Introduction
Charles E. Merriam (1874–1953) helped create the academic field of political science. “Often called the father of the behavioral movement in political science,” Merriam was a leading member of the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago, which in the first part of the 20th century was “the nation’s leader in the production of more than a generation of major figures in the field.”[1] He held elective office in Chicago, was a supporter of the Progressive party in 1912, served in the Army in World War I, and on various federal commissions later in his life.
A History of American Political Theories was one of Merriam’s early books. In chapter 8, “Recent Tendencies,” he described the thinking and methods of political theorists in the second half of the 19th century who rejected the doctrines commonly held at the time of the American founding. Principally, the more recent theorists rejected the doctrine of the state of nature. It was not the case, as a matter of historical fact, they held, that mankind was ever outside society or civil order. Mankind’s original state or fundamental condition was not one of “natural” individual freedom. Humans were always in society; they could not be understood outside of it. Freedom was only possible within society, therefore. Society in turn was only possible given some political order, a state, that could make it possible. It followed, then, that liberty and rights were not inherent in individuals, a natural endowment independent of the particular political order in which individuals lived. On the contrary, the state “is the creator of liberty – the power that makes it possible.”
One way to understand Merriam’s account of “recent tendencies” is as the presentation of the consequences that follow from the denial of the state of nature or the claim that the rights of individuals are prior to the claims of the state. One of these consequences is that “. . . in the new view, the state acts not only for the individual as such, but in the interests of the community as a whole. It is not limited to the negative function of preventing certain kinds of action, but may positively advance the general welfare by means and measures expressly directed to that end. . . . [T]he only limitations on governmental action are those dictated by experience or the needs of the time.” Combining this idea of the broad scope of state power with the widely held view that science was advancing in its understanding of society, one of the new theorists argued “there ought to be a transformation of government from its present unscientific and unprogressive methods to a ‘central academy of science which shall stand in the same relation to the control of men, in which a polytechnic institute stands to the control of nature.’”
Part of this control, presumably, would be to decide who should enjoy liberty and how much of it. If rights are not inherent in or derived from a shared human nature, liberty or rights need not be the same for all. If rights are the gift of the state, the issue arises as to whom and when the state should give these unequal rights. The new thinkers responded, Merriam reported, that rights should be given only to those capable of exercising them properly. Who should decide who was capable of liberty? One might leave this to chance, that is to politics, elections, and so forth, but the new theorists no doubt would have preferred that the “central academy of science” answer the question scientifically and rationally. We find some sense of where this might lead in Merriam’s report that the scientific consensus was that the Teutonic race was superior to all others.
How seriously such progressive views were taken, we can see if we consider the fate of reproductive rights in the first decades of the 20th century. The arguments that Merriam recounted served as the theoretical underpinning of the eugenics movement, one of the most popular progressive reform movements of the early 20th century. During the first decades of the century, more than 30 states passed laws authorizing the sterilization of certain classes of their citizens, those deemed irremediably criminal, or less intelligent, or simply genetically lazy. As with reproductive rights, so with all rights – the views recounted by Merriam were the theoretical underpinnings of the scientific tyrannies of the right and left that plagued the 20th century.
The thinkers whose ideas Merriam described shared with Thomas Jefferson and Henry Ward Beecher the view that man was a social animal and consequently the view that man had not lived in a state of nature before entering civil society. Unlike the progressives, however, neither Jefferson nor Beecher concluded from this that rights were man made and not natural. Both held, on the contrary, in different degrees, that men were free by nature and according to their nature. Being free according to human nature meant for both obeying the moral laws that constituted human life as much as physical laws did.
One final note. Merriam pointed out that like the progressive theorists whose views he recounted, John Calhoun rejected the doctrines of the state of nature and of natural freedom and believed that liberty was rightly the possession only of those deemed capable of enjoying it properly. (See, for example, Calhoun’s “Speech on the Oregon Bill,” 1848.) Merriam claimed that Calhoun’s use of these ideas to defend slavery delayed “recognition of the truth in what had been said [by Calhoun] until the controversy over slavery was at an end.” Merriam did not say that the defense of slavery was wrong. Based on the progressive views he recounts, it is difficult to see how he could have.
