POLITICAL THEORIES OF MODERN CONTINENTAL PUBLICISTS though they must be studied as constitutional | to their actual effect. The historians, seeing history and law. that both ideals and efficiency must wrestle with man's long inheritance, urged that every advance be rested on the strength of progress already achieved. Today, as insistently as when first delivered, these messages all demand a hearing. Time has not depreciated the efforts of English publicists. They will be strong men whose names may worthily be added to such a roll. Conclusions. In conclusion, it may be said with regard to the purely theoretical English political writers of importance that they fall roughly into three main schools. These three are the social contract, the utilitarian and the historical. A fourth school, the socialist or communist is being evolved at the present time. Of the three whose work may now be estimated, no one commanded uniformity of See GOVERNMENT, THEORY OF; INDIVIDUALopinion in its adherents. Among the utilitari- | ISM; LAW Of Nature; OrgANIC THEORY OF THE ans, and, especially, the exponents of the social STATE; POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY; POLITICAL contract, there was great divergence of views. SCIENCE; POLITICAL THEORIES, ANCIENT AND Every school committed errors, but, never- MEDIAEVAL; POLITICAL THEORIES OF AMERICAN theless every one of them made a solid contri- | PUBLICISTS, EARLY; POLITICAL THEORIES OF bution to political thought. The social con- AMERICAN PUBLICISTS, RECENT; POLITICAL tract school taught that the foundation of gov- THEORIES OF MODERN CONTINENTAL PUBLI ernment is the acquiescence of the governed. CISTS; SOCIAL COMPACT, THEORY; SOCIOLOGY. That this acquiescence may be due to force or habit and may be informal or implied as well as express, does not materially lessen the value of the teaching. Furthermore, Locke made all men his debtors by upholding a rational ideal of individual freedom which the law is bound morally to respect. The utilitarians maintained rightly that governmental measures should be framed with an eye single References: Works and authorities cited under respective lives in Dictionary of National Biography (1908, 1909); W. A. Dunning, A History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu (1905), chs. vii, viii, x; W. Graham, English Political Philosophy from Hobbes to Maine (1899); L. Stephen, Hist. of English Thought in the XIX Century (1876), II, ch. x. HENRY A. YEOMANS. POLITICAL THEORIES OF MODERN CONTINENTAL PUBLICISTS The Reformation Period.-The Protestant resistance to constituted authority in France Reformation fostered general independence of and the Low Countries. It indicates, morethought and thus profoundly affected political over, the real importance of the Protestant reas well as religious theory. Its political re- formers in the history of political theory. In sults, however, were not in any considerable their minds "the relation of church to state degree immediate and the only notable pub- and the moral basis of the latter constituted licist among the sixteenth century reformers the whole of political theory." Wherever civil was John Calvin (1509-1564). Martin Luther potentates could be identified with God's elect, (1483-1546) rendered obscure his own dis- they became a bold and bigoted aristocracy: tinction between secular and ecclesiastical au- wherever they remained in outer darkness, thority and lessened his own fame as a politi- their Calvinist subjects might be expected to cal thinker by his advocacy of passive obedi- revolt. ence to civil power. Ulrich Zwingli (14841531) as a political theorist is negligible. Philip Melancthon (1497-1560) conceived a natural law based on instinctive notions of right and wrong and developed at some length the forms and functions of government. But Calvin was the Protestant lawgiver. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) he recognized the necessity of secular government and its organization separate from the church. To it he entrusted with much explanatory detail the protection of life, liberty and property and the care of piety and religion. For it, as represented by the city-state of Geneva, he demanded, in fact, passive obedience. In theory such obedience was limited by "the law of God." This last qualification is significant. In later years it was made to justify a doughty To support fully the Protestant struggles in France and Holland a more militant theory than that of the early leaders was required. Such was the theory of Francis Hotman (15241590). He published, in 1573, Franco-Gallia, an historical attempt to demonstrate that France was not and never had been an absolute monarchy. The Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (1579), probably the work of Hubert Languet or Duplessis-Mornay, was more comprehensive as well as more complex. On grounds of Old Testament history and Roman legal theory the author maintained that God, the monarch and the people are parties to a contract. The king and his subjects agree with each other respectively to rule justly and to obey: both agree with God to sustain the church of His elect. When the King rules unjustly or attacks the POLITICAL THEORIES OF MODERN CONTINENTAL PUBLICISTS church, the people, acting through their mag- | like its modern form. Of these publicists Franistrates, may resist him as the violator