The German Element of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a monograph by J. W. Wayland, has been privately printed at Charlottesville, Virginia (pp. 272).

The North Carolina Historical Commission, recently re-organized by the election of Hon. J. Bryan Grimes, chairman, and Mr. R. D. W. Connor of Raleigh, secretary, has in press a volume entitled: Literary and Historical Activities in North Carolina, 1900-1905, compiled and edited by W. J. Peele and Clarence H. Poe, and a Documentary History of Public Education in North Carolina from 1800 to 1840, compiled and edited by Charles L. Coon. Dr. J. G. de R. Hamilton, associate professor of history in the University of North Carolina, is editing, for the commission the private letters of Governor Jonathan Worth, governor of North Carolina from 1866 to 1868. The commission has caused to be copied the records of St. Paul's vestry, Edenton, N. C., from January 3, 1714/5 to October 15, 1776, and is proceeding with the copying of the executive letter-books of the governors of North Carolina. Those of Governors Spaight, Ashe, Davie, Williams, Turner, and Stone, 1792-1810, have been copied.

The Historical Commission of South Carolina has printed the Journal of the General Assembly for the period March 26-April 11, 1776, edited by Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr. (pp. 89).

The South Carolina Historical Magazine for July contains letters of Lafayette to Henry Laurens, 1778, a most interesting statement by Laurens explanatory of his signature to the Association of June, 1775, and a curious correspondence of the Brailsford family, ca. 1727.

The Georgia Historical Society has published as volume VI. of its Collections "The Letters of Hon. James Habersham, 1756-1775". The edition is a limited one and for the exclusive use of members of the society.

Dr. Dunbar Rowland, director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, has undertaken the preparation and publication of the writings and speeches of Jefferson Davis, and is actively collecting materials for the purpose. At the same time Professor Walter L. Fleming, now of Louisiana State University, is engaged in writing a biography of Davis, and would be glad to be informed respecting details. of his career not already matters of common knowledge, and respecting letters, diaries, and other documentary materials relating to his life. Dr. Rowland may be addressed at Jackson, Mississippi, Professor Fleming at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Dr. P. Heinrich has just published in Paris (Guilmoto, pp. lxxx, 298) La Louisiane sous la Compagnie des Indes, 1717-1731; and also (the same publisher, pp. 80) a brief monograph entitled L'Abbé Prévost et la Louisiane, in which he discusses the historical value of Manon Lescaut.

The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association for July contains the second installment of Mr. James Newton Baskett's paper on the route of Cabeza de Vaca, a valuable account of the Spanish mission records at San Antonio, by Professor Herbert E. Bolton, and "A Glimpse of Albert Sidney Johnston through the Smoke of Shiloh ".

The Quarterly Publication of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio continues in the January-March issue the publication of the Torrence Papers begun in the July-September number. In the April-June issue are printed selections from the "Gallipolis Papers", which are in the possession of the society. This selection of the papers is arranged and edited by Theodore T. Belote of the University of Cincinnati, who has in preparation a monograph on "The Scioto Speculation and the French Settlement at Gallipolis".

A carefully prepared paper on "The Western Indians in the Revolution", by Wallace Notestein, which was awarded (1905) the annual prize offered by the Ohio Sons of the Revolution for an historical essay by an Ohioan, appears in the July issue of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly. Another article of interest is by Benjamin F. Prince on 66 The Rescue Case of 1857", the case of Addison White, a fugitive slave from Kentucky. The Quarterly also prints three journals of Rev. James Smith, who made a tour from Powhatan county, Virginia, into Kentucky in 1783, into Kentucky and the Northwest Territory in 1795 and 1797. A sketch of Mr. Smith, by Josiah Morrow, accompanies the journals.

Among the numerous papers printed in the Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the year 1906 (Springfield, 1907, pp. xvii, 437) we note the following: "The Earliest Courts of the Illinois Country", by George A. Dupuy; “Negro Servitude in Illinois", by N. Dwight Harris; Bourbonnais; or the Early French Settlement in Kankakee County", by Charles B. Campbell; "The Mormon Settlement in Illinois", by Orville F. Berry; "The Icarian Community of Nauvoo, Illinois", by Mrs. I. G. Miller; "The Armament of Fort Chartres", by Dr. J. F. Snyder; "The Genesis of the Republican Party in Illinois", by Paul Selby; "A Study of the Development of Opinion in the East with regard to Lincoln (before 1860) ", by Lucia A. Stevens. The volume contains also the paper, mentioned in these pages in July, The Finding of the Kaskaskia Records ", by Professor Clarence W. Alvord. Under Mr. Alvord's editorship the State Historical Library has also issued, as volume II. of Illinois Historical Collections (pp. clvi, 663), the Cahokia records of the period 1778-1790.

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66

The Minnesota Historical Society has begun the printing of volume XII. of its Collections, comprising papers and addresses read before the society in the last two years. It will also shortly publish a thirteenth volume, Lives of the Governors of Minnesota, territorial and state, by

General James H. Baker, who has personally known them all. Other works in preparation are The Archaeology of Minnesota, by Professor N. H. Winchell, dealing with aboriginal mounds and other remains : a reference-book of Minnesota biography; one of Minnesota geographic names, giving their origin, date, and meaning; and a life of Governor Alexander Ramsey.

