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The Philosophy 
 
 of 
 
 American History 
 
 WILLIAM P. GEST 
 
 Philadelphia 
 1900 
 
The Philosophy 
 
 of 
 
 American History 
 
 WILLIAM P. GEST 
 
 Philadelphia 
 1900 
 

 1(^784 
 
 f[7^ry of C^^^««j 
 
 I Tv/0 CohES Received 
 "jUL 9 1900 
 
 Copyright entry 
 No.W.* 
 
 SECOND COPY. 
 
 0«UvM«d to 
 ORDER OWISION, 
 JUL 10J900_ 
 
 64849 
 
 Entered according to the Act of Congress 
 
 in the year 1900 by 
 
 WILLIAM P. GEST 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress 
 
 at Washington 
 
The Philosophy of American History 
 
 To Hegel of all philosophers is generally conceded 
 the honor of having- made the best attempt to draw the 
 phenomena of history into a philosophical theory. It 
 was certainly his belief, and it became the boast of his 
 disciples, that in his philosophy, all phenomena, history, 
 as well as metaphysics, had been reduced to unity. It 
 was no doubt largely due to this universality of system, 
 as well as to his personal power as a teacher, that his 
 Philosophy of History attained its unique reputation. 
 In itself, as we have it in the notes of Gans, it is harsh, 
 unbalanced, difficult to comprehend and full of the ir- 
 regularities in which Hegel's own exuberant per- 
 sonality disregarded the necessities of his system. 
 But it is the weakness — perhaps the strength — of his 
 philosophy to bend to the idiosyncrasies of those who 
 profess it. This is certainly to be expected of 
 a system whose categories are interchangeable. 
 What agreement can be hoped for among those who 
 argue of Freedom and Necessity, when Freedom and 
 Necessity are Necessity and Freedom — the same de- 
 luding spirit playing hide-and-seek with itself, each 
 other and the investigator ? So we need not wonder 
 that, after the personal authority of the master was 
 removed, division arose between his followers. The 
 dazzling stream of philosophy, which burst spon- 
 taneously from his overpowering intellect, like a tor- 
 rent from a snow-capped mountain, separated into two 
 
somewhat sluggish streams on which still sail many 
 little boats, with mariners all stoutly maintainino- that 
 they at all events are on the main river and nearing 
 the ocean of truth. Indeed they claim to distinguish 
 already the 
 
 " Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea." 
 
 It is generally believed, however, that both branches, 
 like Abana and Pharpar have lost themselves in the 
 dust of the desert ; which usually happens, I believe, 
 to streams that divide so near their source. 
 
 The fundamental proposition of Hegel was that 
 all thought moves from thesis, through antithesis, to 
 synthesis ; from the positive, through the negative, to 
 the absolute. History, being the phenomenon of 
 Spirit revealing itself, is subject to the same law. 
 History in general is the development of Spirit in 
 Time, as Nature is the development of Spirit in 
 Space. ^ 
 
 The History of the World is none other than the 
 progress of the consciousness of Freedom which 
 develops according to the Necessity of its nature - 
 Spirit is essentially the result of its own activity ; its 
 activity is the transcending of its immediate simple 
 existence, the negative of that existence and the 
 returning into itself. The life of a people ripens a 
 certain fruit ; its activity aims at the complete mani- 
 festation of the principle which it embodies. But the 
 fruit does not fall back into the bosom of the people 
 that produced and matured it ; oji the co7itrary it 
 becomes a poison draught to it. That poison draught 
 it caniiot let alone, for it has an insatiable thirst for 
 
 ' Hegel : Pliilos. of History, trans. Sibree, 75. 
 ^ Id., p. ly. 
 
//; the taste of the draught is its annihilation, 
 though at the some time the rise of a new principle?" 
 Death is the issue of Life and Life also the issue 
 of Death. The Phcenix was a type of the law of 
 N'ature. Spirit, on the other hand, does not merely 
 pass into another envelope or rise rejuvenescent from 
 the ashes of its previous form ; it comes forth exalted, 
 glorified, a purer Spirit. It certainly makes war on 
 itself; but in its very destruction exalts that existence 
 to a new grade, ^ The life of the Spirit is thus a circle 
 of progressive embodiments, the goal of which is the 
 complete development of Spirit.^ The essence of Spirit 
 is Freedom, by which is meant Freedom both from 
 outward control and inward passion.^ A nation is 
 moral, virtuous, vigorous, while it is engaged in realiz- 
 ing its grand objects, and defends its work against 
 external violence during the process. The contra- 
 diction between its potential, subjective being and its 
 actual being is removed ; the result having been 
 attained, the activity displayed by the Spirit of the 
 people is no longer needed. Then a mere customary 
 life without supreme interest brings on natural death ; 
 and though the nation may continue in being there- 
 after, it is an existence without intellect or vitality, 
 having no need of its institutions because the need of 
 them is satisfied, — a political nullity and tedium. In 
 order that a truly universal interest may arise, the 
 Spirit of a people must advance to the adoption of 
 some new purpose ; but whence can this new purpose 
 originate ? It would be a higher, more comprehensive 
 
 3 IiL, p. 82. 
 ^ Id., p. 76. 
 
 5 /</.,p82. 
 
 " //., Introd. ; p. xi, iS. 
 
conception of itself, a transcending of its principle ; 
 but this very act would involve a new National 
 Spirit." 
 
 These ideas were not essentially original with 
 Hegel. Re-action as a necessary element of history 
 has been discussed since the time of Plato, and the 
 conception of the necessary antithesis in thought had 
 been made familiar by Fichte. The universality of 
 Hegel's system, however, resulted in the transference 
 of the antithesis from the field of metaphysics to that of 
 history, and thereby the " thought process " necessarily 
 became a "time-process." We need not discuss the 
 consistency or inconsistency of this. Hegel's for- 
 mulae applied to the practical treatment of events 
 seem like the quantities of mathematics which become 
 imaginary when projected into a different plane. 
 There may, however, be a useful analogy which can 
 be applied practically without implying the identity of 
 the processes. The imaginary quantities may work 
 out into tangible results. 
 
 Vico also, in his theories of the merging of poetical 
 wisdom into occult wisdom, and of the progress of 
 positive law towards the natural law of reason and the 
 sentiment of Justice infused by God, was not far from 
 Hegel's " Progress of the Idea" and the "justification 
 of God in history." But no one up to Hegel's time 
 had developed such theses so symmetrically or illus- 
 trated them so brilliantly with the light of history. 
 
 Hegel in his lectures paid little attention to 
 America, and indeed we might infer that he had only 
 the most general ideas of her significance in history. 
 He dismisses America as the land of the future with 
 
 ' /(/. , p. 78. The above abstract is mainly in the words of Hegel or Sibree, 
 the translator. See Philosophy of History in Bohn's Philos. Library. 
 
a few somewhat contemptuous pages. What takes 
 place in America, he says, is but an emanation from 
 Europe. The surplus population of Europe went to 
 America in much the same way as many persons es- 
 caped from the old Imperial Cities, where guilds were 
 dominant and trade stereotyped. The relation be- 
 tween North America and Europe was therefore not 
 unlike that of Altona to Hamburg.^ The funda- 
 mental character of the American community was the 
 endeavor of the individual after gain, the preponder- 
 ance of private interest devoting itself to that of the 
 community only for its own advantage. There were 
 certainly legal relations, a formal code of laws ; but re- 
 spect for law existed apart from genuine probity, and 
 American merchants commonly lay under the im- 
 putation of dishonest dealings under legal protection. 
 As to religion, the splitting up into sects had reached 
 the acme of absurdity, many sects having a form of 
 worship consisting in convulsive movements and some- 
 times in the most sensuous extravagances. This com- 
 plete freedom was developed to such a degree that the 
 various conereeations chose ministers and dismissed 
 them according to their absolute pleasure. As to 
 the political condition of North America, the general 
 object of the existence of the State was not yet fixed 
 or determined, and the necessity for a firm combma- 
 tion did not exist ; for a real state arises only after a 
 distinction of classes has arisen, when wealth and 
 poverty become extreme. But America was exempt 
 from this pressure and the chief source of discontent 
 being removed the continuation of the existing civil 
 condition is guaranteed. North America will only be 
 
 8 Id., p. 86. 
 
comparable with Europe after its immeasurable space 
 has been occupied and the members of the political 
 body shall have begun to be pressed back on each 
 other. America is the Land of the Future where, in 
 the ages that lie before us, the burden of the world's 
 history shall reveal itself, perhaps in a contest between 
 North and South America. It is for America to aban- 
 don the ground on which hitherto the History of the 
 World has developed itself. '-^ 
 
 Such were the reflections with which He^el dis- 
 
 o 
 
 missed the new world and her dreams. As a land of 
 the future it had no lessons for the student of history. 
 Yet in our country itself there was from the beeinnino- 
 a, consciousness that America was fulfilling and would 
 fulfill more widely and deeply than any other nation 
 the destiny which Hegel claims as the aim of history. 
 Nowhere had the spectacle of the Spirit of Freedom 
 struggling to realize itself been so clearly displayed 
 before the world, and nowhere had political action 
 been so expressly laid on political philosophy. The 
 opening words of the Declaration are remarkable for 
 this. They claim at once for the Revolution a neces- 
 sary place in the continuous progress of mankind ; 
 they declare it to be an attempt to realize the laws of 
 Nature and of Nature's God ; that is, in Hegelian lan- 
 guage, the reahzation of spirit in the development of 
 Freedom : 
 
 ' ' When in the course of human events it becomes necessary 
 for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have con- 
 nected them with another, and to assume among the powers of 
 the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of 
 Nature and of Nature' s God entitle them, a decent respect to 
 the opinions of fnankind requires that they should declare the 
 causes which impel them to the separation." 
 9 Id. , p. 86-90. 
 
