BOOK NOTICES.

Division and Reunion 1829-1889. By Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Jurisprudence in Princeton University. New York and London, Longmans, Green & Co. 1893. 12m0, 326 pp.

Professor Wilson has selected (not to say, invented) a new period of American history for commemoration in this little volume, the latest of the "Epochs of American History" series. It is the last sixty years of the first century under our present Constitution. The book is far from being a mere narrative. The author believes that the period chosen has a distinct life and character of its own, which it is his main object to describe and illustrate.

Briefly summarized, his positions are these:

Of those who had been leaders in the Revolutionary and postRevolutionary period, none were alive in 1829. The old political issues had died, also, in the "era of good feeling." It was a new kind of Democracy which came in with Andrew Jackson and went out with the first administration of President Cleveland. It began as a party of native-born Americans, for between 1790 and 1830 not more than four hundred thousand immigrants were added to our population. It included within its ranks, in 1889, a very large percentage of men of foreign birth or foreign parentage.

The native-born American, however, of 1829 was not entitled to look down on foreigners. Our grandfathers were "a race of homespun provincials." "The whole people, moreover, were self-absorbed, their entire energies consumed in the dull, prosaic tasks imposed upon them by their incomplete civilization." (p. 6). It was not till Europe had repossessed itself of the continent by a tide of emigration, which created and nationalized what was originally known as "the West," that men came to see what a State could be, which had no history. The States of the former era were self-centered provinces. The new States had "no corporate individuality." The West "was the region into which the whole national force had been projected, stretched out and energized,-a region, not a section: divided into States by reason of a form of government, but homogeneous, and proceed

ing forth from the Union." (p. 212). The South alone stood wholly apart from these influences, and she was at last borne down by them.

Jefferson's democracy had been that which aimed at little but confining the powers of government within their narrowest limits, but it was the "Jacksonian dogma that anything the people willed was right; that there could not be too much omnipotence, if only it were the omnipotence of the mass, the right of majorities." (p. 21).

The "Spoils system" was introduced by Jackson's friends, rather than by Jackson. He admired, in an undiscriminating way, the results of party discipline and organization in New York, and suffered Van Buren and Marcy to bring their methods to Washington.

66

The East and West began to draw off from each other in 1830. The East looked with apprehension at the tide of emigration which was draining it of its best blood to give life to new and rival communities. Webster, not in sympathy with this spirit of jealousy, in the debates on the Foot resolution as to the Public Lands, first outlined the national theory of our government. The South refused to accept it, and in so refusing, was continuing to insist upon the original understanding of the Constitution that was all." (p. 47). The fight of South Carolina against the Protective system was a practical success. The tariff was modified much as she wished, and though her theory of government was not established in form, the result of nullification "gave to the practical politics of an English people, a theoretical cast such as the politics of no English community had ever worn before." (p. 67).

Jackson's war on the Bank marked his instinctive appreciation of the approach of a new era when corporations would be the masters of every business, and "individual opportunity was to become unequal." A leisured class arose, and literature came with them, led by Hawthorne, Poe, Longfellow and Emerson. The change of Northern sentiment as to slavery tended inevitably to war, or secession; and the right of secession, though it "would hardly have been questioned in the early years of the government" (p. 211), came to be opposed and overborne by a nationalizing tendency of thirty years growth. The South was driven to submission, or to arms. The conflict came, and "there is, in history, no devotion not religious, no constancy not meant for

success, that can furnish a parallel to the devotion and constancy of the South in this extraordinary war." (p. 239).

The war over, morals declined. "During the whole of General Grant's second term of office a profound demoralization prevaded the administration" (p. 278), and infected Congress. Political changes followed, and the Democratic party finally returned to power, led by a new order of men. As the century closed, a new Union was born, and the South came for the first time into likeness to the rest of the country.

The impression which reading Professor Wilson's book leaves. upon the mind is that he has hardly vindicated the right of the sixty years under review to be treated as a distinct part of American history. The contrast between the American of 1829 and the American of 1889 is hardly as sharp as he would have us believe. The new States of the last thirty years are, after all, in great measure, repeating the history of the new States settled by the preceding generation. There was no real "division" in 1829, nor was "reunion" delayed till 1889.

Professor Wilson writes in a clear and forcible style, though marred by an occasional colloquialism, which seems to have more in common with what he deems the literary finish of 1829, than with that of 1889. The bibliographical references at the head of each chapter are both well selected and well arranged, and add greatly to the value of the work, which appears to be especially designed for use in instruction in Colleges or high schools. SIMEON E. BALDWIN.

