legislation, and hence do not hesitate to enforce against each other-in case of epidemics, for instance-rules to prevent the spread of diseases. Even the diseases of vegetables - potatoes and vines, for instance-and of cattle are thus looked upon by nations as proper subjects of international legislation; and no nation pretends to say that such legislation is an illegal or improper interference with free commerce, or the right of travel. When the "black death" leaves its Asiatic home for a westward expedition, and Russia and Austria draw up military cordons along their frontiers to arrest its progress, none of the other nations of Europe protest against such sanitary measures as involving an interference with their rights; and even the refusal of several European countries to admit American hams, when the trichina mania prevailed, did not cause a remonstrance on the part of the United States. In the early days of our republic, when the condition of the country at large was such as to require little general legislation, we find the attention of the great statesmen of those times directed chiefly to the problem, how to limit the powers of the general government to the least practicable extent. This, at the time, was quite proper; and no one can desire more sincerely than I do, that the fundamental principles of the republican government established by the wise statesmen who founded our republic, and greater than whom never since made appearance in our history, should forever be cherished in the hearts of the American people. But at the same time I hold that those fundamental principles, when logically carried out, and applied to such an extensive and intricate governmental machinery as ours has grown up to be since the days of those statesmen, require, of necessity, the reforms that I have pointed out. In truth, I might go further and say, that many of these reforms were naturally considered by them; and left untouched simply because they were convinced, and justly so, that the time had not yet come to carry them out in practice, and that their descendants would engraft them upon the future American legislation and constitutions. Let me cite an instance: One of the most important features of "Liberty and Law" is the proposition to inaugurate an entirely new money-system for the United States, by the establishment of an absolute legal-tender money for the whole nation. Now, this very same proposition was advanced at a very early day of our existence as a united republic by such statesmen as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and later by John C. Calhoun, and many others. Thus, Benjamin Franklin is very explicit on this point, saying that "gold and silver are not intrinsically worth as much even as iron and lead." Thomas Jefferson, the most enlightened of our American statesmen, says this: "Treasury-bills, bottomed on taxes, bearing or not bearing interest, as may be found necessary, thrown into circulation, will take the place of so much gold and silver. Bank paper must be suppressed, and the circulation restored to the nation, to whom it belongs." It would be impossible to condense my proposed scheme of finance for the United States in fewer words than these of the most illustrious founders of our government. Were it necessary to refer to the very words and sentences used by the profoundest explorer of the deficiencies of our form of government, as fixed under the Constitution of the United States,-John C. Calhoun,- let me quote from one of his speeches on the currency question of 1832 these sentences: "It appears to me, bestowing the best reflection I can give the subject, that no convertible paper - that is, no paper whose credit rests on the promise to pay is suitable for a currency. It is the form of credit proper in private transactions, between man and man, but not for a standard of value, to perform the changes generally which constitutes the approximate function of money or currency. No one can doubt but that the government credit is better than that of any bank, ·more stable and more safe. Bank paper is cheap to those who make it, but dear, very dear, to those who use it. On the other hand, credit of the government, while it would greatly facilitate its financial operations, would cost nothing, or next to nothing, both to it and the people, and would, of course, add nothing to the cost of production, which would give every branch of our industries, agriculture and manufactures, as far as its circulation might extend, great advantages, both at home and abroad; and I now undertake to affirm, and without the least fear that I can be answered, that a paper issued by government, with the simple promise to receive it for all its dues, would, to the extent it could circulate, form a perfect paper circulation, which could not be abused by the government; that it would be as uniform in value as the metals themselves; and I shall be able to prove that it is within the Constitution and powers of Congress to use such a paper in the management of its finances, according to the most rigid rule of construing the Constitution." Now, it is true, that this financial question, the question of money, was the question paramount in the minds of the founders of this government; but it is also clear to any one who reads the pages of the Federalist, that nearly all the other problems alluded to by me in this work engaged their attention. Thus, Jefferson, who was all in all the greatest American statesman, - though George Washington will ever and deservedly rank higher in the minds of the people of the whole world as the most disinterestedly good, unselfish man that the world has ever seen, called early attention to the defects of our judiciary system. So did Patrick Henry to the deficiences in our Federal Bill of Rights. But those grandest of men could not possibly have foreseen the contingencies that might arise in the course of our national development. They did not foresee the necessity of the acquisition of the Louisiana territory, still far less that of the territories of Texas and California; nor had they time or money to establish law codes on the manifold subjects that now engross our attention. How could they have devised a legislation adequate to the new era of steam and electric machinery? This, however, does not imply by any means that the form of our government has undergone, or need undergo a radical change. It is still, as it must always remain, a coöperative, representative government, organized by the people of the United States for the purpose of protecting themselves in their individual rights, franchises, and liberties, against all forms of corporate, executive, legislative, and judicial despotism. All our township, city, town, county, and