And, aorain : 
 
 " We hold * * * that whenever any form of government 
 becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people 
 to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its 
 foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such 
 form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and 
 happiness. " 
 
 The author of the Declaration would, also, no 
 doubt, have defined a dead state in somewhat the 
 same terms as have been quoted from Hegel ; for this 
 is evidently what he meant by those much reviled 
 words : 
 
 ' ' God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such 
 a rebellion (as Shay's). What signify a few lives lost in a cen- 
 tury or two ? The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the 
 blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. "^^ 
 
 This is as cruel a sentence as any Hegel wrote of 
 his " cunning spirit."^^ But it is as if he would say, 
 progress depends on revolution, for liberty necessi- 
 tates government : " the natural progress of things is 
 for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. "- 
 Then tyranny incites revolution ; after revolution new 
 liberty begins the succession de novo. But for the 
 nation too inert to revolt there is no future but tyranny 
 or death. 
 
 The names of Hegel and Jefferson seem to imply 
 nothing in common, and it may well be something of a 
 surprise to find any similarity between the political 
 theories of men who stood as far apart in the world of 
 thought as in the world of action. Jefferson was a 
 man of the new world, Hegel emphatically a man of 
 
 '" LeUer to Col. W. S. Smith, Nov. 13, 1787. Jeff. Wks., II, 31S. 
 
 '• Hegel's Philos. of History, p. 34. 
 
 ^'^ Jefferson to Carrington, May 27, 17S8. Jeft". Wks., II, i\0^. 
 
the old world. One was an active, ardent patriot, the 
 other was unstirred by the cannon of the invader ; one 
 a revolutionist, the other an apologist for absolutism. 
 Jefferson was a natural reformer, Hegel doubted if the 
 English reforms of 1831 would leave the possibility of 
 a government. The statesman would decentralize the 
 state, the philosopher deified the state. What the 
 enthusiastic American deprecated with ardor the 
 philosophic German describes with the sedateness of 
 general terms. "The particular," says Hegel, "is 
 for the most part of too trifling value as compared 
 with the general ; individuals are sacrificed and 
 abandoned, "^^ 
 
 The two expressions are as near alike as can be 
 expected from two men, one of whom hated metaphy- 
 sics and loved the people, the other of whom loved 
 metaphysics and hated the people. However, all that 
 is here insisted on is that the words of the philosophic 
 Jefferson, speaking as the mouthpiece of the Free Spirit 
 of America, fairly infer a theory of the continuous devel- 
 opment of liberty by successive revolutions, and may 
 well be c[uoted in support of more than one of Hegel's 
 theories. Whatever may be thought of this, it will not 
 now be seriously denied that the development of 
 freedom in America had advanced too far in. Hegel's 
 time and had followed too significant a method to be 
 ignored by any student of history. This was pres- 
 ently to be made evident to Europe by deTocqueville, 
 who landed in America in the year that Hegel died 
 
 (1831). 
 
 Hegel, consciously or not, had other reasons for 
 belittling the progress of America. He had com- 
 
 '■' Hegel's I'hilos. of History, p. 34. 
 
 10 
 
pleted his system without her. For there is indeed in 
 Hegel's appHcation of his theory to the facts of 
 history — perhaps we should say his application of the 
 facts of history to his theory — a sort of implication 
 that the cycle of history is ended. "The East knew 
 and knows only that one is Free ; the Greek and 
 Roman world that some are Free ; the German world 
 knows that all are Free."^^ Hegel's classification of 
 historic data left no room for the "Land of the 
 Future." But there was perhaps another reason. 
 Hegel's philosophy, like all systems that deify neces- 
 sity, by whatever name they choose to call it, becomes 
 the argument of despotism. Imperialism has always 
 justified itself by fatalistic philosophy. Napoleon 
 believed in himself as the child of Fate, and Hegel 
 deified the conqueror of his country under the name 
 of the "World Soul."^'^ It is a just criticism of the 
 tendencies of his system that, optimism, hero worship, 
 acquiescence in might as right and the necessity of 
 war are suggested to be profound historical truths. ^"^ 
 So Napoleon III, taking his cue from his prede- 
 cessor, claimed that Providence raised up such saviors 
 of society as Caesar, Charlemagne and Napoleon.-^^ 
 Among democratic nations a similar justification of 
 imperialism is found in the fatalistic theory of the des- 
 tiny of the superior race. They are in a special sense 
 the chosen of God ; of which the true criterion is the 
 ordeal of battle. This is the modern judicial duel, 
 as clearly fatalistic as the ancient legal wager of battle 
 or the more modern fatalism of the divine right of 
 
 '* Id., p. wo. 
 
 '■' Franke, Social Forces in German Literature, p. 541. 
 
 i« Flint, Philos. Hist. (1874), p. 52S. 
 
 '" Id., p. 566. 
 
 11 
 
kino-s. No doubt the tendency is as old as govern- 
 ment, and there will never be wanting poets of 
 imperialism to echo the words of Euripides that 
 tyranny is god-like."^ 
 
 . These considerations suecest a number of reasons 
 why Hegel's prejudices would dissuade him from 
 applying his philosophy to a country, where seventy 
 years ago, the State still meant the People, and Liberty 
 had not become Necessity. Seeing little to admire in 
 America, Hegel, as many lesser men have done when 
 a fact will not suit their theory, belittled and derided 
 it. The antinomies of American history were not then 
 sufficiently developed to enable an observer to trace 
 the action of the Hegelian law, and the detailed con- 
 sideration of America as a democracy would therefore 
 have been as distracting to the rhythm of his dialectics, 
 as disturbing to the serenity of his politics. 
 
 But if in Hegel's time the position and aim of 
 America seemed new and vague, the eventsof the last 
 sixty or seventy years have given them a definiteness 
 and determination which may well offer many tests for 
 his theory. To apply them in full to the complicated 
 currents of thought and action in America would task 
 even Hegel's ingenuity, but the possibilities of such 
 an attempt may be readily sketched. Let us then see 
 how far the History of the United States supports the 
 theorem that Liberty in creating its forms necessarily 
 turns upon itself and dies, thereby producing a new 
 Liberty of higher grade. 
 
 This may be done without committing ourselves 
 to the belief that liberty is the sole aim of history. 
 Order may be conceived of as being that aim equally 
 
 18 Plato Rep. VIII, 568. 
 
with liberty and complementary to it. The objects 
 of the Constitution, as recited in the preamble, include 
 the insuring of tranquility as well as the securing- of 
 the blessings of liberty. 
 
 The subject may be considered by looking at the 
 form or at the spirit that creates the form. The basis 
 of tree Government is the electorate, so that we may 
 tor convenience divide the subject into 
 
 A. I. The Electoral Forms. 
 
 2. The Governmental Forms. 
 
 B. I. The spirit of the People, as shown in their 
 attitude, towards certain political rights. 
 
 2. The progress of the free Spirit as shown 
 by America's Wars. 
 
 I. (a) The Electoral College was a remarkable 
 attempt to perpetuate a deliberate or rational Spirit of 
 Freedom in an elective body. It was elaborately con- 
 ceived, carefully worked out, and was, in the words of 
 Hamilton/^ " almost the only part of the system which 
 escaped without severe censure, or which received the 
 slightest mark ot approbation from its opponents." 
 
 It w^as thought to be "pretty well guarded" — and 
 so it was from intrusion from abroad. But the Spirit 
 of Freedom must not only be preserved from outward 
 attack ; it must be preserved from itself. As an 
 endeavor to maintain a system of rational free choice 
 it was a failure almost from the beoinnino-. This is 
 too well known to need citation here, further than to 
 show that one of the most careful and wisest endeavors 
 of the Constitution failed the earliest, and that this was 
 because it could not fortify itself against the will of the 
 changing spirit that created it. It is amusing now to 
 read the hopeful words of Hamilton on the device : 
 
 '•' Fed., LXVII. 
 
 13 
 
" Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the 
 immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the 
 task free from any sinister bias (1) Their transient existence 
 and their detached situation afford a satisfactory prospect of 
 their continuing so at the conclusion of it. The business of 
 corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of 
 men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found 
 easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be 
 over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon 
 motives, which, though they could not properly be denomi- 
 nated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from 
 their duty." 
 
