Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

3. Give reasons why it is best that the party in power should have opposition even though its principles are right.

4. Compare the last National Democratic platform with the last National Republican platform, and point out the chief difference in the principles of the two parties.

5. How many people voted for the Democratic party in the last presidential election? How many for the Republican party? If the Republican vote for that year should be represented by a line one yard in length, how long would be the line which should represent the Democratic vote? How long the line representing the Prohibition vote? the Populist vote? the Socialist vote?

6. Name a few of the great politicians who have figured in the history of this country. Who are the great politicians of the present time?

7. What is a statesman? a partizan? a trimmer? a mugwump? an independent? a henchman?

8. Distinguish between a "boss" and a leader.

9. Define faction, cabal, junto, "ring," clique.

10. Under what circumstances is a man justified in deserting his party!

Topics for Special Work.-False Leaders: 1, 301-312. Party Loyalty: 12, 265-269. Political Parties and Their History: 2, 455-464.

XII

CIVIL LIBERTY

Civil Liberty Defined. We have now described the several devices by which our political system is operated, and have described the nature of the power which has been assigned to each of the three grades of government. For what purpose have these ingenious devices been invented? Why have these nice adjustments of power been made? In order that we may be secure in our civil liberty. And what is civil liberty? It is the liberty which a man enjoys in civil society; it is liberty under law. The desire for freedom is implanted in every human breast. History is largely an account of man's struggle for freedom, and the greatest lesson which history has for us teaches that man ought to be free. But there must be limits to his freedom. Where there is government there must be restraints upon the will and upon the desires. The only liberty that is possible in society is civil liberty, which has been defined as natural liberty so far restrained (and so far only) as is necessary and expedient for public good. The restraints regarded as necessary and expedient for the public good are not the same in all countries. Civil liberty, therefore, is not everywhere the same: in Germany it is one thing; in France it is another thing; and in the United States it is still another thing.

The Growth of American Civil Liberty. The rights of our citizenship seem to come to us, like the air and the sunshine, as a matter of course, but it seemed otherwise to those an

cestors of ours who secured these rights. To them civil liberty came as the result of hard-fought battles. When we read the bill of rights in one of our constitutions, where our liberties are itemized, our hearts would throb with gratitude did we know the suffering and the sacrifice which each item has cost. The history of American liberty cannot be given here in full, but we must find room for its outlines:

I. The Great Charter. The story of our civil liberty may conveniently begin with an account of the Great Charter. King John of England had been acting in a tyrannical and unpatriotic way, and the leading men of England, in order to protect themselves from his cruelty and oppression, met (1215 A.D.) at Runnymede, near London, and declared the rights of Englishmen in a formal document which they compelled the king to sign. This document was the famous Magna Carta. "One copy of it,' says Green, "still remains in the British Museum, injured by age and fire, but with the royal seal still hanging from the brown shrivelled parchment. It is impossible to gaze without reverence on the earliest monument of English freedom, which we can see with our own eyes and touch with our hands, the Great Charter, to which, from age to age, patriots have looked back as the basis of English liberty."

Since the Great Charter is the basis of English liberty, it is the basis also of American liberty. It consists of a preamble and sixty-three clauses. The clauses of lasting interest are the following:

1. "Common Pleas shall not follow the king's court, but shall be held in some certain place." (John had been dragging suitors for justice about from post to pillar, causing them great inconvenience and expense.)

2. "A freeman shall be fined for a small offense after the manner of the offense; for a great crime after the heinousness of it." (Making the punishment suit the crime.)

3. "No scutage (land tax) or aid (contribution) shall be imposed except by the common council of the nation." (No taxation without representation.)

4. "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseized, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed; nor will we go upon him, nor will we send upon him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.” (Due process of law and trial by jury.)

5. "To none will we sell, to none will we deny or delay right or justice." (Habeas corpus.)

6. "The city of London shall have all its ancient liberties and free customs, and so of all other cities, boroughs, towns and ports." (Local self-government.)

Swift and impartial justice, punishment according to the offense committed, taxation according to the wishes of rep-. resentatives of the people, trial by jury, habeas corpus, local self-government-these are the grand features of the Great Charter. "To have produced it, to have matured it, to have preserved it, constitute the immortal claim of England upon the esteem of mankind. Her Bacons and Shakespeares, her Miltons and Newtons, with all the truth which they have inspired, are of inferior value when compared with the subjection of men and of their rulers to the principles of justice, if indeed it be not more true that these mighty spirits could not have been formed except under equal laws, nor roused to full activity without the influence of that spirit which the Great Charter breathed over our forefathers."'1

II. The Petition of Right. It is easy to declare human rights, but it is difficult to defend and preserve them. John's successors confirmed the Great Charter whenever they were compelled to do so, but they violated its provisions whenever they dared. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the aggressions of royalty threatened to make Magna Carta a dead letter; but in the seventeenth century the spirit of English liberty revived. When the Stuarts began to trample under foot the most precious rights of Englishmen the people revolted. A long and bloody conflict followed. One king lost his life, another his crown, and thousands 1 Mackintosh, "History of England," Vol. I, 222.

of citizens fell in civil strife. Out of the contest there were evolved two liberty documents of the highest importance. The first of these is the Petition of Right which Parliament sent to Charles I in 1628 and compelled him to sign. This famous constitutional law-for it, like the Great Charter, must be regarded as part of England's constitution— recites the rights of the people, and protests against the wanton infringements which were being made by the king. Among the misdeeds of the king were the quartering of troops in the homes of private citizens. The petition prays: "That your majesty will be pleased to remove said soldiers and mariners, and that your people may not be so burdened in time to come. Another complaint refers to the practice of putting citizens to death after a trial conducted by the soldiery. The petition prays: "That commissions by martial law be revoked and annulled. The Petition of Right, therefore, declared anew formally the ancient rights of Englishmen, and also enriched their civil liberty in two particulars: first, it forbade the quartering of troops upon private citizens; and, second, it put an end to the trial of private citizens by military courts.

[ocr errors]

III. The Bill of Rights. No sooner had the Cromwellian power been overthrown and the old monarchy restored under Charles II, than the perversity of the Stuart house renewed itself. James II attempted to establish a permanent despotism, but he was driven from his throne before his purpose was accomplished. When his successor, William III, was invited to be king, Parliament, as an act of precaution, declared (1689) the conditions upon which the crown was to be held. This declaration, known as the Bill of Rights, was the second liberty document produced by the conflict between the Stuarts and the people, a document which has been called "the third great charter of English liberty, and the coping-stone of the constitutional building." The most important of its declarations are the following:

(1) That laws shall not be suspended or repealed, and that taxes shall not be levied without consent of Parliament.

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »