*

of view of such legalism the condemnation of
Christ was not judicial murder, but an act of jus-
tice. In legislation, also, absolutism applies this
mechanical, arithmetical measure. History, with
free-thinking absolutists, becomes a collection of
maxims, aperçus, remarks and analogies, as it was
with the men of the world trained in the French
school of the last century; to the absolutists of a
positive opinion, history is but the treasure house
of his own opinions. The 'historical basis,' the
'deep ideas of the past,' the 'organic articulation
of the state,' the 'good old law': absolutism fre-
quently employs all these conservative phrases,
just as its counterpart (radicalism) uses the words
freedom and equality, and ignores them with the
same ease." (§ 194.)-"The heart of man feels
the effect of years as heavily as his mind. Old
age is as far removed from the equanimity of
mature age. Its rest is but the quietism of ex-
haustion. The great passions have subsided;
only the little ones remain. The old man is irri-
table in the highest degree, his moods are whim-
sical and changeable. His passive sensibility
sometimes causes his mind to accept indiscrimi-
nately all impressions, and sometimes to display
that dull indifference (laisser aller) which charac-
terizes the staid man (philister), that inferior em-
bodiment of absolutism." (§ 195.)—“The boy,
to become powerful, must remain under training;
old age, on the contrary, must have pupils, and
wishes to be surrounded by persons who obey.
The old man may be mild, gentle, and careful of
his pupils; but he wants no free man around him.
An absolute government may be well meaning
and paternal, but the air of freedom, the highest
good of life, is never breathed under it." (§ 197.)

are equally destructive. The world is growing | exercise of the summa injuria. From the point worse, the world was better in the past,' has, since Nestor's time, been the motto of the old man; as radicalism by its optimistic dreams, and the old man by his passiveness, undermine the quietude of nations." (§ 185.)-"Reaction is naturally fixed in its retrogression, just as naturally as revolution raises its progress into law, and repels all contradiction. Reaction goes back only to a certain stage of the past, but not as the restoration goes back to the past, as an intellectual development. This constitutes the essential difference between reaction and restoration. —“The boy approaches the world with intuition and imagination, but the old man with reflection and combination. * * The one abounds in whims and ideals, the other with aperçus and rules; and at last the old man reaches the point the child had reached-at abstraction on the one hand, and at sensuous perception on the other. The deductive rules on which the old man relies without intellectually mastering them, inspire him with that infallible confidence, that strange selfdeception, by which absolutism runs toward ruin, without perceiving the abyss, until the ground begins to quake under its feet. In this manner age collapses into a spiritless empiricism, which ignores all higher points of view, and at last degenerates into a materialism, which drags what is highest and holiest down into the dust." ($192.)"Where combination is so preponderantly developed as in the old man, the principle of numbers very naturally asserts itself. Mathematics and the entire series of the exact sciences are the field on which the mind of the old man finds its highest satisfaction. The boy applies himself to mathematics because its abstract generality satisfies his mind and sharpens his faculties, and the old man seeks refuge in it because it alone affords him that absolute yet sensibly real certainty in which his mind finds rest. But it seems rather strange that this empirical certainty should tempt him into shallows, from which even ideal contemplation remains exempt. In its train follow cabala, alchemy, magic and necromancy. The sober clearness of mathematical laws seems irreconcilable with the enigmatical plays of the cabala; and so does it seem incredible to reflecting reason, that dry rationalism, for which everything is too high which can not be made as plainly evident as that twice two makes four, should still pair itself with the nebulous mysticism of the theurgic and magic arts; and yet both are to be found united in absolutism." (§ 193.)—"Old age is thus formal in history. If the boy is formal because he is unable to see through form, the old man resolves essence into form to shape it as he wants. Right sinks into a treaty. Loyalty becomes a narrow legalism, and the more the idea of right contracts, the more obstinately does the old man cling to separate provisions. The most sacred interests are sacrificed to the letter of an agreement, and the application of the law, under the veil of the summum jus, becomes a permanent

