One of the fundamental differences that distinguish human beings from the lower forms of life is their respective relations to their environments. All living creatures except man are at the mercy of their surroundings. They live under conditions which are not of their making and which are but little changed by their efforts. No conscious purpose nor definite idea of progress is possible among them. They live in a world of nature and are constantly limited by its conditions, being unable to control it or to change their own destiny by their own deliberate actions.

The consideration of a subject like “Sovereignty” leads a man, who has had little cause to study such questions in the abstract, into an unwonted field of thought, where he finds himself involved in a maze of theories, which, in their application at least, are confusing on account of the different premises and concepts upon which they rest.

I realize that it is more or less presumptuous for a layman in political science to enter this field of philosophy with the purpose of contributing anything to the general knowledge of a subject, into which many of those here present have gone much further and much deeper than I have been or can ever expect to go in the formulation and application of a correct definition. Having, however, in a moment of unwisdom set my hand to the plow I will not look back, nor will I offer apology for what I have to say on the ground that it will be the utterance of inexperience, warranted as I would be in making such a plea.

From the time of the founding of the United States by the Declaration of Independence until the Civil War, the existence of slavery obscured our philosophy of government as set forth in that great document, and as implied in the Constitution and its original amendments. The Civil War abolished slavery and restored our original philosophy. The adoption of the fourteenth amendment, placing upon the United States the responsibility for securing the fundamental rights of the individual, even against state action, was the logical effect of the restored philosophy. The annexation of distant regions, as the result of the Spanish War, and the necessity of applying to them our philosophy and system in some appropriate and permanent manner, compelled us again to consider our fundamental ideas, and again to declare our fundamental principles.

The principal justification in presenting my subject which has been made familiar through the scholarly work of Henry Adams and Rear Admiral Mahan, lies in the fact that the attention of the English speaking world will be fixed upon this event in the coming year, as Great Britain and the United States unite in celebrating a century of peace between these two great nations. It may, therefore, be not inappropriate, at this time to endeavor to arrive at a proper estimate of the treaty which marks the beginning of the hundred years peace. It has been somewhat the fashion to speak disparagingly of the treaty of Ghent, inasmuch as it contained no reference to the principles for which the war was ostensibly fought. Often, it has been referred to as a “treaty of boundaries,” or a mere “treaty of peace”—accomplishing nothing more than the cessation of hostilities. In order to determine whether the treaty of Ghent merits any higher estimate than this common one which has been accepted by one writer after another, it may be pertinent to consider first, the opinion of contemporary history, and secondly, the estimate of a century later, based upon the results of the treaty.

The Near Eastern question, or Turkey in Europe, has been one of the most difficult and vexatious problems of European statesmen and diplomats ever since the signing of Europe's first treaty with the Ottoman Turks, at Carlowitz, in 1699. It has had a greater influence upon European diplomacy than any other single issue. Reputations have been made and lost by it. Three of the great military conflicts of the nineteenth century—the Russo-Turkish struggle of 1828-29, the Crimean war, and the Russo-Turkish contest of 1877—were caused by one or another phase of this question; and now, within the past two years, recourse to arms has been had twice again over the same debatable ground. The congress of Berlin and the diplomatic moves that followed the war between Russia and Turkey in 1877, led to the creation of the German-Austrian League, and ultimately to the present Triple Alliance. The diplomatic and strategic acts which preceded the war between the Balkan allies and the Ottoman Empire in 1912 and those that accompanied the breaking out and the conclusion of the conflict against Bulgaria in 1913, culminated in new combinations, some of which have elements of permanency.

One of the most interesting and practical phases of the international responsibility of the state is its responsibility for injuries sustained by aliens during civil war. Injuries sustained in actual belligerent operations are not usually compensated, on the principle of non-liability for war damages. The importance of a separate discussion of injuries sustained during civil war arises out of the legal position which may be attributed to insurgents and the resultant liability of the state for injuries committed by them. The difficulty of the subject is also enhanced by the fact that the practice of states has differed to some extent in the application of such rules as we may consider to govern the subject.

While the retention of the Philippines as a dependency is still a debatable issue, the principles upon which our government there is based are generally endorsed by the American people. These principles assume our responsibility for the welfare, present and future, of a backward race which has come under our control through the most extraordinary accident in modern history; they promise that the race thus appropriated shall be preserved from enemies without and discord within until such time as it may be prepared to maintain its autonomy; they deny the ancient theory that dependencies may be legitimately exploited for the benefit of a controlling state. However sincerely one may deplore the action of President McKinley's administration which brought this burden upon the nation, criticism of an accomplished fact has no bearing upon the problems involved in carrying out a policy necessitated by these principles. They involve a task which is onerous, but they imply an altruism the exercise of which appeals to American idealism. We are called a practical people. We are so in the material development of our territory and in the ordering of our communities built up during a century of rapid exploitation; but no one who understands the national psychology can fail to recognize the tenacity with which Americans cling to certain commonly accepted ideals. Our national history begins with a revolt against overwhelming odds in behalf of an ideal. Every one of our wars has been undertaken in defence of a professed ideal, and whatever opposition their declaration incurred has been avouched in the name of sentiment and morality.