—P.P.
[1] The University of Chicago Faculty: A Centennial View, https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/projects/centcat/fac/facch15_01.html
Recent Tendencies*
In the last half of the nineteenth century there appeared in the United States a group of political theorists differing from the earlier thinkers in respect to method and upon many important doctrines of political science. The new method was more systematic and scientific than that which preceded it, while the results reached showed a pronounced reaction from the individualistic philosophy of the early years of the century.[1]
Much of the credit of the establishment of this new school belongs to Francis Lieber, a German scientist who came to this country in 1827, and, as an educator and author, left a deep impress on the political thought of America. His Manual of Political Ethics (1838-1839) and Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853) were the first systematic treatises on political science that appeared in the United States, and their influence was widespread.[2] Following Lieber, came a line of American political scientists, many of whom were trained in German schools, and all of whom had acquired a scientific method of discussing political phenomena. Among the most conspicuous figures in the new school are Theodore Woolsey, whose Political Science appeared in 1877, and John W. Burgess, who wrote, in 1890, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, and a number of others who have contributed materially to the development of the subject.[3]
The method of these authorities has already been indicated, and need not be discussed at length. The significant fact about it is the change from the rather haphazard style of discussing political theory in earlier days to a more scientific way of approaching the questions of politics. A far more thorough knowledge of history and a broader comparative view of political institutions are conspicuous in the new systems.
The doctrines of these men differ in many important respects from those earlier entertained. The individualistic ideas of the “natural right” school of political theory, indorsed in the Revolution, are discredited and repudiated. The notion that political society and government are based upon a contract between independent individuals and that such a contract is the sole source of political obligation, is regarded as no longer tenable. Calhoun and his school had already abandoned this doctrine, while such men as Story had seen the need of extensive qualification of it. Objections to the social contract were strongly urged by Lieber,[4] and were later more fully and clearly stated by others. In Lieber’s opinion, the “state of nature” has no basis in fact. Man is essentially a social creature, and hence no artificial means for bringing him into society need be devised. Lieber condemned the contract theory as generally held, on the ground that it was both artificial and inadequate. Such an explanation of the origin of the state can be regarded as true only in the sense that every political society is composed of individuals who recognize the existence of mutual rights and duties. Only in the sense that there is a general recognition of these reciprocal claims can we say that the state is founded on contract; and this, of course, is far from what the doctrine is ordinarily taken to mean. As a matter of fact, the state may originate, and has originated, Lieber, said, in a variety of ways, as, for example, through force, fraud, consent, religion.
Still more strongly is the opposition to the social-contract theory stated by Burgess. The hypothesis of an original contract to form the state is, as he reasons, wholly contrary to our knowledge of the historical development of political institutions. The social-contract theory assumes that “the idea of the state with all its attributes is consciously present in the minds of the individuals proposing to constitute the state, and that the disposition to obey law is universally established.”[5] These conditions, history shows, are not present at the beginning of the political development of a people, but are the result of long growth and experience. This theory therefore cannot account for the origin of the state. Its only possible application is in changing the form of the state, or in the cases when a state is planted upon new territory by a population already politically educated.
In the refusal to accept the contract theory as the basis for government, practically all the political scientists of note agree. The old explanation no longer seems sufficient, and is with practical unanimity discarded.[6] The doctrines of natural law and natural rights have met a similar fate. In Lieber’s political philosophy, it is true, the concept of natural law was still defended. The law of nature he defined as “the body of rights which we deduce from the essential nature of man.”[7] The great axiom of natural law is, “I exist as a human being; therefore, I have a right to exist as a human being.” Under this natural law, there are certain natural rights, or as Lieber preferred to call them, “primordial rights,”[8] which are inherent in the individual and inalienable to him. But even Lieber, with his leaning toward the old theory, did not interpret the doctrine of natural rights as the seventeenth and eighteenth century revolutionists understood it, and this he was very careful to point out.