"The weakness of old age reveals itself in a remarkable manner in this, that its virtue, like that of the boy, needs support from without. In the case of the boy this support is the law; in the case of the old man it is tradition, convention, maxims, reflective virtue, the morals of principles. If we wish to get a notion of the conventional morality of absolutism, we should read Kotzebue's plays. It was this morality that prevailed in the upper classes in the past century. Here there are no maxims of law and custom, but social considerations." (§ 198.)—“If we reflect on the above it is obvious that there must enter into the efforts of old age, to attain moral perfection, an artificial element. As what is noble does not spring spontaneously from nature, incapacity calls forth a violent effort, and this again betrays the power of weakness.' Hence comes the demand for ‘unconditional obedience' in absolute states. When the weakness of nature breaks through the bounds of principle, the vices of old age develop into unnatural tyranny, of which history affords so many instances. Philip II. is the most striking instance of wicked old age: another illustration is the hideous Tiberius, who, more than any other ruler, combined in his nature womanly weakness and diabolical strength, weakness of charac

in a word, to mobilize the great mass of inert | Massachusetts colonists when the old council had voters with constantly increasing success. Be- taken possession of the government from which ginning in 1820 with a polled vote in New York a mob had driven Gov. Andross, "received advice state (where the records are most complete), with of the convention called by the prince of Orange, one voter in five (12,453 in 1789, out of 57,606 and, in imitation of it, they recommended (May voters in 1790), the proportion steadily rose to 2, 1689) to the several towns of the colony to meet 31.12 per cent. in 1826, increased rapidly during and depute persons," who assembled, and assumed the next six years, in which the foundations of the right to decide what constituted the governparty government were laid, to an average of 60 ment of the colony, as the convention parliament per cent., or very nearly the average now obtain of 1688, assembled without a writ, had decided ing in Great Britain, rising in the ten years ending upon the constituent powers of the English govin 1865 to 77, reaching in the presidential year ernment. The whig lawyers who managed the 1876 to 88 per cent., and in 1880 to 90 per cent. revolution in the thirteen colonies, itself essenHow largely keen political interest and high intel- tially a political struggle, were mindful of the ligence are needed to increase this per cent. is organic character which precedent attached to a made best apparent by the fact that the highest convention, and termed the meeting of commispercentage of voting voters in those states has sioners from the colonies a congress. Meanwhile, been for years in the counties whose percentage the radical changes in progress through the colof American-born population is largest. This onies were conducted by conventions, the work growth in the percentage of voters exercising the being at length completed by a federal constituright of voters, no less than the widening of suf- tional convention, while the political government frage, has increased the complexity of party man- of the day was carried on by meetings in the large agement during the last century upon a scale cities, supplemented by the collective action taken rather one of kind than of degree. At the by the members of colonial assemblies. The organization of the federal government the num- latter, as well as the former, bridged over the ber of voters in each political division was still period between their sessions and their assembly small enough to permit the management of parties through the appointment of committees of corby the simple and rudimentary methods long in respondence, a body which is the lineal preduse among English-speaking peoples. These were, ecessor of the "state central committee" of the self-nomination for the candidate, the caucus or present day, and which remained for over fifty meeting to express the desire of the voter, and years after the revolution the stated political auin addition, as a dormant political power in the thority in deciding upon the executive conduct state, there existed the convention, which the tra- of campaigns. These public meetings and comditions rather than the usage of the English con- mittees of correspondence, in the post-revolutionstitution made the form in which the general ary period, conducted normal political action; body politic took original and initiatory action. the convention was employed when extraordinary Except in the southern states, which retain many steps were proposed. Shay's rebellion was prearchaic forms in their political life, self-nomina- ceded by one which met at Springfield, and emtion has disappeared in this country, the public braced delegates from the counties about; the meeting has become the caucus or primary, and alarm created by the Hartford convention was in is treated elsewhere (see CAUCUS); while the con- part due to the selection of this term in summonvention, developing along two distinct and inde- ing it, and, without much regard to whether the pendent lines, has become in its constitutional body was made up of delegates, any mass meeting form the body to which is committed the compo- of more than usual importance was termed a consition of organic law, while in its political form vention; e. g., the New York meeting nominating it has come to be the body which in county, George Clinton in 1811, the mass meeting led by district, state and national affairs acts under a Daniel Webster in New Hampshire in 1812, or loosely defined body of usage and party regula- even the early "conventions" in Maryland and tion for the party as an organic whole, in theory Pennsylvania which nominated Jackson and Hardrawing its power from the primaries, in prac- rison. The initiative in local and state party tice acting independently, regulating their action government, which rested at the opening of the and determining their constitution. These two revolutionary war with city meetings, societies widely divergent forms of the convention origi- and their committees of correspondence, was nated in the same stem; but while one attained transferred in the period succeeding this strugfull development and power in the constitution- gle to state and federal legislatures, by whom it making period of the revolution, the other only continued to be exercised until 1830 in all parts reached its development in the party-making of the country, and in some southern states until period, which began in 1820, and ended in 1840, 1860. The change in New York state, a closely diwith the party organization now (1883) in exist- vided political body, whose politics early reached, ence in full operation, although the development and has since maintained, a high degree of orof its details is still in progress. The convention, ganization, which makes its development typi as a primal political force in the body politic, ap- cal, was distinct and definite in this direction. peared early in American history. "They had George Clinton had been the chief executive of no doubt," says Hutchinson of the action of the the state through the war of independence, by VOL. III.-8

