the one, visible, universal Church. The anti-Christian societies are one in aim and operation, even if they be not one in conscious alliance. And the Governments of the world, some consciously, others unconsciously, disbelieving the existence of such societies, and therefore all the more surely under their influence, are being impelled toward a precipice over which monarchies and law and the civil order of the Christian society of men will go down together. It is the policy of the secret societies to engage Governments in quarrels with Rome. The breach is made, and the revolution enters. The Catholic society of Europe has been weakened, and wounded, it may be, unto death. The Catholic Church now stands alone, as in the beginning, in its divine isolation: Et nunc reges intelligite; erudimini qui judicatis terram.' There is an abyss before you, into which thrones and laws and rights and liberties may sink together. You have to choose between the revolution and the Church of God. As you choose, so will your lot be. The General Council gives to the world one more witness for the truths, laws, and sanctities which include all that is pure, noble, just, venerable on earth. It will be an evil day for any state in Europe if it engage in conflict with the Church of God. No weapon formed against it ever yet has prospered.”*

HENRY EDWARD CARDINAL MANNING,

Archbishop of Westminster.

"The Ecumenical Council and the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff," by Henry

Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. London: Longmans, 1869.

THE THIRD TERM.

THE Presidential contest of 1872 had scarcely closed with the triumphant reëlection of General Grant, when a New York newspaper, of wide circulation and pervading influence, but somewhat prone to sensational utterances, announced that republican institutions were in imminent peril from the probable election of the same individual to a third term. It was boldly affirmed that American liberty could not survive such an experiment.

Of course, the announcement startled that whole body of Democratic opposition which had bravely followed Seymour and Blair to ignominious defeat in 1868, and which had cravenly clutched at the skirts of Horace Greeley in 1872 in the vain hope of being dragged to victory. It startled a large body of soured Republicans who had failed to secure, or, having secured, had disgraced, preferment. It startled a larger body of Republicans who, acknowledging the illustrious services of President Grant, yet for personal or local reasons preferred an early succession of some other individual of the same political faith. And it startled a still larger number of Republicans, who did not expect to find a President more prudent, more sagacious, or more honest than President Grant had been, yet who were made to fear that, as no President had ever been elected for more than two terms, so for some occult reason it would be unsafe ever to elect one for more than that number of terms.

Other newspapers echoed the solemn warning of the "Herald." Political conventions took up the refrain. The senseless clamor culminated when, on the 15th day of December, 1875, the Honorable Mr. Springer, a Democrat from the State of Illinois, presented to the House of Representatives a resolution in the following words:

Resolved, That in the opinion of this House the precedent established by Washington and other Presidents of the United States, in retiring from the

Presidential office after their second term, has become, by universal concurrence, a part of our republican system of government, and that any departure from this time-honored custom would be unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with peril to our free institutions.

The rules of the House were suspended, and the resolution passed on the very day of its introduction. No less than two hundred and thirty-three votes were recorded in its favor. Only eighteen members voted against it.

That reiterated vociferation accomplished the purpose for which it was designed. It defeated the renomination of General Grant in 1876.

A political party must be brave and conscientious before it will venture to stake its hopes of the post-offices upon the reëlection of a President who has been fired at by millions of his countrymen for four years, and lied at by more millions for eight years. But, when to the hostility engendered by vilification is added the distrust born of a popular panic, no matter how groundless, temerity itself would doubt the availability of the victim.

Still, that resolution remains upon the journals of the House. It will remain there for ever. We hope posterity will be considerate enough to remember that we had not quite entered upon the second century of our national existence when that champion piece of charlatanry was enacted in the House of Representatives. But, happily, at the present time the Springer resolution is inoperative. President Hayes can not be elected to a third term, for he has not yet served a second term. It is true, General Grant still lives, and he might be elected to a third term. But the Springer resolution does not forbid that. It only enjoins retirement after a second term. Grant retired at the end of the second term, in strict accord with the precedents and the resolution.

That resolution rests upon the bold assumption that patronage and not principle dominates the electors of the republic; that the postmasters are too many for the people; and that he who controls appointments for eight years will form a corps of eighty thousand official janizaries who will easily subjugate six million who have never been appointed! But audacity itself has not yet ventured to suggest that a private citizen is likely to ride down people and postmasters both, merely because he once controlled appointments.

