and the State constitutions were really a part of the general system of which the Federal constitution became a corresponding part. From the beginning to the end, there has been a kind of rolling-up of guarantees for the liberty of the individual, so that Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of the Stamp Act Congress, the Declaration of Independence, Washington's Farewell Address, and the Proclamation of Emancipation are all a part of that conception of human rights which is the proudest outcome of American experience. The choice of documents must, of course, depend to some degree upon the personal interest and judgment of the person who may prepare such a work, although certain papers can no more be omitted from the set of Liberty Documents than the letter "e" can be left out of the alphabet. A part of the intellectual outfit of all properly trained American children is Henry First's Charter, Magna Charta, Confirmatio Chartarum, Habeas Corpus, Bill of Rights and Act of Settlement, Declaration of the Stamp Act Congress, Virginia Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Northwest Ordinance, Federal Constitution, Washington's Farewell Address, Dred Scott Decision, Proclamation of Emancipation, and the Reconstruction Amendments. All these are to be found within the following pages, and also some selections less common but not less truly representative. In Chapter III. will be found two very racy letters written by Thomas Cromwell, which bring out a stalwart conception of how to deal with a parliament. In Chapter V. is inserted a very significant extract from a statute of 1429, which illustrates the steady though slow development of the protections of liberty, and also shows the usual forms of royal statutes six centuries ago. In Chapter VII. have been printed two of the unsuccessful constitutions of the English Commonwealth; they deserve attention, because through the Colonial Charters they somewhat influenced the American written constitutions with which we are familiar. Cromwell's speech to Parliament is an interesting commentary upon the reasons for government and misgovernment during the English Revolution. Chapter XI. is intended to show the nature of the Colonial governments and their constitutional basis; for such a purpose no one English or Colonial official document could suffice, and a departure has been made from the general principle by including Dummer's Defence of the Charters, though it had no public sanction. This piece, taken in connection with the Virginia Bill of Rights (Chapter XIII.), builds the bridge between English and American institutions. Chapter XIX. is inserted in order to show the principle of constitutional limitations on the powers of the legislature, although the immediate question happens to be that of chartering a bank. The reasoning of the Federal Court has been applied to the principle of limited legislative powers over personal relations. Chapter XX. has its justification in the familiar truth that the Monroe Doctrine arose to a large degree out of the feeling that the blessings of free government should be assured to our Latin-American neighbours. final chapter, XXIV., the relation of free and popular government to the American colonies is brought out through the President's messages and speeches on West Indian and Philippine affairs, and the arguments of others for and against the policy he has thus enounced. In the Many other documents might have been appropriately inserted, but the twenty-four which appear below have a special right to appear because of their own importance and because of their relation with each other. The book moves from beginning to end; each piece has a carefully considered place in the chain of human progress. The Appendices deserve some special mention; one of them is the special text of the Habeas Corpus Act, alluded to above; another is the necessary list of authors quoted, showing pre cisely the editions used in each case, and thus making it easy to enlarge the extracts. For two others, Miss Hill has prepared an Outline of Essentials in English and American History, an expansion of a smaller list long used in her own teaching. This outline is intended to show the relation of the constitutional documents to narrative history, and thus to put them on a proper background. How shall Liberty Documents be most effectively used? For the reader of history who likes to have at hand the text of the great documents which he finds mentioned, this edition is especially serviceable, because, together with the text, he has the illustrative comment which makes clear the whole ground. Hence it may perhaps find a place in school, public, and private libraries. The most obvious use of such a book is to be the backbone of a course in English and American constitutional development, the Outlines in the Appendix serving for an analysis of the whole subject, while the documents are to be a subject of study and thought. Among the many collections of this kind there is perhaps no other which brings together the materials for a judgment of so many great constitutional principles; for, besides the text, the references at the end of each piece carry the student to the best contemporaries and the best modern writers. In a certain sense the book is a little historical library, which, like all other libraries, is intended first to satisfy and then to make discontented, first to furnish the material necessary for the student and then to arouse him to search for more material. In any course in English history the book is available, first, because of its careful reprint of the greatest English constitutional documents; second, because of the side-notes, which call attention to the development of constitutional thought and practices. The documents are all such as will be useful to pupil and student; and the great lesson is enforced that the guarantees of English liberty extended also to the colonies, and through them were worked out in our own political system. In connection with a course in American Constitutional History the book is useful because it makes easy the preliminary study of the basis of American free institutions, in the practice and the concrete records of England; and fourteen of the twenty-four chapters are devoted to distinctively American utterances. After all, the usefulness of a collection, like the usefulness of a text-book, depends, to a large degree, upon the teacher. One who is awakened to the importance of constitutional development, to the study of charters and statutes and constitutions, as expressing the aspirations of the people, will know how to show young people that that side of history is interesting. Perhaps, also, in these days of storm and stress, of the creation of new political powers and influences, of undreamed complications with the affairs of the rest of the civilized world, it may be worth while to bring to the minds of young people the truth that our personal liberty, our freedom to move about, to take up callings, and to make the most of ourselves, is not a privilege which defends itself; that it behooves a free people not to give up principles for which they and their forefathers have been contending during more than eight centuries. ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. |