The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-17
DEATH OF GEAR
In 1920 Deprived Russian People of
 SeIf-Government.

Washington Cor New York Herald.
 In view of the coming meeting of tho Russian Douma and the constitution prom
 ised to the Russian people, It is interest
 ing to recall the fact that in 1S19, by order of Alexander l., constitution was framed and received his favorable consideration.
 The death of the Czar, in 1920, however,
 prevented his giving to his people that
 amount of liberty and of self government
 which it semed to have been his wish to
 give. Most of the underlying ideas of
 that constitution came from the CZar,
 but the man who framed the document
 was one of his personal friends named
 Nowossilzof
 That it was really .the Czar who fur
 nished the principal ideas Is proved by a
 report written in French by MT. Schmidt,
 Prussian consul general at Warsaw to
 the secretary of foreign affairs, Count
 von Bernstorff. at Berlin. That report.
 dated October 27, lS19 states that on the
 night of October 16 of that year Alexander
 read the first rought draft of Nowossil-
 zof's constitution. made several sugges-
 tons and ordered that the whole be com
 pleted within three months from that date
 Alexander died soon afterward, how , ever, and his successor, Nicholas l., was too much occupied with other matters to give the subject serious attention. The scheme was almost forgotten until 1881, 1 when the dangerous Polish revolution broke out. In that year there were print
 ed 2000 copies of a constitution modelled after document found among the papers | of Nowossilzof. That constitution became for the Polish revolutionists one of the principal things for which they were fighting, and for some time the authorities feared that the Russian people would ac- oept it in the same way that the Spanish constitution of 1872 was accepted by most of the Southern European countries. which in short time succeeded In obtaining an equal amount of freedom from their diff ferent rulers. It was only natural there fore, that Nicholas. as soon as the Polish | rebellion was ended, should take steps to prevent the Polish constitution from fall
 ing into the hands of other discontented subjects
 The Russian General Witte collected
 nearly all the copies of the Polish edition, and November 27. 1S3l these were i burned in the courtyard of the arsenal in
 the Kremlin at Moscow The manuscript of Nowossllzof was brought to Russia and buried in the secret archives at St. Peters burg November 2S And 1t would still be
 there if the Russian historian, Prof. B.
 Bilbassof, had not brought 1t to light a few years ago. Alexander's constitution, constructed in 1879, resembles in many re- spects the charte constitutionelle with which Louis XVIII. began his reign in France, and has a still closer resemblance
 to the constitution of the French revolu- tion of 22 Frimarie of the year :. It is divided into six chapters and con talns 191 articles. The first chapter deals
 with a division of the entire empire The second chapter. which is a very important
 one, deals with the powers of the Emperor
 and his ministers. Article 12 of the con
 stitution comedies to the Emperor absolute
 power but the third chapter gives the peo-
 pie certain securities against it. The fourth chapter deals with the legislative power and forms the basis of the Douma.
 or parliament.
 The fifth chapter deals with the judi cial power. and the sixth chapter contains, besides some general remarks of the Czar to his people. list of oppressive regulations which wer to be abolished an French. The two versions however are quite different in many places, and l, 1t is clear that the Russian was the ori- sinal and that the French was made later.
 The whole constitution as written
 shows the tremendous influence of the ideas of the French revolution and is typ- cal of the sentiment which the uprising of 17S9 left in the minds of the people of | that time. Also. very typical and very Russian are the securities given to the