the former precedes, and nationalism in the United States may be called the offspring of localism, for the United States constitute a group of peoples, each of which is autonomous and inhabits a particular locality.

There is, likewise, another product of localism, and that is the representative democracy, which is indigenous to this country. When the colonists came here they brought their institutions along with them, and they were unfettered in the task of planting these institutions and of adapting them to the new conditions