National Republican., 1886-08-01
sInrirnt anil Mudprn.

OF THE GERMAN EMriRE-CONSTITuT
oFrmE FRENCH RErUBLiC-CoNsrl-
TUITION or GREAT BRITAIN AND
IRELAND.
-
Moses has given one account OF the origin
of man, but no Hebrew child rescued by
any fairy princess from the reeds by the
river has been able to tell us of the exact
time when men first met in council to de-
liberate upon tribal, territorial, or great ma
tional questions. The cradle of the human
race, as determined upon by Sir Henry
Maine, is found in that portion of the east
which is now known as Asiatic Tartary.
Our remotest ancestors were part shepherds,
part hunters, and all robbers. When pas
ture failed for nocLs and herds there was no
alternative but to move on, and success
ful move for grass and water-as any one
may learn from the adventures of Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob-meant simply that
the patriarchs and their tribes were COM
PEELED to fight for living. In q crude
sense, then, we may accept the TACT that
primitive civilization was based upon the
rough and military principles which we
find existing still among such aboriginal
races as the North American Indians and
the Maories of Australasia. Such military
basis implied constant war councils, whose
teachings we may safely regard as the germ
fall deliberative assemblies, though 1t was
germ which required an ample role of
centuries to develop into the trunk and
branches, flower and fruit of free political
institutions. The great despotisms of Asia,
under the domination in turn of Egypt,
Chaldea, Assyra, Babylon, Ph~nicia,
Media, and Persia, give no signs that free
interchange of thought which, as the crown
ing excellence of Greek civilization, was
destined to invest with the wonder and adj
miration of all succeeding ages the land OF
Homer, Ischylus, and Lycurgus; of solon
Cleisthenes Pericles, and Aristotle; o
Plato and Socrates, and of the countless he
roes who by flood and field, in senate, court
and camp proved themselves so indisput'
ably the favored children of the gods.
THE ROMAN LEGISLATURE.
The Roman legislature consisted Of the
different comtid, or assemblies of people
and the senate. All the powers of govern
ment were divided at Rome between the
senate, the magistrates, and the people in
their assemblies. Properly speaking, the
people alone was the sovereign by whom
the power was delegated to the magis-
trates and the senate, and the magistrates
in particular could not perform any public
act unless they were authorized by the
senate and people. The sovereign people
or populus, however, was not the same at
all times. In the earliest times of Rome
the popuace consisted of the patricians
Only, the plebs and the clients forming no
part of the popuus, but being without the
E E%s GlvidsNA thirty cari'c, or ward,
ships, shs san ESmbIE III e tagge curly, 81
assembly in &SiC@t the populace was repre-
sented.
A kind of amalgamation of the patricians
and the plebs aiterward appeared in the
comitia of the centuries, instituted by
Servius Tullius, and henCeforth the term
populus was applied to the united patricians
and plebeians assembled in the cOD,iid cen
turidtd. The functions of the comiid ccHh,-
ridtd were 1) the right of electing the
higher magistrates, (2) Of making laws, (3)
of deciding upon war, a. of concluding
peace with foreign nations, lj) the cOmHid
Cent,ridta formed the highest court Of ap
peal.
All Roman citizens, whether patricians
or plebeians, who had property to a certain
amount We're privileged to take part and
vote in the CcHt,,rjdtd COmijd, and none
were excluded except slaves, foreigners,
women, and men engaged in certain trades,
as retail storekeepers, which were COnsid-
cred beneath the dignity of Roman citizen
ship.
The Roman senate, during the most dis
tinguished period of its existence, was COM
posed of three hundred members. Under
the republic the right of convoking the
senate was at first only preserved by the
diCtators, prctors, or Consuls, and other
high officials who, like the kings of former
times, laid before the senate the subjects
for deliberation. The power of the senate
was at first the same as under the early
kings, if not greater; it had the general
care of the public welfare, the superintend-
ence of all matters of religion, the manage
ment of all affairs with foreign nations il
commanded the levies of troops, regulated
the taxes and duties, and had, in short the
supreme control of all the revenues and eX-
penditure. The orderin which the senators
spoke and voted was determined by their
rank rs belonging to the mdjOr,S or minOr,S.
cemvirate, and even under that regime
there were instances of senators speaking
without any regular order.
The powers of the Roman senate after
patricians and plebeians were placed upon
an equality may be thus briefly summed up
The senate continued TO have the supreme
superintendent in all matters of religion
it determined upon the manner in which q
war was to be conducted, what legions
were to be placed at disposal of com.
mander, and whether new ones were to b!
levied it decreed into what provinces the
consus and prwtors We're to be sent, and
whose imperium was to be prolonged.
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT or PRUSSIA
The present constitution of Prussia was
drawn upby the government of King Fred
erick William ", with the cooperation o
constituent assembly, sitting from August
to December 1870, and was proclaimed Jan
uary 81, $780, but subsequently modified
by royal DEGREES of 1851, 1852, 1858, 1851
1855, 1896, 1897, 1867, 1872 and 1873 These
fundamental laws vest the cNecutive and
mart of the lppiSlatiyp ant hpritv in a kiuu,