although adverse to any foreign interference whatever, we must do the Emperor Nicolas the justice to admit, that although his alliance and aid in support of Austria of course gratified his ambition and increased his own power, he acted as disinterested a part as could reasonably in the circumstances be expected. The alliance of Austria and Russia appears also, with the support of Great Britain, to have fixed the vacillating policy of Prussia, and secured, in the mean time, the threatened integrity of the small kingdom of Denmark. And this union of these three great Continental Powers, if they were only to abstain from their own aggrandisement, and promote the establishment of moderate constitutional governments, protecting the individual rights and energies of the people, might, perhaps, effectually contribute, not only to the tranquillity, but also to the positive welfare and advancement, of Germany in general. The evil, however, is, that this new combined intervention on the part of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, is by the Despotic Governments, whose more recent proceeding, as well as those of the minor sovereigns of Germany, indicate an intention of measures, of which the result will, probably, be very different from that just alluded to. But Great Britain, Holland, and Belgium, it is trusted, will continue to have, and France and Sardinia, it is to be hoped, will soon be able to construct for themselves, constitutional and truly liberal governments, upon a popular basis, with free institutions, protecting individual rights and interests, and will thereby set and exhibit a salutary example of regulated liberty to the continental nations of the east and north of Europe. For this is almost the only intervention or influence which one nation can legitimately exercise upon or in relation to another. This influence of example is no doubt indirect; but when the national intercourse is frequent or intimate, it is powerful, and operates safely, because gradually. It is more efficient for good than even the generosity of a government which declares its territory a place of refuge and safety for all the unfortunate under political changes, such as dethroned kings and disappointed ministers. And it is never liable, like it, to the risk of a wellfounded reproach; for an indiscriminate and too generous

declaration by a government, that its territory is a safe refuge for all the unfortunate under political changes, may not only relieve and succour the unfortunate innocent, but also afford similar shelter to the guilty who have been unsuccessful in their enterprises, if not absolutely criminal, at least undertaken solely for their own selfish aggrandisement, -and may thus afford such individuals the means of carrying on, in the midst of a foreign European capital, schemes of mischief which they had not the means of maturing in their own native countries. National pride and generosity are not sufficient, any more than superiority of wealth or power, to excuse, or legally justify, a neutral nation, desirous of peace, in affording the means of political machinations, which is, in fact, equivalent to an actual intervention.

ART. III. PROGRESS OF LAW REFORM IN
SWEDEN.1

"THE primitive rule for the ownership of family property in Sweden was, that it belonged to the husband alone. That rule was certainly long since changed; but full and general justice was not thereby done to Swedish wives. In the cities alone, where all family property was common, one half of that common property belonged to the wife, and only the other half to the husband. In the counties, on the contrary, where the primitive rule was changed in the twelfth century, and where real property, acquired by what title soever before the marriage, or by title of descent2 during the coverture, one third only of the common property belonged to the wife, and two thirds to the husband. When a family owned property both in a city and in a county, the personal pro

1 We now conclude the Letter of Professor Bergfalk to Mr. D. D. Field, of New York, commenced in our last Number, p. 164.

2 Ancestral property, acquired by title of purchase, was then, and is in part still, considered as being acquired by title of descent.

perty was, of course, subject to the law of the family's head, and the real to the law of the locality where it was situated. But until 1736 a family, wherever it actually resided, was considered as having its home in the country, if its first abode after the marriage was taken up there, or in a city, if its first settlement after the marriage had been in such a place; and when that rule was in general abrogated in the year 1736, care was taken that the nobility should be considered as always residing in a county. On the contrary, it was enacted in 1569, that when a deceased clergyman had left a widow, and in 1736, that when a clergyman's wife died before him, the family's house and the real property acquired by title of purchase during the coverture, should be considered as situated in a city, whatever were the actual site.1

"As soon as a remodelling of the Civil and General Code was resolved upon in the seventeenth century, the justice and the expediency of the differences just mentioned between places and classes were called in question, 1689. And the same question was moved again in the legislative session 1731. Men were even then found who thought it but just to give all Swedish wives what only some of them were then entitled to; namely, equal shares with the husbands in the common property; but public opinion was not then prepared for such a change, and the shares of the husbands and the wives were, upon the whole, left as they were.