 The formalization of the Electoral College has 
 been approved as a step towards democracy. But its 
 decay went even further, and having failed in 1876 
 even to register the will of the people, it was succeeded 
 or supplied by the extra-constitutional Electoral Com- 
 mission. This was assuredly a step beyond democ- 
 racy. The form had failed, and had been turned 
 against the Liberty that created it. 
 
 (b) It must not be expected that all forms fail in 
 equal periods. We may expect any time to find them 
 in various stages of petrification. The Electoral Col- 
 lege is an example of one quite fossilized. The next 
 example of electoral form furnished by the Constitu- 
 tion is election by State Legislatures. The hardening 
 process by which freedom is being destroyed here is 
 more recent, and is even now progressing. The 
 reasons that led to the adoption of the method whereby 
 Senators were to be elected by legislatures were some- 
 what similar to those which produced the electoral 
 college. 
 
 The principal objects aimed at in the qualifica- 
 tions of Senators and the method of their choice were 
 extent of mformation and stability of character in the 
 
 14 
 
members, as well as a conservatism which should act 
 as a check on inconsiderate action by the House. -° 
 
 The first of these objects could only be obtained 
 as long as the essentials of freedom remained in the 
 electing body. But it is essential to freedom that the 
 choice should be delihei'atc, a really representative and 
 rational act of the Spirit of Freedom. It is notorious 
 that for some years the system has not satisfactorily 
 fulfilled the praise of the Federalist as favoring a 
 " select appointment." Party spirit has overcome the 
 freedom of the elector, and the legislative election is 
 seen to be following in the train of the Electoral Col- 
 leofe. It has even assumed in some cases the exact 
 formality, and candidates run for the Legislature on 
 the platform of being pledged for such a Senator or 
 against such a Senator. 
 
 The second of the objects of the Senate has been 
 largely realized until recent years, but it has lately 
 been found that even this can no longer be relied on. 
 Occasions have not been wanting and are too well 
 known to need citation, when the conservatism has 
 been rather in the House of Representatives than in 
 the Senate. This necessarily follows the lowering of 
 the standard of appointment. Conservatism depends 
 largely on independence, responsibility and freedom 
 from party spirit. If both Senate and House are gov- 
 erned by the same spirit of party the basis of the 
 check is gone. It will be believed by many that so 
 much of a conservative check as may remain in 
 the upper house is due rather to the length of 
 tenure of the Senators than to their character as 
 statesmen. Speaking of the benefit of public stabil- 
 
 -'" Federalist, LX[., page 429, etc. 
 
 15 
 
ity, which the Senate was supposed to guard, Ham- 
 ilton said : -^ 
 
 " Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable 
 advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising and the 
 moneyed few over the industrious and uninformed man of the 
 people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or reve- 
 nue, or in any manner affecting the value of the different species 
 of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the 
 change and can trace its consequences, a harvest not reared by 
 themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their 
 fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be 
 said, with some truth, that ' laws are made for the few, not for 
 the many.' " 
 
 So that we see the change in the Senate has 
 brought into power the very ones to profit by the con- 
 dition it was constituted to prevent, and Hamil- 
 ton's words may be read without a change as a denun- 
 ciation of the Senate as it now stands in the public eye. 
 
 Other effects of the change in the spirit of legisla- 
 tive election upon the character of the Senate will be 
 more logically considered presently under the forms 
 of crovernment. 
 
 (c) The popular electorate is the third and prin- 
 cipal form in which it was intended that the American 
 people should preserve their liberty. It is unquestion- 
 able that the right of suffrage is not now looked upon 
 with the complacency and confidence of former times ; 
 yet this could hardly be if its results have not failed. 
 Many never exercise it, many exercise it carelessly, 
 many have a contempt for it, many more are ready to 
 say it has failed. 
 
 There is a great difference between being poten- 
 tially free and actually free. Actual civil liberty depends 
 
 •-' Fed., LXI, p. 435. 
 
 16 
 
not only on free governmental or electoral forms, but 
 the free exercise of free forms and of all those forms. 
 No people can, therefore, be actually free unless they 
 participate in the ground forms of their freedom. The 
 individual must not only vote, but he must determine 
 the question on which he wishes to vote. The early 
 colonists, who knew what the spirit of freedom was, 
 seem to have understood this. The first ground form 
 of colonial history was the primary assembly. As 
 population increased the primary assembly became 
 impracticable, and the change to the representative 
 assembly was clearly a step in the direction of 
 rational freedom. The freeholders of Rhode Island 
 and Maryland, who still insisted on going to the 
 assembly themselves, make a picture quite refreshing 
 to a time when not a tenth of our citizens have ever 
 seen their State Legislatures in session.-'- If the vote 
 was now the basis of our governmental forms, a free 
 participation in it would be a practical realization of 
 freedom. But it is no longer that basis ; a system 
 of party machinery, of primary elections, and con- 
 ventions has crystalized around the former system and 
 has strangled it. Still, if all took part in those primary 
 forms the people would be in a fair way to exercise a 
 free right of suffrage. But they have renounced the 
 ri^ht of choosinor their candidates, their issues or their 
 platforms. These are chosen for them by self-con- 
 stituted groups of men known as politicians. Indeed 
 even the primary election is not what in form it should 
 be, for it is neither primary nor free. It is the under- 
 standing, and under the party rules it is frequently the 
 condition, of participation therein, that one who attends 
 
 '" Wilson, The State, ss., 136. 
 
 17 
 
the primary election is pledged in advance to support 
 its action. A free voter is therefore disfranchised from 
 joining in the fundamental elective form. In this 
 respect the newly legalized primary election more 
 truly represents the public mind than the older and 
 freer form which it is helping to subvert. The 
 ground form of our liberty, the fount of freedom, from 
 which our stream of liberty Hows — the real primary 
 election — is now nothing else than the will of the lead- 
 ing politicians. Not without reason are they called 
 "leaders." There are national leaders and state 
 leaders and ward leaders. They control the neces- 
 saries of life — our water, our light, our highways. 
 They are the real forces that make our laws, choose 
 our judges and tax our property. All depositaries of 
 irresponsible power show the same tendencies. Our 
 modern politicians have become the exponents in the 
 nineteenth century of the royal and courtly character- 
 istics of the seventeenth, of which they display all of 
 the harm and none of the charm. As a class they 
 have become distinct from the people. They divert 
 the public funds, they protect prostitution, they 
 obstruct the course of justice. Like the princes of 
 the ancient regime, they have their favorites, their 
 flatterers, their "loyal" retainer^, for whom they 
 exploit the people. Their power, like that of their 
 earlier analoo^ues, has been a sfradual crrowth. These 
 politicians are not without honor ; on the contrary, 
 like the gentry that preceded them, they have a code 
 of their own. They are probably not without their 
 use. They may some time be recognized to have 
 been in a way the organizers, as the capitalists are 
 in their way the conservators of wealth. For the cun- 
 
 18 
 
ning spirit of progress closes her eyes to their method 
 in order that she may seize and scatter their accumu- 
 lations with generous hand among a future generation. 
 
 So far have these methods prevailed that in our 
 cities, our states, our nation, we have politics, scarcely 
 government. For government implies a gubernator, 
 a helmsman, a course, skill, principle. 
 
 II. Rational free choice therefore has been retained 
 in none of the forms of the electorate in America. 
 We may next consider this on the forms of govern- 
 ernment itself. 
 
 Here we observe immediately a radical difference 
 between the development of the Executive and that of 
 the Legislature and Judiciary and a gradual but con- 
 stant encroachment of the first upon the others. It 
 will, therefore, best be considered after them. 
 I. The Senate. 
 
 The failure of the Senate to fulfill the expectation 
 of a select appointment is due in large measure to its 
 failure to fulfill one of its principal functions as a 
 branch of the Government :— the equipoise between 
 equal federated States. For many of the States cre- 
 ated out of the Western territories had no claim to 
 statehood outside of the demand of party politics. 
 They were not and could not be made properly 
 co-ordinate with the older States. This was largely 
 the result of the Mexican War, and it was this danger 
 that made the greatest constitutional lawyer of his day 
 an anti-expansionist. Webster clearly foresaw the 
 degradation of the Senate from this cause. He regarded 
 the question as "vital, permanent, elementaryln the 
 future prosperity of the country and the maintenance 
 of the Constitution." He wished the people to be 
 
 19 
 
allowed to vote on it so that the breaking down of the 
 Constitution should be their work. It is certainly 
 clear now that the extension of territory after the 
 Mexican War involved, not only the contest over 
 slavery, but also the destruction of the relation 
 between the two branches of the legislative depart- 
 ment. 
 
