whose heads were kinsmen and bore a common name, land, buildings, and cattle being held in common, and families having separate compartments in a common house. The meals were taken in common, only the head of the community and his second enjoying the distinction of a separate table. The community was industrious and moral in its habits. But the spirit of individualism finally crept in, undermined the authority of the elders, eventuated in legal complications, and finally in ineradicable feuds between families. The society was broken up in 1846.

But, perhaps, the most striking examples of ancient communistic agriculture are still extant in the villages of Croatia, Servia, and Austrian Slavonia. The villages are fraternities of co-owners and kinsmen, holding land in common, cultivating in common, and dividing annually according to rules, giving fixed shares to particular persons, or according to the estimated wants of families. The land is not even theoretically devisable.

On the other hand, the Russian agricultural village parcels out the arable land among the households, but only for a term of years, generally three, after which it is re-apportioned en masse. This work falls to the lot of the council of elders -the patria, again-who also settle all disputes between households, and give decision in all causes at law. This organization has persisted through many political mutations. When the feudal system was initiated in Russia, and the villages became subjected to noble proprietors, the freemen became serfs, working en corvée for the benefit of the master. It is even asserted, and by no less authorities than Haxthausen and Tengoborski, that the serf system was introduced in order to preserve the old village system from segregation, as upon it depended the ancient order of the land.

This universal rule, therefore, as the acute reader has already concluded, prevailed in the process of feudalization; the mark was transformed into the manor, and generally the tribal land determined the limits of the shire. The germ of the aristocracy, that gradually worked this metamorphosis and

substituted feudal for odal tenures, is, as has already been intimated, to be sought in the existence of certain families within the community, tracing their descent to the primitive ancestor, who was general in war, and governor in peace. Thus, in the very constitution of the community, and in the vested right of the court of elders to partition the land, was planted the germ of a hereditary nobility, and of the transformation of tenures. The Indian village-community, already extinguished in Bengal, but still prevalent in the interior, presents examples of the feudalizing process in every stage of progress. Indeed, wherever the Brahminical code of Mann, in which the two leading ideas are caste and religious ritual, has had its way, the native village law has become obsolete, and exists only as tradition; but, as indicated in Mr. George Campbell's able paper in the volume on "Systems of Land Tenure," it appears that the constitution of these villages corresponded with that of the ancient mark in Germany, Scandinavia, and England.

A general view of the subject has now been mapped out. But it would require tomes to follow the complex process of feudalization, step by step, from the primitive democratic village to the feudal manor with its land. Again, the field is a new one, and only shafts have been sunk where systematic mining should long since have been the order of the day. Perhaps, indeed, it would be premature to construct any definite theory of the great transformation, or series of transformations, by which Europe has proceeded from the condition of a myriad of political units, each independent of the other, to the condition of a congeries of nations.

At least, however, American thinkers owe it to themselves to master the details of a field of investigation so important; and, to that end, this imperfect summary of the relations of the subject to various social, political, legal and historical problems has been attempted.

VOL. XXIX. -NO. LVIII.

4

ART. III.—1. The Oath of the President of the United States, with other Oaths.

2. The Messages of President Grant to the Congress of the United States for five years past, with Notes, Grammatical, Critical and Ironical, on the same, by numerous Editors. Washington.

3. A Series of Essays on the Statesmanship of Gen. Ulysses Grant, President of the United States, as illustrated chiefly in his peculiar plan of Reconstructing Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, etc., by means of Carpet Bags and Bayonets. New York, Philadelphia, Boston, &c.

4.A Dissertation on the precise difference between Presents and Bribes in the case of the President of the United States. By Hon. THOMAS MURPHY, LL.G., assisted by several other men of letters equally eminent and disinterested.

Still

Now, as on many former occasions, we have a disagreeable task to perform. It is no pleasure to us to assail those in high places, even when they occupy them only by accident, and give daily proof of their utter unfitness for them. less disposed are we to divest them of their tinsel and whitewash, and exhibit them in their deformities as nature and art have made them, when they may be regarded for the time being, abroad if not at home, as, in a certain sense, a type of the national civilization and intelligence. But it would be a spurious patriotism and a burlesque on free thought and free speech to conceal grave faults in our public men for appearances' sake, in order to avoid the mortification of being ruled by such men.

It may be very well for the press to be blind and deaf in regard to the defects, infirmities, or imbecilities of those in power, in countries in which it is a penal offence to express an unfavorable opinion of them. But even in coun

tries in which the press is thus shackled,

where bondage is

hoarse and may not speak aloud, no such performances on the part of their rulers as we have to complain of would be allowed to pass without being denounced, let the penalty be what it might. At all events, we are not of those who, feeling that they have a duty to perform, shrink from performing it lest it may get them into trouble-lest it may injure them in their present business or future prospects. Accordingly we proceed to give our impressions freely, but without intending to use any harsher language than the public good seems imperatively to demand. We think our sincerity in this will be sufficiently evident from the fact that, had our present Executive been content with the honors and profits he has enjoyed, from having been elected twice to the chief magistracy of this great nation, we would cheerfully have allowed him to retire in peace without any such unpleasant retrospect as we have now to present.

But none need doubt any longer that General Grant will do all in his power to secure his election for a third term, and this is but saying in other words that he will be President or Dictator for life if he can. The only question on this point is, Will he succeed in his ambitious plans? It is certain that he would not if the American people would only evince their characteristic sagacity and patriotism. But unfortunately there is not the least certainty of this. Political demoralization is too widely prevalent-a demoralization which, as may be remembered but too well, General Grant himself has contributed more than any other man by example, if not by precept, to render universal. It is generally admitted by thinking men whose minds are not warped by the corrupt influences of party politics, that those who give themselves any trouble about the welfare or honor of the nation in comparison with their own selfish interests form but a very small minority of our voting population, and that with this minority General Grant has no real sympathy.

But let us be understood. We do not oppose General Grant either on partisan or personal grounds. We owe him no grudge. We have no feeling of resentment to gratify

against him. He has never refused us a favor, for we have never asked one from him directly or indirectly, either in our own behalf or that of any one else. Moreover, we were in favor of his election when we did not know him as well as we do now-that is, when we regarded him as a very different man from what he has since proved himself to be. While we labored under this delusion we were not only in favor of his election, but we did all in our power to contribute to it. The reason was this: we fully sympathised with the large proportion of the public who were grateful to General Grant for having suppressed the rebellion, although at no time did we believe that he was the best of our generals. We believed that there were several as good as he, more than one his superiors. We were satisfied that he succeeded finallynot because he was in any sense an abler general than some of his predecessors, but because he had a much better disciplined and more effective army, whereas the rebel army had grown weak and demoralized. In all this he was fortunate.

But this was no reason why he should not be rewarded and honored by the nation. He was rewarded and honored accordingly, and in the most generous manner. But this is not sufficient for him. He is made President of the United States. In three months he proves to the world, not only how little he knows of statesmanship, but how very vague are his ideas of principle or honor, or even of the dignity and self-respect of a gentleman. He proves, in a word, that money, or its equivalent in some form-cash or merchandise, real or personal estate, hardware or software-is the sort of honor that is most precious to him. The politicians soon avail themselves of his infirmity. All who are ambitious to obtain office, whether their object be money or glory, proceed to make presents to the President of the United States, and those who give most money or most value get the fattest offices, or those supposed to confer most glory. Any one might be a great public functionary on this plan if he had only a sufficient amount of wealth and was proportionately liberal in making presents. It matters