ment is more stable and far less exposed to danger from popular caprice and violence than that of Great Britain. I refer to the ways and means by which the Constitutions of both countries may be altered, amended, or subverted. The Parliament of England is supreme. It may change its own Constitution by a simple act of legislation. It may, in the same way, change the dynasty or the line of descent of the crown. In a word, it can, by its supreme power, alter and reconstruct the whole fabric of gov ernment. Now, if the House of Commons is practically the Parliament of England, what is to prevent that body, at its own pleasure, from amending or changing the Constitution itself?

What is the present menace, in both Europe and America, of established governments, institutions, rights, dignities, and properties? Is it not from the dreaded proletariat, in the not distant future, that thoughtful men apprehend danger to rights of property and to social order? From this cause Macaulay predicts the downfall of our institutions. In his letter to Mr. Randall he says:

"I never wrote or uttered a word indicating an opinion that the supreme authority in a state ought to be intrusted to the majority of citizens, told by the head; in other words, to the poorest and most ignorant part of society. ... Your fate I believe to be certain, though it is deferred by a physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring population will be far more at ease than the laboring population of the old world. But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be low, and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test. Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discontented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agitators who tell him that it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million, while another cannot get a full meal.... It is quite plain that your government will never be able to restrain a distressed and discontented minority. For with you a majority is the government, and has the rich, who are always a minority, absolutely at its mercy.... There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will increase the distress. The distress will produce fresh spoliation. There is nothing to stop you. Your constitution is all sail and no anchor.”

Again he argues:

"Here [England] the sufferers are not the rulers. The supreme power is in the hands of a numerous class indeed, but select; of an educated class; of a class which is, and knows itself to be, deeply interested in the security of property and the maintenance of order."

Macaulay's reasoning to show the superiority of British institutions is based mainly upon the fact of universal suffrage in the United States. But since the letter to Randall was written the franchise has been so extended in England as to be now almost universal; and who that has observed the progress of radicalism in that country can entertain a doubt that the right of suffrage will, at no distant time, become universal there, as it is in the United States?

Meanwhile we are comparatively safe, by reason of many countervailing causes which tend here to mitigate popular discontent. There is, in this country, a freer division and much wider diffusion of property than in England. We have no primogeniture, no odious church rates, no titled aristocracy, no royal families pensioned upon the tax-payers, no privileged classes, comparatively no land monopoly; all of which existing in England, and being most odious to the proletariat, tend to foster discontent among the masses. It has been said that every holder in the English funds is a friend to the existing order of things. With how much stronger reason may we affirm that every owner of land in the United States will be a supporter of the existing order among us; and almost our entire rural population, forming a great majority of the whole people, are, directly or indirectly, interested in the ownership of land. This, indeed, I regard as the great bulwark of our institutions against those anarchic tendencies which exist principally in the towns and cities. Moreover, I emphatically deny the assertion that our government is "all sail and no anchor." I maintain, on the contrary, that while the causes of discontent in England are greatly more numerous and flagrant than in our country, her government is, in its actual working, though not in theory, more directly exposed to the power and control of the populace than is that of the United States.

It is not, I think, from revolutionary violence that the greatest danger to our institutions is to be apprehended. If the misguided proletariat shall be able to take possession of the lawmaking power by means of universal suffrage, they will be under no necessity of resorting to revolution. Men hesitate long before they resort to forcible revolution in order to effect desired

changes, because they know that in a violent revolution there are "blows to take as well as blows to give." But when the discontented classes find that they can achieve their proposed innovations without force, by means within the forms of law, they are apt, with less hesitation, to undertake civic revolutions.

Suppose the toiling masses in England should get complete possession and control of the House of Commons, what would prevent them from subverting existing institutions and invad ing property rights through the forms of law, thus, perhaps, compelling the few to put themselves in the attitude of resist ance and rebellion in self-defense? This, rather than resort to forcible revolution, is the real danger to be apprehended in England. Unorganized masses of men without leaders are, in civic as in military affairs, powerless. But when the masses, armed with universal suffrage, shall learn the secret of their strength, and acquire organization and leadership, they may do their will with the ballot rather than the bullet.

