James W. Garner

Limitations on National Sovereignty in International Relations.

Among the traditional political conceptions which in recent years have become the object of almost irreverent attack, is that which ascribes the quality of absolutism to that often elusive, but ever present, double-faced creation of the jurists which bears the name of sovereignty. Text-writers, sometimes in unqualified terms, still persist in claiming for it the unrestricted supremacy which was attributed to it in an age when its wielders everywhere were absolute monarchs; but an increasing number, less influenced by legal theories than by realities, see in it only the “ghost of personal monarchy,” as Hobbes characterized it, “sitting crowned on the grave thereof.” On the one side the attack is directed by a new school of political writers, who deny its very existence or maintain that it is not an essential constituent attribute of the state. According to them, the notion is useless if not fallacious; the theory is discredited by the facts of modern state life and the term should be abandoned and expunged from the literature of political science.

Primary vs. Representative Government

The newer institutional formsof democracy—the referendum in its various forms, the initiative, proportional representation, the recall, popular election of United States senators, direct primaries for the nomination of candidates—all indicate the growing self-consciousness of the masses and the demand for a more direct participation in government than the pure representative system allows. Secretary Roots recent declaration that the whole civilized world is swinging away from its old governmental moorings and entrusting the fate of its civilization to the capacity of the popular mass to govern is a statement the truth of which needs no proof for its establishment. Still others whose opinions are entitled to consideration are telling us that the representative system after a century of existence under a very extended suffrage has failed to satisfy the expectations of its early promoters and is likely to make way in its turn for the more direct action of the people on the most important questions of government. Certain it is that the character of representative government is undergoing fundamental changes not only through the operation of the forms of democracy mentioned above, but also through the new conception of the relation of the representative to his constituency. The earlier conception attributed to the representative full independence of judgment and action, the right to interpret the common need and the common consciousness free from duress either upon his intellect or his conscience. Edmund Burke expressed the old view when he declared that the representative owed his constituent both industry and judgment and when he sacrified those to the opinion of the constituent, he betrayed rather than served him. But the new view regards the representative in a very different light. He is no longer free to interpret and register the popular will as his conscience and better judgment dictate, but the general consciousness is interpreted for him and he is expected to obey the popular mandate.

Amendment of State Constitutions.

The right of the people, acting within the bounds of the law and through organs constituted in conformity with the prescriptions of the existing constitution, to alter, amend, or abolish their form of government whenever they deem it necessary to their safety and happiness is, in effect, declared by practically every American bill of rights to be not only fundamental but inalienable and indefeasible. The phraseology differs in some of them but the substance is the same in all. Without such a right the mistakes and errors of the past could not be eliminated from the body politic nor the accumulated wisdom and experience of other States utilized. Without it, the fundamental maxim that constitutions grow instead of being made would be meaningless and political development impossible. An acute thinker has well observed that no constitution can expect to be permanent unless it guarantees progress as well as order.1 Political conservatism is a virtue too often trampled upon by statesmen, but it has its limits, and, in its exaggerated form, becomes a source of revolution. The amending power has been aptly compared to a safety valve which ought to be so adjusted as not to discharge its peculiar function with too great facility lest it become an escape pipe for party passion and political prejudice, nor with such difficulty that the force needed to induce action will explode the machine.2 That is, it

Judicial Control of Administrative and Legislative Acts in France.

In recent years there has been an interesting and very remarkable extension of judicial control over the acts of the administrative authorities in France. The doctrine of recourse in annulment for excess of power, in particular, has undergone such an extraordinary development that it is probably safe to say that there is now no other country where private rights are better protected against arbitrary and illegal acts of public officers. It is an interesting fact also that this protection has not been created by legislation but is mainly the work of the council of state, and, to a less degree, of the court of cassation, the two supreme judicial tribunals of France. The solicitude which the council of state, especially, has shown for the protection of individual rights and the independence which it has exhibited as over against the government by whom the councillors of state are appointed and by whom they may be removed at pleasure is a sufficient answer to the criticism of those English and American writers who assert that the French administrative courts are the docile and servile instruments of the government, and that in controversies between the administration and private individuals their decisions are generally in favor of the administration.

