ought to be controlled by other principles." Finally, let me quote the words of a very recent publication, which is from the pen of the chief of Sherman's staff, of a man therefore who cannot be supposed insane. "How can there be justification for revolution under a government where there is universal suffrage? For my part, I would rather say, how is it possible that thoughtful men should so long have tolerated a system which is at the same time so oppressive and so extremely stupid?"
We must bear in mind the one decisive contrast between Europe and America, that there society is cut adrift from the traditions and influence of an ancient civilisation. The nations of Western Europe are so bound to each other by their origin, by their close intercourse, and the similarity of social interests and character, that a comprehensive public opinion extends over their boundaries, and sustains in each the habits, ideas, and constitutions which are common to all. The protest of European opinion would react powerfully in favour of those habits and ideas against any European State that should reject them. But Americans enjoy no such protecting influences, and nothing is safe that is not supported by popular favour. The ideas of past generations and of civilised contemporaries are not permitted to share or to limit the absolute authority of the present moment. The revolutionary principle which Jefferson introduced cuts them off from one as completely as the Atlantic separates them from the other. The voice of European civilisation, and the voice of the past alike, come to them from another world. History is filled with records of resistance provoked by the abuse of power. But whereas in the old world the people produce the remedy, in America they produce the cause of the disease. There is no appeal from the people to itself. After having been taught for years that its will ought to be law, it cannot learn the lesson of self-denial and renounce the exercise of the power it has enjoyed. Therefore it has been laid down by political writers as a universal rule that a degenerate republicanism terminates in the