"The Commissioners, however, who reported the Civil Code in the years 1815-1826, thought the time come at last for advancing one step beyond that made in the twelfth century, and for giving all Swedish wives equal shares with the husbands in the common property; and in the year 1845 a law to that effect was passed and approved. The old line of demarcation between the common and the individual family property, as sanctioned by the old law, was left unchanged, but can now, as before, through a contract of marriage, be defined as the parties wish to have it.

"In the same legislative session, 1844-1845, there was

Of course only the general outlines of the system are here given.

That The pri

also a corresponding change in the law of successions. law also was of old unfavourable to the women. mitive rule was, that a female relative of a deceased person could not succeed to any part of his property when there was a male person in the same relation of blood to him; and when it was first changed, it was only in the cities that women and men got equal rights. In the counties, where the first change of the primitive rule was effected in the thirteenth century, female relatives of a deceased person got only shares, less by half, than those taken by the males who stood to him in the same relation of blood. The personal property was subject to the law of the home of the deceased, but the real to the law of the place where it was situated. Deceased persons of the nobility were, without regard to their actual residence, considered as having, at the death, had their home in a county; and deceased clergymen and wives of clergymen were, since 1669 and 1736, considered as having at the death had their home in a city, wherever they were then actually residing. The real property of the clergy was also, without regard to the actual site, considered as situated in a city, whenever a question of succession thereto was raised. Even the abolition of those differences was spoken of in 1690 and 1731, although without effect. But since it had been strongly recommended in the reports on the civil part of the Code, 1815-1826, a law to that effect was passed and approved in 1845, so that the rights of men and women now are equal in all successions to property of deceased persons, whenever there is not a lawful will to the contrary.

"The Swedish farmers were favourable to these two reforms. The nobility, on the contrary, were very active in resisting them, and foretold the most direful consequences therefrom, not only to their own order, but also to the farmers. The cause of the distrust, wherewith these prophecies were met, was in part the experience of some coun

The

1 Other rules of succession would, of course, be established by a will. power to dispose of property by will is, however, still limited. It was more so in the old time.

ties in the south of Sweden, where the equality now proposed had long since been established without any disastrous consequences.1 But the reaction party seem, after that defeat, to have made up their minds to avenge the misfortune on the immediate source of the evil. And that is, as I have already remarked, the chief obstacle to immediate reform of the largest department of our law. The anger will, however, subside when it becomes aware of the impossibility of undoing what is done, and the work will ultimately be the easier for what is already obtained.

"Besides the objections already stated to the Reported Code, there are, however, also others raised.

"The arguments made use of in 'Savigny's German Treatise,' on the fitness of our time to legislation, have repeatedly been urged in Sweden; and of late some moderate reaction men, who either doubt the efficiency of the old trite objections, or do not approve of them, have raised another, upon which great stress is now laid.

66

They reproach the Reported Code with being the true cause of the slowness of Law Reform in Sweden. They pity the people for having been so long deprived of the Law Reforms most wanted, and they insinuate that those reforms would all of them soon be effected, if the agitation for the passing of the Reported Code ceased.

"It is only a few years since that the adversaries of the Reported Code freely acknowledged the important service its first framers had done the country by giving a complete system whence the Legislature could select the special enactments considered most necessary, or wherewith it could compare them. It was admitted then that the very best laws passed since those commissioners had made some progress in their work, were chiefly owing to them, and that it was a good thing that every special reform of the Civil and Penal Law could be made part of a general reform already planned. Now such concessions are not made. The moderate reaction men seem, whenever a law reform is moved, to think only

Tradition tells that this exception from the common rule was conceded as a reward of the womens' heroic deeds in the defence of the country.