CHAPTER IX 

 Conclusion 



In the last analysis every government, from republic to 

 absolute monarchy should depend for its existence upon 

 the principle of popular consent. The ease or difficulty 

 with which an existing form of government may be changed, 

 or its acts controlled, are proportionate to the facilities or 

 restrictions governing the manifestation of popular consent 

 or disapproval. 



Our earliest knowledge of the Germanic tribes testifies 

 to the existence of a system which provides for the granting 

 or withholding of popular consent in all important matters 

 affecting the life and welfare of the tribe: regular or speci- 

 ally called gatherings in which all freemen, their arms in 

 hand, partake in the decision of all those affairs which are 

 discussed by their chiefs and " such others as are conspicu- 

 ous for age, birth, military renown, or eloquence." Their 

 leaders " gain attention rather from their ability to persuade, 

 than their authority to command." As our authority, Taci- 

 tus, relates: " If a proposal displeases, the assembly reject it 

 by an inarticulate murmur; if it prove agreeable, they clash 

 their javelins."^ These manifestations of the popular will 

 were a matter of custom ; they were not the result of rights 

 acquired by struggle and revolution and briefed by law. 

 With the catastrophic upheavals of the period of the migra- 

 tions and the subsequent development of the feudal system, 

 these popular gatherings of the German tribes finally ceased 

 except with the remnants of the Biirgundi and Alemanni in 

 their new homes in the mountains of Helvetia. The modern 

 Western peoples sprung from the racial fragments of the 

 old Germanic tribes have only after many centuries of po- 



^ See above, p. 19. 



196 



