John Morrison Davidson

“ History is but past politics, just as politics are present history. This cardinal truth Mr. Freeman, as a narrator of events, fully apprehends; and this it is that gives such lucidity and value to all his writings. He has, moreover, moral courage of the highest order, and admirable tenacity of purpose. To his own mind his objects are invariably clear; and he takes the most direct, if sometimes not the most pleasant, means of clarifying the minds of others. ”

“ There year by year, on some bright morning of the springtide, the sovereign people, not intrusting its rights to a few of its own numbers, but discharging them itself in the majesty of its own corporate person, meets in the open marketplace or in the green meadow at the mountain's foot to frame the laws to which it yields obedience as its own work, to choose the rulers whom it can afford to greet with reverence as drawing their commission from itself. ”

“ He may there gaze and feel what none can feel but those who have seen with their own eyes, what none can feel in its fulness but once in a lifetime,—the thrill of looking for the first time face to face on freedom in its purest and most ancient form. ”

“ Freeman is not without his limitations. His mind is a peculiarly English mind, strong in facts and shrewd at inferences, but weak and timid in the application of first principles. Original speculators like Spencer or Bain might logically overthrow the very foundations of his political and religious beliefs, and he would never know or care. He is an accomplished specialist in letters, and he is content so to be. Living all his days the life of a squire of his county, his habits of thought are as realistic as those of the class of which he is so great and unwonted an ornament. ”

“ The people follow the chiefs whom they have chosen to the place of meeting,—a circle in a green meadow, with a pine forest rising above their heads, and a mighty spur of the mountain range facing them on the other side of the valley. The multitude of freemen take their seats around the chief ruler of the commonwealth, whose term of office comes that day to an end. The assembly opens. A short space is first given to prayer, silent prayer, offered up by each man in the temple of God's own rearing. ”

“ If changes in the law are demanded, they are then laid before the vote of the assembly, in which each citizen of full age has an equal vote and an equal right of speech. The yearly magistrates have now discharged all their duties: their term of office is at an end. The trust which has been placed in their hands falls back into the hands of those by whom it was given,—into the hands of the sovereign people. ”

“ AMONG eminent English Radicals, Freeman the historian occupies a unique place. He goes forward by going backward. He is a Radical because he is a Conservative. He is a democrat because he is a student of antiquity. Addressing the Liverpool Institute in November last, he described himself as "belonging to that old-fashioned sect that dreads nothing so much as the change of novelty." It is his boast to be one of the trusty few who "cleave to the old faith that there is something in the wisdom of our forefathers, and that the right thing is to stand fast in the old paths." ”

“ The most primitive institutions of the English race were based on universal suffrage. The Swiss Republic is the oldest polity in Europe, and the best. In all history there is hardly a more picturesque chapter than that with which Freeman's "Growth of the English Constitution" opens: "Year by year, on certain spots among the dales and mountain-sides of Switzerland, the traveller who is daring enough to wander out of beaten tracks, and to make his journey at unusual seasons, may look on a sight such as no other corner of the earth can any longer set before him. ”

“ But deem not, that, because the day of Christian worship is chosen for the great yearly assembly of a Christian commonwealth, the more direct sacred duties of the day are forgotten. Before we in our luxurious island have lifted ourselves from our beds, the men of the mountains—Catholic and Protestant alike—have already paid the morning worship in God's temple. They have heard the mass of the priest, or they have listened to the sermon of the pastor, before some of us have awakened to the fact that the morn of the holy day has come. ”

“ Alike in the whole confederation and in the single canton, re-election is the rule: the rejection of the outgoing magistrate is the rare exception. The Landamman of Uri, whom his countrymen have raised to the seat of honor, and who has done nothing to lose their confidence, need not fear that when he has gone to the place of meeting in the pomp of office his place in the march homeward will be transferred to another against his will."
In the foregoing extract the reader has Freeman at his best,—Freeman the Liberal politician and Freeman the devout Christian. ”

“ The Tories are dangerous innovators. Our political progress has consisted in setting aside "the leading subtleties which grew up from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth," and reverting "to the plain common sense of the eleventh or tenth, and of times far earlier." ”

“ The spirit which made democratic Athens year by year bestow her highest offices on the patrician Pericles and the re-actionary Phokion still lives in the democracies of Switzerland, and alike in the Landesgemeinde of Uri and in the Federal Assembly at Berne. The ministers of kings, whether despotic or constitutional, may vainl}"^ envy the same tenure of office which falls to those who are chosen to rule by the voice of the people. ”

“ Freeman with prejudice. The strength and honesty of his intellect no man can question. Of historians he is the most industrious and accurate, and he is by no means deficient in imagination. In this last quality he is of course immeasurably inferior to a prose poet like Carlyle ”

“ His life has been one strenuous endeavor to vindicate by precept and example the noblest traditions of the one and of the other. As a man of Teutonic stock, he has at all times taken strong ground against unhappy Celts ”