The first essay, by Mr. Barber, suggests the passage of a law allowing any political party to nominate candidates for office, much in the same way as that in which elections of candidates nominated are now carried on. The second essay, by Mr. Came, recommends a still simpler plan, by which the voters of the different parties being duly registered, and boxes for the reception of nominating votes being provided by the regular officers of each district, for as many parties as shall appear to be in the field: those candidates receiving the largest number of votes shall be legally declared the regular party nominees, and they only shall be eligible to office. Both these plans have certain obvious merits. The fourth essay, by Mr. Blodget, treats mainly of the evils of the existing system, and offers suggestions only by way of alleviating them. All these are worthy of careful perusal. The third essay, by Mr. Goepp, of the New York bar, is a much more elaborate treatise than either of the others. The writer reviews, at great length, and with much ability, the history of representative government in Europe and in this country. He finds the great essential of free government to be local organization; that where, as in the Roman Empire, and on the Continent of Europe, with the remarkable exception of Hungary, no political power resided in the counties or towns, political and civil liberty has either never been attained, or, if attained, has soon been lost. In England and in Hungary alone, where from the beginning "all local government was vested in the county courts," has representative government proved a permanent success. To this constant feature in the British Constitution, he attributes, far more than to the more visible efforts of free principles, the ultimate establishment of liberal institutions in England. In this country, New England had her "towns," and the South her "counties;" but the Middle States, partly from the fact that they were originally peopled by foreigners to a much greater extent than the other colonies, and partly from other causes, have never thoroughly understood and enjoyed these local systems, the inheritance of the English colonists; and, while endeavoring to combine "the advantages of the town and the county, as organs of local selfgovernment," they have obtained a weak combination of the two. "New England and ancient England have had a better local system in their towns and hundreds alone, and Virginia and modern England have better local systems in their counties alone, than the Middle States have in their townships and counties, as hitherto combined. Neither institution is here quite as firmly rooted, nor as vigorous of growth, as it should be. Public attention has not done them justice. During the formation of these communities [i.e. the Middle States], parliamentary bodies, as found in the Federal and State governments, have been the favorite and recognized organs of public life. In short, local self-government, while undoubtedly potent here, has been less fruitful of good, and has offered less resistance to evil, than in New England, in Virginia, or even in Great Britain. Hence it is, that the call for the present essay emanates from Philadelphia, and not from Boston or from Richmond. Neither the Eastern States, nor what has been formerly called the South, were ever entirely free from political corruption; but it is manifest that the confirmed asphyxia which we are now seeking to remove, is the peculiar product of neither of these two sections, but of the Middle and Mississippi States just referred to. Neither the New Eng landers nor the Southerners are more virtuous than we of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri; but they are better protected, negatively by their homogeneousness, and positively by the vitality of their local institutions. The impurities of our polity are peculiar, not to human nature, nor to American institutions, but to that portion of our country in which local self-government of the people has been stunted in its development." Mr. Goepp, therefore, advocates a return to the old English system of the "hundred," as the ultimate repository of political power. The voters should be organized in small bodies, numbering from one to three hundred, -not too many to assemble in one place. Into these "hundreds," "compact in form, and as nearly equal as possible in population," the whole State should be divided. These "hundreds" again should be "grouped into counties," which are to have their county assemblies, composed of delegates from the different hundreds. These county assemblies send their delegates to the State Legislature; and this, in its turn, is to elect the members of Congress. This is, in general, the system recommended by Mr. Goepp, so far as it affects the basis and degrees of representation. One other very important change, however, is demanded in this essay; no less, than that all officers, from the President down, except judicial officers, should hold their seats at the will of their constituencies; and not, as at present, for fixed terms. Mr. Goepp contends earnestly that the officer should be responsible to the people; and he maintains that under our present system, our officers are as irresponsible as if they held their seats for life. "The evil is supposed to be abridged, because the irresponsible man retires after a stated period. As the effect of the next election, however, is merely to substitute one irresponsible incumbent for another, the irresponsibility is permanent, and only the officer varies. No one will deny that here is the weakest point in all our system. The British Parliaments are dissolved, not upon certain movements of the heavenly bodies, but according to the political exigencies with which they have to deal; a general election there marks a certain resting place and starting point in the fortunes of the country. But our Presidential terms regard more the tides of the ocean than those in the affairs of men. The quadrennial revolution breaks into the midst of profound peace, and takes no note of the din of arms. These short terms cut off all opportunity of requiring a regular training of those who desire to live by conducting the details of administration, or of pensioning men of merit who give their best years to the public service: they make the politician, whether in or out of office, an adventurer; they absorb all political action and all political thought into the single function of office-hunting; they educate a numerous class of men, otherwise useful to society, into habits of unthrift, dependence, insincerity, bad faith, and unscrupulousness; give this very class an undue influence on the public weal; intensify the heat, and paralyze the thought, of every canvass; make every citizen impotent who cannot or will not spend every waking hour of his life in