Oberholtzcr : The Referoidiim in Avierica 583 of government ; that it is refreshing to take up a work like Mr. Ober- holtzer's, which aims, not at urging a panacea, but at describing the progress actually made by a novel institution. Novel it may fairly be called, although the use of the popular vote in legislation is by no means new in America. It may be traced to the first adoption of state con- stitutions in the eighteenth century, and has undergone, as the author points out, a steady and normal development quite apart from foreign in- fluences ; yet the movement has received a great impetus of late years by a conscious imitation of Swiss examples. For this very reason Mr. Oberholtzer's book, while in one sense a new edition of his monograph published in 1S93, contains a great deal that has occurred in the interval, and has, in fact, as he tells us, been entirely rewritten. The first two chapters are devoted to a study of the struggle in the state of Pennsylvania between the French conception of democracy em- bodied in a single chamber, which was advocated by Franklin, and John Adams's ideas of popular government limited by checks and balances. The story as told is both interesting and in itself valuable, and we should be sorry not to have it, but one must admit that its relation to the rest of the book is not very close. In the third chapter the author enters upon his real subject, with an account of the extension of the functions of the state constitutional con- vention at the expense of the legislature. He next proceeds to describe the submission of constitutions for ratification to popular vote, a prac- tice which, after having become to all appearance a universal and settled custom, was discarded by the Southern states, first during the period of secession and reconstruction, and again during the last few years for the purpose mainly of disfranchising the negroes. Mr. Oberholtzer follows with careful discrimination the operation of the popular vote in the amendment of constitutions, and then traces its use in general legislation of various kinds up to the complete adoption of the Referendum and Initiative in the Swiss form by South Dakota, in 1S98. He points out that while the practice of giving the legislature constitutional authority to submit laws to the people of the state has in- creased, the courts have tended to decide that without such authority the submission cannot be made. On the other hand the courts have tended no less strongly to uphold the right of the legislature without constitu- tional permission, to make the local application of a law depend upon the vote of the people of the locality. Although the opinions of the judges are not always clear or consistent, the real legal reason for this distinction is simple. The objection to a general Referendum without constitutional sanction is based on the principle that the legislature has no right to delegate to anyone else the powers entrusted to it ; but it is always authorized, specifically or by implication, to delegate local govern- ment to local bodies, and it is as well justified in making the delegation to the people of a town as to the mayor or council. The instances of the submission of local matters, or the local appli- cation of general laws, to local popular vote, are manifold, and Mr.