By the later thinkers the idea that men possess inherent and inalienable rights of a political or quasi-political character which are independent of the state, has been generally given up. It is held that these natural rights can have no other than an ethical value, and have no proper place in politics. “There never was, and there never can be,” says Burgess, “any liberty upon this earth and among human beings, outside of state organization.”[9] In speaking of natural rights, therefore, it is essential to remember that these alleged rights have no political force whatever, unless recognized and enforced by the state. It is asserted by Willoughby that “natural rights” could not have even a moral value in the supposed “state of nature”; they would really be equivalent to force and hence have no ethical significance.[10]
In this connection it is interesting to notice the restatement of the theory of “natural rights” as made by Giddings.[11] Disclaiming any connection with the earlier forms of this theory, he understands by natural rights those which are natural in the scientific sense of the term. In this field “natural” means, “that which is, on the whole, in harmony with the conditions of existence.” On this basis, Giddings defines natural rights as, “socially necessary norms of right, enforced by natural selection in the sphere of social relations.” Natural rights, as thus defined, are the foundation of both political and moral rights, and ultimately determine the character of both. This definition, it will be observed, is as destructive of natural rights in the ethical sense as of natural rights in the political sense.
The present tendency, then, in American political theory is to disregard the once dominant ideas of natural rights and the social contract, although it must be admitted that the political scientists are more agreed upon this point than is the general public. The origin of the state is regarded, not as the result of a deliberate agreement among men, but as the result of historical development, instinctive rather than conscious; and rights are considered to have their source not in nature, but in law. This new point of view involves no disregard of or contempt for human liberty, but only a belief that the earlier explanation and philosophy of the state was not only false but dangerous and misleading.
The modern school has, indeed, formulated a new idea of liberty, widely different from that taught in the early years of the Republic. The “Fathers” believed that in the original state of nature all men enjoy perfect liberty, that they surrender a part of this liberty in order that a government may be organized, and that therefore the stronger the government, the less the liberty remaining to the individual. Liberty is, in short, the natural and inherent right of all men; government the necessary limitation of this liberty. Calhoun and his school, as it has been shown, repudiated this idea, and maintained that liberty is not the natural right of all men, but only the reward of the races or individuals properly qualified for its possession. Upon this basis, slavery was defended against the charge that it was inconsistent with human freedom, and in this sense and so applied, the theory was not accepted outside the South. The mistaken application of the idea had the effect of delaying recognition of the truth in what had been said until the controversy over slavery was at an end.
The Revolutionary idea of the nature of liberty was never realized in actual practice, and recent political events and political philosophy have combined to show that another theory of liberty has been generally accepted. The new doctrine is best stated by Burgess. By liberty he understands “a domain in which the individual is referred to his own will, and upon which government shall neither encroach itself nor permit encroachments from any other quarter.” Such a sphere of action is necessary for the welfare and progress both of state and of individual. It is of vital importance to notice, however, that liberty is not a natural right which belongs to every human being without regard to the state or society under which he lives. On the contrary, it is logically true and may be historically demonstrated that “the state is the source of individual liberty.”[12] It is the state that makes liberty possible, determines what its limits shall be, guarantees and protects it. In Burgess’s view, then, men do not begin with complete liberty and organize government by sacrificing certain parts of this liberty, but on the contrary they obtain liberty only through the organization of political institutions. The state does not take away from civil liberty, but is the creator of liberty – the power that makes it possible.
Liberty, moreover, is not a right equally enjoyed by all. It is dependent upon the degree of civilization reached by the given people, and increases as this advances. The idea that liberty is a natural right is abandoned, and the inseparable connection between political liberty and political capacity is strongly emphasized. After an examination of the principle of nationality, and the characteristic qualities of various nations or races, the conclusion is drawn that the Teutonic nations are particularly endowed with political capacity. Their mission in the world is the political civilization of mankind.
