to follow that advice, is not certain. You will all discover some time or other, that, in leaving the mother church of Federalism, you have brought yourselves into reprobation. I hope you will not have reason to say with the poet, facilis est descensus," etc.

Again Morris writes: "It is well for you who desire a position in public life, that you are in a position not to take immediate part either way. The only danger is that your interest should be compromised by the zeal of your friends." The gossip of Gouverneur Morris, perhaps, deserves little respect; and yet the reader of his letters to Livingston cannot help entertaining the suspicion that the complications of political affairs at home, during the first months of Jefferson's administration, caused Livingston to indulge certain aspirations for the presidency that succeeding events rendered futile.

The glorious event of Livingston's career as minister to France was the acquisition of Louisiana. Of the history of that transaction much has been written, and the bitter controversy as to whom the honor of that purchase should be given is not yet ended. The details of the negotiation are interesting, and the importance of that treaty by which the immense territory west of the Mississippi was added to our country can never be overestimated. The words of Livingston, after the signature of the treaty of cession, are peculiarly significant of the importance which the chief actor in that memorable event attached to his deed, and are deserving of our respect and admiration. Mr. Marbois, one of the three ministers, thus quotes the words of Livingston, who rose at the close of the negotiations, and in clear, impressive tones, to which his tall and graceful figure and

"We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives. From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank; the English lose all exclusive power and influence in the affairs of America. Now one of the principal causes of European rivalries and animosities is about to cease. The United States will re-establish the maritime rights of all the world, which are now usurped by a single nation. These treaties will be a guaranty of peace and concord among commercial states. The instruments we have just signed will cause no tears to be shed; they prepare ages of happiness for innumerable generations of human creatures. The Mississippi and Missouri will see them succeed one another and multiply, truly worthy of the regard of Providence, in the bosom of equality, under just laws, freed from the errors of superstition and the scourges of bad government."

While in Paris, Livingston formed the acquaintance of Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, and shared the struggles of that famous inventor to introduce his steamboat. Livingston willingly advanced the money to complete the inventor's steamboats, and secured the exclusive privilege of navigating the waters of New York for himself and Fulton. To untiring and patient efforts Fulton owed his success, but none the less does Robert R. Livingston deserve praise for his foresight in aiding the needy inventor at a time when, but for the wealth of Livingston, his inventions would have proved futile.

Of Livingston's interest in art, education, and agriculture; of his abilities as a writer, orator, and essayist; of his

published works on farming, sheep raising, and agriculture; and of his benefactions to the American Academy of Fine Arts, which was established through his efforts and aid, - space prevents our speaking.

His death occurred in 1813, at the end of a career nearly fifty years of which had been passed in the service of his native State, and the Union which his efforts had established. Judged by ability, education, and the success of his life, Robert R. Livingston belonged, perhaps, to the class of statesmen of which John Jay, John Marshall, and John Adams were representatives. It was not his fortune, like Hamilton and Jefferson, to establish a great political party, nor like Washington to become the idol of all future generations; but estimated by the great results which his influence helped to bring about, Livingston deserved a rank not far below that of Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton.

The statesman who was a member of the committee to frame the Declaration of Independence, the secretary of foreign affairs during the Revolutionary war, the draughter of the first constitution of New York, and the first chancellor of his native State, deserved the gratitude of mankind. But Robert R. Livingston did more than that. To his efforts we owe the very existence of our Union; to him the Republican party of his time was indebted for its first success, for its first induction into the offices of government; Chancellor Livingston we must thank for our vast territory beyond the Mississippi; and perhaps not the least of the great services for which he deserves our lasting gratitude was his introduction of steam navigation on the waters of the Hudson.

"May the name of Robert R. Livingston be rescued from the oblivion that now impends!"

PROVINCETOWN, MASS., 1885.

A GIANT precipice, whose rugged face bold fronts the lashing sea,

Which writhes and roars, and strives to mount, but then perforce must flee;

Stolid and grand, forever it stands with many

a ghastly tear,

Where fearlessly the sea-birds build, and ser

pents make their lair;

At its foot a raging, seething cauldron, boiling with briny foam,

Darksome and deep and doleful, seems of

fiends a fitting home;

But, above, the rugged monster slopes to a

sweet and gentle lea, Bedecked with bright and blooming flowers, beloved of bird and bee.

O'er all bends the smiling blue-arched heav

ens, picked out with feathery white, Towards which the screaming sea-birds rejoicing wing their flight.

Poised fearlessly on its highest peak, great God of mercy! stands

A laughing, prattling infant boy, a bright moth in his hands.

There stands the babe in breathless, boyish glee, his trophy in his clasp, Nor knows, nor fears, that ghastly Death longs his fair form to grasp;

And just beyond, the frighted mother kneels, her heart with anguish numb, Pleading the while, with pretty wiles, that to her arms he'll come.

From beneath his golden curling lashes his sparkling blue eyes peep, Watching to see if "weal and tue" his mother dear doth weep.

His smiles are flown, his tiny bosom heaves, his feet scarce touch a flower, And he is in his mother's arms, saved! and by love's sweet power.

Thus upon life's precipice we dally, nor fear Death's chilling stream.

We chase the pleasures of the hour, and little do we dream

It were but a step to tide us o'er to that great and unknown land;

But the loving great God holds us i' the hollow of his hand.

"THE right of local self-government is a common expression. Believers in that "right" are numerous and influential in politics, from the ancient democrat who insists upon a narrow limitation of the powers of our national government, to the local leader who asserts that his town has an exclusive right to manage its own affairs. They maintain this "right" as a political principle, no matter if the local management injures seriously the adjoining municipalities, and practically brings the law of the State into contempt.

