OAKES, Sir AUGUSTUS, and MOWAT, R. B. (editors). The .... 699 697 356 PICARD, ALFRED. Les Chemins de Fer.... PLAATGE, SOLOMON TSHEKISHO. Native Life in South America "POLYBIUS". Greece before the Conference. C. N. Brown Problems of Public Utility Regulation. of National Guilds. 516 R. L. Hale 326 RENARD, GEORGES. Les Répercussions Economiques de la Guerre Actuelle sur la France SCHAPIRO, J. SALWYN. Modern and Contemporary European History. H. E. Barnes 339 SCHMITT, B. E. England and Germany, 1740-1914. J. S. Schapiro 160 SCOTT, J. W. Syndicalism and Philosophical Realism. H. J. Laski 665 SETON-WATSON, R. W. The Rise of Nationality in the Bal- kans. 518 SMITH, VINCENT A. The Oxford History of India. B. K. Sarkar 644 SPALDING, W. F. Eastern Exchange, Currency and Finance. E. E. Agger 187 STODDARD, LOTHROP and FRANK, GLENN. The Stakes of War 353 STODDARD, W. L. The Shop Committee: A Handbook for Em- ployer and Employed STRUVE. See Milyoukov ... 692 SUGIMORI, KOJIRO. The Principles of the Moral Empire .... 352 TAYLOR, ALONZO E. See Kellogg TER MEULEN, DR. JACOB. Der Gedanke der internationalen B. B. K. 127 TOYNBEE, ARNOLD J. Nationality and the War. W. T. Morgan 156 TURNER, EDWARD R. Ireland and England. TURNOR, CHRISTOPHER. The Land and the Empire WEILL, GEORGES. Histoire des États- Unis de 1787 à 1917 WEYL, WALTER E. The End of the War. WHEELER, W. REGINALD. China and the World-War. J. B. M. WHITEHOUSE, H. R. The Life of Lamartine. WILLIAMS, HAROLD. See Milyoukov WILLOUGHBY, WESTEL W. Prussian Political Philosophy. Lindsay Rogers 141 YOUNG, A. N. Finances of the Federal District of Mexico... Lindsay Rogers 141 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY EUROPEAN THEORIES OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT AFTER THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA 1. The Struggle for Constitutions on the Continent WHI THILE Great Britain worked out in comparative calm the adaptation of her political system to the needs of the nineteenth century, progress in the same direction in the rest of Europe was attended with a long series of convulsions. From the fall of Napoleon's empire for full two-thirds of a century agitation was continuous and wars were not infrequent for the realization on the continent of political ideas that had been made prominent by the French Revolution. Until the middle of the century the history of the period is punctuated with insurrections; after 1850, the type of disturbance changes to international war. Insurrection made its first imposing appearance in the early twenties, when the Carbonari and the Free Masons rose in Italy and Spain respectively, and temporarily converted Bourbon despotisms into a semblance of constitutional governments. At the same time Portugal went through a similar experience, and the Greeks won the interest and sympathy of Christendom by throwing off the yoke of the sultan. Before the widespread ferment attending these movements had subsided, a more terrifying shock was given to conservatism by the reappearance of revolution in France. In July, 1830, the Bourbon Charles X was driven from the throne and the Orleanist Louis Philippe was put in his place. All Europe was filled with unrest and alarm lest these events should be the prelude to such developments as had followed the uprising against the brother of Charles in 1789. Only at two widely separated centers, however, were there serious consequences. Poland rose against the czar and was ruthlessly crushed back into subjection; the Belgians broke away from the connection with the Dutch that had been arranged by the great powers at Vienna and were assisted by these same powers to set up an independent neutralized monarchy. After the turmoil of these affairs there was a fretful interval of peace. Then came the most violent of all the insurrectionary convulsions, that of 1848. France was again the first to set up the standard of revolt; and she was easily first in the unexpectedness of the outcome. None would have predicted, when the insurrection began, that the French government was about to pass from constitutional monarchy to republic and from that, within four years, to a second Napoleonic empire. Central Europe on this occasion furnished tumults that in fervor and complexity fairly rivaled those in France. All the German and all the Italian peoples were aflame with political passion. Berlin and Vienna and Rome were the scenes of bloody conflicts. At Frankfort a famous assembly of Germans labored long but futilely on the project of uniting Germany under a constitutional government. At Buda-Pesth a short-lived republic, independent of the Hapsburg, cheered the hopes and stimulated the florid eloquence of the Magyars. On every side it seemed as if the old order was finally destroyed. after two tempestuous years the tumult ceased, the Hapsburger and the Hohenzollern ruled their dominions and their neighbors as before, and on the face of things central and southern Europe showed little change. But when Beneath the surface, however, a transformation had been effected that was readily perceived when trouble again appeared among the nations. Not internal but international conflicts. assumed the chief place in European politics, and the projects of the warring powers were in an ever-increasing measure determined by considerations of national growth and consciousness. The operation of this influence is not hard to discern in the Crimean War and in the Italian War of 1859; while in the great Bismarckian conflicts of 1866 and 1870 the consolidation of German national unity was the avowed end and the most efficient instrument of the triumphant Prussian policy. Nor was the notion of nationality lacking to the Russo-Turkish conflict that closed the period under consideration; for Serb and Bulgar received through this war the birthright of substantial independence. Looked at from the point of view of political philosophy the sixty-five years (1815-1880) of strenuous statecraft just surveyed show three bodies of doctrine occupying successively the chief place in the current speculation. The first was constitutionalism, which dominated thought till the middle of the century. The second was nationalism, which reached the climax of its sway over men's minds in the sixties. The third was socialism, which was on the high road to universal absorption of philosophy when the period closed. It is the purpose of the present article to set forth the salient features of the doctrines that accompanied the spread of constitutional government throughout western and central Europe. Despite the strong reactionary and obscurantist influence manifested in the Holy Alliance, the governments actually organized in the states whose monarchs were restored by the Congress of Vienna furnished abundant evidence that the ideas of the revolution had not lost all their force. Especially con spicuous was the idea that some kind of constitution-of fundamental law, written or unwritten-was of the essence of a rational and workable system. Various practical conditions' confirmed the old tendency to regard only a formal written document as a constitution in the full and precise sense. Hence the demand for some such well-defined legal basis for the government, whether monarchic, aristocratic or democratic, became the central feature in the program of the liberal party in every state. Concession to this demand went steadily on among the princes of the continent, strongly resisted only by Austria, Russia and Prussia. After the crises of 1848 the 'Among them the fact that where French dominion, after long sway, was destroyed and a sweeping reorganization was necessary, the restored princes were almost compelled to formulate the principles that were to characterize their governments in order to save their subjects from hopeless confusion and anarchy. |