From this as a premise are deduced further conclusions of the utmost importance.[13] The first of these is that in a state composed of several nationalities, the Teutonic element should never surrender the balance of power to the others. Another is that the Teutonic race can never regard the exercise of political power as a right of man, but it must always be their policy to condition the exercise of political rights on the possession of political capacity. A final conclusion is that the Teutonic races must civilize the politically uncivilized. They must have a colonial policy. Barbaric races, if incapable, may be swept away; and such action “violates no rights of these populations which are not petty and trifling in comparison with its transcendent right and duty to establish political and legal order everywhere.” On the same principle, interference with the affairs of states not wholly barbaric, but nevertheless incapable of effecting political organization for themselves, is fully justified. Jurisdiction may be assumed over such a state, and political civilization worked out for those who are unable to accomplish this unaided. This propaganda of political civilization, it is asserted, is not only the right and privilege, but the mission and duty, the very highest obligation incumbent on the Teutonic races, including the United States. Such action is not unwarrantable or unjustifiable interference with the affairs of those who should rightly be left unmolested, but is the performance of the part marked out for the Teutonic nations in the world’s development.[14]
Closely related to the theory of liberty is the doctrine as to the purpose of function of the state. In the days of the Revolution, it was thought that the end of the political society is to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens, and beyond this nothing more. The duty of the state was summed up in the protection of individual rights, in harmony with the individualistic character of the philosophy of that day. In the theory of Lieber, this idea was broadened out, and, as he phrased it, the duty of the state is to do for man: first, what he cannot do alone; second, what he ought not to do alone; and third, what he will not do alone.[15] In more recent times there has been in America a decided tendency to react against the early “protection theory” of government, and to consider that the aim of the state is not limited to the maintenance of law and order in the community and defense against foreign foes. In the new view, the state acts not only for the individual as such, but in the interests of the community as a whole. It is not limited to the negative function of preventing certain kinds of action, but may positively advance the general welfare by means and measures expressly directed to that end. This opinion is shared by such authorities as Woolsey, Burgess, Wilson, Willoughby and others. To these thinkers it appears that the duty of the state is not and cannot be limited to the protection of individual interests, but must be regarded as extending to acts for the advancement of the general welfare in all cases where it can safely act, and that the only limitations on governmental action are those dictated by experience or the needs of the time.
Woolsey took the position that the state cannot be limited to restraining individuals from injuring each other, but may justly act positively for the general welfare. “The sphere of the state,” he said, “may reach as far as the nature and needs of man and of men reach;” and this each people decides for itself in accordance with its own peculiar conditions. In general the actions of the state falls under four groups: 1, the redress of wrongs; 2, the prevention of wrongs; 3, a degree of care for the outward welfare of the community, as in respect to industry, roads, and health; 4, the cultivation of the spiritual nature, “by educating the religious nature, the moral sense, the taste, the intellect.”[16] The general limitation on the power of the state is that there shall be no act in restraint of the individual, except where there is imperative reason for such restriction. He also enumerates a series of individual rights which no just government ought to take away.