 " To the argument that Congress might be trusted not to 
 make new States until they had suitable population, Mr. Web- 
 ster replied : ' that the purposes of party would govern the 
 whole matter ; that what had been done in the case of Texas 
 would be done again ; that when the new Senators were 
 wanted for any particular purpose they would be made, and 
 that the year 1850 would witness what he then foretold.'-^ 
 ' I think^ I see,' he said, ' a course adopted which is likely to 
 turn the Constitution of the land into a deformed monster, 
 into a curse instead of a blessing, in fact, a frame of unequal 
 government, not founded on popular representation, not 
 founded on equality, but on the grossest inequality, and I think 
 this process will go on, or that there is danger that it will go 
 on, until this Union shall fall to pieces.' " 
 
 How exactly part of this fear has been fulfilled-^ 
 and how nearly it was all fulfilled are now matters of 
 history. 
 
 An important function which it was intended the 
 Senate should exercise in a free and deliberate spirit 
 was the confirmation of appointments. But it is 
 notorious " that senatorial scrutiny has not proved 
 effectual for securing the proper constitution of the 
 public service. "''' What is known as the courtesy of 
 the Senate is not merely a neglect of duty but a 
 renunciation of finictiou. It is in effect an alteration 
 of the constitutional scheme and a delegation to the 
 
 ^^ Curtis' Life of Webster, II, 325. 
 ''■^ California was admitted in 1S50. 
 2^ Woodrow Wilson, The State, s., 1330. 
 
 20 
 
Senators of a single State of the prerogative of a delib- 
 erative body. In the words of Prof. Wilson, it has 
 frequently threatened to add to the improper motives 
 of the Executive, the equally improper motives of the 
 Senate.2*5 The point here, however, is not that it 
 works badly but that the freedom of consent has been 
 renounced, that the right of consent is not fulfilled in 
 the spirit of liberty, but that liberty has destroyed itself 
 into a form. 
 
 2. Passing from the Senate to the House, we 
 observe a more evident surrender of the free right of 
 legislation. The immediate cause of this has been, as 
 in the case of the Senate, the increase of territory of 
 the country and the consequent increase in member- 
 ship of the House. At the outset of the Government 
 the number of Representatives was 65. This was 
 criticized as too small, and the writer of the Federal- 
 ist, No. 54,-" would have admitted the objection 
 to have great weight, except that the number would 
 be augmented from time to time. However as to the 
 necessity of a great number, he said : 
 
 " In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character 
 composed, passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason. 
 Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian 
 assembly would still have been a mob." 
 
 Since then the House has grown until it has 357 
 members'-' not every one a Socrates. 
 
 It is, of course, known to everyone that the House 
 
 itself gives little attention to business. Its sessions 
 
 are occupied with politics, manoeuvering for position, 
 
 the endeavor to show that the other side is wrong, 
 
 -'« /,/. 
 
 ''■' Page 386, Variously accredited. 
 
 2' Johnson Am. Pol., p. 361, apportionment of 1S91. 
 
 21 
 
speeches intended for' constituents, etc. The real 
 business is deleo-ated to committees, and the com- 
 mittees' reports become the measures of the majority 
 and are put through under the party lash. The House 
 has no time for rational consideration. This was fore- 
 told long ago by Mr. Archer, of Virginia, during debate 
 on the Wilmot proviso, in a remarkable prophesy which 
 Is worth citing here for more than one reason :^'' 
 
 " But there was another view that was just as absolutely 
 imperative on his mind as that at which he had only just 
 glanced. It was the introduction of the question, which would 
 come after the acquisition of new territory. Had they, he 
 enquired, become absolutely insane with this rapid appetite 
 for territorial acquisition ? What was the superficial extent of 
 the United States ? Had gentlemen passed their minds over 
 it ? Did any man suppose that there would be no difficulty in 
 carrying out this problem of a free government without further 
 acquisition, as our population increased ? The House of Rep- 
 resentatives, now (1848) with 228 members, found it necessary 
 to adopt the ' one hour rule ' in debate ; but when we became 
 a population of one hundred millions, as it had been calcu- 
 lated we soon should, it would be necessary to adopt a ' minute 
 rule ' and then everything would be done out of doors, 
 nothing more than the mere forms of deliberation remaining ; 
 and we shall become the most corrupt government ever seen in 
 the world. And did any man doubt, if they passed appro- 
 priation, that the struggle on the question of slavery would 
 come? Let honorable Senators read the resolutions which 
 have already been presented from eight or nine States of this 
 Union, expressing their inflexible purpose to exclude slavery 
 from all territory that may hereafter be acquired. And he had 
 information that resolutions had passed one branch of the 
 Legislature of Virginia, and were expected to pass the other, 
 in which language was used which showed that the people of 
 his State were prepared for resistance to the determination of 
 the free States. It was evident, then, that the passage of this 
 
 '^^ Quoted from Curtis' Life of Webster, II, 307. 
 
bill would minister to the dissentions of the States, and if they 
 were to subscribe a paper, declaring their purpose to be to 
 produce such a calamity, it would be no more apparent than 
 by the passage of this bill. It was lamentable to think of the 
 consequences to result, which would be either the overthrow 
 of this Union, or the infusion into the veins of the body politic 
 of a poison that would make it unworthy of preservation." 
 
 The exact method by which " everything would 
 be done out of doors " is not here foretold. It has now- 
 been formulated in the Committee on Rules and the 
 power of the Speaker. While the House remained a 
 deliberate body the personnel of the committee could 
 not absolutely determine legislation. But now that 
 the House has renounced its right of debate, the 
 Speaker has become the actual arbiter of legislation. 
 He chooses those who make legislation, and as Chair- 
 man of the Committee on Rules and presiding officer 
 of the House, he has almost absolute control of the 
 course of business. Any one who opposes the course 
 determined will not be " recognized. "^° That is, the 
 right of a representative to represent his constituents 
 and to speak his or their sentiments to the House is 
 virtually annulled. Legislation by representatives is 
 at an end, and has been succeeded by legislation ot 
 committees under the control of parties, 
 
 3. It is remarkable that our national deliberate 
 bodies show a progressive decadence according to their 
 closeness to the people ; the nearer to the people, the 
 quicker and more complete the decay. The Electoral 
 College elected by direct vote for a single purpose has 
 become a mere machine ; the House of Representatives 
 elected for general duties and for a term of years 
 reaches the mechanical stage more slowly ; the Senate, 
 
 »o Cf., Wilson, The State, 1293. 
 
 23 
 
chosen by the legislatures and not by the people, for 
 longer terms than our representatives and not all at 
 the same time, still preserves a greater measure of 
 independence. The Supreme Court until comparatively 
 recent years has been thought above any consideration 
 but a free exercise of its judicial functions. But the 
 reconstruction of that Court in order to reverse the 
 leofal tender decision demonstrated the ease with which 
 it also can be made to give up its freedom at the de- 
 mand of party or of the executive. Since then it has 
 become fully understood that the same method may be 
 used again to amend the Constitution extra-consti- 
 tutionally, so as to allow a progressive income tax or 
 other unconstitutional radical measures. At the 
 same time the partisan voting of the judges upon the 
 Electoral Commission has convinced the people that 
 even without a reconstruction the members of that 
 Court are not free from the bias of party. 
 
 4. When we turn to the Executive we find that as 
 the other departments have renounced their rights of 
 freedom, the President has increased his prerogative. 
 It would here take too long to go over the history of 
 this growth. It is in part recited in Prof. Simon E. 
 Baldwin's recent book on " Modern Political Institu- 
 tions " under the title of " Absolute Power, an Ameri- 
 can Institution." The additional or doubtful powers 
 of the President have been from time to time granted 
 or acceded to by Congress. The right of removal, the 
 rio-ht to recognize or to decline to recocjnize foreig-n 
 ministers, the riofht to call out the militia, are all illus- 
 trations of this. The present generation has seen 
 arrests without process, and the habeas cor pits act sus- 
 pended. The Supreme Court has subpoenaed a Presi- 
 
 24 
 
dent, but has never enforced any process against him. 
 But one President was ever impeached, and "it is safe 
 to say none will ever be convicted," He has become 
 superior to Congress as to the Supreme Court. The 
 balance of power being destroyed, he has thus become 
 superior to the Constitution. Jefferson's position that 
 a strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one 
 of the high duties of the Executive, but not the high- 
 est^^ has been the uniform practice of the Executive. 
 Jefferson himself followed it in the Louisiana Purchase, 
 and justified also on this ground the preparation for 
 war after the Chesapeake affair.^" In war the Consti- 
 tution, it is frequently stated, is suspended, and there 
 is then no will but that of the Commander-in-Chief. 
 And the President practically can make war. In war 
 the President may proclaim all slaves free or make a 
 compact protecting slavery. These things are not 
 laws, they are facts. The present Congress has wil- 
 linoflv left the entire management of the war ao-ainst 
 the Philippinos to the President, as in the Spanish war 
 it voted fifty millions of dollars at once to be expended 
 at his will. In the words of an able newspaper writer 
 " Congress has abdicated." 
 
 Though the Executive cannot constitutionally 
 declare war in form, he can declare that war already 
 exists, and order the army forward. So President Polk 
 moved troops into the disputed territory and started 
 the Mexican War. So President McKinley, without 
 Congress, determined by his proclamation of Decem- 
 ber, 1898, his policy toward the Philippines and started 
 the Philippine War. 
 