of a cisco Suarez (1548-1017) is the best known. contract. The German, Johannes Althusius He regarded natural law as the basis of ethics, (1557-1638), in his Systematic Politics something inherent in the human soul, where(1610), and the Spaniard, Juan de Mariana by right is distinguished from wrong. In (1536–1623), in his On Kingship and the Edu- theory it is implanted by an omniscient being, cation of a King (1599), supplemented the ef- | but in practice Suarez so makes it conform to forts of these Huguenot writers with argu- the dictates of right reason that the superments based on popular sovereignty. What they meant by "popular" they never made clear. But they, as well as the Huguenots, made a distinct advance when they rested political authority on human rather than di-gesting that of Rousseau. But popular sovvine support. human element is often hidden. The law of nations is what is politically expedient and is evidenced by common usage. Suarez also propounded a theory of popular sovereignty sug ereignty in practice is alienated, preferably, thinks Suarez, to an absolute monarch like the Spanish King. Grotius. In Hugo de Groot, or Grotius (1583-1645), the Netherlands produced a modern publicist of very high rank. His Law Jean Bodin. The foremost publicist of these times, however, was the upholder of absolute monarchy, Jean Bodin (1530-1596) . A student of the philosophy of history, he possessed the mind and enjoyed the training of a jurist. His Sia Books Concerning the State (1576) |of War and Peace (1625) closely resembles opens with the following definition: "A State is an aggregation of families and their common possessions, ruled by a sovereign power and reason." Dunning's comment on the passage may serve as an epitome of Bodin's views: "In this is implied, what the later chapters elaborate, that the basis of the State, both | in historical and in logical development, is the family; that a distinction must be drawn between interests that are common and those that are not; that a supreme power is essential to the idea of a State; and that government is conditioned by a moral end." Bodin saw plainly that liberty is not license and that in the social state freedom of action is hampered as well as enlarged. The existence of the social state, originating in the social instinct and developed by means of force, was the basis of his speculation. Sovereignty he held to be "Supreme power over citizens and subjects, unrestrained by the laws." There are, however, divine laws of nature and of nations and also vague rules of superior obligation faintly resembling a constitution in the modern American sense, to which even sovereigns must bow. The failure to elucidate these laws and rules constitutes the chief defect of Bodin's work. His attachment to the court of Henry III may have dimmed, at this point, the usual French clarity of his mind. Far more exact than his theory of sovereignty is his distinction between forms of State and forms of government. The possession of sovereign power determines the former, the manner of its exercise the latter. In both method and substance it is fair to say that Bodin took a long step forward. He reintroduced the Aristotelian spirit into politi-portance equal to theirs. Samuel Pufendorf cal science. the De Legibus of Suarez but occupies a far larger place in modern thought. His moderation, reasonableness, erudition and high official position explain largely a reputation which, though deserved, is not based on originality of ideas. Grotius almost abandoned the revelation theory of the law of nature (see). It is "the dictate of right reason, indicating that any act, from its agreement or disagreement with the rational nature, has in it moral turpitude or moral necessity." In framing this rational standard of right and wrong the interests of all men are to be considered. Grotius followed the theories of Suarez regarding the law of nations but so developed and applied them that "under the influence of his example the meaning of jus gentium soon became narrowed from 'the law common to all or many nations' to 'the law governing the intercourse between nations.'" Grotius also considered the origins and sanctions of the state, but confused the "natural impulse" theory of Aristotle and the theory of contract based on self-interest. He may have intended to distinguish society based on natural instinct from the state founded on contract. The most important work of Grotius was his development of international law. But his rational concept of natural law coupled with his ill-defined theory of compact was destined to react powerfully against absolute monarchy, which strangely enough, he probably thought to support. From Grotius to Montesquieu.-Between Grotius and Montesquieu continental Europe produced theorists of note but none of an im (1632-1694), in his Law of Nature and of Nations (1672), summarized and elaborated and attempted with some measure of success to reconcile the theories of Grotius and Hobbes. Johann Christian Wolff (1679-1754) further elaborated the doctrines of Grotius and Pufendorf and was, in his turn, followed and enlarged upon by Emer de Vattel, whose Law of Francisco Suarez.