Woodrow Wilson asserts that the objects of government are the objects of organized society. The great end for which society exists is “mutual aid to self-development,” and this purpose, therefore, is the proper function of government. With particular reference to modern industrial conditions, a distinction is drawn between what is termed “interference” on the part of the state, and what is called “regulation,” by which is meant an “equalization of conditions in all branches of endeavor.” The limit of state activity is that of “necessary cooperation” – the point at which such enforced cooperation becomes a convenience rather than an imperative necessity. This line is difficult to draw, but may nevertheless be drawn. In general, we may lay down the rule that “the state should do nothing which is equally possible under equitable conditions to optional associations.”[17]
A still broader view is that taken by Burgess in his discussion of the ends of the state. These may be considered, he says, under three heads: the primary, the secondary, and the ultimate. The ultimate end of the state is defined as the “perfection of humanity, the civilization of the world; the perfect development of the human reason and its attainment to universal command over individualism; the apotheosis of man.”[18] This end can be realized, however, only when a world-state is organized, and for this, mankind is not yet ready. Men must first be organized into national states, based on the principle of nationality. The proximate ends of the state are the establishment of government and liberty. The state must first of all establish peace and order; and in the next place mark out a sphere of liberty for the individual and later for associations. These are then the great ends of the state; the establishment of government and liberty, so that the national genius may find proper expression; and finally, the perfection of humanity. These objects must be followed, moreover, in an historical order which cannot be successfully reversed. Government must precede liberty, government and liberty must precede the final purpose for which the state exists. In the present stage of development, only the realization of government and liberty through the national state are proper objects of state activity. Beyond this broad outline Burgess makes no other attempt to mark out the limits of the operation either of state or of government.
An interesting study in this direction has been made by Willoughby.[19] The functions of the state are classified into three groups, of which the first contains those powers which concern the life of the state and the preservation of internal order, the second those which are concerned with human liberty, and the third those which have to do with the general welfare. A second method of classifying the aims of the state is to divide them into the essential and the non-essential functions. The essential functions concern the protection of the state against foreign interference, the preservation of the national life, and the maintenance of internal order. The non-essential functions include the “economic, industrial, and moral interests of the people.” They are assumed by the state not because they are necessary but because they are advisable. The non-essential functions are subdivided into the socialistic and the non-socialistic. The first class, the socialistic, includes only activities which could be exercised by the people if left to private initiative, as the ownership and operation of railroads, or telegraph and telephone systems. The non-socialistic functions are “those which, if not assumed by the state, would not be exercised at all;” as, for example, such work as that performed by educational and labor bureaus. It is denied that any limit can be set to governmental activity, and the contention is made that “each function must rest on its own utilitarian basis.” This specific determination belongs to the domain of government rather than of political theory. Willoughby predicts, however, that with the development of civilization and the increasing complexity of industrial interests, the activity of the state must continue to expand.
Among the authorities on political economy, the early idea of laissez faire, at least in its extreme form, has been subjected to severe criticism, and in general has been abandoned. The new position is a mean between socialism and extreme individualism. Francis A. Walker characterized the situation when he spoke of “those of us who discerned the coming storm and removed ourselves and our effects from the lower ground of an uncompromising individualism to positions somewhat more elevated and seemingly secure.”[20] He declared, and this statement is typical of the general attitude of the economists, that he believed “a large practical gain to the order of society and the happiness of its constituent members would in the long result accrue from the interposition of the state.”[21] Every proposal, however, for the extension of the powers and duties of the state should be subjected to careful scrutiny, and the burden of proof should be thrown upon those who advocate the innovation. Furthermore, no changes should be made in the direction of state regulation for transient causes or doubtful objects. The principle of action would seem to be to consider each case on its own merits, without reference to the question of individualism or socialism. In cases where the economic principle of competition appears to be threatened, the interference of the state seems to be most cheerfully welcomed.[22]
From a consideration of these various opinions, it is evident that the modern idea as to what is the purpose of the state has radically changed since the days of the “Fathers.” They thought of the function of the state in a purely individualistic way; this idea modern thinkers have abandoned, and while they have not reached the paternalistic or socialistic extreme, have taken the broader social point of view. The “protection” theory of the state is on the decline; that of the general welfare is in the ascendant. The exigencies of modern industrial and urban life have forced the state to intervene at so many points where an immediate individual interest is difficult to show, that the old doctrine has been given up for the theory that the state acts for the general welfare. It is not admitted that there are no limits to the action of the state, but on the other hand it is fully conceded that there are no “natural rights” which bar the way. The question is now one of expediency rather than of principle. In general it is believed that the state should not do for the individual what he can do as well for himself, but each specific question must be decided on its own merits, and each action of the state justified, if at all, by the relative advantages of the proposed line of conduct.