 ■" Letter to J. B. Culvin, 9/20/iSio. 
 ■"■' Id. 
 
 25 
 
Two Presidents have risked war with France, and 
 one very recently with England. The fact is that 
 directly or indirectly the President can carry forward 
 anything he wishes, from the suppression of a riot to a 
 war of conquest. 
 
 Some of the above examples are given by Prof. 
 Baldwin, but all will not aoree with him that the abso- 
 lutism of the President has made him the great " con- 
 servative " force in our constitutional system. There 
 is but one force in that system which remains conser- 
 vative, and that is the Supreme Court. Can the Vene- 
 zuela message, for instance, be considered in any point 
 of view as the act of a conservative ? And if we are 
 to be reminded that the Presidents have been "all 
 good men," let us not forget that in the electoral col- 
 lege of 1801 Burr had an equal vote with Jefferson. 
 
 The facts that the increasingly despotic nature of 
 our government has not yet produced any vast and 
 direct usurpation of power, and that it does not tyran- 
 nize in the ways of ancient tyrants cannot hide the 
 reality of such absolute power. The prophecy of de 
 Tocqueville on this point was remarkable in its descrip- 
 tion of the despotism that would most likely grow 
 from democracy. 
 
 "I think," he said, " that the species of oppression by 
 which- democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that 
 ever before existed in the world." (Vol. II., p. 391.) 
 
 He then goes on to describe it as a monarchy, 
 centralized in its powers, paternal in its method, ener- 
 vating in its effects. The tutelary power would be 
 "absolute, minute, regular, provident, mild" (p. 392). 
 And it would now seem that this is in process of reali- 
 zation. Although the Czar of Russia is the only auto- 
 
 26 
 
crat to which the President of the United States is com- 
 parable, the despotism of America will not be like the 
 fierce and gloomy despotism of Russia. At least it 
 will not be fierce at first. The ancient commonwealth 
 of the Frogs passed from a loose democracy to the 
 mild despotism of King Log. The bloody dynasty of 
 the Stork was introduced later. The coup cTctat was 
 undertaken under the auspices of Jupiter, or manifest 
 Destiny ; /. e., to the Stork, Providence, to the Frogs, 
 Fate. 
 
 But for how long a period such a despotism will 
 confine itself to mildness must remain doubtful until 
 the event. There is a widespread opinion among 
 those most competent to judge that human nature 
 does not change much from age to age, and that the 
 future will show it sdll subject to the temptations before 
 which it has fallen in the past. It may be interesting 
 to quote such an opinion from the second in this des- 
 potic line, him who had signed the most despotic of all 
 federal laws up to that time. 
 
 " The fundamental article of my political creed (so wrote 
 John Adams in 1815) is that despotism or unlimited sover- 
 eignty, or absolute power is the same in a majority of a 
 popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical 
 junto and a single emperor, equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody 
 and in every respect diabolical."*' 
 
 It adds a further interest to this opinion that long 
 before the event Adams had prophesied that the cost 
 of the French Revolution would be a million lives. 
 
 III. We have now seen that Liberty has vanished 
 or is vanishing out of the electoraP and governmental 
 forms of the United States. But lest it should be said 
 
 ^•' Adams to Jefterson, Jefterson's Wks., VI., 500. 
 
 27 
 
that it is the form that has failed and not the spirit 
 that has changed, we will proceed to examine the atti- 
 tude of the people towards some of the more important 
 doctrines in which their early love of liberty was mani- 
 fested. For if the theorem of Hegel contains the truth 
 of history it is the spirit that must fatally return upon 
 itself 
 
 I. At the inception of our government, expatria- 
 tion was considered one of the " indefeasible rights of 
 man." By Jefferson it was stated to be a natural right 
 " like one's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of 
 happiness." The evidence of it, he thought, was not 
 left to the feebler and sophisticated investigations of 
 reason, but was impressed on the sense of every man. 
 The part of the Virginia Code of 1876 recognizing the 
 right was drawn by him '■^K The right of expatriation 
 is involved in the privilege of naturalization, of which 
 the Constitution empowered Congress to pass a uni- 
 form rule ^^ The right of choosing one's country and 
 allegiance became the settled doctrine of the United 
 States. According to Mr. Lecky, the American Govern- 
 ment in 1868, in a treaty with China asserted "the 
 inherent and inalienable right of man to change his 
 alleo^iance."'^'' 
 
 This is particularly interesting now that China is 
 the only country whose citizens are excluded alto- 
 gether. The earlier view of freedom is well illustrated 
 in Lowell's description of America in the " Com- 
 memoration Ode "•"' 
 
 ^* Jefferson's Wks , VII , 73. 
 
 ^^ Constitution, Art. I., 98. 
 
 ^® Lecky Demociacy and Liberty, II., 460. 
 
 '■^'' 1865, Lowell's Wks. X., p. 30. Quoted also by Mr. Lecky. 
 
 28 
 
" She that lifts up the manhood of the poor. 
 
 She of the open soul and open door; 
 
 With room about her hearth for all mankind." 
 
 Since then laws have been passed largely in 
 deference to the "labor vote" excluding laborers 
 brought over on contract, those convicted of any 
 except political crimes, and other persons. America 
 has no room about her hearth for Chinamen, immi- 
 grants without money, cripples or any person who is 
 assisted to come (except by friends or relatives). 
 These together with all skilled laborers broucrht over 
 on contract, idiots and lunatics are now sent back at 
 the expense of the steamship companies. If an 
 unfortunate immigrant becomes a pauper in twelve 
 months after landing he is to be sent back, too, (Sect. 1 1 , 
 Act. Mch. 3, 1 891). The growth of nationality, the 
 protective system and the increase of population have 
 absolutely shattered the fine theory of expatriation 
 and naturalization. 
 
 2. Another set of ideas redolent of liberty cluster 
 about the phrase, "liberty of the subject," or " liberty 
 of person." Their spirit is exemplified in Art. VI 
 of the Bill of Rights. This included the right of 
 one criminally accused to a speedy and public trial, 
 by an impartial jury, in a district ascertained by law, 
 and to be confronted by witnesses with assist- 
 ance of counsel. It is notorious that a system has 
 grown up in police-administration entirely at variance 
 with this. "The 5th degree" and the "sweat-box" 
 are terms now well known to the public. They mean 
 that prior to trial, without counsel, in a private room, 
 the accused is put through a series of examinations 
 and threats to trap him into confession of guilt, or to 
 
 29 
 
make evidence incriminating himself. This is not con- 
 ducted by a judicial officer, and in this respect is worse 
 than the preliminary hearing before a juge d' instrtu- 
 tion in France ; to which, indeed, it bears considerable 
 resemblance. It proceeds on somewhat the same 
 theory. It is the maxim of a free country that a man 
 is presumed to be innocent until proved guilty. It is 
 the maxim, as it is the practice, of a despotic govern- 
 ment, or of a police-administered country, that a man 
 is presumed to be guilty until he proves himself inno- 
 cent. Like the party system, which is destroying the 
 freedom of our constitution, the practice grows up 
 outside of law, until it is more powerful. This has 
 not yet made much disturbance in the public mind, 
 because the public mind does not care much for free- 
 dom in reality, and is busy about other things ; and, 
 also, because the illegality is generally practiced 
 against criminals, the poor and the helpless. Similar 
 examples of the autocratic methods of the police may 
 be found in the "raid," — the arrest without warrant, 
 upon the order of a police official, of which our news- 
 papers give frequent examples. The formation of a 
 criminal class and the increase of the practical power 
 of the police are affecting materially our idea of the 
 freedom of the subject. 
 
 3. Another set of examples of the decay of the 
 idea of freedom is to be found in the manifold doc- 
 trines of protectionism ; such as the protective tariff, 
 subsidies, pensions, national improvements, and gener- 
 ally all the paternal functions of government that are 
 inseparable from centralization. The doctrine of free 
 trade that "captivated the imagination of the last gen- 
 eration is now discredited." Similar to these, too, is the 
 
 30 . 
 
multitude of laws restricting the right of contract — 
 labor laws, mining laws, insurance departments, bank- 
 ing supervision, licensing of professions, licensing 
 saloons, the oleomargarine laws, the extension of 
 the theory of national taxation, income taxation, with 
 progressive and inquisitorial features ; interstate 
 commerce regulation, municipal ordinances relating to 
 measurements of property, the assessment for improve- 
 ments of manifold kinds, the assessment of benefits 
 for opening streets, etc. ; the laws relating to eleva- 
 tors, fire-escapes ; and generally the growth of bureau- 
 cracy in cities. 
 
 4. The above mostly relate to property or con- 
 tract, but there is a similar growth of law restricting 
 personal liberty. Such laws relate, for instance, to 
 marriage licenses requiring minute statements of past 
 life ; to commitments to Houses of Correction ; com- 
 mitment to insane asylums, particularly those which 
 render the commitment easy, and transfer the judicial 
 finding from a jury to a judge ; the forcible measure- 
 ment and photography of criminal suspects or convicts ; 
 compulsory education, often including compulsory 
 medical examination ; compulsory vaccination and 
 municipal quarantine. 
 
