Education the Guardian of Public Safety state was made before a system of public schools, supported by public taxation, had been adopted in any American commonwealth. Webster to the end of his life showed the effect of social conditions which prevailed in America in his earlier years. Then it was commonly believed that political privileges could safely be intrusted only to those who proved themselves worthy by possessing property, usually realty, and by professing belief in a religious creed. Property and religious qualifications were thought to be the guardians of public safety. The elector, therefore, was required to comply with them, and the elected not only to profess his belief in a prescribed creed, whether fixed by law or by public opinion, but also to possess a greater amount of property than that required of the elector. Since Webster's time, public opinion has changed, and in place of property and religious qualifications it has substituted manhood suffrage. Webster's grouping of the principles on which government in America is founded differs in language rather than in thought from doctrines made familiar to the world largely through the instrumentality of Thomas Jefferson and his disciples-the social compact, the equality of man, the right of revolution. Neither science nor experience sanctions the doctrine of the equality of man; yet this unscientific and a priori idea must unhesitatingly be accepted as one of the paramount forces in American democracy. It is a doctrine which depends for its significance largely upon popular enthusiasm. Yet so effective has it racy sets forth at the time when, colonialism having been transformed into continentalism, continentalism was again transformed into nationality. Little is heard in our day of that favorite device of American statesmen of the eighteenth century: the device of checks and balances. And chiefly for this reason: that the test of government in our time is its administration, not its theory. A history of the development of constitutional government in America is a history of political theories, political principles, and political administration. If democracy as a form of government is worthy of the support of mankind, it must rest upon political principles, and the history of the interpretation and application of these principles will be the history of the evolution of popular government. Although our constitutional history apparently involves elaborate analysis of many laws and constitutions, yet the principles upon which our political institutions are founded are few. I know of no better formulation of these principles than that made by Webster.* Popular government rests on the basis of representation; the will of the majority is the force of law; the law is the supreme rule in the government of all; the supreme law is declared in written constitutions; public education is the diffusion of true morality. Webster's inclusion of education as a paramount factor in the * Address at the laying of the corner-stone of the addition to the Capitol, July 4, 1851. See also Plymouth oration, December 20, 1820; Bunker Hill oration, June 17, 1843; and argument in Luther vs. Borden, January 27, 1848. Education the Guardian of Public Safety state was made before a system of public schools, supported by public taxation, had been adopted in any American commonwealth. Webster to the end of his life showed the effect of social conditions which prevailed in America in his earlier years. Then it was commonly believed that political privileges could safely be intrusted only to those who proved themselves worthy by possessing property, usually realty, and by professing belief in a religious creed. Property and religious qualifications were thought to be the guardians of public safety. The elector, therefore, was required to comply with them, and the elected not only to profess his belief in a prescribed creed, whether fixed by law or by public opinion, but also to possess a greater amount of property than that required of the elector. Since Webster's time, public opinion has changed, and in place of property and religious qualifications it has substituted manhood suffrage. Webster's grouping of the principles on which government in America is founded differs in language rather than in thought from doctrines made familiar to the world largely through the instrumentality of Thomas Jefferson and his disciples-the social compact, the equality of man, the right of revolution. Neither science nor experience sanctions the doctrine of the equality of man; yet this unscientific and a priori idea must unhesitatingly be accepted as one of the paramount forces in American democracy. It is a doctrine which depends for its significance largely upon popular enthusiasm. Yet so effective has it proved in practical administration that it must be recognized as a permanent element in the evolution of our civil institutions. Because of this doctrine the full significance of the transition from a military to a civil basis in government in America may be measured. be measured. And undoubtedly because of this doctrine there will be measured hereafter the true meaning of the transition now going on from a military to an industrial type of society. During the seventeenth century the colonists. worked out, perhaps unconsciously, a practical definition of many civil rights of man. Yet several of these rights were to be worked out at a later day: as the right of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and exemptions from unwarrantable searches and seizures. The period of this evolution may be said to terminate with the closing years of the seventeenth century, and the year 1689 may be named as the time when this phase of the evolution of American democracy closed. With the opening of the eighteenth century popular government, though as yet latent in the bud, rapidly evolved in measures of administration, both colonial and imperial, until at length antagonistic interpretations of civil administration precipitated the American Revolution. That Revolution, which gave us our independence as a nation, was not fought to prove a theory. Rather was it the natural, though painful, conclusion of many matters which had long been in civil litigation. It was a revolution which affected England Expansion of the Principles of the Revolution quite as much as America: for the resolution of civil affairs after 1776 was more liberal throughout the entire English-speaking world. It was a deadly blow to feudalism, and particularly to that cruel form of feudalism, the mercantile theory. At first reading the Revolution seems to have been a blow struck against the Crown. It was, indeed, a blow, and the Crown typified the object against which it was levelled, but the type was tyrannical industrially quite as much as politically. It must not be forgotten that government is a natural product. It is a phase of the evolu tion of civilization. When events have resolved themselves into historical perspective the truth of this is evident. Our fathers builded wiser than they knew, for they builded for all time. They who build in harmony with the natural development of civil institutions are building just as wisely. Each generation thinks itself face to face with a crisis, but the crisis passes away, leaving many of the old problems still unsolved. The literature of America at the time of the Revolution of 1776 is a literature of reason and expostulation. It is a literature whose content is the accumulated wisdom of man. It is composite, comprehensive, and prophetic. Yet the true character of the democracy of the eighteenth century is probably clearer to us now than to those who lived then. Political enfranchisement was practically concentrated in the closing years of the eighteenth century, and it signified a reorganization of the state rather than any discovery or in |