At yet another point the drift away from the Revolutionary theory is evident; namely, in relation to the division of governmental powers. The generally accepted theory since the eighteenth century has been that all governmental powers may be divided into the legislative, the executive, and the judicial; that in every free government these powers should be carefully separated and a distinct set of officers should administer each class of them. This has long been regarded as a “fundamental” of political theory and of constitutional law as well.[23] Viewing the situation from the standpoint of administrative law, however, a new line of division has been recently drawn by Goodnow.[24] In Politics and Administration Goodnow criticizes the theory of the tripartite division of governmental powers as an “unworkable and unapplicable rule of law,” and proposes to substitute another classification in its place. The primary functions of the state may be divided, he maintains, into politics, “the expression of the will of the state,” and administration, “the execution of that will.” “Politics” includes constitution-making, legislation, selection of governmental officers, and the control of the function of executing the will of the state. This function of politics is discharged by constitutional conventions, legislatures, the judiciary, and the political parties. “Administration,” on the other hand, may be divided into two classes: the administration of justice, commonly called the judicial authority, and the administration of government, which includes what is ordinarily termed the executive authority, together with other functions of a quasi-judicial or semi-scientific or statistical character.[25]
The method of control over the administration is discussed, and the highly decentralized system adopted in Revolutionary times is subjected to severe criticism. The conclusion drawn is that the present administrative system of the various states should be much more centralized and consolidated than at present; and in the second place that the political party should receive legal recognition as a governmental organ. The fear of centralization which our fathers entertained is, he holds, under modern conditions no longer reasonable. It is a “battle-cry suitable only to an age that has already passed away,”[26] – ”a bogie which has been conjured up by designing persons conscious that a proper organization of our administrative system will work to their disadvantage.”[27] The party, furthermore, must no longer be regarded as a purely voluntary association but as a political body subject to public regulation and control, constituting, in fact, a part of the government. In this way the party may be made responsible, and the danger, that under a more centralized system party bosses would wield still greater power, may be averted.[28]
. . . Within the last few decades, no little attention has been given in America to the study of social forces in the general sense of the term. These investigations have been directed primarily to the observation and classification of social facts, but incidentally contributions have been made to the solution of certain problems of political theory. Attention has already been called to the restatement of the doctrine of natural rights at the hands of Giddings.[29] In his Dynamic Sociology (1883), Lester F. Ward[30] lays great emphasis on a more scientific direction of social forces. The science of society, which in his terminology is known as “collective telesis.” There ought to be a transformation of government from its present unscientific and unprogressive methods to a “central academy of science which shall stand in the same relation to the control of men, in which a polytechnic institute stands to the control of nature.” Government would be then, in truth, “the legislative application of sociological principles,” and this is what he understands by “sociocracy” – “the scientific control of social forces by the collective mind of society for its advantage.”
Following the same general method, John R. Commons has worked out a somewhat elaborate account of the sociological view of sovereignty which he states, of course, in social rather than political terms.[31] The most suggestive of these contributions, however, is that made by Ross in his Social Control, 1901.[32] Believing that a study of social control should not be limited to an examination of laws alone, Ross has instituted a comprehensive study of all social forces that go to make up the control of the group over the individual. To this end the work is divided into a study of the grounds of control, the means of control, and the system of control. Under the grounds of control are discussed the role of sympathy, sociability, the sense of justice, and of individual reaction as bases of social order. Under the means of control, there is given a description and analysis of the various forces, by means of which the society obtains social obedience and effects social control. These instrumentalities are partly legal, as law, belief, ceremony, education, illusion; and partly ethical, as public opinion, suggestion, art, and social valuation. The complicated machinery for producing obedience on the part of the individual to the will of the group is subjected to careful examination, with results that are at times startling. Ross maintains, however, that the full understanding of these subtle methods need not lead to any such disastrous consequences as those drawn by the Anarchists. Simply because the “X-ray shows control in all social tissues and the spectroscope reveals the element of collective ascendancy in almost every culture product,” it does not follow that all these tissues and products must be destroyed. A full comprehension of the facts of social control, while not wholly quieting to the individual thus controlled, need not lead to rebellion against this restraint.
