is more apt to think the Democrat vicious and unscrupulous. So in England your Liberal fastens on stupidity as the characteristic fault of the Tory, while the Tory suspects the morals and religion more than he despises the intelligence of the Radical.

It cannot be charged on the American parties that they have drawn towards one another by forsaking their old principles. It is time that has changed the circumstances of the country, and made those old principles inapplicable. They would seem to have erred rather by clinging too long to outworn issues, and by neglecting to discover and work out new principles capable of solving the problems which now perplex the country. In a country so full of change and movement as America new questions are always coming up, and must be answered. New troubles surround a government, and a way must be found to escape from them; new diseases attack the nation, and have to be cured. The duty of a great party is to face these, to find answers and remedies, applying to the facts of the hour the doctrines it has lived by, so far as they are still applicable, and when they have ceased to be applicable, thinking out new doctrines conformable to the main principles and tendencies which it represents. This is a work to be accomplished by its ruling minds, while the habit of party loyalty to the leaders powerfully serves to diffuse through the mass of followers the conclusions of the leaders and the reasonings they have employed.

"But," the European reader may ask, "is it not the interest as well as the duty of a party thus to adapt itself to new conditions? Does it not, in failing to do so, condemn itself to sterility and impotence, ultimately, indeed, to supersession by some new party which the needs of the time have created?"

This is what happens in England and in Europe generally. Probably it will happen in the long run in America also, unless the parties adapt themselves to the new issues, just as the Whig party fell in 1852-57 because it failed to face the problem of slavery. That it happens more slowly may be ascribed partly to the completeness and strength of the party organizations, which make the enthusiasm generated by ideas less necessary, partly to the fact that the questions on which the two great parties still hesitate to take sides are not presently vital to the well-being of the country, partly also to the smaller influence in America than in Europe of individual leaders. English parties,

which hesitate long over secondary questions, might hesitate longer than is now their practice over vital ones also, were they not accustomed to look for guidance to their chiefs, and to defer to the opinion which the chiefs deliver. And it is only by courage and the capacity for initiative that the chiefs themselves retain their position.

APPENDIX

NOTE TO CHAPTER III

ON CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTIONS

IN America it is always by a convention (i.c. a representative body called together for some occasional or temporary purpose) that a constitution is framed. It was thus that the first constitutions for the thirteen revolting colonies were drawn up and enacted in 1776 and the years following; and as early as 1780 the same plan had suggested itself as the right one for framing a constitution for the whole United States.1 Recognized in the Federal Constitution (Art. v.) and in the successive Constitutions of the several States as the proper method to be employed when a new constitution is to be prepared, or an existing constitution revised throughout, it has now become a regular and familiar part of the machinery of American government, almost a necessary part, because all American legislatures are limited by a fundamental law, and therefore when a fundamental law is to be repealed or largely recast, it is desirable to provide for the purpose a body distinct from the ordinary legislature. Where it is sought only to change the existing fundamental law in a few specified points, the function of proposing these changes to the people for their acceptance may safely be left, and generally is left, to the legislature. Originally a convention was conceived of as a sovereign body, wherein the full powers of the people were vested by popular election. It is now, however, merely an advisory body, which prepares a draft of a new constitution and submits it to the people for their acceptance or rejection. And it is not deemed to be sovereign in the sense of possessing the plenary authority of the people, for its powers may be, indeed now invariably are, limited by the statute under which the people elect it.2

Questions relating to the powers of a Constitutional Convention have several times come before the courts, so that there exists a small body of law as well as a large body of custom and practice regarding the rights and powers of such

1 It is found in a private letter of Alexander Hamilton (then only twenty-three years of age) of that year.

2 The State Conventions which carried, or rather affected to carry, the seceding Slave States out of the Union, acted as sovereign bodies. Their proceedings, however, though clothed with legal forms, were practically revolutionary.

assemblies.1 Into this law and practice I do not propose to enter. But it is worth while to indicate certain advantages which have been found to attach to the method of entrusting the preparation of a fundamental instrument of government to a body of men specially chosen for the purpose instead of to the ordinary legislature. The topic suggests interesting comparisons with the experience of France and other European countries in which constitutions have been drafted and enacted by the legislative, which has been sometimes also practically the executive, authority. Nor is it wholly without bearing on problems which have recently arisen in England, where Parliament has found itself, and may find itself again, invited to enact what would be in substance a new constitution for a part of the United Kingdom.

