the failure of the United States to contribute to the progress of political economy, being incident to the earlier stages of national life, may henceforth be expected to act with diminishing force. The period of the most rapid development of wealth once passed, we may expect the practical pursuits of life, or those which now seem to be such, to become less absorbing, and the tendency to enter upon deeper and more abstract investigations to strengthen. Already in our older States, which are farthest removed from the special conditions which characterize the United States as a whole, we may trace the first effects of this tendency, in their increased devotion to that sound learning and the arts for which the newer States, still in the hurry of swift growth, seem to have little leisure. As this movement strengthens, we may expect to see the moral sciences generally rising towards that proportionate development with respect to physical science which obtains in older countries, and among the moral sciences political economy advancing at least as rapidly as any. To this we shall be driven by material considerations as powerful as those which have thus far restrained our progress in this subject. As our condition approaches more and more to that of old countries, our ability to rely upon the increasing abundance of our resources to cure all mistakes will disappear, and the mistakes themselves will become obviously costly and formidable. In our case, indeed, they may easily become more formidable in their consequences than elsewhere; for in the coming century an economic blunder in the United States will be a blunder on a far more portentous scale than those of the past, and will work out its consequences among political elements which will admit of no trifling. Already our public men are appalled by the responsibility of answering such a question as is set them by the currency. But in such a country as we may reasonably believe this will be fifty years hence, and with the dangerous forces now growing within our democracy fairly developed, such a question will be for the men or the party to whom it is offered for answer a very Sphinx's riddle, and failure to solve it will mean political death. It will then no longer be possible for statesmen or scholars to ignore or neglect those economic laws which determine the consequences of our actions. The same

unfailing operation of historical causes, which in other countries has led to every great step yet made in the progress of economic thought, will produce its effect here. This action may be hastened by the shock of some crisis in national affairs; but if not, the same result must come in the fulness of time. The regular course of our development must, at a point not far distant, disclose to us an imperious necessity for investigating the laws of material wealth; and that point being reached, we may confidently expect that the United States will no longer fail to contribute their due share to the advancement of this branch of knowledge.

CHARLES F. DUNBAR.

ART. V.-LAW IN AMERICA, 1776-1876.

Of all the varied methods of viewing and discussing the character and extent of our national progress, the one which, in many important respects, is the most deserving of serious attention is that which directs us to the consideration of the development of American jurisprudence. The idea of law must be the one which underlies and affects, to a greater or less degree, all other ideas of popular life, and which imperatively demands investigation at the hands of any one who is seeking to get an impression, at once comprehensive and accurate, of the progress of civilization in any age or nation. The history of the jurisprudence of a country must always, of course, be one of the co-ordinates by reference to which we are to measure the direction and extent of national progression or retrogression. Religion, literature, the mechanical arts, the fine arts, science, manners, and dress may all furnish tests by which the inclination of a people in the direction of or away from enlightenment may be determined; but as none of these have such a practical, universal, and important bearing upon their daily life and daily relations as their system of laws, so none of them can be so safely consulted for the purpose of solving the problems of national life. It is to the jurisprudence of a people that we must especially look, if we wish to ascertain

the character of their civilization; and it is therefore to the jurisprudence of the United States of America that we must turn if we wish to be able to say, truthfully and intelligently, whether the great Republic has or has not made real progress during its hundred years of life.

