system. But because there is scum upon the surface of a boiling liquid, it does not follow that the material, nor the process to which it is subjected, is itself bad. Universal suffrage, as it exists in the United States, is not only a great element of safety in the present day and generation, but is perhaps the mightiest educational force to which the masses of men ever have been exposed. In a country where wealth has no hereditary sense of obligation to its neighbours, it is hard to conceive what would be the condition of society if universal suffrage did not compel every one having property to consider, to some extent at least, the well-being of the whole community.

It is probable that no other system of government would have been able to cope any more successfully, on the whole, with the actual conditions that American cities have been compelled to face. It may be claimed for American institutions even in cities, that they lend themselves with wonderfully little friction to growth and development and to the peaceful assimilation of new and strange populations. Whatever defects have marked the progress of such cities, no one acquainted with their history will deny that since their problem assumed its present aspect, progress has been made, and substantial progress, from decade to decade. The problem will never be anything but a most difficult one, but with all its difficulties there is every reason to be hopeful.

APPENDIX

NOTE TO CHAPTER III

ON CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTIONS

IN America it is always by a convention (i.e. a representative body called together for some occasional or temporary purpose) that a constitution is framed. It was thus that the first constitutions for the thirteen revolting colonies were drawn up and enacted in 1776 and the years following; and as early as 1780 the same plan had suggested itself as the right one for framing a constitution for the whole United States.1 Recognized in the Federal Constitution (Art. v.) and in the successive Constitutions of the several States as the proper method to be employed when a new constitution is to be prepared, or an existing constitution revised throughout, it has now become a regular and familiar part of the machinery of American government, almost a necessary part, because all American legislatures are limited by a fundamental law, and therefore when a fundamental law is to be repealed or largely recast, it is desirable to provide for the purpose a body distinct from the ordinary legislature. Where it is sought only to change the existing fundamental law in a few specified points, the function of proposing these changes to the people for their acceptance may safely be left, and generally is left, to the legislature. Originally a convention was conceived of as a sovereign body, wherein the full powers of the people were vested by popular election. It is now, however, merely an advisory body, which prepares a draft of a new constitution and submits it to the people for their acceptance or rejection. And it is not deemed to be sovereign in the sense of possessing the plenary authority of the people, for its powers may be, indeed now invariably are, limited by the statute under which the people elect it.2

Questions relating to the powers of a Constitutional Convention have several times come before the courts, so that there exists a small body of law as well as a large body of custom and practice regarding the rights and powers of such

1 It is found in a private letter of Alexander Hamilton (then only twenty-three years of age) of that year.

2 The State Conventions which carried, or rather affected to carry, the seceding Slave States out of the Union, acted as sovereign bodies. Their proceedings, how ever, though clothed with legal forms, were practically revolutionary.

assemblies. Into this law and practice I do not propose to enter. But it is worth while to indicate certain advantages which have been found to attach to the method of entrusting the preparation of a fundamental instrument of government to a body of men specially chosen for the purpose instead of to the ordinary legislature. The topic suggests interesting comparisons with the experience of France and other European countries in which constitutions have been drafted and enacted by the legislative, which has been sometimes also practically the executive, authority. Nor is it wholly without bearing on problems which have recently arisen in England, where Parliament has found itself, and may find itself again, invited to enact what would be in substance a new constitution for a part of the United Kingdom.

An American Constitutional Convention, being chosen for the sole purpose of drafting a constitution, and having nothing to do with the ordinary administration of government, no influence or patronage, no power to raise or appropriate revenue, no opportunity of doing jobs for individuals or corporations, is not necessarily elected on party lines or in obedience to party considerations. Such considerations do affect the election, but they are not always dominant, and may sometimes be of little moment. Hence men who have no claims on a party, or will not pledge themselves to a party, may be and often are elected; while men who seek to enter a legislature for the sake of party advancement or the promotion of some gainful object do not generally care to serve in a convention.

When the convention meets, it is not, like a legislature, a body strictly organized by party. A sense of individual independence and freedom may prevail unknown in legislatures. Proposals have therefore a chance of being considered on their merits. A scheme does not necessarily command the support of one set of men nor encounter the hostility of another set because it proceeds from a leader or a group belonging to a particular party. And as the ordinary party questions do not come up for decision while its deliberations are going on, men are not thrown back on their usual party affiliations, nor are their passions roused by exciting political issues.

Having no work but constitution-making to consider, a convention is free to bend its whole mind to that work. Debate has less tendency to stray off to irrelevant matters. Business advances because there are no such interruptions as a legislature charged with the ordinary business of government must expect.

Since a convention assembles for one purpose only, and that a purpose specially interesting to thoughtful and public-spirited citizens, and since its duration is short, men who would not care to enter a legislature, men pressed by professional labours, or averse to the "rough and tumble" of politics, a

1 See the learned and judicious treatise of Judge Jameson on Constitutional Conventions.

2 It will be shown in the account of the legislatures and political parties of the States (in Vol. II. post) that the questions of practical importance to the States with which a State Convention would deal are very often not in issue between the two State parties, seeing that the latter are formed on national lines.

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class large in America and increasing in Europe, are glad to serve on it, while mere jobbers or office-seekers find little to attract them in its functions.1

The fact that the constitution when drafted has to be submitted to the people, by whose authority it will (if accepted) be enacted, gives to the convention a somewhat larger freedom for proposing what they think best than a legislature, courting or fearing its constituents, commonly allows itself. As the convention vanishes altogether when its work is accomplished, the ordinary motives for popularity-hunting are less potent. As it does not legislate but merely proposes, it need not fear to ask the people to enact what may offend certain persons or classes, for the odium, if any, of harassing these classes will rest with the people. And as the people must accept or reject the draft en bloc (unless in the rare case where provision is made for voting on particular points separately), more care is taken in preparing the draft, in seeing that it is free from errors or repugnances, than a legislature capable of repealing or altering in its next session what it now provides, is likely to bestow on the details of its measures.

Those who are familar with European parliaments may conceive that as a set-off to these advantages there will be a difficulty in getting a number of men not organized by parties to work promptly and efficiently, that a convention will be, so to speak, an amorphous body, that if it has no leaders nor party allegiance it will divide one way to-day and another way to-morrow, that the abundance of able men will mean an abundance of doctrinaire proposals and a reluctance to subordinate individual prepossessions to practical success. Admitting that such difficulties do sometimes arise, it may be ob served that in America men quickly organize themselves for any and every purpose, and that doctrinairism is there so uncommon a fault as to be almost a merit. When a complete new constitution is to be prepared, the balance of convenience is decidedly in favour of giving the work to a convention, for although conventions are sometimes unwise, they are usually composed of far abler men than those who fill the legislatures, and discharge their function with more wisdom as well as with more virtue. But where it is not desired to revise the whole frame of government, the simpler and better plan is to proceed by submitting to the people specific amendments, limited to particular provisions of the existing constitution; and this is the method now most generally employed in improving State constitutions.

The above remarks are of course chiefly based on the history of State conventions, because no national constitutional convention has sat since 1787.9

1 Many of the men conspicuous in the public life of Massachusetts during the last thirty years first made their mark in the Constitutional Convention of 1853. The draft framed by that Convention was, however, rejected by the people. The new Constitution for New York, framed by the Convention of 1867, was also lost at the polls. That Convention was remarkable as being (according to Judge Jameson) the only one in which the requirement that a delegate must be resident in the district electing him was dispensed with (Constit. Conventions, § 267).

2 All the amendments made in the Federal Constitution have been drafted by Congress. See as to these amendments, Chapter XXXII.

But they apply in principle to any constitution-making body. As regards the Convention of 1787, two observations may be made before I quit the subject.

It included nearly all the best intellect and the ripest political experience that the United States then contained. John Adams was absent as Minister to England, Thomas Jefferson as Minister to France. But of the other shining lights of the time, Jay (afterwards first Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court) and John Marshall (afterwards third Chief-Justice, but not yet famous), were almost the only two who did not join in this national work. These men, great by their talents and the memory of their services, could not have been brought together for any smaller occasion, nor would any lower authority than theirs have sufficed to procure the acceptance of a plan which had so much prejudice arrayed against it.1

The Convention met at the most fortunate moment in American history. Between two storms there is often a perfectly still and bright day. It was in such an interval of calm that this work was carried through. Had it been attempted four years earlier or four years later, at both which times the waves of democracy were running high, it must have failed. In 1783 the people, flushed with their victory over England, were full of confidence in themselves and in liberty, persuaded that the world was at their feet, disposed to think all authority tyranny. In 1791 their fervid sympathy with the Revolution in France had not yet been damped by the excesses of the Terror nor alienated by the insolence of the French government and its diplomatic agents in America. But in 1787 the first reaction from the War of Independence had set in. Wise men had come to discern the weak side of popular government; and the people themselves were in a comparatively humble and teachable mind. Before the next wave of democratic enthusiasm swept over the country the organization of a national government under the Constitution was in all its main features complete. It was seen that liberty was still safe, and men began ere long to appreciate the larger and fuller national life which the Federal Government opened before them. History sees so many golden opportunities lost that she gladly notes those which the patriotic foresight of such men as Washington and Franklin, Hamilton and Madison and Roger Sherman seized and used.

1 It is remarkable that two of the strongest men in the Convention were, as not being native Americans, far less influenced than most of their colleagues by local and State feeling, and therefore threw the whole weight of their intellect and influence into the national scale. These were Alexander Hamilton, born a West Indian, the son of a Scotch father and French mother, and James Wilson, an immigrant from Scotland. The speeches of the latter (a lawyer in Philadelphia, and afterwards a justice of the Supreme Federal Court) in the Pennsylvania ratifying Convention, as well as in the great Convention of 1787, display an amplitude and profundity of view in matters of constitutional theory which place him in the front rank of the political thinkers of his age. Wilson, who was born about 1742 and died in 1792, is one of the luminaries of the time to whom, as to the still greater and far more brilliant Hamilton, subsequent generations of Americans have failed to do full justice.