 5, The same tendency may be illustrated in the 
 history of political parties. It was remarked by Brice 
 (Vol. II. 18) that no American party had ever pro- 
 fessed itself the champion of authority and order, — 
 " that would be a damaging profession." This, how- 
 ever, has changed since the campaign of 1896 in which 
 the Republican party went boldly before the people as 
 the representative of authority, as it had been before 
 the representative of centralization. So far from 
 
 31 
 
damaQ;-ing the party, this position attracted much of 
 the strenorth that elected its candidate. 
 
 The old Liberty Party has become the Imperial 
 Party. It has undertaken to protect slavery abroad ; 
 while the Democratic Party is engaged in disfranchising 
 the neo-ro at home. 
 
 '& 
 
 6. No more conclusive proof of the decrease of 
 the spirit of liberty need be asked than is found in the 
 condition of such States as Pennsylvania which are 
 entirely subservient in their political organization to 
 the wishes of a single man. No one who has not had 
 business with state departments, political conventions 
 or semi-political conpanies or banks can have a suffi- 
 cient idea of the reality and scope of this subjection. 
 It affects every political agency, it determines every 
 platform, it nominates every candidate, it controls 
 public funds, it names the governor and controls him 
 when elected, it determines the action of one party 
 altogether and of the other in large part. It has par- 
 alyzed legislative action, it has deprived the Comnion- 
 wealth of a seat in the Senate. The people know this, 
 but do not care to chanee it. 
 
 t> 
 
 7. The loss of liberty as well as of the desire for 
 it naturally appears most strongly in the condition of 
 the workine classes. The consolidation of manufact- 
 uring and transportation interests has more and more 
 tended to bring the opportunity of work under the 
 control of a few men. The liberty of the individual 
 operator has been sacrificed for the advantages of 
 consolidation. On the other hand the workman in 
 order to counteract the current tendencies has surren- 
 dered his libertv to the trades' unions, and is ordered 
 
out and ordered back widiout regard to his individual 
 preference or advantage. 
 
 S. It is, of course, apparent that all these changes 
 are the effects of a vast tide setting from liberty to gov- 
 ernment, from idealism to realism, from individualism 
 to collectivism. They are the indicia of a mechanical 
 and reactionary period and affect all our ideas of the 
 forms under which we live. Government is now not 
 so much the expression of the will of the people, 
 havinor its orio-in and sanction in the consent of the 
 governed, but it is regarded from the " positive " point 
 of view — historically as a great fact, scientifically as 
 an evolutionary result, politically as a necessary 
 machine. Order is superior to right or, as might be 
 said, order is right. A sceptical analysis has examined 
 natural rights and has disposed of them as the 
 imaginations of an unscientific aofe. So an honored 
 Senator of the United States''^ lone aeo described the 
 fundamental law of the land as made up of "glittering 
 generalities." It was the realist who spoke and 
 America's great idealist replied " Glittering general- 
 ities ? Splendid ubiquities !" But it is the realist who 
 eoverns and the crradual trend of o-overnmental tonns 
 is away from the idealism that gave them birth. 
 
 This may be seen in the change in the adminis- 
 tration of law. Formerly cases were few, reports 
 were few, lawyers were few. Practice was leisurely ; 
 time was taken to study the law and lawyers really 
 formed a learned profession. Now cases have multi- 
 plied so that the question is not how they ought to be 
 decided; but how to get them decided at all. The 
 judicial system is a method of getting the business 
 
 •*'* Rufus Choate. % 
 
 33 
 
done, and the leading lawyer is no longer the leader 
 in thought or patriotic action, but the one who tries 
 the most cases most successfully. The form has over- 
 powered the spirit. The necessary effect of this is the 
 lessening importance of precedent and the growing 
 importance of the judge. Formerly the judge was 
 the mouthpiece of the law ; now the tendency is for the 
 judge to decide the case "on its own facts." The 
 separation betwen bench and bar widens ; the judge 
 magnifies his office. 
 
 9. A similar sweep is seen in religion. This 
 cannot be proved and will be denied, but the evidence 
 is manifold. It includes the growth of form in all 
 churches, the tendency toward the Catholic Church — 
 that greatest of religious machines ; the trrowth of 
 ritualism in Episcopal churches ; the hardening of 
 creed in Presbyterian churches and the separation of 
 the church from the working people. Sah^ation now 
 cometh by armies. The clatter of the vast machine 
 drowns the still small voice. The modern psalmist 
 carries no gentle harp to charm away the evil 
 spirit, but would exorcise him away with a big bass 
 drum. 
 
 10. So in the character of the people, every- 
 thing is being swept more and more into one form. A 
 century and a half ago the various colonies had 
 distinctive characters, or displayed in themselves a 
 want of homogeneity. But time, the mingling of 
 population, ease of transport, the decay of the older 
 sects, the vast immigration and centralization have 
 made the states more and more alike. Fifty years 
 aofo a North and a South were left. The Civil War was 
 the first step toward the obliteration of this distinction. 
 
 34 
 
Still greater are the new forces introduced by the 
 transition from afj^ricultural to industrial life. Here 
 under the effects of machinery the monotony increases 
 still faster. Vaste hordes pass daily from one end of 
 our cities to the other, differing only in the fact that 
 during the day they have watched a different loom or 
 turned a different crank. The uniformity of American 
 life has become commonplace among observers"'^ but 
 ■evidence now appears of the first preparation for the 
 •change from " happy uniformity " to unhappy and com- 
 plex intensity. But this has not come yet : the ten- 
 dencies so far are clearly towards the suppression of 
 the individual into an "average man." This agrees with 
 the other changes in that it is away from freedom and 
 idealism towards collectivism and realism. 
 
 "Fairest fairies ! leave your dances 
 You distinguish man from man 
 All of old made, now be mould-made 
 On one dull mechanic plan."'^'^ 
 
 1 1. We have observed the tendency of absolutism 
 to support itself by a fatalistic philosophy. We have 
 also sketched the growth of absolutism in America and 
 have seen its connection with the trend toward 
 democracy. We may expect therefore to find some 
 similar philosophic basis for " the tyranny of the major- 
 ity " as we have found for the tyranny of the one. 
 For, as is generally agreed, the constant assertion of 
 the will of the majority and the general acquiescence 
 therein naturally produce a tendency to believe that 
 the majority must be right. ^^ Mr. Brice has an interest- 
 ing chapter on what is aptly termed the " fatalism of 
 
 '« Brice, 11, 662. 
 ♦0 H. A. Kennedy. 
 *'See Brice 11, 327-329. 
 
 35 
 
the multitude." For it is as truly fatalism as was the 
 doctrine of non-resistance to the divine rio-ht of 
 Kings. 
 
 There have always been philosophers to justify 
 the tyranny of one, as Hegel on the basis of an ideal- 
 istic fatalism deified Napoleon. So there will always 
 be philosophers to justify the tyranny of the many. 
 Public opinion and the will of the majority are deified 
 under the names of manifest destiny or Providential 
 mission, or they are justified by maxims of fatalism, — 
 Vox Popiili Vox Dei, for the State; as formerly, Sccurns 
 jitdicat orbis ferrarinn, for the Church. Such a crite- 
 rion obviously looks upon the world from the stand- 
 point of socialism. It tends to destroy individuality. 
 Intuidon, faith, conscience, independence are destroyed 
 or supplied by education, decree, law, obedience. 
 Obedience, remarks Brice, describing this aspect ot 
 America, "is to most sweeter than independence." 
 The political philosophy underlying these changes 
 obviously tends away from idealism to materialism. 
 Carried to its lo^jical conclusion it is such in effect. 
 The only finality is the weight of the mass. An 
 example of this may be cited in the materialistic 
 philosophy of Draper in his Intellectual Development 
 of Europe. The History of Man is to him a develop- 
 ment of resistless law. Evolution brings forth truth 
 from intellectual collisions and from the melting down 
 of opinion, like metal out of a furnace. "Whatever 
 cannot stand that ordeal must submit to its fate. Lies 
 and imposture, no matter how powerfully sustained, 
 must prepare to depart. In that supreme tribunal 
 (the opinion of the race) man may place implicit con- 
 fidence. Even though philosophically it is far from 
 
 36 
 
absolute, it is the hiorhest criterion vouchsafed to him 
 and from its decision he has no appeal. ''' ''' '^ 
 How strong- is our persuasion that we are in the right 
 Avhen public opinion is with us."^- 
 
 IV. It cannot certainly be determined from the 
 above that the moribund tendency of liberty will finally 
 prove fatal. The Hegelian theorem declares that it 
 must rise again, purified into a higher ciegree. 
 
 Indeed all Americans feel that if liberty is lost in 
 America it is lost for all the world, . It is thouQ^ht that 
 America was settled at a Providential time and in a 
 Providential way. There is no place left in the earth 
 for another such experiment. Old world forces or the 
 fiercer forces of nature so predominate in all parts of 
 the world as to preclude the possibility that civiliza- 
 tion, at least in this cycle, should ever see new pioneers 
 settle a new land of liberty. Freedom has taken her 
 last trek and the battle must presently begin. 
 
