596 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 



problems now confronting the European states. It will cost some 

 effort to educate the European peoples up to an appreciation of this 

 idea. How far they are away from it may be indicated from the fact 

 that when they immigrate into these United States, because this is 

 a " free country," as they say, they almost always do what they can, 

 when they do anything, to obliterate that great distinction between 

 individual immunity and general welfare, justice, and policy, upon 

 which, more than upon anything else, American liberty rests. The 

 doctrine of the labor unions, which are predominantly European, 

 both in their composition and tendencies, that an individual shall 

 not be allowed to work upon such terms as he may be able and 

 willing to make, because, in the conception of the majority of some 

 labor union, or as for that, of all labor unions, it may be detrimental 

 to their general welfare, is a good example of the profound ignorance 

 on their part of this great American distinction and principle. Diffi- 

 cult, however, as it may be to instill the idea of this distinction into 

 the European mind, still I am fully persuaded that the attainment 

 by the European peoples of real constitutional government de- 

 pends upon it. The alternative to it is, in the long run, legislative 

 absolutism. 



While I hold up the constitution of the United States as the 

 model in this respect, yet I do not pretend that this model is entirely 

 perfect. Two great problems have confronted the American practice 

 during the last fifty years, neither of which has been satisfactorily 

 solved, and I am afraid will not be so solved without further con- 

 stitutional amendment. 



The first has been produced by the contention concerning the 

 meaning of the 13th and 14th amendments, which, with the 15th, 

 make up the constitutional product of the Civil War. There is not 

 much doubt that the intention of the framers of these amendments 

 was to place the entire domain of civil liberty, individual immunity, 

 under the protection of the United States authorities, and to vest 

 the national judiciary with power to prevent encroachments thereon, 

 not only when proceeding from the government of the United States 

 and the governments of the states, but also when proceeding from 

 combinations of individuals within the states. The Supreme Court 

 of the United States has, however, held that these amendments did 

 not extend the protecting power of the national authorities over this 

 sphere to any such degree, but left the original control of the states 

 over this domain unimpaired, except upon the specific points with- 

 drawn by these amendments from that control, and that the national 

 judiciary can protect the individual immunity provided in the 14th 

 amendment only against encroachments attempted by the states, 

 but not against those attempted by individuals or combinations of 

 individuals within the states. 