Dissertations on the Apostolic Age. Reprinted from editions of St. Paul's Epistles by the late J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Lord Bishop of Durham. London and New York, Macmillan & Co. 1892-8vo., ix, 434 pp.

Bishop Lightfoot was justly considered as the foremost scholar in matters pertaining to New Testament Criticism in Great Britain. His mind was penetrating, his acquaintance with the early ecclesiastical literature was thorough and accurate, his spirit fair and judicial, and he had no hesitation about avowing his opinions. The Dissertations reprinted in this volume are five in number. Every one of them is a gem of its kind. Many will turn with interest to the third, that on "The Christian Ministry," which was connected with the Bishop's Commentary on the Philippians. In that Essay, Dr. Lightfoot maintained with great

ability and erudition that the Episcopate in the Church was developed out of the presbytery, and that the sacerdotal theory of the ministry did not exist in the Church of the second century, the Episcopate being considered an institution for purposes of order and government. He held, however, that in all probability it existed in Asia Minor before the death of the Apostle John. The Notes appended by the Editors of the present volume are from other writings of a later date from the Bishop's pen. They show his attachment to the Episcopate, but do not modify the positions of the Essay. In fact he wishes to be understood as "disclaiming any change in his [my] opinions" (p. 243). He goes no farther than to say: "the threefold ministry can be traced to Apostolic direction; and short of an express statement one can possess no better assurance of a Divine appointment or at least a Divine sanction. If the facts do not allow us to unchurch other Christian communities differently organized, they may at least justify our jealous adhesion to a polity derived from this source (p. 242). In the Bishop's (posthumous) edition of the Apostolic Fathers he remarks that Episcopacy had not spread into the region where the recently discovered "Didache," or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" belonged.

G. P. F.

The Repudiation of State Debts. Library of Economics and Politics, No. 2. By William A. Scott, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Economy in the University of Wisconsin. New York and Boston, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1893-8vo, 325 pp. In this work Professor Scott has endeavored to give an historical and critical review of repudiation as it has been practised by the States of the Union from 1789 until the present time, including the "scaling" of State debts and the refusal on the part of certain states to pay bonds which were held to be invalid, either from a moral or legal standpoint.

The extension of the term "repudiation" beyond its narrow and technical limits seems necessary to a full treatment of the subject, but there is a tendency on the part of the author to confuse the several classes of bad debts above referred to and the degree of accountability of the states for them. The instances of public bankruptcy before 1789 are not considered. The first part of the book deals with the constitutional and legal aspects of repudiation, and first with the provisions of the Federal Constitution which bear upon the subject, viz: the prohibition of the

impairment by the states of the obligation of contracts (Art. I, §10) and the provision that the judicial power of the United States shall extend to suits between a State and citizens of another State (Art. III, §2). The meaning of the former class is shown by a brief review of important decisions thereon by the Supreme Court, to forbid not only the impairment of the contract itself, but also any interference with the legal remedy of such a character as to destroy or weaken its binding force upon the parties. In Bronson v. Kinzie, 6 How. 301, it was laid down that a diminution in the value of a contract, caused by legislation, is an impairment of the obligation, but in certain cases the ingenuity of local legislators has succeeded in imposing harassing restrictions upon the debtor's pursuit of the remedy, which have nevertheless successfully run the gauntlet of the Supreme Court and been held valid. Such was the character of the Virginia act of May 12, 1887, adjudicated in the case of McGahey v. Virginia, 135 U. S. 667. The protection afforded to creditors of States by the Federal Constitution would nevertheless have been ample had the decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dallas 419, that a State could be sued in a Federal court by the citizen of another State, been allowed to stand, but the adoption of the eleventh amendment corrected what was at that time all but universally regarded as an abuse of the judicial power. The result of the provision of the Federal Constitution is that the creditor of a State cannot appear in the Federal courts as plaintiff to sue upon his debt, and although he can appear as plaintiff against State officers attempting to enforce an unconstitutional law, and as defendant when the state initiates some proceeding to deprive him of his rights under the contract, even this protection may be made worthless by indirect hostile legislation. Thus defenseless in the federal courts, the creditor will appeal in vain to those of the States for an adequate or effective remedy. Only seven States, Indiana, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, and Michigan provide for the adjudication of claims against them, but the decisions thereon are merely recommendatory and not enforceable by execution. The author's general conclusion is that the States are practically free to pay their debts or repudiate them as they see fit.

The second part of the work, chapters 2-6, deals with the history of repudiation, beginning with Mississippi in 1842, and ending with Virginia in 1892. The list of repudiating States is as