in this matter and done well by it, we presume that he who shall hereafter write on American politics will record as a further source of them the late changes in English administrative organisms. We are so prejudiced, as to the virtues and vices of the public service of France and Germany, that it cuts off all hope that we shall ever use the good in them as models for our reforms.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

'The actual is also always the rational."--Hege.

THE frequent reference to this baptismal state paper of our Union in other parts of this book, may make it seem superfluous to devote to it a separate chapter; yet, for reasons that will appear herein, we think it proper to treat of it specially, in the few pages that follow.

The document has passed through several ordeals: first, that of a reaction from the brilliancy ascribed to it by its contemporaries; second, that from the indifference which, after a more sober judgment had set in, and had sharply criticized it; and third, that of the period when, between 1856-65, it was an instrument for popular intoxication. To show that the paper never deserved either treatment, seems to us the proper way to bring out its real intrinsic merits.

And, to begin with, it is well to understand that it was but the declaration of an act long previously prepared, and in fact proclaimed when Congress said graphically, July 6, 1775: "We have counted the cost of this fight, and prefer to die as freemen to living as slaves." Independence lay in the womb of time from the first British settlement in North America, and was sure to be born, whenever there was population and wealth enough, to make it feasible to assert it by force of arms. The special merit of the declaration of July 4, 1776, is, that it exhibits not only high patriotism and humanitarianism, but also the sense of obligation, that states which claim their independence and sovereignty, must give good reasons for their action and prove the rectitude of their intentions. That it represented this (by 1776) well-matured collective public will of the American people was its title to international respect.

The document is, however, more than a manifestation of an honorable public spirit; its authors deserve special credit for

their dignified execution of an, in itself, proper public purpose. It nerved the public mind, so that a relapse was impossible after its promulgation. As to the subsequent interpretation of the instrument and its uses for partisan purposes years and years afterwards, it is entirely innocent. And we say no more than what every signer would declare, if now alive, when we assert, that it is neither a "gospel of freedom for all mankind," nor a "fundamental law of the United States," nor "the declaration of new principles of personal liberty or civic freedom," nor "an act either removing social inequalities or establishing any equalities." Still less is it "the initiatory step towards future social reformation in America," or a "reconstruction of society therein." It left all the relations of life as to rights of persons and things untouched, and it could not have been adopted, if it had interfered with them. Neither was the document a new Magna Charta, nor a recital of conditions and terms upon which any public authority was either instituted or submitted to. All that belonged to the Articles of Confederation, then under consideration in a committee of Congress charged with their preparation. It was simply the birthcry of a new-born realm under the expressive name, United States of America. But the name stated a fact, that of a union of states; it did not ordain any law for this union, nor create a nation, though full of national inspiration. It asserted not only the primeval right to be free, but it did better-it acknowledged the duty of a people, so to act, as to deserve their freedom.

To remove all doubt upon this subject, the Congress that passed the declaration also announced to the world that the new republic admitted itself subject to the law of nations. And that act, not the declaration, made it a rightful member of the family of nations. Other governments could now acknowledge its independence without giving to England any just cause of war; for it implied the admission by the revolting colonies and their people, that they meant to organize efficient government and avoid falling into a state of anarchy. The duty to be an organic totality was the correlation of the right to be independent; and in this sense it was the abrogation of a false loyalty and the establishment of a true loyalty. Franklin was its pioneer, Adams its advocate, Jefferson its expounder, Washington its personification, and the United States Congress its executive agency. It ended in a successful revolution and the erection of a "states union." In adopting the Articles of Confederation, July 1778, the Congress attributed them to divine inspiration in these words: "Whereas it hath pleased the great governor

of the world to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in Congress to approve of and to authorize us to ratify the Articles of Confederation and perpetual union; know ye," &c., &c. In the Constitution of 1787 both the great governor of the world and the state legislatures are dropped, and "the people of the United States" step forth as the factor of the new fundamental law, "in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity." The United States now felt like having fulfilled their duty to the nations of the earth.

What

That it was not deemed to be a constitution is evident from the document itself. It has this passage: "He (the king) has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws." constitution? What laws? Surely not any that were in the instrument itself. Nor any written fundamental law then extant; for we know there was no such state paper. True, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey had formed their state constitutions, or were forming them, but they could not be meant. Blackstone speaks, vol. i. star-page 67, of "the free constitution of England," but he holds in other parts of his commentaries that it did not apply to the colonies of England. We learn, however, from contemporary history that much was said then of a true constitution that exists for every land and its society, and is above all arbitrary institutions; and perhaps Jefferson meant it? But when we analyze the principles on which independence is claimed, we find that it is no more than the inalienable right of every society to develop its own constitutional laws and the organisms suitable to its own social conditions. And when we examine the "Bill of Rights" passed by Virginia, June 12, 1776, we see that that document claims the rights asserted therein "to pertain to them and their posterity as the basis and foundation of government, and as inherent with all men when they enter into a state of society, and that they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity of them." And we opine, therefore, that Jefferson meant this inherent constitution, and he proved thereby his capacity to anticipate teachings of political science which have been but lately promulgated in Europe; if it were not that he also spoke of "the free system of English laws," which gives rise again to the belief that he referred to Blackstone's "Free English Constitution."

Jefferson, his contemporaries and associates in Congress, were

much more under the spell of the old Anglo-Saxon feeling, that was ever thinking itself to be shouting freedom, when they murmured the words of Magna Charta :" Nullemus mutare leges Anglica." That is what was meant by the phrase, "Free system of English laws." System indeed! System by common law !

Had Mr. Jefferson had himself alone to consult in framing the declaration, and there would have been in the document more general arguments for a free government, and fewer technical objections to the rule of a special British king; but we doubt whether it would have been as effective a state paper. There were then in America a large number of persons who had admitted allegiance to be due to the British Crown, and to whom reasons for holding themselves absolved therefrom were particularly welcome. The most potent of these, because the one which even British jurists and politicians would admit, was the clause: "He (the king) has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us." Such passages as these won over, or at least neutralized, many persons, who hesitated because they were not prepared to adopt revolutionary ideas that rested on primeval rights. It was otherwise with the free spirits of Europe, and they were attracted by the more radical assertions of the eternal rights of human beings, which Rousseau had claimed to have re-found in the nature of man. The American conservatives took the democratic tendencies of the paper out of satisfaction for the legal technicalities, while the radicals on both sides of the Atlantic took in the-to them useless-specific charges against King George, out of pleasure with the arguments in favor of popular rule. Had George III. never claimed more power in America than he did in England and the Declaration of Independence would have been minus several points that won it supporters; for Jefferson would have had a much shorter recital of special grievances. That part of the Declaration of Independence was intended for English readers, very few of whom ever read or appreciated it.

When a little over a year after the promulgation of the declaration the British Crown offered as terms of peace, "that no British army should be kept in the United States, that no tax should be levied without the consent of the colonial legislatures, and that the colonies should be represented in parliament," the offer was rejected, though it conceded the main points of the declaration of July 4, 1776. France was then ready to recognize the American republic, Gates had surrendered to Burgoyne, and the American public mind was habituated to thinking itself a free people. It was then in love with itself,