 The circle of returning liberty, of which we have so 
 far spoken, is yet of undetermined orbit ; since colonial 
 times its movement has been continuous, though not 
 constant. But there are within it certain smaller oscil- 
 lations, in which the spirit of the people has moved 
 away from liberty towards conquest, or z'ice versa. 
 These appear in the various wars of America, and an 
 examination of them develops a number of suggestions 
 about the method of the general adv^ance of liberty. 
 
 America has had say six wars : The French-Indian 
 War, the Revolution, the War of 1S12, the Mexican 
 War, the Civil War and the Cuban-Philippine War. 
 The War of 1S12, however, was waged practically for 
 freedom on the sea, as that of 1776 for freedom on 
 
 *'- Int. Dev. Europe, II 236. I 20, 22, 355. 
 
land. Its aim makes it logically a continuation of the 
 War of 1776, and we may say that America has had 
 five wars. On examination of their causes we find that 
 they fall into two classes, wars of conquest and wars of 
 liberty. All wars of national import may, no doubt, be 
 considered as beloneine to one or the other of these ; as 
 imperialistic or revolutionary, extensive or intensive, 
 of expansion or independence, of centralization or de- 
 centralization. The wars of America show a strange 
 alternation in their ofeneric character. First, the Seven 
 Years' War, a war of races for the control of North 
 America, essentially imperialistic and dynastic ; then 
 the War of Independence, revolutionary and dynamic ; 
 then the INIexican War, a race war of expansion, dynas- 
 tic, extensive ; then the Civil War of Liberation, inten- 
 sive, dynamic ; then the Spanish War, again an impe- 
 rialistic race war of expansion. Is this mere chance, 
 or is there some deep reason in the nature of man or 
 the constitution of society that swings a nation like a 
 pendulum from centralization to decentralization ? Let 
 us examine the general relations of these wars. 
 
 First. — There is a general connection between the 
 three wars of expansion. 
 
 The first of these, as a branch of the Seven Years' 
 War, connects America with the great contest for 
 supremacy between France and England. Its colonial 
 name, the French-Indian War, commemorates the 
 racial character of that long struggle in the same way 
 as the names of the earlier colonial wars — King Wil- 
 liam's War, Queen Anne's War and King George's 
 War, which were episodes in the same great struggle 
 — commemorate its imperial character. It was the 
 expansion of material forces, the victory of the stronger 
 
 38 
 
race. When this had been once been made plain by 
 the decisive victories of the Seven Years' War the 
 domination of the whole western continent by the 
 same forces became sufficiently probable to define the 
 course of history for the ensuing period. It was easy, 
 therefore, for de Tocqueville to prophecy a war with 
 Mexico and the absorption of Texas. He had but to 
 compare the contact already had between the Ameri- 
 cans and men of Latin race (I, 447, 448) and to observe 
 the destructive influence of highly civilized nations on 
 others less so. The only point of contact which the 
 Union had upon a country of that kind was " with the 
 Empire of Mexico, and it is thence," he said, "that 
 serious hostilities may be expected to arise." (I, 218.) 
 Even as against the French Canadians the English 
 were masters of commerce and manufacture, and a 
 similar fact was noticeable in Louisiana. The case of 
 Texas was still more strikinor. •' In the course of the 
 last few years," he writes (1835) 
 
 "The Anglo-Americans have penetrated this province, 
 which is still thinly peopled, they purchase land, they produce 
 the commodities of the country and supplant the original pop- 
 ulation. It may easily be foreseen that, if Mexico takes no 
 steps to check this change, the province of Texas will very 
 shortly cease to belong to that government." {fd., 448.) 
 
 When the boundary of the United States had once 
 been extended so as to include the whole ot the 
 present Pacific coast line, those who estimated the 
 expansive power of race saw at once the approaching 
 contest and the seizure by England's most formidable 
 rival of the gateways of Eastern commerce. Three 
 years after the Mexican cession. Creasy, on whom the 
 suggestions of de Tocqueville had not been lost, 
 wrote : 
 
 39 
 
"The importance of the power of the United States 
 being then firmly planted along the Pacific, applies not only 
 to the New World but to the Old. Opposite to San Francisco, 
 on the coast of that ocean, lie the wealthy but decrepit 
 empires of China and Japan. Numerous groups of islets stud 
 the larger part of the intervening sea, and form convenient 
 stepping-stones for the progress of commerce or ambition. 
 The intercourse of traffic between these ancient Asiatic mon- 
 archies, and the young Anglo-American Republic, must be 
 rapid and extensive. Any attempt of the Chinese or Japanese 
 rulers to check it will only accelerate an armed collision. The 
 American will either buy or force his way. Between such 
 populations as that of China and Japan on the one side, and 
 that of the United States on the other, the former haughty, 
 formal and insolent, and the latter bold, intrusive and unscru- 
 pulous, causes of quarrel must, sooner or later, arise. The 
 results of such a quarrel cannot be doubted. America will 
 scarcely imitate the forbearance shown by England at the end 
 of our late war with the Celestial Empire ; and the conquest 
 of China and Japan by the fleets and armies of the United 
 States are events which many now living are likely to witness." 
 
 Soon these prophecies began to be fulfilled and 
 one year after thev were written Prof. Creasy added a 
 note : 
 
 "And now. May, 1852, a powerful squadron of American 
 warships has been sent to Japan for the ostensible purpose of 
 securing protection for the cre^vs of American vessels ship- 
 wrecked on the Japanese coast and also evidently for important 
 ulterior purposes. "•^^ 
 
 Oa July 7, 1853, Commodore Perry steamed into 
 the Bay of Yedo and forced the treaty which is rightly 
 regarded as the opening of the East. 
 
 In the period imrjiediately following the Mexican 
 War, began also the various filibustering expeditions 
 
 ^■' Decisive Battles of the World, 41st. EJ., 462.11. 
 
 40 
 
agfainst Cuba^^ and the movement for the annexation 
 of Hawaii. Both of these islands have at last been 
 taken after half a century of prophecy and disclaimer. 
 Enouorh has now been said to indicate that America's 
 three imperial wars were the result of the same gen- 
 eral cause, the expansion of the race and were the 
 expression of material rather than moral forces. 
 
 Second. — We turn now to the wars which illus- 
 trate the other class of forces, the Revolution and the 
 Civil War, and here we observe in like manner that 
 the intensive wars are connected in their causes as 
 were the extensive wars ; but that they are the result 
 of ideal or moral rather than of material forces. 
 
 It would be easy to compare the English Revolu- 
 tion of 1688 with the American of 1776. The same 
 forces of liberty which produced the revolution against 
 the absolutism of the Stuarts, produced in the next 
 century the revolution against the imperialism of the 
 Georges. But the newer world and a newer century 
 broadened and deepened the ideas on which the revo- 
 lution rested. The first asserted the political rights of 
 Englishmen. The second the "inherent" rights of 
 man. The Declaration ot Rio-ht was constitutional, 
 the Declaration of Independence was fundamental. 
 
 Broadly speaking, the Civil War in America was 
 the result of the belief that all men are created free 
 and equal. The Declarations of the Revolution were 
 from the beginning plainly seen to be antagonistic to 
 slavery. But it was supposed that slavery might 
 gradually die out or be thereafter done away with. 
 This is evident from such passages as the bitter irony 
 
 ^^Lopez Expeditions and see President Tyler's Procl. Aug. ii, 1S49, Prest. 
 Pierce's Proc. , May 31, 1S54, Polk's ofiter in 1848 of $1,000,000 for the island. 
 
 41 
 
against slavery in the original draft of the Declaration, 
 the Ordinance of 1787 and the provision in the Con- 
 stitution that the importation of slaves should not be 
 prohibited by Congress before 1808. It is not neces- 
 sary to say much on this point, for almost a century 
 of our political history is principally made up of the 
 contest between slavery and freedom. On looking 
 back, no reason can be found except the perversity of 
 human affairs that the contest should not have been 
 ultimately decided within the forms of government. 
 But the example is important and ominous as showing 
 that our country failed to settle except by war its first 
 great contest between constitutional right and social 
 wrono". 
 
 Third. — Not only are the wars of the same class 
 connected by having their roots in the same causes, 
 but each war is by a sort of reaction induced by the 
 preceding war of the opposite class. Thus the Revo- 
 lution was induced by the Seven Years' War. The 
 Mexican War by the Revolution. The Rebellion by 
 the Mexican War. The Spanish War by the Rebel- 
 lion. All of the wars were the outburst of long 
 smouldering fires. The wars of freedom have waited 
 while imperial protection was needed ; the wars of 
 imperialism have been held back until the decision of 
 internal questions of liberty should be reached. So 
 that the attention and effort of the country, being 
 periodically devoted to the overmastering questions of 
 the time, have oscillated between the opposing tend- 
 encies. 
 
