sonian age, it may be said that there has been in progress for some years past a certain anti-democratic reaction, fainter than the levelling movement of sixty years ago, and not likely to restore the state of things that existed before that movement, yet noticeable as showing that the people do learn by experience, and are not indisposed to reverse their action and get clear of the results of past mistakes. The common saying that on the road to democracy there are vestigia nulla retrorsum is not universally true in America.

That there are strong conservative tendencies in the United States is a doctrine whose truth will be illustrated later on. Meantime it is worth while to ask how far the history of State constitutions confirms the current notion that democracies are fond of change. The answer is instructive, because it shows how flimsy are the generalizations which men often indulge in when discussing forms of government, as if all communities with similar forms of government behaved in the same way. All the States of the Union are democracies, and democracies of nearly the same type. Yet while some change their constitutions frequently, others scarcely change theirs at all. Let me recall the reader's mind to the distinction already drawn between the older or New England type and the newer type, which we find in the Southern as well as the Western States. is among the latter that changes are frequent. Louisiana, for instance, whose State life began in 1812, has had six complete new constitutions, without counting the so-called Secession Constitution of 1861. So has Georgia. Arkansas, which dates from 1836, has had five, besides many amendments passed in the intervals. Virginia and South Carolina (both original States) have had five each. Among the Northern States, Pennsylvania (an

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original State) has had four; Illinois, dating from 1818, three; New York, three; Delaware, three; whereas Connecticut and Rhode Island1 (both original States), and Maine (dating from 1820), have had only one each, Vermont and New Hampshire two each. Massachusetts still lives under her Constitution of 1780, which has indeed been amended at various dates, yet not to such an extent as to efface its original features. Of the causes of these differences I will now touch on two only. One is the attachment which in an old and historic, a civilized and well-educated community, binds the people to their accustomed usages and forms of government. It is the newer States, without a past to revere, with a population undisciplined or fluctuating, that are prone to change. In well-settled commonwealths the longer a constitution has stood untouched, the longer it is likely to stand, because the force of habit is on its side, because an intelligent people learns to value the stability of its institutions, and to love that which it is proud of having created.

The other cause is the difference between the swiftness with which economic and social changes move in different parts of the country. They are the most constant sources of political change, and find their natural expression in alterations of the Constitution. Such changes have been least swift and least sudden in the New England and Middle States, though in some of the latter the growth of great cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, has induced them, and induced therewith. a tendency to amend the constitutions so as to meet new conditions and check new evils. They have been most

1 Connecticut gave herself a new constitution in 1818, Rhode Island in 1842, both having previously lived under their old colonial constitutions.

marked in regions where population and wealth have grown with unexampled speed, and in those where the extinction of slavery has changed the industrial basis of society. Here lies the explanation of the otherwise singular fact that several of the original States, such as Virginia and Georgia, have run through many constitutions. These whilom Slave States have not only changed greatly but changed suddenly: society was dislocated by the Civil War, and has had to make more than one effort to set itself right.

The total number of distinct constitutions adopted in 1776 or enacted in the several States since that year -the States being then 13 and now 38 in numberis 105; and to these constitutions 214 partial amendments have been at different times adopted.' The period since 1860 shows a somewhat greater frequency of change than the eighty-four years preceding; but that may be accounted for by the effects of the war on the Southern States. The average duration of a constitution has been estimated at thirty years, and ten have lasted more than sixty years. In this connection it must be remarked that both whole constitutions and particular amendments are frequently rejected by the people when submitted to them at the polls. This has befallen six draft constitutions and more than twentyeight amendments within the last ten years.2

Putting all these facts together, and bearing in mind to how large an extent the constitutions now, whether wisely or foolishly, embody ordinary private and ad

1 I take these figures from Dr. Hitchcock's Study of American State Constitutions, published in 1887, adding the last Constitution of Florida. Several Constitutions have been amended since 1886, but I am unable to give the exact number of amendments.

2 Macpherson's Handbook mentions 34 constitutional amendments as adopted in the two years from July 1884 to July 1886, and 4 as rejected.

ministrative law and therefore invite amendment, the American democracy seems less inclined to changefulness and inconstancy than either abstract considerations or the descriptions of previous writers, such as De Tocqueville, would have led us to expect. The respect for these fundamental instruments would no doubt be greater if the changes in them were even fewer, and the changes would be fewer if the respect were greater; but I see little reason to think that the evil is increasing.

A few more observations on what the Constitutions disclose are needed before I conclude this necessarily brief sketch of the most instructive sources for the history of popular government which our century has produced-documents whose clauses, while they attempt to solve the latest problems of democratic commonwealths, often recall the earliest efforts of our English forefathers to restrain the excesses of medieval tyranny.

The Constitutions witness to a singular distrust by the people of its own agents and officers, not only of the legislatures but also of local authorities, as well rural as urban, whose powers of borrowing or undertaking public works are strictly limited. Even the judges are in some States restrained in their authority to commit for contempt of court, and, while permitted to state the law, are generally forbidden to charge a jury upon the facts of a case.

They witness also to a jealousy of the Federal government. By most constitutions a Federal official is made incapable, not only of State office, but of being a member of a State legislature. These prohibitions are almost the only references to the National government to be found in the State constitutions, which so far as their terms go might belong to independent communities. They usually talk of corporations belonging to other

States as "foreign," and sometimes try to impose special burdens on them.

They show a wholesome anxiety to protect and safeguard private property in every way. The people's consciousness of sovereignty has not used the opportunity which the enactment of a constitution gives to override private rights: there is rather a desire to secure such rights from any encroachment by the legislature: witness the frequent provisions against the taking of property without due compensation, and against the passing of private or personal statutes which could unfairly affect individuals. The only exceptions to this rule are to be found in the case of anything approaching a monopoly, and in the case of wealthy corporations. But the "monopolist" is regarded as the enemy of the ordinary citizen, whom he oppresses; and the corporation-it is usually corporations that are monopolists—is deemed not a private person at all, but a sort of irresponsible tyrant whose resources enable him to overreach the law. Corporations are singled out for special taxation. Labour laws are enacted to apply to them only. A remarkable instance of this hostility to monopolies is to be found in the Constitution of Illinois of 1870, with its provisions anent grain elevators, warehouses, and railroads.1 Nor are the newer constitutions of other Western States, such as Wisconsin and Texas, less instructive in this respect.

The extension of the sphere of State interference, with the corresponding departure from the doctrine of laissez faire, is a question so large and so interesting as to require a chapter to itself. Here it may suffice to remark, that some departments of governmental action, which on the

1 See the remarkable group of cases beginning with Munn v. Illinois (commonly called the Granger Cases) in 94 U.S. Reports, p. 113.