posterity's admiration for their success is continually tempting new writers into what is in reality just such an accusation." And Mr. James Russell Lowell has observed, with his usual grace: "They had a profound disbelief in theory, and knew better than to commit the folly of breaking with the past. They were not seduced by the French fallacy, that a new system of government could be ordered like a new suit of clothes. They would as soon have thought of ordering a suit of flesh and skin. It is only on the roaring loom of time that the stuff is woven for such a vesture of thought and expression as they were meditating."2

1 New Princeton Review, September, 1887.

2 Address on Democracy, October 6, 1884. "What gives colour to the notion, that the American constitutions, both State and Federal, are the voluntary creation of man, is the fact that they are written (so-called), and that these writings have been formulated, enacted, and promulgated by representative conventions. This opinion has been so prevalent that the national habit is to look upon the members of the Convention of 1787 as demi-gods, giant heroes, far surpassing the foremost men of to-day, while the Constitution itself has been placed upon a pedestal and worshipped as a popular idol. . . . But by making a popular idol of it we are apt to lose the very benefits which its excellencies insure. It is the complete harmony of its principles with the political evolution of the nation which justly challenges our admiration, and not the political acumen of the convention which promulgated it. Instead, therefore, of being the voluntary creation of the American people in the eighteenth century, the Federal and State constitutions of the United States are but natural and sequential developments of the British Constitution, modified as to detail and as to a few fundamental principles by the new environment. This claim is easily substantiated by the most superficial comparison of the British and

American constitutions. reveals the fact that every principle brought into play by the American constitutions, that has endured and proved effectual in the attainment of the ends aimed at, was either of English origin or was the direct product of the social forces that were at play in American life." - C. D. Tiedman, Unwritten Constitution of the United States, 20, 25.

And a closer study of the two systems

CHAPTER III.

LEGISLATIVE ORGANISM.

HE Germania of Tacitus describes the ancient

as

Teutonic assembly as twofold in operation, with a conservative element in the conference of chiefs and a popular element in the gathering of the armed host of freemen. "About minor matters," he tells us, "the chiefs deliberate; about the more important, the whole tribe. Yet even when the formal decision rests with the people, the affair is always thoroughly discussed by the chiefs. They assemble, except in the case of sudden emergency, on certain fixed days, either at new or at full moon, for this they consider the most auspicious season for the transaction of business. . . . Their freedom has this disadvantage, that they do not meet simultaneously, or as they are bidden, but two or three days. are wasted in the delays of assembling. When the multitude think proper, they sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by the priests, who have on these occasions the right of keeping order. Then the king or the chief, according to age, birth, distinction in war, or eloquence, is heard, more because he has influence to persuade, than because he has power to command. If

his sentiments displease them, they reject them with murmurs; if they are satisfied, they brandish their spears. The most complimentary form of assent is to express approbation with their weapons."1

Such was the earliest form of our racial legislature of which there is record. And in it were the germs of

all that came after it. The essential features of Saxon markmoot, shiremoot, folkmoot and Witenagemot, of Norman Great Council, of Parliament, of colonial and State legislature, and of the American Congress, were historically derived from this ancient and original Teutonic source.2

1 Agricola and Germania of Tacitus, translated by A. J. Church and William J. Brodribb, 95, 96.

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2 The purest Teutonic institutions are to be looked for in England, rather than on the continent of Europe. "While the Germans of Gaul, Italy, and Spain became Romans, the Saxons retained their language, their genius, and manners, and created in Britain a Germany outside of Germany.”—Taine, History of English Literature, I. 50. Commenting upon this, Hannis Taylor remarks: "By this statement the difference between Teutonic conquest and settlement in Britain, and Teutonic conquest and settlement upon the Continent is clearly defined. In the one case the invaders were absorbed in the mass of the conquered; Teutonic life simply became an element in the older Roman society. In the other, the invaders absolutely annihilated, within the limits which they made their own while they were still heathens, every vestige of the existing civilization, and established in its stead their whole scheme of barbaric life. The Teutonic polity thus established in Britain in its purity has been able to survive and to preserve not only its identity, but its primitive instinct, in all the vicissitudes of change and of growth through which it has passed. The invaders who thus established a new nationality in Britain were of the purest Teutonic

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"This immortal constitution," observes Mr. Freeman, in commenting upon the passage, was the constitution of our forefathers in their old land of northern Germany, before they made their way to the isle of Britain. And that constitution, in all the essential points, they brought with them into their new homes; and there transplanted to a new soil, it grew and flourished, and brought forth fruit rich and more lasting than it brought forth in the land of its earlier birth. On the Teutonic mainland the old Teutonic freedom, with its free assemblies, national and local, gradually died out before the encroachments of a brood of petty princes. In the Teutonic island it has changed its form from age to age, it has lived through many storms, and it has withstood the attacks of many enemies, but it has never utterly died out. The continued national life of the people, notwithstanding foreign conquests and national revolutions, has remained unbroken for fourteen hundred years. At

type, and all spoke dialects of the Low German. From the earliest period in their insular history, these settlers knew themselves as 'the English kin'; and out of their union has arisen the English nation, which, through all the vicissitudes of internal growth and external influence, has preserved both its national character and its identity. In the course of its history it has received many infusions, it is true,- for the most part, however, from other branches of the Teutonic stock. No nation can claim absolute purity of blood; foreign elements are present in the veins of every people. But the national character is never lost so long as the paternal element is strong enough to absorb all other elements, and to impress upon the nation, as a whole, its own image and instincts.". Origin and Growth of the English Constitution, 86.