State and Federal organizations: have been and are constituted upon this basis of common protection and coöperation, to maintain a just equality of rights among citizens. But how can such a coöperative system be carried into effect unless the government has full power to check every act of the individuals composing that government which might interfere with the rights of the others, and at the same time is effectually limited against an undue and illegal exercise of that power? In one direction the power of the government must be absolute, in another direction it must be limited; this is the great synthesis which I have tried to develop in this book. It must be absolute in its power to protect the life, liberty, and property of each individual citizen; and it must be absolutely limited in its power to infringe upon the natural rights of such citizens, by injurious exercise of power by the executive, legislative, or judicial departments of the government, whether State or Federal. Instead of saying, therefore, that my system would establish too much government for the welfare of the people, it should rather be said, that its purpose is to prevent the government officials from governing the people too much by class legislation, and robbing them of their property, their moneys, their public lands, and revenues, for the benefit of corporations. The increase as well as the dimunition and limitation of governmental power that will result from the adoption of my system will secure to all the people the common benefit of a national money-system, a Federal and State railway and telegraph system, and numerous other common benefits; and will effectually relieve them from political and corporate despotism, and financial and legislative peculation. The former object will be achieved by establishing the sanitary, educational, and public intercommunication codes that I have proposed herein; the latter object by limiting the State and Federal legislatures to the exercise of such powers only as are necessary for the protection of the natural rights of all citizens, and the development of all their resources and faculties, as also by limiting the arbitrary discretion of courts in interpreting and construing an unknown so-called common law, through the adoption of a code of statutory laws, to be, so far as possible, the same in every State of the Union, and arranged on the plan of the Pandects and the Code Napoleon, illustrated by the Codes of California and New York; and, finally, by limiting the present discretionary power of executive officials, through such a code of departmental laws as would make irregular and arbitrary action on their part next to impossible. By this latter clause I by no means desire to advocate what is called "civil service reform," a term imported from Europe, where all countries have a military and civil service, but utterly meaningless in the United States, where there is in theory and substantially only one service, — the civil service, — to which the military is always subordinate; for a reform which measures the capacity of individuals for consular duties, let us say, as an instance, by his acquaintance b. with the higher mathematics, or languages, is about equally ridiculous and ineffective. Let me recapitulate: In the same proportion as I desire to have the power of the government assert itself by taking control of all its highways, moneymaking, and other prerogatives, I want that government to be so checked, that it can under no circumstances whatever infringe upon the rights of the people, of whom the government is, after all, only the representative. Hence I insist that the Federal Constitution be amended so as to limit and restrain Congress from granting the public lands to any corporation or association; from making the United States a party to any corporation or association, for any purpose; and from granting, transferring, pledging, assigning, or in any way conveying the public moneys, credit, franchises, powers, or sovereignty of the government to any person or corporation, and from issuing any interestbearing bonds of the United States for any purpose. And, furthermore, that means be taken to vacate all the land-grants to railroad corporations, excepting only for such lands as have already been sold by those corporations to innocent purchasers. At the same time the Federal government must take hold of and keep under governmental control the whole railway and telegraph systems of the country, managing them for the equal benefit of every citizen; as it manages the post-office system, for instance. There should be no more such special legislation as has disgraced Congress during the last fifty years, and whereby the people have been systematically robbed of their rights as well as property, for the benefit of a few grasping speculators and corporations, that were able to buy up Congress and the State legislatures. And if I am asked how this double task of granting Congress and the State legislatures more power, and at the same time prevent the passage of private swindling schemes, can be accomplished, I answer: by constitutional limitations, to be fixed by a National and by State conventions, which should inaugurate a new, better era for our politician-ridden republic. It can be done if we only make up our minds that it shall be done. The people are still the power in the republic; but unless they determine to exercise it by constitutional restrictions on their delegates, and enforce it by severe criminal penalties for such of their representatives who fail to perform their duty to the government, that power will soon pass out of their hands. Having thus exposed the misapprehension which has led critics to attribute to this work a system of "paternal despotism," I need only bespeak for the present greatly enlarged edition of "Liberty and Law" the same favor which greeted its first appearance. If it shall still more vitally impregnate the American people with those new ideas of political government, that I consider essential to the restoration and preservation of our republic, under the era of social change and progress inaugurated in the course of this century, my highest ambition will have been realized. ST. LOUIS, April, 1880. BRITTON A. HILL. Speculative View of the History of Mankind; The Two Theories; An Inspired and a Lower Race; The Great Pyramid of Jeesah; The History of the Descendants of Abraham; Moses, the Great Law- giver; The Priestly Order of Levites had Supreme Power: The Downfall of the Jewish Republic; The Destruction of the Mon- Lack of Political Insight among the Greeks; Their Aversion to a Fixed Form of Government; Their Downfall due to the Absence of Government and Law, and the Growth of Aristocracies, with the PAGES |