It was the alleged violation of this constitutional principle of taxation by consent of the taxpayers, through their elected or acknowledged representatives, that led to the revolt of the colonies in America. The principle appears among the oldest assertions of privilege on the part of the colonists; and declarations on the subject occur in their earliest legislation.1 The home Parliament had, before the American Revolution, claimed the right to tax the colonies; but the claim had never been admitted on their part, and it had never been carried into effect. Their opposition rested upon the fact, that they were. without representatives in Parliament; and when George III. forced an issue, petitions were addressed to the crown, and protests put forth by successive intercolonial congresses, on this specific ground. The Declaration of Independence names, as one of the reasons justifying final separation from England, that of her "imposing taxes on us without our consent."

There is, then, a certain historic fitness in the fact, that first among the powers of Congress enumerated in the Constitution of the United States is the power lay and collect taxes." That power finds its proper

66 to

1 In Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Virginia, Maryland, New York, and generally. See Story, Constitution, I. 116.

2 Constitution of the United States, Art. I. Sec. 8. A limitation as to appropriations occurs in this section of Article I.: "No appropriation of money" for the support of armies, " shall be for a longer term than two years.” “The clause,” as Robinson remarks, “bears an obvious analogy to the custom in England.” — Publications of the American Academy, No. 9, p. 220. See also Federalist, No, 61,

mention there because of the long and eventually successful struggle in the mother-land over the principle of liberty, that the property of the individual cannot be taken from him in the shape of taxation without his consent, given through his representatives; and because of the further contest over the same principle, which ended in American independence.

CHAPTER V.

THE ENGLISH EXECUTIVE.

T

O what extent and in what manner the executive

of the United States is related to the ancient executive of England, can best be understood by tracing the development of the latter, and by comparing the status of the English executive in the reign of George III. with that of the American executive, as defined in the American Constitution. The task is difficult, because English royal prerogative is of a character well-nigh undefinable, and because the history of the royal prerogative is closely interwoven with the general history of the nation. But if followed in outline, the kingly office will be found rising step by step from a simple Teutonic original, until it attains to practical absolutism, and then as gradually losing power until, under modern sovereigns, slight vestige of active authority remains. During the colonial time the king of England was, as we have seen, the executive of America. He governed the colonies in his own person, and also through governors, or other representatives. The presidency is derived both directly and indirectly from the kingship, at a stage of the development of the royal

office subsequent to the period of greatest strength and previous to that of greatest weakness.

In the early Teutonic tribes, executive functions, as we understand them, were in an ill-defined and formative condition. There were elective officers of various titles, some for civil, and some for military affairs. Among these officers in certain tribes kings are named.1 But the Teutonic kingship, though held in high honour, had only limited and uncertain powers in time of peace, and was not necessarily chief in command in time of war; being quite different from the ideal created by later associations. Like other officials, the king was elected; but unlike them, was chosen, with the thought of blood

1 From the words of Cæsar it has been supposed that kings were the exception rather than the rule. His words are: "In pace, nullus est communis magistratus; sed principes regionum atque pagorum inter suos jus dicunt.”—De Bello Gallico, VI. 23. Tacitus draws a clear distinction between tribes having kings, and tribes not having them.— Germania, cc. 25, 44. Commenting upon this, so great an authority as Kemble says: "Even in the dim twilight of Teutonic history, we find tribes and nations subject to kings; others again, acknowledged no such office, and Tacitus seems to regard this state as the more natural to our forefathers. I do not think this is clear; on the contrary, kingship, in a certain sense, seems to me rooted in the German mind and institutions, and universal among some particular tribes and confederacies." Saxons in England,

I. 137.

2 Waitz considers that the king was the military head in monarchical tribes. See Deutsche Verfassungs-Geschichte, I. 310 sq. But Tacitus says: "Duces ex virtute sumunt et duces exemplo

potius quam imperio, si prompti, si conspicui, si ante aciem agant, admiratione praesunt.' Germania, c. 7. See also Tacitus,

Germania, c. II.

descent, from the fittest members of a single family, though there was no essential succession from father to son.1 In his hereditary character, he was the official representative of the unity of his nation, and in such sense, rather than in the sense of rulership, its acknowledged head. His title of King, or Cyning, the derivation and meaning of which have been much discussed, probably had to do with the idea of Cyn or Kin; kinship being conceived as blood relationship between people of one race. The word was used, perhaps, as conveying

2

1 Waitz, Das Alte Recht, 203-214; and Deutsche VerfassungsGeschichte, II. 148–164, 353, etc. Allen says: 66 Among the members of the royal family there seems to have been an absolute liberty of choice, as favour, convenience, or accident determined. The son was preferred to the father, the brother to the son, and in one noted instance, the line of the younger prevailed over the descendants of the elder brother, though the latter had worn his crown with credit and ability."— Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of Royal Prerogative, 46.

...

2 The meaning sometimes given to the word cyning -"child of the race," from cyn, race or kin, and ing, the well-known patronymic, would seem to be doubtful. Max Müller states it as his opinion that "the old Norse Konr and Konungr, the old high German chuninc, and the Anglo-Saxon cyning, were common Aryan words, not formed out of German materials, and therefore not to be explained as regular German derivatives. . It corresponds with the Sanscrit ganaka. . . . It simply meant father of a family." — Lectures on Science of Language, II. 282, 284. This seems to accord with the patriarchal thought which may be remotely associated with Teutonic kingship. For as the ancient conception of nationality was a tribal one, the idea of the unity of the tribe or race might easily be associated with the idea of fatherhood, — headship of a family. The fact of an hereditary royal