not merely in community of language and literature and traditions and country; but, more and better than all that, one also in feeling and in heart. Am I mistaken in this?

Do the concealments of which I speak still cover animosities which neither time nor reflection nor the march of events have yet sufficed to subdue? I cannot believe it. Since I have been here I have watched with anxious scrutiny your sentiments as expressed not merely in public debate, but in the abandon of personal confidence. I know well the sentiments of these my southern brothers, whose hearts are so infolded that the feeling of each is the feeling of all; and I see on both sides only the seeming of a constraint which each apparently hesitates to dismiss. The South—prostrate, exhausted, drained of her life-blood as well as of her material resources, yet still honorable and true-accepts the bitter award of the bloody arbitrament without reservation, resolutely determined to abide the result with chivalrous fidelity; yet, as if struck dumb by the magnitude of her reverses, she suffers on in silence.

The North, exultant in her triumph and elated by success, still cherishes, as we are assured, a heart full of magnanimous emotions toward her disarmed and discomfited antagonist; and yet, as if mastered by some mysterious spell, silencing her better impulses, her words and acts are the words and acts of suspicion and distrust.

Would that the spirit of the illustrious dead whom we lament to-day could speak from the grave to both parties to this deplorable discord in tones which should reach each and every heart throughout this broad territory, "My countrymen, know one another, and you will love one another."

CASTILLO

CANOVAS DEL CASTILLO, like many Spanish

men, was a man of letters. He was born in Málaga on February 8, 1826. He was first known as a poet, but his historical work gave him eminence. His achievements in this and other literary fields gained him an election to the Spanish Academy. At the age of twenty-five he was made editor of the Conservative newspaper, "La Patria," and in 1854, at the age of twenty-seven, he was elected to the Córtes, beginning the political activity that ended only with his tragic death shortly before the culmination of the trouble with the United States. In 1858-59 he was business representative of the Spanish government at Rome. From 1860 to 1864 he was repeatedly a member of the ministry under the Liberal Union. In 1864 he received a cabinet position as minister of the interior and in 1865 was minister of finance, at which period he drew up the law for the abolition of slavery. He had been nominally a Liberal for a number of years, but in 1868 became the leader of the Liberal-Conservatives. In the revolutionary period of 1868 he steadfastly maintained the principle of constitutional monarchy in the Constituent Assembly and refused to accept the republic. On the abdication of Queen Isabella II in 1870, he headed the party that desired to call Prince Alfonso of Asturias to the throne. When in 1874 this aim became successful the king made Cánovas the president of the ministry. On June 30, 1876, Cánovas brought about the adoption of the new constitution which, in a degree, satisfied the clergy without being false to Liberal principles. His efforts to restore peace and order to the long disturbed country were successful. From that time on till the day of his death he was the chief of the Conservative elements in the Córtes and stood at the head of the ministry whenever his party was in power. His first retirement from that post was due to the desire of the king not to estrange the Liberals, and his second retirement came from his refusal to make the king's daughter the Princess of Asturias. On the death of the king in November, 1885, public affairs seemed so critical that Cánovas resigned and helped Sagasta form a Liberal ministry, deeming that statesman better qualified to unite the elements of order against the intrigues of the Carlists. At the end of 1888 he again returned to power and in February, 1890, with characteristic courage caused the adoption into the Conservative program of a demand for universal manhood suffrage. From this reform he looked for strengthening of the Conservative and clerical elements. Returning to power as prime minister in July of that year he carried this program into effect and also took up a protective tariff system. His own party, however, became increasingly discordant, breaking up into various groups, and in December, 1892, he resigned and was succeeded for the third time by Sagasta. Returning to power in March, 1895, he was confronted by the second great revolt in Cuba. Continued discords in his party caused him to dissolve the Cortes in February, 1896. He was assassinated by an Italian anarchist on August 8, 1897.

Notable among the writings of Cánovas are the following: "Estudios Literarios (1868); "Historia del dominio austriaco en España" (1869); a biography of his uncle the poet Serafino Estébanez Calderon (1883); "Problemas contemporaneos" (1884); and Estudios del Reinado de Felipe IV" (1888-90); his poetical works appeared in 1887.