An American Constitutional Convention, being chosen for the sole purpose of drafting a constitution, and having nothing to do with the ordinary administration of government, no influence or patronage, no power to raise or appropriate revenue, no opportunity of doing jobs for individuals or corporations, is not necessarily elected on party lines or in obedience to party considerations. Such considerations do affect the election, but they are not always dominant, and may sometimes be of little moment. Hence men who have no claims on a party, or will not pledge themselves to a party, may be and often are elected; while men who seek to enter a legislature for the sake of party advancement or the promotion of some gainful object do not generally care to serve in a convention.

When the convention meets, it is not, like a legislature, a body strictly organized by party. A sense of individual independence and freedom may prevail unknown in legislatures. Proposals have therefore a chance of being considered on their merits. A scheme does not necessarily command the support of one set of men nor encounter the hostility of another set because it proceeds from a leader or a group belonging to a particular party. And as the ordinary party questions do not come up for decision while its deliberations are going on, men are not thrown back on their usual party affiliations, nor are their passions roused by exciting political issues.

Having no work but constitution-making to consider, a convention is free to bend its whole mind to that work. Debate has less tendency to stray off to irrelevant matters. Business advances because there are no such interruptions as a legislature charged with the ordinary business of government must expect.

Since a convention assembles for one purpose only, and that a purpose specially interesting to thoughtful and public-spirited citizens, and since its duration is short, men who would not care to enter a legislature, men pressed by professional labours, or averse to the "rough and tumble" of politics, a

1 See the learned and judicious treatise of Judge Jameson on Constitutional Conventions.

2 It will be shown in the account of the legislatures and political parties of the States (in Vol. II. post) that the questions of practical importance to the States with which a State Convention would deal are very often not in issue between the two State parties, seeing that the latter are formed on national lines.

class large in America and increasing in Europe, are glad to serve on it, while mere jobbers or office-seekers find little to attract them in its functions.1

The fact that the constitution when drafted has to be submitted to the people, by whose authority it will (if accepted) be enacted, gives to the convention a somewhat larger freedom for proposing what they think best than a legislature, courting or fearing its constituents, commonly allows itself. As the convention vanishes altogether when its work is accomplished, the ordinary motives for popularity-hunting are less potent. As it does not legislate but merely proposes, it need not fear to ask the people to enact what may offend certain persons or classes, for the odium, if any, of harassing these classes will rest with the people. And as the people must accept or reject the draft en bloc (unless in the rare case where provision is made for voting on particular points separately), more care is taken in preparing the draft, in seeing that it is free from errors or repugnances, than a legislature capable of repealing or altering in its next session what it now provides, is likely to bestow on the details of its measures.

Those who are familar with European parliaments may conceive that as a set-off to these advantages there will be a difficulty in getting a number of men not organized by parties to work promptly and efficiently, that a convention will be, so to speak, an amorphous body, that if it has no leaders nor party allegiance it will divide one way to-day and another way to-morrow, that the abundance of able men will mean an abundance of doctrinaire proposals and a reluctance to subordinate individual prepossessions to practical success. Admitting that such difficulties do sometimes arise, it may be observed that in America men quickly organize themselves for any and every purpose, and that doctrinairism is there so uncommon a fault as to be almost a merit. When a complete new constitution is to be prepared, the balance of convenience is decidedly in favour of giving the work to a convention, for although conventions are sometimes unwise, they are usually composed of far abler men than those who fill the legislatures, and discharge their function with more wisdom as well as with more virtue. But where it is not desired to revise the whole frame of government, the simpler and better plan is to proceed by submitting to the people specific amendments, limited to particular provisions of the existing constitution; and this is the method now most generally employed in improving State constitutions.

The above remarks are of course chiefly based on the history of State conventions, because no national constitutional convention has sat since 1787.2

1 Many of the men conspicuous in the public life of Massachusetts during the last thirty years first made their mark in the Constitutional Convention of 1853. The draft framed by that Convention was, however, rejected by the people. The new Constitution for New York, framed by the Convention of 1867, was also lost at the polls. That Convention was remarkable as being (according to Judge Jameson) the only one in which the requirement that a delegate must be resident in the district electing him was dispensed with (Constit. Conventions, § 267). 2 All the amendments made in the Federal Constitution have been drafted by Congress. See as to these amendments, Chapter XXXII.