Self-government is in its nature the opposite to political apathy, and that moral torpidity or social indifference which is sure to give free play to absolutism, or else to dissolve the whole polity. We have a fearful instance in the later Roman empire. It draws its strength from self-reliance, as has been stated, and it promotes it in turn; it cannot exist where there is not in each a disposition, ability and manliness of character, willing and able to acknowledge it in others. Nothing strikes an observer, accustomed to Anglican self-government, more strongly in France, than the constant desire and tendency even in the French democracy, to interfere with all things and actions, and to leave nothing to self-development. Self-government requires politically, in bodies, that self-rule which moral self-government requires of the individual-the readiness of resigning the use of power which we may possess, quite as often as using it. Yet it would be a great mistake to suppose that selfgovernment implies weakness. Absolutism is weak, which indeed can summon great strength upon certain occasions, as all concentration can; but it is no school of strength or character; nor is a certain concentration by any means foreign to self-government, but it is not left in the hands of the executive, to use it arbitrarily. Nor is it maintained that self-government necessarily leads in each single case soonest and most directly to a desired end, especially when this belongs to the physical welfare of the people, nor that absolute and centralized governments may not occasionally perform brilliant deeds, or carry out sudden improvements on a vast scale, which it may not be in the power of self-governments so rapidly to execute. But the main question for the freeman is, which is the most befitting to man in his nobler state; which produces the best and most lasting results upon

the whole and in the long run; which effects the greatest stability and continuity of development; in which is more action of sound and healthful life, and not of

feverish paroxysm? paroxysm? Is it the brilliant exploits which constitute the grandeur of nations if surveyed in history, and are there not many brilliant actions peculiar to selfgovernment, and denied to centralized absolutism?

Where self-government does not exist, the people are always exposed to the danger that the end of government is lost sight of, and that governments assume themselves as their own ends, sometimes under the name of the country, sometimes under the name of the ruling house. Where self-government exists, a somewhat similar danger presents itself in political parties. They, too, frequently assume themselves as the end and object, and forget that they can have a right meaning only if they are in the service of the country. Man is always exposed to the danger of substituting the means for the ends. The variations we might make on the ancient Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas, with perfect justice, are indeed endless.*

Napoleon the First, who well knew the character of absolute government, and pursued it as the great end of his life, nevertheless speaks of the impuissance de la force the impotency of power. He felt, on his imperial throne, which on another and public occasion he called wood and velvet unless occupied by him, and which was but another wording of Louis the Fourteenth's l'état c'est moi, that which all sultans have felt when their janizaries deposed them-he felt, that of all governments the czar-government is the most precarious. He felt

♦ Would not all the following, and many more, find their daily applications:-Propter imperium imperandi perdere causas; Propter ecclesiam ecclesiæ perdere causas; Propter legem legis perdere causas; Propter argumentationem argumenti perdere causas; Propter dictionem dicendi perdere

causas ?

what, with other important truths, M. de Tocqueville had the boldness to tell the national assembly, in a carefully considered report of a committee, in 1851, when he said:

"That people, of all nations in the whole world, which has indeed overthrown its government more frequently than any other, has, nevertheless, the habit, and feels more than any other the necessity, of being ruled.

"The nations which have a federal existence,-even those which, without having divided the sovereignty, possess an aristocracy, or who enjoy provincial liberties deeply rooted in their traditions,-these nations are able to exist a long time with a feeble government, and even to support, for a certain period, the complete absence of a government. Each part of the people has its own life, which permits society to support itself for some time when the general life is suspended. But are we one of those nations? Have we not centralized all matters, and thus created of all governments that which, indeed, it is easiest to upset, but with which it is at the same time the most difficult to dispense for a moment ?" 5

With this extract I conclude, for the present, my remarks on self-government, and with them the enumeration of the guarantees and institutions which characterise, and in their aggregate constitute, Anglican liberty.

They prevail, more or less developed, wherever the

5 M. de Tocqueville made this report on the 8th of July, in the name of the majority of that committee, to which had been referred several propositions relating to a revision of the constitution. It was the time when the con-stitutional term of the president drew to its end, and the desire of annulling the ineligibility for a second term became manifest. It was the feverish time that preceded the second of December, destined to become another of the many commentaries on the facility with which governments founded upon centralization are upset, by able conspiracies or terror-striking surprises, and how easy it is in such states to obtain an acquiescent majority or its semblance, as previously the revolution of February had been, when the Orleans dynasty was expelled.

Anglican tribe has spread and formed governments, or established distinct polities. Yet, as each of them may be carried out with peculiar consistency, or is subject to be developed under the influence of additional circumstances, or as a peculiar character may be given to the expansion of the one or the other, it is a natural consequence that the system of guarantees which we have called Anglican presents itself in various forms. All the broad Anglican principles, as they have been stated, are necessary to us, but there is, nevertheless, that which we can call American liberty-a development of Anglican liberty peculiar to ourselves. Those features which may, perhaps, be called the most characteristic, are given in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XXII.

AMERICAN LIBERTY.

AMERICAN liberty belongs to the great division of Anglican liberty. It is founded upon the checks, guarantees, and self-government of the Anglican tribe. The trial by jury, the representative government, the common law, self-taxation, the supremacy of the law, publicity, the submission of the army to the legislature, and whatever else has been enumerated, form part and parcel of our liberty. There are, however, features and guarantees which are peculiar to ourselves, and which, therefore, we may say, constitute American liberty. They may be summed up, perhaps, under these heads: republican federalism, strict separation of the State from the Church, greater equality and acknowledgment of abstract rights in the citizen, and a more popular or democratic cast of the whole polity.

The Americans do not say that there can be no liberty without republicanism, nor do they, indeed, believe that wherever a republican or kingless government exists, there is liberty. The founders of our own independence acknowledged that freedom can exist under a monarchical government, in the very act of their declaration of independence. Throughout that instrument the Americans are spoken of as freemen, whose rights and liberties England had unwarrantably invaded. It rests all its assertions and all the claimed rights on the liberty that had been enjoyed; and after a long recital of deeds