HISTORY-MAKING FORCES 351 



way. Forms of government may be radically changed, but the align- 

 ment of classes, subordination, legal traditions, religious, ethical and 

 social ideals still remain inevitably to nullify or to modify the results 

 of the newly-made structure of government. 



The French Eevolution is the classic example of a political revolu- 

 tion. Yet the French Eevolution led directly to Napoleon. Absolutism 

 was not immediately abolished by the downfall of Louis XVI. For the 

 stable despotism of the Bourbon ruler was substituted the unstable and 

 constantly changing absolutism of the assembly and the directory and 

 finally of Napoleon. The Eeign of Terror was simply the use of direct 

 and primitive methods of maintaining control over the masses and of 

 overriding opposition. Kings, supported by hereditary prestige and 

 crystallized legal and constitutional forms, did not need to use, except 

 occasionally, the crude method of wholesale legal assassination in order 

 to maintain order and subordination. But the newly organized govern- 

 ment with its devoted band of untried dictators, unsupported by the 

 trappings and the legal and constitutional mummery, were quickly 

 driven by necessity to the use of the guillotine. An immediate change 

 from absolutism to republicanism was a governmental impossibility. 

 The French Eevolution was in effect the spectacular part of a gradual 

 process of social change which greatly modified political conditions in 

 France. A similar conclusion may be drawn from the English revolu- 

 tions of 1642 and 1688, or from the American revolution. 



Nevertheless, governmental structures may retard or modify the 

 course of social change. A written constitution is a crystallization of 

 an outgrown balance of social forces ; but it may disturb the balance of 

 forces in the present era. It adds to the strength of one element, and 

 places obstacles in the path of another. Environmental conditions, the 

 mixture of races and nationalities, social customs, tradition, religious 

 ideals and inherited ethical principles may do likewise. 



The course of historical events in America furnishes a very interest- 

 ing and instructive study in social physics. The alignment of social 

 forces in American history presents certain well-marked peculiarities. 



(1) The importance of the frontier element in our history is perhaps 

 unparalleled. The history of the United States down to recent times 

 has been warped and twisted by the presence of an ever-moving frontier 

 line which has visibly reflected its ideals and views of government back 

 into the legislation and the social composition of the entire country. 



(2) The absence of a royal or noble class based upon hereditary privi- 

 lege must not be overlooked. (3) Negro slavery produced dangerous 

 sectional antagonism which led directly to the civil war. The presence 

 of the negro furnishes a very different problem for the American legis- 

 lator and social scientist of to-day. (4) The continued influx of a large 

 -and diverse immigrant class has exercised and is still exercising a 