The recent enactment by the Massachusetts Legislature of a law vesting in the governor the power of appointing the Boston Police Commissioners, emphasized in the public mind by prolonged hostile filibustering under the lead of Boston members, has revealed a public opinion concerning the rights of local self-government which involves a serious misapprehension of the real right of towns and cities to rule over their own affairs. Not until the agitation had proceeded for weeks, did the difficulties involved concerning the rights of self-government become settled in the minds of the majority; and it was doubtless true that the position maintained throughout by the minority was at first held in common by most of the members. Abundant press comment also, Republican and Democratic, both within and without the State, was to the effect that the law was a direct blow at the city's right of self-government, and hostile to the principles of democracy. Some journals which even advised the enactment of the law in

"How jealously the people guarded their rights of local self-government against the encroachments of the central power, is shown in the refusal of the inhabitants of Watertown to pay a tax of eight pounds" for fortifications in Cambridge; and their pastor and elders said: "It was not safe to pay moneys after that sort, for fear of bringing themselves and posterity into bondage."

The writer of to-day, and the local leaders of two hundred years ago, evidently agree that the local government had rights not to be restricted by a higher power.

Professor Edward Channing of Harvard University, in a pamphlet in the Johns Hopkins historical series, contrasting New England with Virginia, says,

"In New England, on the contrary, the mass of the people, from the very earliest time, seized the control of affairs, and fiercely resented any encroachment on what they considered. their rights."

Professor James K. Hosmer, in another pamphlet of the same series, remarks, —

"At the time of the colonization of America, the old self-government of

"Anglican self-government requires that every institution of local self-government shall have the right to pass such by-laws as it finds necessary for its own government, without obtaining the consent of any superior power. . . . The character of self-government is, moreover, manifested by the fact that the right of making by-laws is not derived by any grant of superior power, but has been ever considered in the English polity as inhering in the local community, the natural right of free men."

and triumphs of these communities in defence of their integrity, have led to the present popular belief that there is a right of local self-government in the same sense in which there is a right of freedom of thought. It is an idolized belief. It has come to be associated with Plymouth Rock, with democratic institutions wherever they are successful, and with the integrity and perpetuity of the government. Over and over again every year is it reiterated upon the political stump that the salvation of the nation depends upon the healthful life of the local democratic governments; and this undoubted truth carries the erroneous conclusion, that, therefore, a town has rights of its own, inherent and inalienable.

But this belief cannot bear the strain which comes in the halls of legislation, or when the executive department finds obstacles in the way of enforcing the laws. The radical difficulty underlying this conception of a right of local selfgovernment is that it ignores the larger community of which the city or town forms a part. It fixes the attention upon a small circle, and does not see the relation in which that circle stands to the larger. Theoretically one doctrine is held, but another is actually practised. In all state legislation the supremacy of the whole body politic is tacitly admitted on every hand; and this admission is made in respect to the relations of the national government to the States as truly as it is in respect to the relations of the States to the cities and towns incorporated by them. If towns have the right to regulate their own conduct, then the State has no right to compel them to follow a prescribed course. Yet interference by States with town governments is constantly occur

ring; and in practice,

and in justice, too, - a town has ho more the right of self-government than has a person a right to do as he pleases regardless of people about him.

Indeed, the right of self-government is much the same, whether personal or municipal. It is right that both the person and the town should do what is for the good of the one and of the whole. It is their duty to do these right things. Doing them better than they can be done otherwise, it is their right that they should be protected in a continuance of their action. But their right to protection is a consequence of their fitness and purpose to act for their own good and for the good of the community. If the self-government of a town were such that justice were denied to the weak within its borders, if there were systematic persecution of any class by vexatious by-laws, or if there were chronic mismanagement and confusion, there would clearly be no right inherent in the town to continue such a mockery of government. Its continuance would re-act to the injury of neighboring municipalities; and the larger community would have the right and duty to interfere, and restore a proper observance of justice and good order.

The issue needs only to be clearly presented to show that there is no right of local self-government apart from the ability to meet well the responsibility of governing efficiently. This ability varies with the intelligence and political activity of the towns; but the practice of local self-government is undoubtedly. a matter of expediency, and not a matter of right. Given an efficient, upright local government, it is right that it should continue. Given a local government weak and corrupt, it is clearly not right that it should exist without

hinderance; and it would be wrong in the central authority to permit a continuance, due regard being given to the precedent to be established.

While this position is tacitly held by most men at the very moment when they are insisting upon "the sacred principle of local democracies;" while no town can put its finger upon a certain class of acts (either its control of roads, or fire apparatus, or sanitary measures, or schools, or its poor), and say: "Here I am sovereign; here I have absolute power, and here you have no right to enter," yet it is in the power of any town to establish a strong presumptive right to self-government; and here is where the worth of local democracies can be most thoroughly demonstrated. So long as the towns manage any department of government better for the good of the whole people than it can be managed by the central authority, just so long it is right that they should have the management. Were it certain that insane people could be best cared for by institutions under town management, then the State would need to provide for only those persons who have no settlement. Were there no doubt that the towns neglected their poor shamefully, from some fault in their government which they would not remedy, and that the State would do better for the unfortunates, then it would be right to take from towns the oversight of their poor.

Now, good government in a town is best obtained by thorough participation in its affairs by all its citizens. That constant interest in public business which brings all the voters to the polls; that discussion in town meeting in which every man may state his opinions; that exposure to question and ridicule which only the right side of