New Politics for the South

a single party whose sway for the most part has been absolute and undisputed. During this time the southern white people have exhibited little difference of opinion on the great political issues that have divided the people of the rest of the country though of course they differ widely among themselves on religious, educational and other questions. This unnatural condition of political sentiment, however, has not always existed in the South. In the old days before the civil war when the South held the leadership in national affairs, the white people were pretty evenly divided among themselves on all political questions upon which a natural difference of opinion was possible. In every southern state there was a Democratic and a Whig party and each rivaled the other in numbers of adherents and respectability of character, sometimes one and sometimes the other holding the reins

The Northern Securities Case

of transportation problems and constitutional law. The recent decision of the Supreme Court which restrains the company from carrying out its real purposes is generally regarded as one of the most important ever pronounced by that august tribunal. Opinions differ widely, however, as to the merits of the decision; some have gone so far as to say that it means more to the people of the United States than any other event which has happened since the Civil War ;’ others assert with equal confidence that a more iniquitous decree was never made by a court.2 2 In this article an effort will be made to review the steps leading up to the organization of this remarkable corporation, the purposes for which it was formed, the various legal prosecutions which it underwent, the decision of the Supreme Court in its various bearings, and the perplexing question of readjustment following the decision.

Cabinet Government in France.

The general opinion among English and American political writers is that the French system of cabinet government is very nearly a regime of “parliamentary anarchy.” In recent years it has also been the object of severe attack by many French scholars, notably by Professors Duguit, Moreau, Barthelemy and Faguet, and by public men like Charles Benoist, Raymond Poincare and others, who assert that while the cabinet system has been established by law, it does not exist in fact, but in its place is to be found a poor imitation of the true cabinet sytem of England, upon which that of France was supposed to have been modeled. One undoubted reason why cabinet government in France has not worked smoothly is to be found in the fact that it is not an indigenous institution. It was transplanted from the country of its origin where it had taken deep root and had developed to a high state of efficiency through a long process of evolution, and was suddenly introduced into one where the historical traditions, political habits and mental aptitudes of the people were very unlike those of the English.

Reviews : The Police Power. Public Power and Constitutional Rights. By ERNST FREUND, Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Law in the University of Chicago. Pp. xcii, 819. Price,

zone are treated with far less detail, rather too much so as compared with the treatment of the domestic Territories, it seems to the reviewer. No one can read Mr. Thomas’ monograph and escape the conviction that the American doctrine of the supremacy of the civil over the military power must be accepted in a restricted sense and that there are unmistakable signs of a growing tendency to depart from old traditions.

6,00. Chicago: Callaghan & Co. 1904:

for the ’*cession of Louisiana alone&dquo; (page 31)? Is he rightly called the &dquo;second great expansionist whom history has given us&dquo;? Many readers will not concur &dquo;in the historical fact of the discovery of the Texas region by La Salle in the year 1682&dquo; (page 113). His statement that &dquo;it was undeniable that the revolt of the Mexican province of Texas had its inception in the action of the Mexican republic in abolishing slavery&dquo; (page 128) is one that will readily be questioner and justly so. Throughout his discussion of the annexation of Texas he follows too closely the old idea that slavery was the &dquo;true&dquo; cause of the Texas movement, and utterly ignores the fundamental factors of racial differences and insurrectionary movements in Mexico. Even John Quincy Adams recognized the strength of the latter element, and one need spend but a few hours in such a collection as the BjxaiArchives to realize the strength of the former. It may seem too fine a point to object to the word &dquo;city&dquo; as applied to Guadalupe Hidalgo, but there seems no reason for the numerous typographical and other mistakes in dates, with which the book is so liberally sprinkled, as to render it tedious to note them. It is not at all surprising that our author devotes some six pages of his chapter on &dquo;Oregon&dquo; to a vivid statement of Whitman’s famous ride and its supposed results. He is not in the least deterred by recent &dquo;iconoclastic attempts&dquo; to relegate the story &dquo;to the realm of fable,&dquo; but even imparts an air of reality to his version by reporting a conversation between Webster and Dr. Whitman. His final chapters are rightly brief, but with an occasional attempt at picturesque writing that distorts the true historic perspective. Many of the descriptive passages of the book are spirited and interesting. but the serious fault of a lack of complete preparation for the task, coupled with carelessness in statement and inaccuracies in dates, renders the work much less helpful than it should be. The volume contains a map as a frontis-