Under the system of control are examined such topics as class control, the vicissitudes of social control, the limits and criteria of control. The assertion is made that in the future the control of society will be secured largely through the instrumentality of education – the best method of insurance against the spirit of disobedience in the individual. In the same connection an effort is made to lay down certain canons or principles of social interference. Of these the most significant are: “Social interference should not be so paternal as to check the self-extinction of the morally ill-constituted;” and, “Social interference should not so limit the struggle for existence as to nullify the selective process.”[33]
In conclusion, it appears that recent political theory in the United States shows a decided tendency away from many doctrines that were held by the men of 1776. The same forces that have led to the general abandonment of the individualistic philosophy of the eighteenth century by political scientists elsewhere have been at work here and with the same result. The Revolutionary doctrines of an original state of nature, natural rights, the social contract, the idea that the function of the government is limited to the protection of person and property, – none of these finds wide acceptance among the leaders in the development of political science. The great service rendered by these doctrines, under other and earlier conditions, is fully recognized, and the presence of a certain element of truth in them is freely admitted, but they are no longer generally received as the best explanation for political phenomena. Nevertheless, it must be said that thus far the rejection of these doctrines is a scientific tendency rather than a popular movement. Probably these ideas continue to be articles of the popular creed, although just how far they are seriously adhered to it is difficult to ascertain. As far as the theory of the function of government is concerned, it would seem that the public has gone beyond the political scientists, and is ready for assumption of extensive powers by the political authorities. The public, or at least a large portion of it, is ready for the extension of the functions of government in almost any direction where the general welfare may be advanced, regardless of whether individuals as such are benefited thereby or not. But in regard to the conception of natural right and the social-contract theory, the precise condition of public opinion is, at the present time, not easy to estimate.
* C. Edward Merriman, A History of American Political Theories (London: MacMillan and Company, 1910), 305–333.
[1] The discussion of the two preceding chapters has partly anticipated the doctrines here considered.
[2] See also the Miscellaneous Writings of Lieber, edited by D.C. Gilman, also Legal and Political Hermeneutics (1837). For an account of Lieber’s life, see The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, by T.S. Perry; also Francis Lieber, by L.R. Harley.
[3] Among these should be mentioned those writers who were conspicuous at the close of the Civil War, such as Brownson, Jameson, Mulford, Hurd, and others. Somewhat later come A.L. Lowell, Essays on Government (1892); Woodrow Wilson, The State (1889), and An Old Master and Other Political Essays (1893); F.J. Goodnow, especially in Politics and Administration (1900); W.W. Willoughby, The Nature of the State (1896), and Social Justice (1900); see also the works later cited. In the Political Science Quarterly, the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Historical Review, the Yale Review, and the American Journal of Sociology are found numerous contributions to the literature of political science.
[4] Political Ethics, I, 288 ff. (2nd edition, 1890).
[5] Political Science, I, 62. With Burgess compare Woolsey, Brownson, Jameson, Wilson, Mulford, Willoughby, to the same effect. See the comprehensive discussion in Willoughby, The Nature of the State, Chaps. II-VI.
[6] F.M. Taylor, in The Right of the State to be (1891), defends a concept of natural law.
[7] Political Ethics, I. 68.