About the time a few years ago that a great outcry went up from members of the house of representatives and the country at large against Cannonism and the autocracy of the speaker of the house of representatives, great was the lamentation of the private member of the house of commons. In the United States representatives complained that they were deprived of all power because of the unlimited power usurped by the speaker. In England the complaint was directed not against the speaker—whose functions are those of a presiding officer, and who exercises them with judicial impartiality—but against the government, as we use that term in England, that is the prime minister and his colleagues of the cabinet. The “private member,” I may explain, is a member who holds no office under the government nor has ever held any. He constitutes the rank and file.

No misconception in respect to the organization of the state, and of the functions of the various parts of its governmental machinery, is more prevalent than that the national assembly—the parliament, the congress, the legislative chambers, as the case may be—is simply, or primarily, a body for the formulation and passage of general laws for the determination of the rights and duties of the citizen body for which it acts. The enactment of public laws of this character is undoubtedly one of its functions, and, it needs scarcely be said, an exceedingly important one. That it is not its sole function, indeed, is not the one making the largest draft upon its time, is at once apparent if the attempt is made to analyse the work really done by it.

It is well known that the organization, functions and mode of operation of political institutions as set forth in articles of constitutions, statutes, legislative manuals, etc., frequently differ widely from what they are in fact. This is particularly true of legislative bodies. A good deal has been written on our form of congressional government by committees, outlining the main features of organization and procedure, but detailed operation is not shown. In order to throw some light on the latter I have undertaken an intensive study of the actual proceedings on bills, other than debate on the floor of both houses, to cover the whole period of the life of one congress, the sixty-second. The immediate purpose was to ascertain what developments of the law library service at the capitol would be most serviceable to its congressional public in connection with pending legislation, particularly in view of the probable provision of a bill drafting and legislative reference service in the near future. As, however, such a service, if established, would have to be adapted to the present methods of congressional legislation and to the actual needs of the various committees as well as of individual members, the results of this investigation may also be useful when the plan of organization is formulated in detail. The conditions in congress differ so markedly from those which obtain in the state legislatures that any plan for expert assistance in the improvement of federal statute law must be worked out de novo. The experience of the state bureaus is most suggestive but hardly conclusive as to the scheme to be adopted here.

I think we hazard nothing in saying that the problem of efficient legislation under modern conditions is one of the most difficult tasks of government. This is due partly to the unwieldiness of overgrown legislative assemblies and the lack of responsible leadership; partly to the enormous demand for legislation, to meet which overtaxes the legislative machine; and partly to the complexity and intricacy of modern legislation, which enhances the difficulty of framing statutes and requires an amount of technical knowledge which the average legislator does not possess. A legislative assembly composed of five or six hundred members without an effective organization and without recognized and responsible leaders is not very unlike a mob. Such a body, like other mobs, must be guided and led if it accomplishes its work.

The reform of our legislative methods is a generally recognized need. State legislative reference departments to furnish information upon which effective law-making may be based and to put the bills proposed in proper form are growing in number.

Not less important is the reform of the methods by which bills are handled after their introduction, but legislatures have been slow to realize the necessity of efficient methods and procedure.

There has been much criticism of American legislatures and of the character of laws which they annually produce, but until quite recently little or nothing has been done to remedy the conditions thus criticised. The criticism has been and still is largely destructive, not constructive. A view quite generally held is that we have entirely too much legislation and in order to remedy this, it has been urged that we should have less frequent sessions of the legislature and that these sessions should be limited as to time. An argument advanced against limiting the sessions, that should have considerable weight, however, is that such a limitation would make it practically impossible to secure well considered laws. A careful examination of the statutes of the several States would, no doubt, demonstrate the fact that a short session instead of decreasing the number of laws has actually been the cause of increasing them. The reason for this is that sufficient time is not given to discover the defects of and the objections to many bills which would otherwise be defeated, if time were given for investigation and consideration. Certainly an examination of the laws of Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Illinois and other States which have no limit on the length of the legislative session shows a smaller output of laws than is the case with many of the States which have limited the legislative session to sixty or ninety days.