2]fi 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[OCTOBKR, 1902. 



of laml, f()^'i>thor with a flock of shoop or a herd of cattle. 

 A Servian story of Sacher-Maaoch's sngfjests that such a 

 donation may soinctimes have been made as the dowry of 

 a dis(.'ardfc>d mistress. Varro adds (and the adililiori is 

 important): " bestow on him this boon; lie will be the 

 more firmly bound to your domain." This short reference 

 contains in summary the chief rules of medieval serfage. 

 The slave was allowed to live apart, to till the field that 

 had been assigned him. to tend his flock or herd. He 

 was still obliged to labour on his master's est«ite some 

 days in every week ; aud this provision differences Roman 

 serfage from Greek or German, but identifies it with 

 medieval serfage, and seems to prove the affiliation. The 

 rest of the time the slave, thus segregated from the trooj), 

 was his own master, he was to that extent a serf, no 

 longer a slave, bis plot was held by a tenure. 



The serf, whose humble beginnings we thus witness, 

 soon acquires a more defined status. The jurists of the 

 second and third cent\irles mentionthe slave who pays a 

 due to the proprietor, like a farmer. Ulpian even names 

 him a quasi-farmer. The jurist Paul signalises the slave 

 who tills land at his own risk, aud pays a rent fixed in 

 advance. Two other jurists speak of a "lease of land" 

 made to a slave. 



The status of the individual was not changed. He was 

 still legally a slave. He had no rights as against the 

 master ; the plot could at any time be resumed. At his 

 death the owner did resume it. The slave's children could 

 not inherit it. Nevertheless, the master found it to his 

 advantage to leave the slave in occupation of it ; he worked 

 harder on land that was almost his own, and it yielded a 

 larger return. When the slave died, it might be also to 

 the master's advantage to leave his family in possession of 

 it. The servile tenure would thus become permanent, and 

 almost hereditary. 



At the end of the third century a new step was taken. 

 A fresh roll of all throughout the empire who were liable 

 to pay the land-tax was compiled. Finding many slaves 

 settled on land, and residing in houses by themselves, the 

 enumerators enrolled them as servi ascripti — inscribed or 

 enrolled slaves — the manifest ancestors of the " serfs 

 ascribed to the glebe," or serfs of the soil, who bulk so 

 largely in the medieval rolls. To register them, though 

 it may have increased their burdens, was to make a legal 

 recognition of their status, and give them a title to the 

 occupation of their land. The law took another step : it 

 forbade a master to sell his slaves unless at the same time 

 he sold the land which they cultivated, nor could he sell 

 his land unless he sold his slaves along with it. A familv 

 of slaves was thus allowed to live for several generations oil 

 the land originally assigned to them ; insensibly they came 

 to be looked upon not as slaves of a master, but as serfs 

 of the soil. It was a great advance. The serf had a house 

 of his own and a family. He was almost a freeman, and 

 might well believe that he was one. 



Cultivators of this class doubtless received larce 

 accessions as the German immigrants crowded into Gaul. 

 Many also of the smaller proprietors and of the diminishing 

 number of free farmers may have been degraded to serfs. 

 But the change was one of degree ; there was no revolu- 

 tion. The new status had originated in Boman times, 

 and only developed as it expanded. 



2.— How two radically different social species may 

 branch out from a single stem is well illustrated by a cen- 

 tury's growth of the British and the American constitutions. 

 In the last quarter of the eighteenth century these two were 

 substantially alike. The constitution of the United States 

 is known to have been modelled on that of England, but 

 less, as it might have been observed, in its practical 

 working than as it was theoretically expounded. There 



were two visible differences, of no apparent magnitude, 

 and from these two small variations descend a whole host 

 of differences that have made the two constitutions as 

 mutually unlike as are the constitutions of Germany and 

 Russia. First, tiie American Executive and the Legisla- 

 ture were rigidly separated. This was partly intentional, 

 but it involved the absence of the Ministry from 

 the legislative chambers, and this was so far 

 from being designed that, after the constitution came 

 into operation, it was for some time delated whether 

 Ministers should be |)reseut in either House. It 

 was decided to exclude them, and the exclusion has 

 reacted eipially on the E.xecutive and the Legislature. 

 While the English Executive has gradually become the 

 nation acting, and the English Parliament has been slowly 

 transformed into the nation legislating, the Legislature 

 and the Executive in the United States have year by year 

 been drifting further away from identification with the 

 ]3eople. The realisation of abstractions has proved as 

 fatal in politics as in philosophy. The Executive acts 

 like an independent organ, and is sometimes (as under 

 Johnson") in flagrant opposition to the popular will, or (as 

 under Cleveland) in but partial sympathy with it. The 

 legislature has likewise developed along lines of its own. 

 Occult aud irresponsible standing committees have bit by 

 bit wrested from Congress the entire power of legislation. 

 In 1790, to obviate some j)ractical difficulties, the House 

 of Representatives assigned the nomination of these com- 

 mittees to the Speaker. This innocent-looking provision 

 made that functionary a true dictator, wielding a more 

 absolute authority than the Czar, while the committees 

 may be compared, for their secrecy and autocracy, to the 

 Venetian Council of Ten. A loyal American, Eugene 

 Schuyler, defines the government of his country as an 

 absolute and irresponsible despotism exercised, under the 

 mask of constitutional forms, by half-a-dozen individuals 

 — the President and two of his ministers, and the Speaker 

 and two chairmen of his nominee committees ; in fact, by 

 two individuals. 



Nor is this all ; a second original variation has been as 

 fruitful of consequences. The President of the Republic, 

 the counterpart of the King, had necessarily to be elected, 

 and the method of election gave rise to the nominating 

 convention. The establishment and growth of this con- 

 vention are held by so high an authority as E. L. Godkin 

 to " constitute the capital fact of modern democracy in 

 America." Yet there is no record of its origin. None of 

 the earlier or later writers on the constitution allude to it. 

 It was hidden from profound observers like Tocqueville. 

 It came without observation, and grew up in silence and 

 darkness. Its influence was masked in the forties and 

 fifties by the overpowering personalities of Webster, Clay, 

 and Calhoun, who seemed to thwart its behests, and were 

 yet, all of them, its victims During the excitement of 

 the anti-slavery conflict it was but the minister of the 

 popular will. After the war was over it rose into 

 prominence and power. Step by step, it laid an iron grasp 

 on all the machinery of government, and nominated the 

 President, Vice-President, and the federal legislators, the 

 governors and legislators and officers of the states. It 

 was itself then transformed, and, having been omnipotent, 

 it became impotent, surrendering its prerogatives to "the 

 machine," which abandons them to the boss. In most of 

 the states, and in all the larger cities, the boss is king. 

 Here is a second metamorphosis which, together with the 

 first, has made the working constitution radically different 

 from the constitution on pajjer, aud thus created a new 

 political species. 



3. — The modern newspaper had a twofold origin. It 

 was a continuation of the manuscript letters composed 



