1^8 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE \A9^ 



The conception of popular consent or of popular govern- 

 ment of the Germanic and Greek tribal assemblies was that 

 of mutual participation, through discussion and decision by 

 all classes of freemen, in all affairs vital to the group. 

 Popular consent and government as established by the 

 Roman plebs constituted rule over all classses by one, the 

 plebs. • 



The Germanic and Greek systems provided for the rule by 

 the majority of all freemen, while the Roman plebiscitum 

 merely replaced the class rule of the patricians, as far as 

 such existed through the exercise of the auctoritas patrum, 

 by the class rule of the plebeians. The modern system of 

 popular voting passing under the old Roman name of the 

 plebiscite does not exhibit the feature of class limitation as 

 an essential characteristic. There have been restrictions of 

 the vote and of the voters in many cases where the plebiscite 

 has been applied, but these restrictions have been as a rule 

 not openly admitted ; they have rather been surreptitiously 

 planned and eflfected. From the point of view of the present 

 the significant aspect of the rule of the Roman plebeians 

 through their plcbiscita is, then, not that of the prevailing 

 of the plebs as a majority — though the plebs was most 

 likely numerically stronger than the patricians — but that of 

 the temporarily successful assertion of a class which deemed 

 itself oppressed. 



It is in this last respect that the plebiscite has functioned 

 in international relations. For the principle and foundation 

 of the plebiscite, as applied in territorial settlements, is to 

 give to suppressed minorities a way of voicing their objec- 

 tion to the rule of the dominant political unit to which they 

 are held against their will and to gain through the objections 

 thus voiced their freedom in the form of independence or of 

 another allegiance. This being the definition of the plebi- 

 scite employed in the settlements of a territorial character, 

 its justification stands or falls with its success or failure to 

 produce the results promised or expected. 