plotting and counterplotting; and play the ultimate control of the republic into the hands of a gang, intended by nature for common gamesters, who buy and sell, not the politicians only, but the people who vote for them." More than this, inasmuch as "the shortness of the official term prevents any feeling of security, and any habits of thrift," these professional politicians are the slaves of the corporations "who hold them in pay, and use them not only to extort further immunities, but generally to control the entire machinery of the body politic." Into our author's illustrations of these remarks we have not time to enter. Suffice it to say that his is not the only voice that tells us that this is too often the result of our official system. Whether the elaborate system of representation proposed by Mr. Goepp, and the substitution of a term of office dependent entirely on the will of the electing constituency, would accomplish all that he claims they would accomplish, or not, we cannot undertake even to express an inclination of opinion, nor is it desirable that we should. We have, we trust, succeeded in showing that Mr. Goepp's essay is an able, honest, and bold treatment of some of the most glaring and most dangerous defects of our system of government; and that his suggestions are evidently the fruit of long and careful study, and deserve a most respectful consideration. The great questions of the future will be found, we venture to think, not as in the past, connected with the maintenance of civil liberty, or with the defence of our national existence; they will regard mainly the methods of the proper administration of the Government. In these matters we have, as a nation, much to learn, and, we doubt not, much to unlearn. And it is high time that essays such as these should receive the most careful and patient study of all who hope to serve the real interests of their country, whether in a public or private capacity. The Ermine in the Ring: A History of the Wood Lease Case. Putnam's Magazine Supplement. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son. 1868. THIS is a most remarkable pamphlet, and the record of judicial infamy which it sets forth is worthy the consideration of all thoughtful American citizens. We know not whether it is true, but the story it tells is briefly thus: By a vote of the New York Common Council, a long lease was to be entered into by the City with Mr. Fernando Wood, at a grossly exorbitant rent, for the use of some offices for the "Law Department" of the City Government. The rooms were utterly unfit for the purpose, and the lease was the result of bribery on the part of Mr. Wood, and of a bargain between the Mayor and the Common Council. The newly elected Corporation Counsel, being animated by a desire to act in accordance with his oath of office, and, being overcome by the glaring injustice of this scheme to rob the City Treasury, instituted proceedings in the nature of a bill in equity; praying in the complaint that the Comptroller might be enjoined from the execution and delivery of this lease. The Corporation Counsel had, meantime, engaged, as an associate, Mr. I. T. Williams, an energetic lawyer, who went heart and soul into the case. Mr. Wood and his counsel, by a system of deep laid and skilful manœuvres, succeeded in having the case come up before Judge Cardozo, and Judge Cardozo only; and this, too, after a delay of many weeks. Now, Judge Cardozo was a tool of Mr. Wood's, owing his position to him, and feeling that his chances of re-election to office depended on Mr. Wood's good-will. Mr. Wood had unblushingly recommended Judge Cardozo, on the ground of his political availability; it being distinctly understood that he was sound, and would not hesitate to favor the party which elevated him. It is not surprising, then, to find Judge Cardozo, at the trial of this case, distorting alike the law and the facts, and prostituting his high judicial office in order to pander to the wishes of an unprincipled demagogue. So much for one judge; but the writer has something to say of still another occupant of the bench of the Supreme Court. Judge Barnard, whose interests had, at first, led him to espouse the cause of justice, and who had, accordingly, done what he could to work up the case of the City, had, before the trial, deemed it expedient to go over body and soul to Mr. Wood. When placed on the stand, therefore, he is alleged to have been guilty of perjury, swearing that he neither knew, nor had ever said, any thing of the matter, and proving himself to be an "ermined swift witness" in behalf of Mr. Wood. And, what is more, the Corporation Counsel himself had been tainted by the fear of non-re-election, in case he pursued the matter too far, and so basely abandoned his associate counsel, and suffered the case to be lost. The result of this is, that the City of New York will probably be fleeced by Mr. Wood out of the sum of $180,000, through the instrumentality of two corrupt judges of the Supreme Court. If this story is false, it ought to be answered, and the writer prosecuted for libel; but, if true, the following questions with which the author begins and ends his pamphlet are very pertinent : "Is our American theory of Republican Government a failure thus far for great cities? 66 Is an elective judiciary in great cities practically a source of corruption and injustice? "Is it hopeless to seek to purify the Municipal Government of New York City ?" Chicago Legal News. THE establishment of a new legal periodical is always an event of importance to the profession; but the publication of this well-printed newspaper is a fact of much broader interest, and demands notice not only from the lawyer, but from the "social philosopher." It is the first serious attempt by a woman to share in the labors of the law, since the fourteenth century, when the fair Novella d'Andrea lectured at the University of Bologna with a curtain "Drawn before her Lest, if her charms were seen, the students Into the other liberal professions women have already found their way; the public prejudice, which debarred them from practising the healing art, for which Providence has given them a special aptitude, is broken down; and the Rev. Olympia Brown and her colleagues have successfully maintained their right to share in the perhaps even more congenial ministrations of the pulpit; but we hardly dared to hope that in the harsh and crabbed law we should have the benefit of feminine co-operation. Yet so it is; the Chicago Legal News is edited by Mrs. Myra Bradwell, wife of the Hon. James B. Bradwell, County Judge of Cook County, Illinois. The Chicago Evening Journal says that "Mrs. Bradwell is a lady of ability and determination, and will carry through to the end whatever she may undertake;" and the North-western Review speaks of her in identical terms. We |