I have mentioned only a few of the more important of the political writers of the eighteenth century, but it may be fairly said of all of them, that they made definitions of liberty for which, by reason of their environment, they could not furnish clear illustrations; since behind all their illustrations lay their acceptance of the ideas and governments under which they lived. Under the laws of these governments there existed these essential postulates a ruling class and a ruled class,-a ruling class by assumed hereditary right, and a ruled class by assumed hereditary necessity; and where these are postulates, any definition of human liberty must be inadequate. It is for this reason that whilst the English Constitution marks the early development of liberty, it does not exhibit its growth and stature. Where the existence of a king is assumed to be an essential of government, there cannot be any complete realization of that quality of liberty which is comprehended in the political equality of all men before the law-of that kind of government which is maintained only through the delegated servants of the people.

We have to acknowledge, indeed, that we owe a great debt to England. From her we received an inestimable boon in the body of the great Common Law, that firm foundation of occidental civilization. But in accepting the Common Law from England, we did not take all that belonged to it. Its primogeniture and entailments, its class distinctions and

class-government, were largely discarded. What we did bring with us to America was the sturdy Anglican spirit of the people, which gradually appropriated and established the fundamental law in support of fuller individual liberty. In the new country, unencumbered by traditionary restraints, this instinct had larger scope; and it is to it, therefore, that we owe all of the true qualities of this larger sense of liberty which we have. Indeed, it is by this instinct that liberty made whatever progress exists in any of the countries of Western civilization; for, although restrained and hindered in Europe, when we look for its genesis, we find that it has come from the demands of the people, and not from the freewill of the rulers-not from the graciousness of the rulers, but from their failings, and through the resistance of this popular instinct against tyranny. Thus it was King John's weakness, and not his good-will, that enabled the knights and barons to secure the Charter. It was the bigotry and obstinacy of Charles which called the Commonwealth into being. The English parliament enlarged its power by the flight of James II.; the Act of Settlement was born of his abdication, and nothing was more favorable to the continued growth of that parliament than the weakness of the first two Georges in absenting themselves in their beloved Hanover and neglecting their English subjects. But in America, largely by reason of the absence of clogging traditions and tenures which belonged to the Common Law, political

liberty received a more practical and a broader interpretation than it ever had before. Here, for the first time in the history of the world, it was set forth, not with instances merely, but as an almost universal principle; and thus set forth, it was crys tallized into the fundamental declaration and law of the people. Samuel Adams, the father of the Townmeeting, and Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, were of the leaders during the Revolution and for some time after. If we contrast the representative men of each period, we may readily realize the difference existing between those very limited conceptions of liberty which prevailed in the reign of King John, and the comprehensive idea of it which marked the American revolutionary period.

William Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke, and Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, were aristocrats and warriors of an essentially militant period. They fought for their class; they accorded to their dependent husbandmen a minimum of the results of their triumph.

Samuel Adams, the son of a New England brewer, and Thomas Jefferson, the son of a Virginia farmer, were of the people and for the people. They advocated the principle of equality for all men before the law, a principle not restricted to any people,but for the world at large-political liberty for the human race.

1 The qualification which it is necessary here to make is, of course, African slavery.

From this time forth it was intended that political liberty, clothed in a new nomenclature, should become a rule of life; that the governing power should have no hereditary quality whatever. The ruler thereafter was to receive the rules from the ruled, and to acknowledge that sole constituent authority. The fundamental principle was set forth that no one man was born into the world with any right to govern other men; that the man who became a leader must become so by his qualities for executing the will of his constituents, and for preserving the equal power of those constituents; and this principle was to be borne out in all the relations of government.

I

The work of framing the Constitution, it is true, was only in part creative. The framers took as their basis the British Constitution, which was the result of the slow development of time, and upon this it was necessary to make great structural changes. A distinguished writer has said that their work consisted chiefly in taking the British Constitution and filling in the interstices. They did vastly more than this. They eliminated the titles of nobility and political class-distinctions of all kinds, and substituted in the place of them institutions which should fall into congruity with the necessities of life under selfgovernment. These were organic changes, and this work required the highest order of constructive skill. Even a constitution which is the result of gradual development can never be said to be fin

1 Maine on “ Popular Government,” New York, 1886, p. 253.

ished until development ceases; because that which is created by development must continue to change by further development. In order to make a constitution which shall assimilate with selected parts of one which has been evolved, so that the result will fully answer new and untried conditions, it is necessary that the fundamental principles of political development be thoroughly studied and understood. The fathers of the republic brought to this task that variety and quality of skill and learning which were necessary for this accomplishment. They were acquainted with ancient history, and with the ancient republics; with the French, English, Swiss, and Dutch literature on government; with the British Constitution; and with the Constitutions of the several states of the Federation. They had eminent legal ability, the sagacity and patriotism of the statesman, and the wisdom of the political philosopher. Thus equipped they accepted the authority of the past; not with absolute submission, but for the suggestions it contained for the application of principles to existing and prospective circumstances. They measured present progress and tendencies by history and by experience, avoiding too close an adherence to history and too ready an acceptance of speculative theory. They walked in the middle path, and recognizing in the progressive movement of civilization a uniformity, a persistence, an enlargement of scope, they established political institutions that should work in harmony with these.