A general gathering of persons interested in local historical work will take place at Cincinnati on November 29 and 30. The programme of this "Central Ohio Valley History Conference" will make provision for the interests of the local historical societies, of the teachers of history, and of the patriotic societies. The secretary of the committee of arrangements is Dr. Frank P. Goodwin, 3435 Observatory Place, Cincinnati, Ohio.

The July number of the Annals of Iowa contains an article of some length by Professor F. I. Herriott on "Iowa and the First Nomination of Abraham Lincoln ". One section of the article is devoted to an examination of the question whether Iowa's delegates were (as asserted in a recent work) "on the trade".

The State Historical Society of North Dakota contemplates the publication of the log-book of Captain C. J. Atkins, pilot on the Missouri River, 1863-1868.

The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society for March, the last issue we have received, is chiefly marked by a valuable article by T. W. Davenport, "Recollections of an Indian Agent" (1862-1863). It also contains a reprint of Floyd's report of January, 1821, on the Oregon settlements and the expediency of occupying the Columbia River.

An index to the first ten volumes of the Review of Historical Publications relating to Canada (1896-1905), prepared by H. H. Langton, M.A., librarian of the University of Toronto, has appeared from the press of Morang and Company. The volume consists of three parts— an index of authors (pp. 94), an index of subjects (pp. 92), and an index of periodicals and societies' publications (pp. 10).

Noteworthy articles in periodicals: A. B. Hart, Growth of American Theories of Popular Government (American Political Science Review, August); R. D. W. Connor, The Settlement of Cape Fear (South Atlantic Quarterly, July); T. J. Middleton, Andrew Johnson and the Homestead Law (Sewanee Review, July); F. T. Hill, Decisive Battles of the Law: Dred Scott vs. Sanford (Harper's, July); Carl Schurz, The Battle of Gettysburg (McClure's, July); Carl Schurz, The Battle of Missionary Ridge (McClure's, September); W. H. Crook, Lincoln's Last Day (Harper's, September); J. Moncure, John M. Daniel, the Editor of the Examiner (Sewanee Review, July).

The

American Historical Review

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION,1 I.

THE problem of the origin of the English Constitution is the

problem of ascertaining how, and, if possible, where the constitutional development of that country branched off the line of growth common to medieval monarchies. At some point of time England entered a road new in history, trodden by no other people and leading to a result never arrived at elsewhere-full and free national self-government, under the forms of a monarchy and the theory of an unlimited kingship. From a constitutional beginning practically identical, France came out of the Middle Ages with an absolute, and England with a limited monarchy. To find the how and when of this divergence is to fix the origin of the English

constitution.

It is impossible to place the date earlier than 1215. England to the end of John's reign was a feudal state. In the general constitution and in the individual institutions by which the constitution was operated, there had been as yet no essential departure from that type as seen in all the feudal countries. One great difference of course existed-the powerful monarchy, the close centralization of the Anglo-Norman state-but while this difference strongly affected the results of government, it had affected methods and machinery scarcely at all. In two directions we may say that it had. Looking from above it had produced a more logical and ideal development of the feudal system, as in the financial rights the sovereign, relief, wardship and marriage, in the reality of

of

1I publish here a preliminary outline which I hope to expand in time into a detailed account of the origin of the English constitution. I use the word “constitution" in this title not in the sense of the whole body of institutions which make up the machinery of the state, but in the sense which it bears in some uses the modern phrase "constitutional government", the limited monarchy, the distinguishing feature which made the English a constitution of a new type.

of

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XIII.-16. (229)

feudal service from the great baron, and of the service desired from the church in the feudal organization; in the other direction, there had resulted a less complete partition of political powers than was natural to feudalism, a difference which is seen most easily, but not alone, in the imperfect development of private jurisdictions in England. These characteristics all mean a stronger kingship.

Nor had the strong monarchy as yet begun the task of transforming the feudal into a modern organization, at least not in such a way as to produce immediate results. In two important matters innovations had been made, but of so slight a character by that date as scarcely to seem innovations—in the judicial system and in taxation. But again, if completely carried out as begun, both these changes would have had for their result to strengthen the sovereign still further. As a matter of fact this tendency to increased power John used to as full advantage as was possible for that time. I believe that the tremendous power which he exercised over a reluctant baronage and a hostile but cowering church, even until after the battle of Bouvines, though it had begun to weaken before that date, has never been emphasized enough. If one considers the situation carefully, especially after the ineffective interdict and excommunication, it seems impossible to state too strongly the utter powerlessness of every element in the state as against the king. I doubt if there is to be found a like instance of arbitrary power in medieval history in the case of a sovereign so nearly dependent on himself alone. To be sure John had been forced to yield in 1213, but he had yielded so suddenly and with such consummate skill in adapting what he did to the one real necessity of the case and no more, that his hold upon the kingdom was for the time being only slightly loosened. But whatever one may think of John's position, the situation on the eve of 1215 promised a very different outcome of English history from that which actually occurred. It is impossible to find in it any reasons for suspecting that England had departed, or was about to depart. in any essential matter, from the usual development of a feudal constitution, least of all in the direction of a limited monarchy.

2

If now we turn to the time following 1215 we are confronted with a similar condition of things. It is a hundred and fifty years My argument in volume II. of Hunt and Poole's The Political History of England, p. 424, for the view that John's act of homage was of his own policy, and not demanded by the pope, has been questioned. This view still seems to me decidedly the more probable. It is less important, however, to determine what one shall believe about a question which must always be a matter of opinion, than to see how indispensable the act was to John's security, and that nothing less would have averted the French invasion.