of the independence of the Executive. They found this
guarantee not by applying checks and balances to the elective
principle, but simply in the hereditary principle, just as they found
the guarantee of the independence of the judiciary in the life-tenure of
the magistrates, and they introduced into their Constitution what they
called a 'moderating power.' This power was lodged, by the 98th article
of the Brazilian Constitution, with the Emperor--and the article thus
runs: 'The moderating power is the key of the whole political
organisation, and it is delegated exclusively to the Emperor, as the
supreme chief of the nation and its first representative, that he may
incessantly watch over the maintenance of the independence, equilibrium,
and harmony of the other political powers.'

The key of the 'political organisation' of Brazil seems to have worked
very well for fifty years. Now that it has been thrown away, it will be
interesting to watch the results.

The question, with us in the United States, from the beginning has been
whether the carefully devised provisions of oar organic Constitution of
1787 would or would not be found in practice to protect the sentiment of
loyalty to a National Union as effectually against popular caprice and
political intrigues as the sentiment of loyalty to a National Crown has
been protected in England by the hereditary principle. The American
Revolution of 1776, and the foundation of the American Republic of 1787,
can never be understood without a thorough appreciation of the fact that
the issues involved in the English Revolution which placed the daughter
of James II. on the English throne, and in the establishment
subsequently of the House of Hanover, because it was an offshoot of the
dethroned House of Stuart, were quite as intelligently discussed, and
quite as thoroughly worked out, among the English in America as among
the English in England. Without a thorough appreciation of this fact it
is impossible to understand the conservative value to liberty in the
United States, of the personal position and the personal influence of
the first American President. Washington was, in truth, the uncrowned
king of the new nation--'first in war, first in peace, first in the
hearts of his countrymen.' What more and what less than this is there in
the history of Alfred the Great?

Washington founded no dynasty, but he made the American Presidency
possible, and the American President is a king wi