ItIs A well-known human tendency to continue applying remedies after the problem for which they are suitable has been solved. Concentration on a particular difficulty becomes habitual to such a degree that its disappearance may not be immediately realized. And new problems may take its place for some time without being noticed.

TheRetreat from liberalism and the rise of fascist totalitarianisms in the interwar period occasioned widespread inquiry into the intellectual sources of the phenomenon. Writers have frequently discovered the “roots,” to use the fashionable metaphor, in romanticism, particularly, German romanticism. Sharp controversies have arisen over the propriety and validity of attributing modern political lunacy ultimately to the romantic mind. A prior question may well be asked, what exactly are the elements of romantic thought which have political significance. This paper seeks to identify and analyze these elements.

IfHeThought about it at all, Thomas Hutchinson1 must have realized that he became governor of Massachusetts in 1771 by ignoring the old rules and abiding by a new set of his own. The four previous incumbents — he had served under them all in one capacity or another — had relied on influence or a family connection or plain luck. None of these alternatives was open to Hutchinson. In his grammar of politics the principle items were things like positions, service, and point of view. None of these might have meant anything without a fourth element: desire. Hutchinson had that, too.

Students of American political theory find themselves in general agreement concerning the character and significance of their most celebrated document, The Federalist. Few deny that this series of essays in support of the Constitution by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay represents a substantial contribution to the literature of political theory. The nature of the contribution is also well established. The Federalist, it is agreed, is a skillful exposition of the principles of constitutional republicanism — an exposition not haphazard or fanciful, but controlled by constant reference to the capacities and limitations of the political animal. The latter point is often emphasized; Benjamin F. Wright states: “The aspect of The Federalist which is of universal applicability is … its recognition of the importance of human nature in politics, togetherwith its remarkably penetrating analysis of the motives and the behavior of men in a free society.” x Finally, there is agreement on the general outlines of this theory of human nature. The authors of The Federalist, it is said, were decidedly “realistic,” brooking no illusions of the inherent goodness or rationality of man, but holding firm to “a conception of human corruptibility.” 2 The adjective most often employed is “pessimistic.”

A Distinguished contemporary historian of eighteenthcentury Ireland has observed that “the early history of the Volunteers has never been written.” This is not to say that the Volunteers have not been written about, for no subject has urged Irish pens to greater industry than have the Volunteers. Yet, during the past one hundred and fifty years historians of each generation have been content for the most part to rely upon the research and repeat the generalizations of the previous generation. Consequently, the circumstances surrounding the raising of independent companies in Belfast and the reasons for the spread of that institution over the rest of Ireland in 1778–79 remain obscured and confused.

TheProblem of the origins and development of the office of Reich President in the Weimar Republic is of interest for several reasons, possibly the principal one being its relation to the general problem of Hitler's accession to power. It will be recalledthat Hitler came to power initially as Chancellor in a “Presidial” cabinet, that is, one responsible to the President rather than to the Reichstag and governing bythe use of the President's emergency powers. I propose to discuss here the role of the President of the Reich, as conceived of by the constitutional framers, in the light of the emergence of the Presidial cabinet.