became at once a military host, sometimes opposed by loud shouts, sometimes approved by shaking their spears, while in vehement moments they clashed together weapon and shield. No functionary was recognized, except as he was elected by the national voice. No one was King, except as his title was based on the suffrages of the freemen. To lead armies, certain heretogas, herzogs, dukes, were selected and commissioned, usually out of the class of æthelings; and these, if they became popular and redoubtable, had each his gesith, comitatus, a troop of spirited youths anxious to gain glory and booty, who attached themselves voluntarily to the successful chief. of primitive polity with that of other Aryan peo ples. If we compare this primitive polity of the AngloSaxons with that of other rude societies of the Aryan stock, some marked differences may be Comparison noted. The power of the people, indeed, Anglo-Saxon is no greater than in the Slavonic mir, or village; than in the communities of the early Greeks, as described by Homer; than in the vilage communities of India. Hallam claims that all races occupying a similar stage of culture possess a similar liberty. As regards the Slavs, however, the succession of moots above that of the mir is said to be quite wanting. In the case of the Greeks, no such recognition of the principle of representation existed, if we may trust Freeman,2 as that implied by the sending to the superior assembly of the spokesmen for the mark. If we look at the village communities of India, though in many of these a representative 1 Middle Ages, p. 64, Harper's ed. See also G. L. Gomme: English Village Communities, Chap. I (1890). 2 History of Federal Government, II, p. 67. council, standing for all the cultivators, exercises the government, nothing is to be found like the folkmoot, the general meeting of the people.1 Between the Anglo-Saxons and the Teutons south of them, a close analogy in institutions undoubtedly existed. The latter, however, though never conquered by Rome, became at an early period more or less affected by the Roman contact, and lost some of the primitive characteristics. Of all the Germanic tribes, the Angles and Saxons were those least touched by the influences streaming so abundantly and pervasively from the city of the Seven Hills. Comparison of Anglo American institutions. Let us now set side by side ancient Germany and modern America, the ancient prolific mother and the youngest child; though the points of conSaxon with trast are marked enough, the points of resemblance will be found at the same time numerous and striking. A nation of sixty millions is vastly different from a tribe of a few thousands; the elaborate civilization of the nineteenth century is vastly different from the culture scarcely raised above barbarism, of the first; the intricate enginery of peace and war, the cities of iron and granite, the network of conventionalities by which we are bound, are far removed from the simple spear and shield, the palisaded tun, and the artless etiquette of the hall of the ætheling. Here are points, nevertheless, in which we agree with those men of the past. The first English settlers of America held their property by similar tenures, traces being by no means absent of the primeval communal system.2 1 Sir H. Maine: Ancient Village Communities, pp. 124, 154. 2 Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science, 1st Series, Nos. II, IX, and X. The Indian, descendant of the aboriginal owners of the soil, without citizenship, yet not a slave, has been in some times and places probably, no remote analogue of the læt; so, too, the indented servant, a class numerous in the colonial days, who were bound in service to the freeman, and yet not distinctly servile. The slave, the counterpart of the ancient theow, we have had until within twenty-five years. As regards the ætheling, the man in a vague way set apart, likely to be chosen, if brave and competent, to the office of heretoga, or war-chief, our society furnishes no trace of him; on the other hand, the American citizen, sovereign in all his privileges, is the counterpart of the ceorl, except that a share in the ownership of land is no longer a condition of the franchise. In the definite subordination, moreover, of tun to hundred, of hundred to shire, and of shire to tribe, we have no remote foreshadowing of town, county, state, and federal union. The New England town-meeting is the moot of the Anglo-Saxon tun, resuscitated with hardly a circumstance of difference;1 as closely parallel, perhaps, also are the ancient moots of the shire, if they were constituted of the representatives from each tithing, to the county boards of the Northwest made up by the supervisors of the different townships.2 Representation, the principle that pervades the whole apparatus for law-making and administration in the higher ranges of politics, is distinctly an Anglo-Saxon idea, proceeding probably from the earliest times. If America resembles the ancient 1 Freeman: Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1st Series, I, p. 38. 2 Howard: Introduction to Local Constitutional History of the United States, I, p. 158. mother, in no less degree does England resemble her. "The voice of sober history does assuredly teach us that those distant times have really much in common with our own, much in which we are really nearer to them than to times which in a mere reckoning of years are far less distant from us.” 1 “All England,” says J. R. Green, "lay in that oldest home, Green on the in the village-moot, Parliament; in the Anglo-Saxon glee-men, Chaucer and Shakspere; in piratebark, Drake and Nelson." All America lay Freeman and retention of elements in the constitutions of England and America. in that oldest home no less. The blood and fibre of the whole great English-speaking race, in fact, is derived from those Elbe and Weser plains; government of the people, by the people, for the people, which is as the breath of its life wherever that race may be scattered, is the ancient AngloSaxon freedom. 1 Freeman: Growth of English Constitution, p. 158. CHAPTER II. THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST OF BRITAIN. 449-1066. OUR freedom, then, is no new thing, but developed from the ancient Anglo-Saxon freedom, something transmitted from times perhaps prehistoric. We are to trace its course through nearly two thousand years, from the German plains to the United States of to-day. The fluctuations in its history have been extreme and constant. Many times it has been upon the verge of extinction. Always, however, it has been maintained, until at the present hour it advances to the dominion of the world. the value of freedom. But before entering upon the story of this progress, let us inquire precisely why Anglo-Saxon freedom must be regarded as valuable. Inquiry into Precisely why is it that in an intelligent Anglo-Saxon human society it is better that the people should govern themselves than that they should be under mastership, either that of a sovereign or a ruling class, however wise and well disposed? Since human nature is what it is, it is quite certain that in the long run peace and justice between man and man will be better brought to pass through selfgovernment, in a civilized state whose citizens are |