sive development of republican institutions on the American continent.

In all the republics of the American continent-North, Central, and South America-there exists a lack of harmony between inherited political ideas and present political and economic needs. In some cases, as in Mexico and Argentina, sectional feeling, either inherited from the Spanish motherland, or developed by reason of lack of means of communication and transportation, have led to the adoption of a federal system of government, whereas manifest national needs dictate the importance and necessity of an unified, centralized, national system. It is true that in the actual operation of the federal system in both Mexico and Argentina, the national government has established a control over the respective states and provinces, which means a wide departure from the purpose and intent of the framers of the constitutional system, but this wide discrepancy between the written constitution and the actual system carries with it the severe penalty of undermining the respect for law and opening the door to serious abuses of power.

In fact, the history of federal government on the American continent during the last century raises the question whether the federal system, wherever it has been tried, is anything more than a transition stage, a compromise designed to satisfy political instincts, ideas, and prejudices inherited from an earlier period, and doomed to disappear as soon as political ideas, necessarily of slow adjustment, have adapted themselves to present economic and social needs.

In the study of the political development of the republics of the American continent, it is a matter of very great importance that students of political science analyze with much greater care than has hitherto been the case the causes of political unrest in certain sections of the American continent and that we distinguish clearly between violent changes that have a deep social significance and those revolutionary movements that represent nothing more than the selfish ambitions of a few unscrupulous leaders.

As our own history has shown, and as is shown by the history of every republic of the American continent, political impasses at times develop, for which revolution furnishes the only solution. No matter how much we may condemn violence, no matter how strongly we may preach against armed opposition to the existing order, the fact is that great social changes, such as took place in the United States during the Civil War, in Chile during the revolution of 1891, and in Mexico during the revolution of 1910, are brought about through upheavals which are usually accompanied by violence. We may look forward to a time when humanity may be able to effect such changes by the peaceful processes of constitutional evolution, but we must also recognize the fact that we cannot attain this great end until the machinery for adapting political organization to present economic and social needs functions much more smoothly and with much greater responsiveness to national needs than is the case at the present time.

A further political principle which the experience of the last one hundred years has demonstrated, and which possesses a deep and far-reaching significance in our present international situation, is that the qualities that prepare a people for self-government -respect for law, political self-control, acquiescence in the will of the majority, and willingness to use the slower processes of discussion rather than brute force in order to bring about political changes cannot be imposed from without, but are only acquired as the result of much bitter experience and as the outcome of a slow and painful process of education.

The underlying missionary spirit of the American people often leads them to the belief that they can carry the spirit of order and self-government to less fortunate sections of the American continent, even if the agency used is the military arm of the government. While such government has always been characterized by great integrity and great ability in the execution of public works and other technical enterprises, it has always signally failed in preparing the people over which it has had control for the responsibilities incident to the management of their own affairs. This is due in part to the limitations of the military

mind, and in part to the conditions under which military governments are established.

There is a further principle which I desire to emphasize because of its great importance to the development of democracy on the American continent. Today there exists on this continent a series of irritating international disputes which are not only a menace to the peace of the New World but also a real obstacle to democratic progress. The majority of these questions are boundary disputes inherited from the colonial period. Their existence has been a constant obstacle to the normal development of republican institutions on the American continent. The presence of these international dangers has had a two fold effect on domestic institutions. They have in the first place diverted national attention from the pressing social problems upon the solution of which any real advance in democratic organization depends, and in the second place they have diverted an altogether undue share of the national income to military and naval purposes, thus injuring such fundamental services as public education, sanitation, public works, and other productive enterprises. There is no international question now confronting the American republics in their relation with one another that cannot readily be solved through the orderly processes of an international tribunal, and until they are thus settled they will present a serious obstacle to the solution of pressing domestic problems, to the development of a normal, enlightened and controlling public opinion and to the further advance of democracy.

MONTESQUIEU AND DE TOCQUEVILLE AND CORPO

RATIVE INDIVIDUALISM

WILLIAM HENRY GEORGE

Article 16 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, prefixed to the French Constitution of 1791, reads as follows: "Every society in which a guarantee of rights is not assured nor a separation of powers determined does not have a constitution." Without question the men of 1789 had come under the influence of Montesquieu as well as of John Locke. It is true that a separation of powers is to be found in the Two Treatises of Government; but that doctrine is set out in bolder relief and more sharply defined by Montesquieu than by Locke. However, the men of 1789 took only one half the teachings of Montesquieu; the other half they rejected. The exclusive, oligarchical, tyrannical spirit of the corporations of the ancient régime, the abuse of the principle of aristocracy-privileges without services, as Taine puts it-the growth of the spirit of equality as a result of the industrial revolution, all set men stoutly against a "corporative" (in contrast with a pulverized) structure of society. Rousseau, Turgot and the Physiocrats demanded a leveling of hierarchized society: the mountains must be brought low, the valleys filled up and a highway made for the plain man to walk thereon. It was only with the Restoration that the value of an aristocratic element-from Montesquieu's point of view a corporative element-came into prominence. It was widely discussed during that period, and Montesquieu was the authority of the day.

Of the two phases of Montesquieu's thought--a separation of powers and a corporative foundation-the former has survived in current political philosophy. It was the phase selected by the men of 1789, and as progress in democracy from 1814 has been in a sense a return to the early days of the French Revolu

tion, it was but natural and inevitable that the first phase should survive to the exclusion of the second. This prevalent view is expressed by Mr. Ernest Barker as follows: "A division of functions of government is thus characteristic of Montesquieu: it is only a secondary consideration that the division is a division among different classes." On the other hand, a brilliant, although somewhat paradoxical, French academician, Émile Faguet, who is not without leanings toward aristocracy and therefore capable of orienting himself toward Montesquieu's point of view, maintains that "the central point and vital knot of Montesquieu's political conception" is his idea of a hierarchized, corporative society made up of "corps intermediares;" and he quotes from L'Esprit des Lois to sustain his contention.2 Faguet's interpretation is important. Montesquieu does insist that powers intermediate, subordinate and dependent are necessary to a monarchy. The subordinate, intermediate power most natural is that of the nobility. In a monarchical government power is not applied immediately, as Montesquieu points out: the monarch tempers it in the giving. He makes a distribution of his authority. The nobles should form a body (corps) which should have the right to arrest the enterprises of the people, as the people should have the right to arrest those of the nobles.

It is not affirmed that Montesquieu's separation of powers is necessarily linked to his division of classes. In its broadest application his doctrine is that of power limiting power so that sovereignty shall not be in the hands of any man or party, but in law and reason. It is adaptable to republics as well as to monarchies. But there can be no doubt that in Montesquieu's thought a division of powers naturally presupposes a division of classes, for he had in mind England. And even his doctrine of democracy is corporative in that sovereignty resides in "le peuple en corps." "I have said," to quote from L'Esprit des Lois, "that the nature of republican government is that the people in body, or certain families would have the sovereign 1 Barker, Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle, p. 484. Faguet, La Politique Comparée, p. 46.