-In Spain as well as in France and Germany political theory flourished in the sixteenth century. Her publicists, stimulated to consider fundamental questions of politics and government by the contact of Spanish arms with the new world, expanded the law of nations until it assumed something POLITICAL THEORIES OF MODERN CONTINENTAL PUBLICISTS The (1655- former stands for conciliation, moderation, liberty in what we have come to term the constitutional sense; the latter, for arbitrary radicalism. Montesquieu, as has been said, smacks of the historic school. Rousseau is the extreme disciple of the a priori system of natu ral law. It is difficult to speak of Rousseau in measured terms. He is hypothetical, fanci natural man of primitive times with the man He Nations appeared in Leyden in 1758. Leib- Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). niz (1646-1716) and Thomasius 1728) had, before this, respectively assailed and defended the work of Pufendorf. The philosopher Benedict de Spinoza (1632–1677), a Portugese Jew living in Holland, advocated religious freedom and an aristocratic republic. In Italy was developed in the wake of Vico (1668-1744) a sort of humanistic school comprising, among others, Beccaria (1735–1793)| ful, contradictory. He contrasts an imaginary and Filangieri (1752-1788). The Abbé Galiani (1728-1787), on the other hand, was a cynical disciple of utilitarianism and force. In France the eloquent prelate, Bossuet (1627-1704), in his Politics Derived from the Holy Scriptures (1709), upheld the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV in a series of arguments based on quotations from the Bible, but marked by traces of the theories of Hobbes. Montesquieu. None of these seventeenth century publicists, however, stand out in the history of political theory as does Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), author of The Spirit of Laws (1748). Only a part of this famous work treats of what may be termed political theory: it is largely a discussion of social, economic and religious matters. In dealing with political questions Montesquieu applied himself not so much to the rational bases of states as to the principles which must be observed if political society is to maintain itself and its activities after it is once organized. Assuming the existence of governments, he divides them into republican, monarchic and despotic. Of repub-stractions were welded into the deeds of the lican governments he distinguishes the democratic and the aristocratic-all this is well trodden ground. But his analysis of the char acter and the education of citizens proper to these several kinds of government is far more illuminating. So, too, of the value of particular institutions in the maintenance of a loosely defined "political liberty." He developed a theory of separation of powers which went far beyond Locke and introduced into political philosophy the division of governmental functions into legislative, executive and judicial, which has now become traditional. Further more, Montesquieu's definition of laws as the necessary relations springing out of the nature of things has a depth and significance not yet completely grasped by students of political theory. It indicates how small a part the work of the politician really plays in the world's affairs and how necessary it is for him, if he is to be successful, to conform his efforts to physical and psychological principles over which he exerts slight if any control. In method Montesquieu's arguments were bolstered by such wide reference, more or less accurate, to history that he seems at times a follower of Vico and a member of the modern historical school. Rousseau and Voltaire. No contrast could be sharper than that between Montesquieu and French Revolution their inefficacy revealed itself. And yet no student of political theory can afford to neglect Rousseau. There is scarcely a chapter of the Social Contract which does not stimulate thought and challenge discussion on topics vital to modern politics. With Rousseau it is usual to link Voltaire (1694-1778). It must be admitted, however, that the latter contributed nothing either original or important to political theory. He exposed the fallacies and weaknesses of other writers. He attacked religious intolerance, serfdom and other specific abuses. He illumined all that he approached, but he added little or nothing to the existing body of political doctrine. French Economists. Of the French "Economists" Mercier de la Rivière (1720-1793) is fairly typical. They upheld the right of property as the foundation of society and maintained the true function of government to be not making laws but recognizing laws which already exist in the social order. This doctrine, of course, suggests Montesquieu. The "Economists" were strongly attached to the absolute monarchy. Opposed to them were the "Communists" of whom the Abbé Mably (1709-1785) was foremost. They drew their inspiration from Plato and were the first mod POLITICAL THEORIES OF MODERN CONTINENTAL PUBLICISTS ern publicists seriously to deny altogether the doctrine of private property. In the period just preceding the Revolution, France exhibited two publicists of individual note. Baron Turgot (1727-1781) and the Marquis Condorcet (1743-1794) made the first clear statement of the principle which animates our modern efforts toward social and political amelioration, the principle of progress. "The mass of humanity in alternating periods of quiet and disturbance presses forward, though slowly, toward perfection." In revolutionary times the Abbé Sièyes (1748-1836) was notable both as a man and as a publicist, but his peculiar field was actual legislation rather than political theory. The same may be said of Count Mirabeau (1749-1791). Humboldt (1767-1835) opposed to the vague communistic notions of Friedrich Krause (1781-1832) a stiff individualism. Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779-1861), whose two works, History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages (1815-1831) and System of Contemporary Roman Law (1840-1849), are well known, deserves to be remembered for his demonstration that the study of positive law cannot be divorced from the study of the science of all law without injury to both. Ferdinand Lasalle (1825-1864), though spoken of as a publicist, was really an organizer of working men, in which capacity he laid the foundation of the present day Socialist Party in Germany. Heinrich Carl Marx (18181883), whose book entitled Capital (1867) has German Publicists of the Eighteenth and made him famous, was, in fact, a publicist. Nineteenth Centuries. Of the German pub- However much his theories that commodities licists of the eighteenth century the first to should exchange on the basis of the labor rebe noticed is Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). quired to produce them and that the communHis political doctrine in the narrow sense of ity should demand from every one labor accordthe term forms an important, though but a ing to his capacity and provide for everyone small part of his voluminous philosophy. Kant according to his needs, have been discredited, avoided the error of Hobbes and Spinoza who it remains true that he saw clearly and indiconfounded right with force, and of Plato who cated forcibly the truth too often overlooked confounded right with morality. The liberties that historical evolution is largely conditioned of every man are limited by the liberties of by systems of production. Johann Kasper every other man who comes in contact with Bluntschli (1808-1881), Heinrich Rudolf Herhim. They are not absolute, but relative. man Friedrich von Gneist (1816-1895), and Right means the reconciliation of these liber- Albert Eberhardt Friedrich von Schäffle ties. These theorists marked a long forward (1831-1903), are almost contemporaries. step. They did not, however, solve the prob- Bluntschli, by his History of Modern Political lem still unsolved today. A general standard Science (1864), and Theory of the Modern of right Kant could frame; the application of State (1875-76), did much to reconcile the that standard to the affairs of daily life he historical and philosophical methods and also hardly attempted. Johann Gottlieb Fichte to render specific and exact political terms (1762-1814), a disciple of Kant, was the fore- which had long been loosely employed. Gneist most German commentator on the French Rev- was an adherent of monarchy, but a strong olution. To us, the main interest in his work champion of liberal views, a prolific writer on arises from the sharp contrast between him constitutional law and history and a reformer and Edmund Burke. To Burke history and ex- of judicial procedure and penal law. Schäffle, perience were everything; to Fichte, nothing. in his Structure and Life of the Social Body Fichte distinguished between the legitimacy (1875-1878), developed a theory of society and the wisdom of a revolution. But he de- somewhat akin to the organic theory of Spenvoted himself almost exclusively to the ques-cer. His criticisms of socialism are extremely tion of legitimacy and thought in terms so general as to make his suggestions almost Recent French Publicists.-Of the French valueless. He confused the right of revolution publicists of the nineteenth century the one of with the right to change the fundamental law. peculiar interest to American readers is Alexis The two may be the same thing, but they may Charles Henri Clerel de Tocqueville (1805also be very different things. How far men 1859). De Tocqueville accepted democracy as should go without the law to alter the consti- an accomplished fact to be observed, not as a tution of the state is the real question at proposition to be argued. His famous book, issue and this question Fichte did not solve. Democracy in America (1835), was an attempt Of the German philosophers of the nine- to make this observation and to record his teenth century Schelling (1775-1854) really conclusions. Much of it would repay careful contributed little to political thought. Hegel study in this time of unrest. The development (1770-1831), in his Natural Law and Political of physical well-being in our country, the diffuScience (1821), developed Rousseau's principle sion of knowledge, sympathy for human misof the state as the general will. He recog-ery, the encouragement of all kinds of activity, nized in history the oriental, the classical and these he recognized fully. But along with them the Germanic periods, in which freedom apper- he noted the instability of the laws, the detained respectively to the despot, the governing fective character of office-holders, the discourclass and the body of citizens. Wilhelm von agement of excellence, the tyranny of numbers. valuable. POLK, JAMES KNOX-POLLOCK vs. FARMERS' LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY No more enlightened statement of the virtues and defects of modern