His [Logan's] generous nature disdained to profit by the mistake [of Grant] at headquarters and to get glory for himself at the expense of a brave soldier. So he postponed the execution of his orders and left Thomas in his command. The result was the battle of Nashville and the annihilation of Hood. Where in military story can there be found a brighter page than that?

In view of the facts of the case the Senator's query becomes a trifle ridiculous. According to the official records, as well as the narrative of Grant, Logan was ordered to Nashville from City Point on December 13. On the 17th he reported that he had got as far as Louisville and that "people here [are] jubilant over Thomas's success." The victory had been won on the 15th and 16th, and Logan turned back without going to Nashville at all.

Mr. Hoar's discussion of various phases of Southern politics discloses a degree of sympathy with the Southern whites that could hardly be anticipated. He actually confesses to a feeling of sadness on seeing the negro-ridden Louisiana Legislature in session in 1873 (vol. ii, p. 160). But such a feeling never for a moment modified his resolution to perpetuate at all hazards the conditions which made him sad. He declined, and still declines, to see any other principle underlying the course of the whites in overthrowing negro suffrage than a passionate desire for the supremacy of the Democratic party. His business, therefore, was to thwart this purpose in the interest of his own party. His position here is certainly intelligible; but his belief that there has not been and is not any important race question operative in the South is hardly creditable to his insight. Still less creditable to either his historical knowledge or his candor is his repeated assertion that the "suffrage was conferred upon the negro by the Southern states themselves" (vol. ii, pp. 159, 162). Not even in the most narrowly technical sense that Mr. Hoar's legal ingenuity can suggest is this true. The right of the negroes to vote in the Southern states was conferred by an act of the United States Congress, and the first exercise of the right took place under the immediate direction of United States army officers, in absolute disregard of existing statutes of every state concerned.

In conclusion may be quoted a passage which displays as well as any in the two volumes Senator Hoar's general bias in dealing with history and politics:

During the thirty-two years from the 4th of March, 1869, to the 4th of March, 1901, the Democratic party held the executive power of the country for eight years. For nearly four years more Andrew Johnson had a

bitter quarrel with the Republican leaders in both houses of Congress. For six years the Democrats controlled the Senate. For sixteen years they controlled the House of Representatives. There is left on the statute books no trace of any Democratic legislation during this whole period except the repeal of the laws intended to secure honest elections.

It is a little uncertain whether Mr. Hoar intends to include Johnson's four years in his total of thirty-two; but, leaving that aside, who that reads, and accepts without verification, this record of Democratic opportunity and inefficiency would suspect that during these thirty-two (or thirty-six) years the Democrats had the power to enact party measures-i.e., controlled simultaneously the presidency and both houses of Congress — during precisely two years, 1893-95?

WILLIAM A. DUNNING.

Actual Government as Applied under American Conditions. By ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. New York, Longmans, Green and Co., 1903. xliv, 504 pp.

This book is one which will arouse in the careful reader mingled feelings of satisfaction and disappointment. While the plan of the work is most excellent and the general execution leaves little to be desired, in clearness and accuracy of language and statement it falls far below the standard which the public have a right to expect from so prominent a writer.

The book is designed to fill a place not previously occupied by any of the numerous text-books upon American government. It is intended, the preface tells us, as "a college and upper high-school text-book" which shall not confine itself to a mere description of governmental organization, but shall present to the student American government national, state and local as a whole and in actual operation, including what it does as well as how it does it. Throughout the book these objects are kept in view, the emphasis at all times being upon practice rather than theory and upon the essential unity which underlies our governmental institutions rather than upon that division of powers between national government and states which occupies so large a place in most books on the subject.

The first one hundred and twelve pages of the book are devoted to a general discussion of the fundamental conditions and principles which lie at the base of American government; the physical features of the land, the character of the population, the personal rights of citizens

and aliens, the principles of the separation of powers and division of powers, written constitutions and their revision and amendment, suffrage and elections, the organization of political parties, including of course the caucus and nominating convention, the "machine," the "boss," and allied topics. The next fifty pages are devoted to state government, another fifty pages to local government, and a hundred pages to the national government. Having described how the governmental machinery is organized and how it works, the author devotes the remaining pages of the book to a detailed examination of the functions or operations of government, i.e., to telling what the government actually does as distinguished from how it does it. The discussion of each large topic is preceded by a "brief account of how that particular agency or function came to be," and classified references to other works on American government are prefixed to each of the chapters, supplementing a general bibliography which is inserted at the beginning of the book.

A brief experience with this book in the class-room has led the reviewer to believe that at times theory has been unduly subordinated to practice. While, of course, the machinery of government is only a means to an end, a knowledge on the part of the student of both the fundamental features and many of the details of governmental organization is necessary if he is to understand clearly the actual operation of the system. To some extent the book fails, perhaps, to provide this necessary basis for the study of the government "in action," but of course this is a lack easily supplied by the teacher.

