bers of it, or that one community has the right to sit in judgment upon another community, may now be self-evident truths, but they are not those of the Declaration. The colonists had no quarrel with Great Britain upon the rights of man in the abstract, but upon the rights of contracting man and connected communities. The fourth self-evident proposition, whatever its inherent equity, cannot be self-evident, for the descendants of men who fought seven years to establish it, fought four years to overthrow it. Perhaps it was only self-evident against England, for the difference between your bull goring my ox and my buil goring your ox has not diminished since the days of Esop. The self-evident proposition now is, that communities politically connected, if they cannot agree, must separate peaceably, or fight, and if they fight, that God, as in the old wager of battle, must be assumed to have determined the right by the victory.

Before the Declaration, how far the human mind had been able to settle upon right and wrong was voiced by Hobbes: "The force of words being too weak to hold men to their covenants, there are in human nature but two imaginable helps to it. Either a fear of the consequences of breaking their word, or a glory or pride in appearing not to need to break it. The latter is a generosity too rarely found, to be presumed on, especially in the pursuers of wealth, command, or sensual pleasure, which are the greater part of mankind. But though men be never so willing to observe their covenants, there may questions arise concerning a man's action; first, whether it were done, or not done; secondly, if done, whether against the law or not; the former whereof is called a question of fact, the latter a question of right. Therefore, unless the parties to the question covenant mutually to stand to the sentence of another, they are as far from peace as ever. This other to whose sentence they submit, is called an arbitrator, and therefore it is a law of nature, that they that are at controversy submit their right to the judgment of an arbitrator. And seeing that every man is presumed to do all things in order to his benefit, no man is fit to be an arbitrator in his own cause; and if he were never so fit, yet equity allowing each party equal benefit, if one be admitted to judge, the other is to be admitted also; and so the controversy, that is, the cause of war, remains against the law of nature. For the same reason no man in any cause ought to be admitted for an arbitrator to whom greater profit or honor or pleasure apparently ariseth out of the victory of one party than of the other, for he hath taken, though an unavoidable bribe, yet a bribe, and no man can be obliged to trust him. And thus also the controversy, and the condition of war, remaineth contrary to the law of nature." The colonists went one step farther than Hobbes. They proclaimed that communities being by

received international law equal, in case of controversies which otherwise could only be settled by the sword, any contract between them must be considered canceled, as neither had any more claim to be right than the other, and the strain upon human nature is much greater to submit than not to command. They were compelled to that conclusion by the unbroken experience of the world, that the weak never attack the strong, nor the strong fail to attack the weak. Whatever their course of reasoning, they flattered themselves that they announced a fundamental principle in politics, a safeguard to liberty and a guarantee of peace and good-will among men. When the States met in convention to amend the articles of Confederation, the mind of the majority of men in all the States not only believed in the "self-evident truths" as an evangel of Liberty and Peace, but also that any unlimited government must sooner or later end in imbecility or blood, in addition that the greatest extent of individualism compatible with order, conduced above all other things to the welfare and elevation of mankind. Their French imitators, on the contrary, held individualism to be the monster evil of society, which must be crushed out, even if to effect that object France was made a grave-yard. It must not be forgotten, however, that there was in all the States a minority, not small in numbers and distinguished by great ability, which did not believe in the governmental practicability of the opinions of the majority. Mason wrote from the Convention, in which upon pecuniary considerations I would not serve for a thousand pounds a day": "When I first came here, judging from casual conversations with gentlemen from the different States, I was very apprehensive that, soured and disgusted with the unexpected evils we had experienced from the democratical principles of our governments, we should be apt to run into the opposite extreme, and in endeavoring to steer too far from Scylla, we might be drawn into the vortex of Charybdis, of which I still think there is some danger, though I have the pleasure to find in the Convention some men of fine republican principles." It was clear to the delegates that whatever plan they agreed on must be, or seem to be, in accord with the prevailing opinion to be accepted. That which after great care and much compromise they elaborated was simple and in one respect novel. Each State was represented in one branch of the Congress in proportion to population, numbers having thus a fair preponderance. In the other branch the States were equal. An Executive, to some degree a part of the Legislature, was selected by Statehood and numbers combined. Power was limited in the Federal organism by enumeration, in States by denial. The probability of the necessity of future amendment was recognized and provided for, and an arbitrator was supposed to have been