democracy has ever been penned. See DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS; GOVERNMENT, THEORY OF; NATURAL RIGHTS; SOCIAL COMPACT THEORY; SOCIALISM; SOVEREIGNTY; STATE, THEORY OF. tax based upon an arbitraty valuation of polls. During the colonial period, when there was more general equality in individual wealth, the poll tax constituted an important source of revenue. Although under present conditions it bears unequally upon taxpayers, it has been retained and may be found in the tax systems References: W. A. Dunning, A Hist. of Po- of nearly all states, although in some its collitical Theories from Luther to Montesquieu lection is not strictly enforced. It is usually (1905); Adolphe Franck, Réformateurs et levied on adult males-two dollars being a Publicistes de l'Europe, dix-septième siècle common rate. The tax is notoriously evaded. (1881), dix-huitième siècle (1893); J. K. In 1902 less than a million dollars, more than Bluntschli, Geschichte der Neueren Staatswis- half in Massachusetts, was thus collected in senschaft, Allgemeines Staatsrecht und Politik, all the American cities which had populations Seit dem 16, Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart of 30,000 or over; Pennsylvania ranks next (1881); Gustav Schmoller, Zur Litteratur- in the use of this tax; and has two kinds—unigeschichte der Staats-und Sozialwissenschaften form and graded, according to the occupation. (1888); Paul Janet, Historie de la science | As a rule the poll tax is levied only upon politique dans ses relations avec la morale adults over twenty-one, and exceptions are (3d ed., 1887); G. L. Scherger, Evolution of generally made in favor of those of advanced Modern Liberty (1904). age. In a few cases the exemption applies to all above forty-five. See TAXATION, SUBJECTS OF; TAXES, DIRECT. References: C. J. POLK, JAMES KNOX. James K. Polk Bullock, Selected Readings in Public Finance (1795-1849), eleventh President of the United | (1906), 193-210; U. S. Census Bureau, States, was born in Mecklenburg county, N. C., Wealth, Debt and Taxation (1907), 651; C. F. November 2, 1795. In 1806 the family Bastable, Public Finance (2d ed., 1895), 433removed to Tennessee, where he studied law | 436. D. R. D. HENRY A. YEOMANS. POLLOCK VS. FARMERS' LOAN AND the proper federal court by Pollock and others as stockholders of the defendant company to restrain that company from paying to the United States a tax on its income according to the provisions of the income tax law of 1894, it being alleged that the income of the company was derived from real estate, the bonds and stocks of corporations, and municipal bonds (157 U. S. 429 and 158 U. S. 601). The contention for the complainants was that the tax which they sought to have restrained was a direct tax not levied according to any apportionment among the several states as required by the provision of the Constitution re with Felix Grundy, and in 1820 was admitted to the bar. In 1823 he was elected to the legislature as a Democrat, and in 1825 entered | TRUST COMPANY. A suit was brought in Congress, where he remained a member of the House until 1839. In Congress he supported Jackson, served as chairman of the ways and means committee, and from 1835 to 1839 was Speaker. From 1839 to 1841 he was governor of Tennessee. In the election of 1840 one of the electoral votes of Virginia was cast for him for Vice-President. In the Democratic convention of 1844 he was a "dark horse" candidate, and was nominated unanimously on the ninth ballot. In the election he received 170 electoral votes against 105 for Clay, the Whig candidate. His published diary shows that, in the war with Mexico and the Oregon controversy with Great Britain, he both dom-lating to representation and direct taxation inated his Cabinet and controlled Congress, and followed throughout his administration a definite and even dogmatic policy. He was not a candidate for reëlection in 1848. He died at Nashville, June 15, 1849. See WARS OF THE UNITED STATES. References: J. S. Jenkins, Life of James K. Polk (1850); James K. Polk, Diary (ed. by M. M. Quaife, 1910); M. F. Follett, Speaker of the House Garrison, Westward Extension (1906). (Art. I, Sec. ii, ¶ 3). On appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States it was first held by a divided court that a federal tax on the rents or income from real estate is a direct tax and therefore invalid if levied in accordance with valuation and not by apportionment among the states. On a rehearing in the same case it was held further that taxes (1896) ; G. P. | on the incomes from personal property are W. MACD. likewise direct taxes, four of the justices dissenting. This decision overruled earlier decisions of the same court holding that the only POLL TAX. The poll or capitation tax is direct taxes contemplated by the constitutional a per capita tax generally levied uniformly provision are capitation taxes and taxes on upon males. It may, however, be graded ac- land. Since the rendition of the judgments cording to occupation or other qualifications. in the latest income tax cases above cited there It is sometimes levied as a specific amount is still ground for discussion as to the power against all persons subject to the tax; and of the Federal Government to tax incomes and sometimes takes the form of a quasi-property it has been decided that corporation taxes and |