Severe adverse criticism is demanded by the all too frequent carelessness of language and statement, which at times degenerates into absolute inaccuracy and incorrectness. This is especially true of the earlier parts of the book, where propositions of constitutional law rather than of fact are often stated, and where one who is not a trained lawyer may easily go astray. An example of what is here referred to is found in the chapter devoted to The Individual and his Personal Rights. It is difficult to imagine a more loose, inaccurate and misleading discussion of the "privileges and obligations of citizenship" than is here found. It is said, for example: "In many respects the alien has the same duties and the same rights as the citizen; he must obey the laws and pay taxes, and all his rights he holds by temporary favor" (p. 19). This seems to say that, like the alien, the citizen holds his rights by temporary favor, not by constitutional grant, which is denied in the next sentence. If we substitute "but" for "and," the statement is still open to criticism, for the alien holds very substantial rights under

the constitution, rights of which the government may not deprive him so long as he is allowed to remain in the country. Again: "A great privilege is that of protection: no individual may take the property or injure the person of a citizen without a criminal responsibility" (p. 19). Obviously this is not a "privilege of citizenship" at all, but one which belongs to all persons alike, be they citizens, subjects or aliens. The same is true of other privileges enumerated in this section, as well as of the so-called "obligations of citizenship." As an example of the latter: "The citizen is held responsible to national, state and local laws" (p. 20). So is the alien. Without increasing the size of the book by a single line, a clear and simple account could be given of the fundamental constitutional rights of citizens and aliens and of their legal obligations, and occasion could be taken to emphasize the fact that in these modern days the importance of citizenship as a source of rights is far less than it was in the ancient world, when the person not a citizen was to a large extent not recognized as having rights in other words, that the fundamental rights to life, liberty and property are to-day given to men as men and not as citizens.

It seems impossible to eliminate from the mind of the American historian the erroneous idea that "in the famous Dred Scott case it was held that a person of African descent could not become a citizen of the United States, or a citizen of a state, in the sense of the constitution of the United States" (p. 16). Inasmuch as only four members in a court of nine expressed any opinion upon this question, and one of them held that a free negro could be a citizen, it is difficult to understand the persistence of this mistake, unless it be due to the fact that those who make it have never examined the case itself.1

It is doubtful if the brief and not very clear discussion of sovereignty given in chapter iii will in any degree enlighten a student who approaches the subject for the first time. Clearly erroneous is the statement that "in England the ultimate legal power to make and alter constitutions rests in the peers of the realm and the constituencies of the House of Commons" (p. 38). It is also difficult to see how a student not already familiar with the fundamental principles of our national constitution can make anything out of the following statement: "The fundamental principle of our federal government is that the inherent sovereign powers in the community are normally exercised through the state governments, and therefore that any unrestricted power is left to the states and not to the Union" (p. 54). It

1 A most excellent discussion and statement of what the case actually decided will be found in Thayer's Cases on Constitutional Law, vol. i, p. 496.

is fair to suppose that this is intended as a statement of the principle that, under the constitution of the United States, the states have all powers of government not denied to them, expressly or by implication, and that therefore any power not delegated exclusively to the national government or denied to the states is left with the states. In so far as the statement last quoted suggests that the states have any "unrestricted," i.e., unlimited powers, it is clearly wrong. On the same page the statement that the division of powers between state and local governments is expressed in the state constitutions is certainly more than questionable. There is a tendency discernible to put it there, but this tendency is as yet far from general. In the description of the methods of amending the constitution of the United States, the unaccountable error is made of omitting absolutely any mention of the fact that the assent of the states may be given by means of conventions as well as by the legislative bodies.

What shall we say of the following statements concerning the fifteenth amendment to the federal Constitution? "The amendment provides that no person shall be deprived of the suffrage on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. By decision of the Supreme Court, this clause does not apply to Asiatics; and the states may, and three of them do, prohibit the voting of members of the Mongolian race" (p. 70). Would it not be better to state the provision of the amendment correctly, substituting "citizen" for "person"? The apparently arbitrary rule about Mongolians would then flow naturally out of the amendment, the simple fact being that Mongolians born abroad are aliens and cannot under the naturalization laws become citizens, and therefore are not protected against disfranchisement. Is it not also clear that a citizen of Mongolian descent — and there are such is within the provisions of the amendment?

In discussing the provisions which have been imposed by Congress upon many of the states when admitting them into the Union, the author reaches the conclusion that "plainly, the states are not equal" (p. 119). This ignores the fact that in many well considered and therefore weighty dicta the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that these conditions are not binding, and that all the states are and necessarily must be equal under the constitution. This being the state of affairs, plainly the question is an open one. A doubtful statement of the law is contained in the discussion of what the author calls the obligation of the states to surrender fugitives from justice. He assumes that "here the states must act" (p. 121), i.e., the surrender must be made by state authorities. There seems little doubt that the clause of the constitu