127

is devoted to the service of abstraction; in old age,
traditional forms obtain a decisive authority. At
the height of life the manly tendencies prevail.
Humanity has not as yet reached its climax,
but it is manifestly approaching it. Its develop-
ment on the whole is, therefore, liberal; the
modern era is intellectually freer and more self-
conscious than any previous one. But, within
modern times, history, in different ages and phases
of development, has already repeatedly made the
circuit of the age stages of man, and of their
respective tendencies. On this necessary move-
ment rests, in part, the divine education of nations;
on this also rests their highest expression, the
changing phases of the spirit of the times, the
breath of which every one feels, but the correct
understanding of which constitutes the art of the
statesman.
J. C. BLUNTSCHLI.

in the national struggles only mediately, and are | their different periods. The period of childhood led by their corresponding manly parties. Politics is ruined when the extreme parties obtain supremacy." (§§ 210-212.) — 6. Psychological Contrasts in Politics in General. Since Rohmer's doctrine of parties psychologically determines and describes the fundamental types of parties in accordance with the age stages of man, and thus discovers four types, peculiar both in spirit and character, it goes beyond the task of explaining political parties themselves, and thus, from being a theory of political character and mind in their natural chief kinds and forms, it becomes a new psychological science of politics in general. This theory throws new light on political facts and individual character. Even where there are no political parties, there are still to be found radical, liberal, conservative, absolutist, individuals whose way of thinking and acting finds its explanation in that theory, just as much as if such individuals had formed themselves into a party, and as such, tried to influence public life. Those fundamental types may also more clearly and easily be illustrated in individuals than in parties, for on the formation of parties many things exercise an influence besides the natural disposition of the individuals who unite to form a party. It not unfrequently happens that the leaders of the parties individually belong to another type than the party itself. The liberal Mirabeau was the head of a radical party; the liberal Pitt was the leader of the absolutist conservative tories; in the revolution of the Netherlands, the conservative William the Silent led the radicalliberal party. In Switzerland the absolutist parties, in Germany the ultramontane parties, are often led by radicals; and so, on the other hand, the radical-revolutionary parties confide their cause to the expert skill of absolutist generals. Above parties stand the people. But in nations also we often perceive the same chief tendencies that distinguish individuals and parties. In the French national character the absolutist character, and in the French spirit the radical trait, is very prominent; and this explains the violent changes in French political history. On the contrary, in the Russian nation the absolutist spirit seems to be combined with a radical disposition. The English are manifestly liberal in character and conservative in spirit; the ideal of the Germans is a liberal government, maintained and supported by the conservative people. - From the four fundamental tendencies of humanity, Rohmer derives four general characters of political constitutions, as distinguished from forms of the state. "Radicalism, as the supremacy of abstraction, engenders the idol state; liberalism, as the supremacy of individual personality, the individual state; conservatism, which pays homage above all things to the power of history and the rights of races, the race state; and finally, absolutism, the form state." (§§ 220-226.)- The history of nations, and, on the whole, in its grand outlines, the history of humanity, follows these changing impulses in

PARTY GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. The first recorded party contest in New York state, in 1789, ended in a total poll of 12,453; the total vote in 1880 was 1,102,945, and the number of voters over 1,200,000. This advance in the voting and the possible votes of nearly one hundred fold, or six times larger than the growth of population, aptly measures at once the needs, the conditions and the development of party government in the United States. Meetings at Martling's" in New York, and the "Long Room" in Boston, were sufficient for the conduct of party affairs, while the voters of one city numbered less than 3,000, and the poll list of the other fell short of this number by one-half; but the enormous increase of the voting voter, due, first, to the spread of political privileges by law, second, to the growth of political interests by party contests, and third, to the increase of population— has rendered the earlier methods obsolete, and developed an intricate system of party government, the product of the last sixty years, whose working is most vigorously attacked by those least aware of the tremendous difficulties presented by the quadrennial mobilization of 9,000,000 voters. The development of party government has, therefore, been along the inevitable lines of increasing organization and delegated powers, whose development in the state is the familiar story of representative government. Burke's definition, "Party is a body of men united in promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed," was accurately applicable to the small and coherent body of electors which he represented. While remaining true in spirit, it has ceased to apply in detail to the two great political camps into which the United States bas been substantially divided for thirty years. In these two parties a bare fraction of voters, not a tenth at most, carrying on the active work of party government, constitute the standing army of political life, which in periodical struggles exhausts its efforts in the endeavor "to poll the last man";