The general method of dealing with this subject might be twofold. On the one hand we might consider the advances which law in this country has made in comparison with English law, travelling along the same paths and in the same general directions. That is to say, taking those numerous branches of jurisprudence in which the American has adhered (in the main) to the principles derived from the English system, we might institute a comparison between the advances made by the two. In considering the subject in this light we would look, not to those cases in which the American has departed from the English law, but rather to those in which travelling (so to speak) side by side the one has outstripped, or fallen behind, the other. The question, in such a method of investigation, would always be: In which country has the development been most healthful and proper? We would study to find out, not what new ideas have had their birth upon this side of the Atlantic, but whether, in the first place, old ideas have been improved upon at all, and, if so, to what degree. For example: The idea of modifying the common law rule by which the husband became the owner, or acquired the right of becoming the owner of the wife's personal property, and of securing the enjoyment and control of that property to the wife, is one which has existed for centuries in English jurisprudence. It took practical shape in the creation, by courts of equity, of what was known as the separate use of married women. But in America, before many years in the life of the Republic had passed by, this idea not only appeared in the English chancery dress, but became, also, the subject of statutory enactment, and hence the passage of the numerous "Married Women's Acts" in nearly all the States of the Union. The fundamental principle already existed, and was being applied in both countries; but while the two systems of jurisprudence were advancing along the same highway and in the same general direction, the American was placed many steps in advance of the

English system by the aid of positive legislation, and the gap, notwithstanding recent enactments in England, has not been quite closed up. Nevertheless, as has been said, the general direction of legal progress, upon this point, has been the same on both sides of the Atlantic. It was admitted, in both countries, to be desirable that, in some way and to some extent, the property of a married woman ought to be her own, and the only question was as to the best means of attaining this result. In England the indisposition to statutory reform in law forced the courts (or, at all events, one set of the courts, those, namely, of equity jurisdiction) to redress the grievance, as such it undoubtedly was. With us the tendency towards reformation by legislation led to the adoption of the other method of remedying the evil; and we shall see, further on, that this method of attaining the desired end was in accordance with the American tendency to a fondness for legislation which has developed itself, in such a striking manner, during the last fifty years. It cannot be asserted, however, that except in the method of carrying out the reform, there has been, in this instance, any development of a feature distinctively and characteristically American.

On the other hand a still more striking and interesting topic is the consideration of the departures of American law from English principles; and the cases here presented would be those in which, from circumstances which it ought to be the task of the student to discover and explain, American jurisprudence has found the rules of English law unsuited to the conditions of American life, has therefore repudiated or modified them, and has established a set of legal rules which may be termed essentially and properly American. This latter view of the general subject is one which would seem to present the greatest attractions to the student, and one which would, with the greatest propriety, be considered the most interesting and instructive at this period of the national existence, when we are occupied in looking for, pointing out, and discussing those features in the different relations of life which are often grouped together under the somewhat vague term of American institutions. Both methods, however, of dealing with the general subject will have to be, to a certain extent, adopted; and in

endeavoring to find out what are the peculiarities of American law which have grown up or sprung up since our separation from the mother country, and which tend to give our jurisprudence a national individuality, we shall be compelled to touch upon some points in which the American has advanced beyond, or fallen behind, English law in paths which are common to both.

It is a trite remark and one which has been made at many different times and with varying phraseology, that all law is the adaptation of principles of action to the physical and political conditions of a country and to its moral, social, and intellectual growth. All national institutions must bear the impress of the outward features of nature by which the inhabitants are surrounded and their modes of life, to a great extent, determined, and must also reflect the inward life of a nation and the external associations and internal consciousness by which that inward life has been moulded.

If we were to imagine a man placed, in a savage state, in a new country, and were at liberty to suppose that his individual existence could be sufficiently prolonged to enable him to reach, in his own person, a condition of civilization and enlightenment, it would seem to be plain that the causes which control this development and determine its character must be sought for, in the first place, in the external physical phenomena by which he was surrounded. Whether he were active or slothful, hardy or effeminate, bold or timid, prudent or reckless, and so on, would depend, to a measurable degree, upon the inclemency or mildness, the ruggedness or softness, the sterility or fertility, which belonged to the climate, scenery, and soil of the country where he lived. In the next place the nature of the society in which he was thrown, the character of the human beings among whom he was placed, and the events in his history, would enter into the determination of the character of the development. And, finally, his intellectual life, when it came into play (its nature determined by the food upon which it had fed), would make itself felt in its contribution to the general sum of his character.

So, in a nation, there are three great causes which control and guide the character of national development, first, phys