Since, then, no one can now be hurt or helped by the Springer resolution, this seems a fortunate time to discuss the merits of that fulmination. Since the reign of Jeroboam the world has not seen VOL. CXXX.-NO. 279.

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true believers seduced from the worship of God to that of mere metallic calves. It is much to be desired that the world may not again see true republicans scared by a senseless clamor into putting lighted candles in their caps, after the manner of miners, and going down into subterranean depths to quarry out a President, while the foremost man of his age stands upon the mountain-top, upon whom the eager world has set the seal of primacy.

It is therefore the purpose of this article to show that in those few lines quoted from the journal of the House of Representatives are comprised a grave impeachment of the Federal Constitution, a gross libel upon its framers, a base counterfeit of our political history, and a wanton insult to our common sense.

The Constitution clearly permits what the resolution so forcibly condemns. The fundamental law puts no limit to the number of terms for which the people may elect the same man to the Presidency. And to affirm that it is "unwise," "unpatriotic," and 'perilous to our free institutions" to elect the same man three times, is simply to impeach the Constitution for sanctioning an act so malevolent in its tendencies. Moreover, the question of reëligibility was not overlooked by the men who made the Constitution. It was carefully considered and reconsidered by them. They were not wanting in sagacity.

No one idea was so prominent or so universal in the Constitutional Convention as this: Presidents must be reëligible. Whoever they might elect, they should have the right to reëlect. Whatever might be the length of a term, there should be no limitation upon the number of terms. The reason was obvious. Mr. Gouverneur Morris, the man to whose rare genius, according to Mr. Madison, we are indebted for the polished style of the Constitution, stated that reason as tersely as it need be stated. "To forbid reëlections," he said, "tended to destroy the great motive to good behavior; the hope of being rewarded by a reappointment. It was saying to him, Make hay while the sun shines." Roger Sherman also said: "If he behaves well, he will be continued. If otherwise, he will be displaced on a succeeding election." Mr. King thought there was great force in the remark that "he who has proved himself most fit for an office ought not to be excluded by the Constitution from holding it." All thought reëligibility essential to a well-ordered government. But all thought it essential, also, that the executive and legislative departments of the government should be, as much as possible, independent of each other. How to secure both that

independence and reëligibility was a problem which the Convention found it difficult to solve. The prevailing opinion at the opening of the Convention was, that Congress should elect the President. And all could see that if Congress elected, and might reëlect the President, he would feel not independent of, but quite dependent upon, the Legislature. To avoid that dependence, some proposed to make him ineligible for a second term, while others proposed to make him elective in some other way than by Congress. But on the 17th of July, after weeks of debate, the Convention voted unanimously that the Executive be chosen by the National Legislature. When that had been carried and on the same day, upon the question of making him reëligible, six States, to wit, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Georgia, voted ay, while four States only, to wit, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, voted no. By those votes the Convention deliberately declared that the dependence of the Executive, although an evil, was a less evil than ineligibility to more than one term. On the 26th of July that decision was reversed. On that day, in the absence of the delegates from Massachusetts, seven States voted for the motion of Colonel George Mason, of Virginia, to make the "Executive to be appointed for seven years, and be ineligible a second time." In that shape the article on the Constitution of the Executive went to the Committee of Detail, and was subsequently reported back by that committee in these words: "The Executive power of the United States shall be vested in a single person. His style shall be 'President of the United States of America,' and his title shall be 'His Excellency.' He shall be elected by ballot by the Legislature. He shall hold his office during a term of seven years; but shall not be elected a second time."

When that clause again came before the Convention for consideration, the struggle was renewed to rescue the choice of the Executive from the hands of Congress. The struggle was protracted and somewhat heated. At length the whole subject of the Constitution of the Executive was referred to a committee of one member from each State. The committee was chosen by ballot, and upon it, among others less known, were placed Mr. Roger Sherman, Mr. Rufus King, Mr. Gouverneur Morris, and Mr. James Madison. On the 4th of September that committee reported a plan for choosing Presidents and Vice-Presidents by an electoral college. The plan provided that, if the colleges failed to elect, the choice should de