Salvadori, Carlo. Prenozioni di Filosofia Scientifica Sayce, H. A. The Higher Critics and the Verdict of the Monuments Schwarz, Hermann. Was will der kritische Realismus? Eine Antwort an Herrn Professor Martius in Bonn Scripture, Edward W. Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory Tannery, M. Paul. Pour l'histoire de la science hellène (de Thalès à Empé- THE MONIST. OUGHT THE UNITED STATES SENATE TO BE ABOLISHED?1 HEN the gigantic intellect of Napoleon began to stagger and reel under the weight of his successes, he is said to have boasted that he would make his dynasty the oldest in Europe. In 1787 this Republic was the youngest State. To-day it is in a most. essential respect by far the oldest its constitution-if the word be understood in its strict and proper sense-antedates by many years all other constitutions. If this had been foretold by a prophet, when on the 25th of May, eleven days after the appointed time, the "convention of delegates. . . . for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation" could at last proceed to business by organising itself, it would have appeared a wilder prediction than the mad threat of the demoniacal Corsican. "We may indeed, with propriety, be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride, or degrade the character of an independent nation, which we do not experience. . . . what indication is there of national disorder, poverty, and insignificance, that could befall a community so peculiarly blessed with natural advantages as we are, which does not form a part of the dark catalogue of our public misfortunes?" Thus Hamilton characterised in the Federalist (No. XV, Dawson's edit.) the actual condition of things, while the people held the adoption or re 1 Oration delivered on the Fourth of July at the University of Chicago. jection of the work of the federal convention under advisement, and Washington endorsed again and again this harsh judgment to its fullest extent. Luther Martin, however, was of opinion that the people would seal their own doom and that of their posterity by accepting the proffered gift of the convention. He wrote: "I would reduce myself to indigence and poverty; and those who are dearer to me than my own existence I would intrust to the care and protection of that Providence who hath so kindly protected myself,— if on those terms only I could procure my country to reject those chains which are forged for it." (Elliot, I, 389.) His warning was not heeded. The people deliberately fastened the chains to their limbs, they and their posterity have worn them one hundred and five years glorying in them the longer the more,-the chains, in spite of all their alleged and real flaws, have withstood the strain of the greatest civil war recorded in history and grown infinitely stronger than before,—they have been worked as a drag-net hauling to a thinly settled coast-strip a whole continent, and in wearing them and by wearing them, the people have pushed themselves ever more vigorously into the very front rank of the leading nations of the earth as to everything that renders life worth living for. Surely, the people of the United States have a right to say, and the nations of the earth ought to say with them: would that such chains had been forged more frequently. If the people of the United States ever cease to say so-to say so not merely with their lips, but from the very depth of their hearts and with full consciousness of its whole import, they will have forfeited the right to celebrate the Fourth of July. On the Fourth of July their forefathers merely proclaimed their right to be free and independent and the intention to assert the right; and by a seven year's war they vindicated this step to the extent of proving their ability to conquer independence. This, however, was only the first and the easier half of the task they had assumed. Independent and free are not equivalent terms, and unless they proved themselves capable of becoming and remaining free, their making themselves independent was a wrong done to themselves. The prerequisite of this proof, how ever, was a much harder and grander victory-a victory over them selves. This they achieved in the adoption of the Constitution. Therefore only by the adoption of the Constitution was the Fourth of July rendered a festive day for humankind. That the handful of men at Philadelphia, anxiously devising behind closed doors the means to infuse enduring vitality into the federative Republic, must forever be counted among the greatest lawgivers known to history, is therefore no more an arguable question. In the nature of things, there is but one adequate test of constitutions-success. Their work has stood this test over a century. Nothing can undo this fact, and consequently, whatever the future may have in store for this Republic, their names are indelibly inscribed in the imperishable plates of history as sages and benefactors of mankind. But let us beware lest justice to them mislead us into injustice towards others. They could only devise the proper means for realising the great possibilities offered by the circumstances. Unless the people had sufficient discernment to see that they had planned wisely, and had, moreover, all the qualities required for applying the proper means in the proper manner, they had labored in vain. The realisation of the possibilities depended. altogether on the people. This is a trite truth, but a truth of tremendous import. To lose sight of it, is to vow the country to perditic There is no surer way to bring it about than to erect the Constitution into a fetish, expecting from it safety and prosperity so long as incense is offered to it. Though the Constitution is a master-work, in itself it is of no more use than an armor wrought of gossamer. Only so far as the people vitalise it in the proper manner by what they do and by what they abstain from doing, is it a guaranty that the future will correspond to the past. The history of the Union during the years preceding the adoption of the Constitution is, however, irrefutable proof that it will not do to invert the proposition. It would be midsummer madness to assert that as long as the people are all right, it is indifferent what their Constitution is. While it is the immortal glory of the past generations to have made the Constitution a success hardly equalled by any other and certainly surpassed by none, the Constitution has to an incalculable degree been instrumental in rendering the people capa |