664 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



recent years the theory of constitution-makers has been that general 

 rules would suffice for the guidance of the patriots that represent the 

 people. But the creed of the Russian highwayman, who offers a 

 prayer before he commits a crime, could hardly be more impotent. 

 Then the theory was adopted that more specific directions would 

 possess a greater virtue. Accordingly, the inhibitions of a statute 

 rather than the principles of a charter became the dominant trait of 

 later constitutions. But all in vain. One has been as impotent as 

 the other. " No act," says the Constitution of Indiana, " shall take 

 effect until the same shall have been published and circulated in the 

 several counties in this State by authority, except in case of emer- 

 gency, which emergency shall be declared in the preamble or the 

 body of the law." Still, out of two hundred laws passed at one 

 session of the legislature, more than two thirds of them contained 

 the lying declaration that " whereas an emergency exists for the 

 immediate taking effect of this act, it shall therefore be in force from 

 and after its passage." " The General Assembly," says the Constitu- 

 tion of Ohio, repeating a provision common to the Constitutions of 

 other States, " shall pass no special act conferring corporate powers." 

 Yet, of the laws of a single session, fifty were in violation of this pro- 

 vision. A similar provision exists in the Constitution of Tennessee. 

 But only thirty-five of the two hundred and sixty-five acts passed at 

 one session omitted the flagrant falsehood that the " public welfare " 

 required their immediate enforcement. One of these laws so essen- 

 tial to the " public welfare " provided only for the change of the line 

 of a lot. " No county, city, town, or village," says the new Constitu- 

 tion of New York, " shall hereafter give any money or property, or 

 loan its money or credit, to or in aid of any individual, or association, 

 or corporation." To such an extent has this important restriction 

 been disregarded that in one year alone over three million dollars of 

 public funds were put into the hands of private charities. Clergy- 

 men and philanthropists even defended the shameless evasion, and 

 the consequent plunder of taxpayers, in the name of humanity. 



" Can we believe," said De Tocqueville, grasping sixty years ago 

 the melancholy significance of this want of deference to the most 

 solemn obligations that can be put upon people that govern them- 

 selves, " that democracy, which has destroyed the feudal system, will 

 respect the rights of the citizen and capitalist? Will it stop now that 

 it has grown so strong and its adversaries so weak? " If there is 

 little in its contempt for written constitutions to warrant a cheer- 

 ful answer, there is still less in the most cursory analysis of its State 

 and Territorial legislation. " Statutes have been passed," said Mr. 

 James M. Woolworth before the American Bar Association, giving 

 a glimpse of the character of this legislation, " which have usurped a 