created. The working force of the Federal machine, being suffrage with duties and rights reciprocal throughout the Union, every State and every citizen had an equal ration of liberty and an equal ration of authority. If the "self-evident truths" of the Declaration were the recognized fundamental international law between the States, the one thing no man could deny in practice, even if he doubted their wisdom in theory, the basis of political morality to which the conscience of Americans instantly on appeal would respond, then the Constitution was indeed the best Federal Government ever formed, and the best government that ever existed. If otherwise, it was only one more of those paper systems where the design is separate from the execution. We have some information as to the thoughts and acts of the most intelligent and cultivated part of the human race, for twenty-five hundred years. Within that period the greatest men and greatest minds have been engaged in making and administering governments, and the most acute intellects have observed, criticised, praised or blamed their works. Within that time many systems have been generated, have grown and died, but there has never been discovered one where the paper limitations could balance the paper authority. The limitation must be supported by an equal physical power, or its equivalent, an universal public conscience. The veto of the Roman Tribune was gained by the movement of the Plebs to the Aventine Hill. It was maintained against denial by the certainty of a similar movement and the sacredness of the person of the Tribune, an injury to which made the offender an outlaw whom any one might kill, not only legally, but meritoriously. The limitation in that case was sustained by the equal physical force. The dissolution of the most excited Comitia upon the assertion by the magistrate holding the election, of an augury which forbade further action, is an example of the conscience power. Our Constitution is supreme over the man, but the voter is supreme over it and over the English language. Under it, the unjust in a minority are sure of their full share; in a majority, of more than their full share. The just in a majority can get no more than a full share, and in a minority may get less. Under any system which thus dispenses favor, men will not long pay a penalty for honesty. Human nature cannot withstand the temptation of such odds. The wonderful prudence of English politics is not due simply to the self-control of Englishmen, but to an universal dread of civil war, one week of which on English ground would produce disasters that would be felt from the Hoang-ho to the Mississippi and leave traces for a century." "Therefore, as we cannot, without the risk of evils from which the imagination recoils, employ physical force as a remedy for misgovernment, it is evidently our

wisdom to keep all the constitutional checks upon misgovernment in the highest state of efficiency, to watch with jealousy the first beginnings of encroachment, and never to suffer irregularities, even when harmless in themselves, to pass unchallenged, lest they acquire the force of precedents." Our practice has been the reverse of this; from the very beginning of the government a necessity for compromise was made, and we kept compromising until the opinion grew that some might insist on anything provided they would be satisfied with half, and that others ought to give up one-half of anything, if they were allowed to keep the other half. By an act of July 31, 1789, all dues and fees under it were to be "received in gold and silver only." A Secretary of the Treasury reported that he construed that act to mean the exclusion of the paper emissions of the States, but not to apply to treasury drafts nor to the bills of banks founded on a specie basis. He was not impeached nor rebuked. Indeed, for the first twelve years of our political existence government was administered in the spirit of that report. The men who formed the Constitution were not only men of strong natural parts, but were from their long debate with Great Britain learned in the science of politics. They appear to have been familiar with all the great writers on that subject, both of ancient and modern times. As neither a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy would be accepted by the States, there was only left to them a choice between two federal systems. In one of such systems all power is given which is not expressly denied, and in the other all power is denied which is not expressly given. As the interests of the States in groups were opposite, if not hostile, a just government could only extend to interests common to all. But for the then general acceptance of the "self-evident truths," any constitution that could have been proposed with any hope, or right of hope, of ratification, must have provided against those burning questions of usurpation of power and misuse of power which must arise in every government, an arbitrator free from " an unavoidable bribe, yet a bribe," as well as some means of compelling the obedience of the ballot-box, as well as of men to the decision. It has become the fashion of late years to assert that the law of causation, universal in all else, does not apply to politics; but legitimate conclusions sooner or later make themselves felt. War in 1861 was the logical outcome of the fallacy of 1776, and if there were any fallacies of opinion in 1861, they, in their fullness of time, will bear equally bitter fruit.

A. W. blason

THE ANCIENT RACES OF AMERICA

THEORIES AS TO THEIR ORIGIN

A number of Chinese coins were presented to the Philadelphia Numismatic and Antiquarian Society last year, reported in its proceedings to have been "found in a tumulus at Vancouver's Island on the Pacific Coast, supposed to be more than a thousand years old." This discovery was regarded with much interest by archæologists, as affording perhaps certain evidence of communication between the Chinese and the ancient inhabitants of the north-western coast of America; but, like other reported discoveries of that nature it has in the main proved a disappointment.

Upon careful examination by Chinese scholars, the coins were found to be "cash" of the Fung Wen dynasty, about A.D. 1434, and of the Kin Leng dynasty about 1664. The latter date, although prehistoric upon that coast, destroys the supposition of the great antiquity of the tumulus. The discovery however, establishes, probably more directly than other evidence, the fact of early relations between the north-west coast tribes and the inhabitants of Asia through Behrings Straits, the Aleutian Islands, or through wrecks or accidental voyages.

In a recent publication, Professor Winchell gives an elaborate description (with illustrations), of a copper relic, resembling a rude coin, taken from an artesian well boring in Marshall county, Illinois. That it came from a depth of at least eighty feet, in the alluvial soil, is singularly well attested by three witnesses. It is curiously inscribed with strange figures and hieroglyphics—giving it a genuine appearance, but undecipherable. It has passed the rounds of archæologists and scientists, however, with no satisfactory theory regarding its history or inscriptions or genuineness having been reached, and at present, whether genuine or an archæological fraud, it has no practical value. Haywood in his " Aboriginal History of Tennessee," published in 1823, devotes nearly a chapter to the consideration of a Roman coin (of Antoninus Pius, date about A.D. 150) alleged to have been found at a depth of several feet in the natural soil at Fayetteville, Tennessee; but his statement of facts is meager and unsatisfactory, and his observations regarding it are often so preposterous, that the intelligent reader soon loses faith in the genuineness and value of the discovery.

The origin of the ancient inhabitants of America, and of their semicivilization, suggested by such discoveries, continues to be one of the most interesting problems presented to the archæologist. It has had many solu