It is noteworthy that Cánovas and Castelar were lifelong personal friends. The conservatism of Cánovas had a fundamentally liberal quality, as indicated by the accompanying example from one of his addresses in which he lays stress on the inevitable tendency of society toward democracy. Juan Rico y Amat says of him:

"Cánovas is the fervent believer of a school, but neither its representative nor its apostle; he is a notable parliamentary orator, but not one of the foremost. His talent, his special merit, consists in having comprehended better than others the true temper of representative government, the policy of which may not ever be radical, absolute, and fixed, but must vary in its application according to the circumstances that give it life, adaptable and accommodating in its form as the interest and/ convenience of the nation may demand. This policy of circumstance, sol and indispensable base of representative government, the just medium between radical parties, and the symbol of the Liberal Union which was created as a moderate party between those that stand extreme-has always been Cánovas del Castillo's policy."

B

ON CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

PERORATION OF ADDRESS DELIVERED APRIL 11, 1864

UT, gentlemen, is it not true, passing to a plane a little more elevated and even repeating certain ideas of Señor Barzanallana (for I say frankly that what has most surprised me in the speech of the gentleman is that side by side with conclusions which in my judgment are inexact, dialectically false, it was accented and filled throughout with genuine estimations of politics, of economy, and of history), is it not true, gentlemen, that if we review history at any one of its grand moments,—be it in the Middle Ages, in the epoch of feudalism and of the birth of municipalities or town councils; be it later, at the period of the exaggeration of Catholic influence and the beginning of heretical resistance; be it when absolutism was predominant and aristocracy humiliated; be it in the epoch of the French Revolution, at the instant when all the combustible deadwood of the centuries took fire-is it not true that in all the institutions of

Europe we encounter a singular, an intimate, an indisputable analogy?

Is it by chance that all serious historians have been surprised to find how the organization of the municipality in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in the heart of the Middle Ages, was identical among all the peoples of Europe? Is it by chance that the terrible unity of the Gothic cathedrals is written upon pages of stone? Have you not remarked how here and there the same ideas are realized, how identical institutions arise and pass from one country to another?

It is because the spirit of humanity is one, and all that opposes this unity must fall irremediably to destruction, whatever its strength, whatever its potency?

Such is the truth. And vainly we oppose the operation of the universal spirit; even though a nation by exceptional circumstances may have separated from the general current of civilization as Spain had the misfortune of doing in the sixteenth century, as had England the fortune of doing in that very same epoch; there comes a day when at last it must join it again.

Therefore we ourselves, since the days of theocratic despotism, are incontestably going the road to liberty, and let Señor Barzanallana not doubt it. And England, by another path, in a different manner, is marching to merge herself in continental democracy. No, it cannot be impeded; it is vain to attempt it, for could it be impeded it would give the lie to the unity of the human spirit. The way leads toward democracy, toward a certain democracy in all parts of the world, toward the fall of social inequalities; the way leads toward a common right in all parts of the world, the same in England as in all other nations; a little sooner, a little later, the way will be trod; there is no doubt of it whatever.

Considered in this aspect, not political but social, democracy is inevitable.

Do you believe that perhaps England inay with its aristocratic spirit oppose with better resistance the modern spirit, the universal spirit of human kind, than did ancient Spain, the Spain of Philip II, with her inquisition, with her convents, with her little primogenitures, with all her antiquated organization? And you that tremble because that society with those conditions and with that form must be lost, how can you claim that it is a phenomenon peculiar to this country of ours; that it is not an inevitable condition of the march of humanity; that what has already occurred in Spain is not to be reckoned with at last, and in its own time, in England, though in a contrary sense; that what must occur must occur everywhere.

Therefore, gentlemen, because this is true, because it is the certain lesson of history, I defend, I proclaim with intimate and profound conviction, the politics of circumstances and of transactions. Yes; because circumstances are reality itself, circumstances are life itself; to fly from them is to travel toward the impossible, toward the absurd. If you study all the periods of decadence, that same decadence of which Señor Barzanallana has spoken to us this very day, the grand decadence of the Spanish monarchy-in my opinion the greatest that history has to register-you will find at the bottom as its original and fundamental cause not the natural exaggeration of all things proper to the Spaniards,— for this, as I regard it, would be a trivial cause,—but institutions, social conditions battling against inexorably opposing circumstances.

Does Señor Barzanallana know wherein lies the secret of the decadence of Spain from the Emperor Cárlos V to King