 (a) The Revolution was induced by the Seven 
 Years' War. This is now universally understood ; and, 
 
 42 
 
indeed, was so probable in the nature of things that in 
 the words of Parkman : 
 
 " More than one clear eye saw at the middle of the last 
 century that the subjection of Canada would lead to a revolt 
 of the British colonies. So long as an active and enterpris- 
 ing enemy threatened their borders they could not break with 
 the Mother country, because they needed her help."^'' 
 
 " With the triumph of Wolf on the Heights of Abraham 
 began the History of the United States. "^'' 
 But imperiaHsm, Hke Hberty, falls into the Hege- 
 lian antithesis of self-destruction and in the " most 
 glorious and most triumphant of England's wars " 
 was involved the loss of her fairest colonies. The 
 principle of disintegration ripened rapidly. The war 
 was its flower. 
 
 " The war," wrote John Adams, ''was not the Revolu- 
 tion. The Revolution was effected in the minds of the people 
 from 1760 to 1774, before a drop of blood was shed.^" 
 
 (b) The Mexican War was rendered possible by 
 the Revolution. For the Revolution created the 
 nation, and nations, not colonies or confederations, 
 make wars of conquest. Such has been the general 
 order of history. First freedom, then conquest. 
 Herein also appears the contradictory nature of the 
 Revolution, which in its origin was the work of decen- 
 tralizingr agencies, but became in its effects a central- 
 izing power. It agrees with this, that the forces 
 which were most powerful in provoking the Mexican 
 War were the latent material forces of imperialism 
 and not of liberty. These forces showed the class to 
 which they belonged by the grounds on which the 
 
 ■*^ Montcalm & Wolf Into. 5. See a number of these prophecies collected in 
 Lecky's " England in XVII I Century," III, p. 29I. 
 ^* Green. History of the Eng. People. IV, 193. 
 ^' Adams to Jetferson. Jeff. Wks., VI, 492. 
 
 43 
 
arguments for slavery were based. They were the usual 
 fatalistic arguments of imperialism — politically, the 
 supremacy of the sovereign power of the state over 
 moral law ; religiously, the beneficent providence that 
 authorizes evil for the good of the victim ; historically, 
 the destiny of the superior race. 
 
 (c) The Civil War was induced by the Mexican 
 War. This may be now regarded as generally agreed, 
 and the result was apprehended by many a half cen- 
 tury ago. In fact, from the Mexican War to the 
 Civil War, our political history is principally a contest 
 over the extension or restriction of slavery in the 
 newly acquired territory. It intensified the divergence 
 of interests between the slave and free States, and out 
 of the contest emereed the forces that wagged the War 
 of the Rebellion. The foreign war made ready for 
 the Civil War, as the earlier foreign war had made 
 ready for the Revolution. Nor has it taken long for 
 the forces of the Revolution to be marshalled. From 
 the Treaty of Paris (1763) to the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, was thirteen years ; from the Mexican 
 War (1848) to the Rebellion was thirteen years. But 
 after the country has been shattered by internal con- 
 test, a longer period is necessary before it ventures 
 in a foreign war. From the Revolution (1776) to the 
 War of 181 2 is thirty-six years. From the Civil War 
 (186 1) to the Spanish War (1898) is thirty-seven 
 years. 
 
 The Mexican War, which began as a war of exten- 
 sion, had become intensive in its result. The Civil 
 War, however, bears a double and confusing aspect ; 
 for centralization and freedom on one side were 
 opposed to independence and slavery on the other. 
 
 44 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
(d) The Civil War prepared the way for the war 
 with Spain. For some time after the Mexican War 
 there was no effectual endeavor to increase by war the 
 territory of the United States at the expense of the 
 Latin races. The attempt on Cuba was discounte- 
 nanced, and even at the close of the Civil War the 
 acquisition of San Domingo was not favored. Before 
 the Rebellion the preliminary contests with slavery 
 dissuaded from conquest, and after the Civil War the 
 country had still to decide the questions of internal 
 policy which that war had raised. Still the effect of 
 that v/ar was the elimination of the dividing line of 
 slavery. It unified the country, and unification is a 
 prerequisite to conquest. But not only did the Civil 
 War prepare for foreign conquest by settling the prin- 
 cipal internal question of American politics, but it pre- 
 pared for it in a way peculiarly fitted to the end. For 
 all the questions of the war and those which succeeded 
 it, reconstruction, the Mexican invasion, the tariff, the 
 contested election of 1876, were so decided as to favor 
 national sovereignty and executive prerogative at the 
 expense of State rights and individual freedom. At 
 the same time, the effect of the war was the introduc- 
 tion into politics of an extreme form of commercialism 
 and the growth of a powerful plutocracy. All these 
 things are elements in the formation of a democratic 
 imperialism. And thus it appears that the Civil War, 
 like the earlier ones, has reacted against its spirit. 
 Out of a war for freedom there have developed ten- 
 dencies of the opposite character. In war, as in peace, 
 freedom destroys itself. 
 
 (e) A similar step in the argument would carry us 
 into the future. After the Spanish-Philippine War, 
 
 45 
 
what ? If the analogies of past history hold, it should 
 be followed within fifteen or twenty years by internal 
 dissensions. But the period, of course, cannot be 
 determined in advance. It is sufficient to enquire 
 whether the conditions of the last war are so like those 
 of earlier years as to warrant a similar inference for 
 an indefinite future. 
 
 We find, as in the Mexican War, a conquest 
 made by the Executive against the will of a minority 
 politically powerless, but morally influential. Now, as 
 then, that minority is strongest in New England. It 
 is not to be forgotten that among the opponents of 
 the Mexican War was born the Liberty Party which 
 brought on the Civil War. Then, as now, the war was 
 defended on the same high grounds of destiny and 
 Christianity ; and, as then, it was answered that the 
 real motive was the entrenchment of the slaveholder, 
 so now it is answered that the war is for the benefit of 
 the plutocrat. Now, as then, the war bids fair to 
 emphasize the divergence of interest and of classes. 
 Like the Mexican War it promises wealth, but threatens 
 labor. The attitude of the workmen's and sino-le 
 tax^"* papers is sufficient proof of this. 
 
 The change of both the great parties shows the 
 lines being drawn for a new battle. The purchase of 
 the Republican Party by plutocracy is coincident with 
 the capture of the Democratic Party by socialism. 
 
 From the above theories it becomes possible to 
 prognosticate in general terms the probable course of 
 history in America in the immediate future. 
 
 To prophecy certainly a definite course for the 
 future would not only be to arrogate to the science of 
 
 *** Such as the Public, of Chicago, New Era, etc. 
 
 46 
 
history a certitude that it can never attain, but it would 
 be, also, to indulge in a fatalism morally as misleading 
 as that which has so often misconstrued the past. No 
 study of history can be adequate which overlooks 
 either the ideal or the material, or which reduces the 
 affairs of men either to blind fate or wandering 
 chance. The personal element that has so often 
 averted or effected revolution is a continual but unde- 
 termined element. The Revolution of 1688, for in- 
 stance, was the achievement of statesmen, rather than 
 a popular demonstration ; but it proved one of the 
 most effectual of revolutions in fixing the rights of 
 British subjects. 
 
 But tendencies are the necessary results of facts, 
 and may be absolutely predicated. It may, therefore, 
 be said, without fear of contradiction, that imperialism 
 or some form of government which tends away from 
 liberty (for which the current name may stand as well 
 as any other) is a necessary tendency arising from the 
 attainment of liberty ; and that in some form and to 
 some degree such tendency will be accepted by the 
 American people as well as by other free countries ; that, 
 in Hegelian phrase, the taste of the new events will be 
 bitter, and that they will tend to destroy and actually 
 may destroy the liberty that gave them being. 
 
 To what extent this current will carry us, depends 
 on the second and undetermined element' in history. 
 Will the destinies of the country be committed at the 
 critical period to men of liberal principles as well as 
 firm conviction who will hold the ship of state into the 
 wind ? or to drifters and re-actionaries ? History is 
 filled with the accounts of countries wrecked by gov- 
 ernment. Of modern examples, the most glaring is 
 
 47 
 
that of Imperial Spain. From present indications there 
 is, however, no adequate method of drawing any 
 certain augury on this point, and in a "fierce democ- 
 racy " hke America the most probable inference 
 seems to be that the sweep of natural action and re- 
 action will be freer and less likely to be impeded by 
 accident or controlled by statesmanship than has been 
 the case in the less democratic countries of Europe. 
 The tendency is to elect the representatives of the 
 current re-action and to regard all great oppositions 
 of interest as " irrepressible conflicts." 
 
 Actual opinion on this point will no doubt be 
 determined more by individual disposition than by 
 philosophic standpoint. But both to the fatalist and 
 to the pessimist who look for the destruction of liberty 
 in this country, we may quote the optimistic prophecy 
 of the great American fatalist and idealist : 
 
 " Straight into double band 
 The victors divide : 
 Half for freedom strike and stand 
 
 The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side " *^ 
 
 *' Emerson, Ode to Channing. 
 
 48 
 
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