[8] Ibid. I, 177. Cf. Woolsey, Political Science, Vol. I, Chap. I. In his Civil Liberty and Self-Government Lieber distinguished between what he called “Anglican” liberty and “Gallican” liberty. The Anglican idea of liberty is that of a sphere of immunity from interference, protected by guaranties “at certain points where the experience of the race has shown the individual to be most in danger of attack.” The Gallican idea is that all must share equally in voting power, and that the authority of a government based on universal suffrage may be indefinite in extent. One idea is that men are free when they are protected in a certain sphere against all encroachment, private or public; the other idea is that freedom consists in equal suffrage, no matter what the character of the government so based may be. This he thought was the great difference between the English and the French idea of liberty. It is interesting to observe that Benj. Constant, a famous French publicist of the early part of the century, made the same comparison between the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns, among whom he included, of course, the French.
[9] Political Science, I. 88.
[10] See The Nature of the State, 109; see also Social Justice, Chap. VIII. Cf. C. G. Tiedeman, The Unwritten Constitution of the United States, Chap. VI; Lyman Abbott, The Rights of Man.
[11] Franklin H. Giddings, Principles of Sociology, 418-419 (1st edition, 1896). Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology; E.A. Ross, Social Control, 421.
[12] Political Science, I, 175.
[13] Political Science, I, 44 et seq.
[14] It is a striking fact that within less than a decade the United States embarked on a colonial policy, invoking in justification the very principles which have just been analyzed. In the extended discussions of the colonial policy of the United States during the past four years, there has been no clearer formulation of the dominant theory than this. Burgess himself believes that the United States is not yet ready for the propaganda of political civilization, but should devote itself to its own problems of government and liberty. See infra, p. 318.
[15] Political Ethics, I, Chap. V.
[16] Political Science, Book II, Chap. IV, “Sphere and Ends of the State.”
[17] The State, Sec. 1273 ff.
[18] Political Science, Vol. I, Book II, Chap. IV.
[19] The Nature of the State, Chap. XII. See also Social Justice, Chap. IX.
[20] Discussions in Economics and Statistics (1899), I, 344.
[21] Ibid. II. 271. In the American Economic Association (1885) there was an interesting discussion on this point. Among other statements, that of Edmund J. James was significant: “We do not regard [the state] as a merely negative factor, the influence of which is most happy when it is smallest, but we recognized that some of the most necessary functions of a civilized society can be performed only by the state, and some others most efficiently by the state; that the state, in a word, is a permanent category of economic life, and not merely a temporary crutch which may be cast away when society becomes more perfect.” Publications of the American Economic Association, Vol. I, 26.
An interesting attempt to lay down definite principles respecting the function of government has been made by H.C. Adams, in The Relation of the State to Industrial Activity (1887). His fundamental proposition is that neither the English idea of the individual as supreme, nor the German idea of the state as supreme, is the correct one. Both state activity and individual activity are in reality functions of society – the “living and growing organism – the ultimate thing disclosed by analysis of human relations.” The point of view in the discussions of the sphere and duty of government should be therefore that of the society, rather than that of the individual or the state.
[22] See in this connection Richard T. Ely, Socialism and Social Reform (1894).
[23] See William Bondy, “The separation of Governmental Powers,” in Columbia Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, Vol. V.
[24] Frank J. Goodnow, Politics and Administration (1900), Comparative Administrative Law (1893).
[25] Politics and Administration, Chaps. II, IV.
[26] Ibid. 261.
[27] Ibid. 130. Cf. Ernst Freund, “The Law of Administration in America,” in the Political Science Quarterly, Vol. IX. See also “Public Administration in Massachusetts,” by Robert H. Whitten, in Columbia University Studies, Vol. VIII, No. 4; “The Centralization of Administration in New York State,” by John A. Fairlie, Ibid. Vol. IX, No. 3.
[28] On the function of political parties, see H.J. Ford, The Rise and Growth of American Politics, Chaps. XXIII-XXV.
[29] See ante, p. 310.
[30] See also “Collective Telesis,” in the American Journal of Sociology, Vol. II.
[31] American Journal of Sociology, Vol V.
[32] E.A. Ross, Social Control, A Survey of the Foundations of Order.
[33] Chap. XXX.
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