But, it may be asked, may not the same results flow from the same causes, in the course of time, under our constitutional forms? May not the progress of democratic opinion in due time sweep away all barriers to the will of the majority and subject life, liberty, and property to the unrestrained and capricious will of the multitude? May not the proletariat, here as elsewhere, in time seize upon the government, change its form by amendment, and work their will upon society, under the semblance of legal forms? No doubt this is possible under our constitutional forms as it is under those of Great Britain; but what I maintain is, that it would be infinitely more difficult for discontented and evil-disposed majorities to work their will under our American Constitution than it would be to achieve the same result within the forms of English law; in a word, that our system is far more conservative than that of Great Britain.

It would not by any means be sufficient, under our system, for the discontented elements of the population to get possession of the House of Representatives, or indeed of both houses, in order to change, amend, or subvert the federal Constitution. They would be compelled, in order to take the initiatory step to an amendment or change of the Constitution, to secure a majority

1

of two-thirds in both houses of Congress or two-thirds of all the States of the Union. But then the two-thirds of both houses of Congress, if that method should be adopted, could not change or alter the Constitution in the smallest particular. All the two houses could do by a two-thirds majority would be to propose amendments to the several States, and the amendments so proposed could be embodied in the Constitution only when ratified by the legislatures or conventions of three-fourths of the States.

The other method of changing or amending the Constitution is still more complex and difficult. Suppose it be adopted, then Congress must wait until an application is made by the legislatures of two-thirds of the States to call a convention for proposing amendments; and if a convention, so called by Congress at the instance and request of the legislatures of two-thirds of the States, should propose amendments, such proposed amendments would have no legal effect whatever until ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States, or by conventions in threefourths of them called for that purpose.

Lastly, without the assent of every State of the Union the equal suffrage of the States in the Senate cannot be impaired by any mode of constitutional amendment. While the English Parliament could, by a simple act of legislation, abolish the House of Lords, and thus entirely displace that conservative branch of the law-making power, there is no power whatever, under the federal Constitution, to deprive the States of their equal suffrage in the Senate without the consent of every State in the Union. This amounts, practically, to an absolute denial of the right to abolish the Senate or change its organization, and it cannot be done without an act of revolution unless every State assents to the change. Thus it is evident that the Constitution itself would render it impracticable for the lawless and discontented elements of society to change the fundamental law by means of a majority ever so great, or even by a vote of the two houses of Congress.

Again, in the judicial system ordained by the Constitution. of the United States we have another conservative power unknown to the British Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States stands in the way of the demagogue, the malcontent, the anarchist, and the reckless agitator. That court is

independent of all popular elections. It may annul the popular will expressed in both houses of Congress, when it takes the form of a law repugnant to the written Constitution. It is the bulwark of minorities and of individuals against lawless, arbitrary, and encroaching majorities. No judicial tribunal with any such power exists in Great Britain.

We often hear it said that ours is a government of the people, meaning a majority of the people; but this is far from being true of our system. We are under a government of law, and the majority are just as much bound and restrained by that law as the minority. Indeed it often happens in the working of our government that the minority prevails and rules against the will of the majority. Several of our presidents and many senators and representatives have been chosen by minorities, with great majorities of the popular vote against them. If two representa tives should be elected by an aggregate majority of two hundred votes, and one with a majority of two thousand votes, the popular minority would, in that case, have a more potential voice in legislation than the majority. If New York should choose her delegation to Congress by one thousand majority, and Pennsylvania by fifty thousand, the popular minority would, in that event, prevail over the majority in the legislation of Congress. It is well known that it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution that the President should be chosen by independent electors, each voting according to his individual judgment, and not by a majority of the popular vote.

In the organization of the Senate popular majorities are wholly ignored. Nevada, in that body, is equal to New York; Delaware to Pennsylvania. The six New England States, with a population numbering 4,010,529, have twelve senators; while New York, with 5,082,871 people, has but two senators. Florida, with 269,493 people, negatives Ohio with a population of 3,198,062. Vermont, with only 332,286 inhabitants, utters in the Senate as potent a voice as Illinois with not less than 3,077,871, Nevada with only 62,266, Oregon with 174,000, Colorado with 194,324 people may each confront and negative Pennsylvania with a population of 4,282,891, or New York with five millions. J. M. LOVE.