Let us transport ourselves for a moment on the magic carpet of fancy to the year 1783 that saw the formal close of the war for independence, and listen to a few passages from an imaginary lecture delivered by a prescient professor of moral and natural philosophy in an unnamed American college to a group of boys preparing themselves for labor, achievement, and destiny in the republic so recently ushered into a chilly and doubting world.

“Young gentlemen: You who hear my voice, if you cross the normal span of life, will be living when the first quarter of the nineteenth century has turned. Those among you who are blessed with the four score years of the Scriptures will approach the borders of the mid-century before the long night falls upon your path. Your children, who will learn their early lessons and derive their bias from your instruction, will be among the citizens who govern the country in 1850, and your grandchildren will face with dimming eyes the dawn of the twentieth century. These facts, we might say, to anticipate the language of a coming philosopher in this ancient college, are ‘stubborn and irreducible.’

The most significant political phenomena of post-war Britain are the emergence of the Labor party and the slow extinction of the Liberal party. The Labor party has emerged as the expression of a demand on the part of the wage-earners for an alteration of the basis of property. The Liberal party has suffered an eclipse because its historic mission has been achieved. The rising industrial classes which it represented for a century have now arrived. Whatever difference may still exist between the interests that were heretofore represented primarily by the Liberal party and those that were represented by the Tory party shrinks into insignificance as compared with the common interests of all the dominant elements against the radical demands of Labor. Thus Toryism and Labor alone will apparently share between them the future destinies of Britain. One will offer largely a brief for the claims of the past; the other will present in the main the demands of the future. The traditional British two-party alignment promises henceforth to be a struggle between Toryism and Labor, and to be marked by the intensity and animosity characteristic of a political division that comes dangerously near to being a clash of economic classes.

Complex as is the immediate situation of social theory, a general view reveals some significant continuities, both spatial and temporal. The attitude of the pluralists, whether in theory or in practice, to the sovereign nation-state has more common ground than at first appears with that of the states themselves toward the nascent organs of international government; and the dilemma underlying both controversies is in fact nothing less than a restatement, in modern ideology, of an issue fundamental to the history of the entire Christian era.

That issue, stated in the broadest terms, centers about the relation between de facto and de jure sovereignty; or, more broadly still, between political and ethical, secular and spiritual, authority; and its importance may be suggested by the generalization that security in social relations is attainable, and has in fact been attained, only when the de facto, or political, sovereign—whatsoever form it may take—has been substantially integrated with the immediate source of ethical or moral authority. The pre-modern period of history abounds in statements, both factual and doctrinal, of this issue.

In the winter and spring of 1923–24 a blizzard of congressional investigations swept the national capital. Party lines were tied up, statesmen were snowed under, and Washington officialdom was chilled by a storm of inquiries into the conduct of government departments. Scarcely a corner of the administration escaped inquisition. The subjects of inquiry ranged from the naval oil reserve leases at Teapot Dome and Elk Hill to the administration of the Veterans' Bureau under Director Forbes of dubious fame. Upwards of two-score inquests were instituted by Congress, through its committees, into the official behavior of the executive branch of the national government. In the end, and as a direct result, two cabinet members lost their portfolios.

Such wide and effective use by Congress of its committees for the purpose of inquiry and examination of administrative conduct raised certain questions in the minds of students of government. What were the constitutional limits of the investigative function of Congress? What was the relation of this function to the law-making function and to impeachment? Was punishment by impeachment a satisfactory remedy for official misconduct, or had it become obsolete as too cumbersome? Did the vote of the Senate calling for Secretary Denby's resignation usher in a new process in this country? Should cabinet officials be required to appear on the floor of Congress and answer questions? Would this be preferable to investigating their actions long after they have been performed? Does the steady increase of federal powers necessitate greater supervision by Congress over the President and administrative officers? Have students of politics overlooked a function of Congress frequently and forcibly exercised for the control of administration?

The Supreme Court of the United States during its 1925 term seems to have taken a vacation from the solution of major constitutional problems. Its activities provided very little newspaper copy. Most of the more important decisions could have been pretty accurately forecast upon the basis of previous adjudications, while the constitutional questions raised which could be deemed in any sense novel related to more or less technical or trivial matters. A considerable number of the more interesting cases dealt merely with matters of statutory construction and did not present constitutional issues at all. This comparative dullness of the judicial year's work is in sharp contrast with the achievements of the preceding term of 1924, in which at least six cases of genuinely first-rate importance were decided; while the Court has begun its 1926 term by handing down its epoch-making decision in the Myers case relating to the President's power of removal, and has followed it by the far-reaching ruling in the municipal zoning law case. This absence of judicial fireworks in the 1925 term may well serve to emphasize two facts sometimes overlooked in an appraisal of the work of the Supreme Court. The first is that in any judicial year an overwhelming proportion of the work of that tribunal is and must necessarily be of a humdrum and inconspicuous variety; useful and important in the sense that technical, detailed, and even trivial questions need to be answered authoritatively, but certainly not spectacular.

For the second time within twelve months, the continuing parliamentary tangle in Canada gave rise, on September 14, 1926, to a general election which not only was one of the most bitterly contested in years, but was focused, on the surface at least, upon a constitutional crisis without precedent in the history of the dominion. The outcome, however, proved to be considerably more decisive than the conflict of a year before, the Liberal party winning 119 seats—only four short of a clear majority in the House of Commons—which, with its Progressive and farmer allies, should mean that it will be able to restore relatively stable party government to Canada for the next few years.

The German commonwealth is a federation of states, each operating under its own constitution and laws; though subject to the national constitution, which is the fundamental law of the commonwealth, and to other national laws and ordinances. Hence the general problem of judicial review over legislative acts, in so far as it relates to the central government, includes (a) the question of the right of judicial review of state constitutional provisions or state laws and ordinances, when in conflict with the national constitution, laws, or ordinances, and (b) the question of the right of judicial review in respect to national laws, as against the national constitution.

On June 20, 1926, for the first time in history, a large nation made a trial of direct democracy. On that day the German electors were summoned to the polls to pass judgment upon the question of the expropriation of the property of the ex-rulers. The measure voted upon was worded in an extreme fashion, as the leaders of the Left, who framed it, felt that it was necessary to obtain a clear answer to the exorbitant demands made by the fallen dynasties. Although the princes had been given large indemnities by various states, several of them had brought suits for larger claims and had won. Created as they were by the old régime, the courts had very often refused to distinguish between the private property of the princes and the property of the state. By reason of the court decisions, the German people were in danger of losing not only considerable sums of money but inestimable art treasures as well. It was this situation that gave the Communists and Socialists an opportunity to demand popular support for complete confiscation of the princes' property.

On November 7 Greece held its first general election under the system of proportional representation, using a modified form of the Belgian system. This innovation was imposed on the country despite the most strenuous opposition by all of the old parties, the majority of the press, and the bulk of public opinion, and its adoption was a clear victory of the minority parties, assisted by the Military League and the then dictator General Kondylis.

The arguments of the established parties in favor of the old plurality system ran on lines too familiar to require extensive statement here. The former system, according to its supporters, usually assures the election of large majorities, one way or the other, and enables Parliament to give the country what we call a strong government, such as Greece needed at the time of the election. Great Britain and the United States were offered as the outstanding examples of the efficiency of the two-party system, which is best served by the old-fashioned electoral method of absolute plurality. Naturally enough, Belgium was cited as the worst exponent of the evils of proportional representation.