prevail--that fraudulent devices or actual violence may not ultimately determine the result. The inquiry naturally suggests itself how this state of things has been brought about--above all, whether it is, as many intelligent persons seem to suspect, an unavoidable outgrowth of democratic institutions. This, indeed, is a question important not only to us, but to all the civilized nations of the world, for there is nothing more certain in regard to the present tendencies of civilization than that they are setting rapidly and irresistibly toward the general adoption of democratic forms of government. The oldest and greatest of the European nations, after trying almost every conceivable system, has returned, not so much from a deliberate preference as from the breakdown of every other, to that which had twice before failed as an experiment, but which now gives fair promise of successful and permanent operation--a republic based on universal suffrage. In many other countries what is virtually the same system in a somewhat different form seems to be firmly established, and in these the ever-potent example of France may be expected at some more or less remote conjuncture to bring about the final change that shall make the form and the name coincide with the reality. England, which at one time led the van in this movement, has been outstripped by several of the continental nations, but its constant, though somewhat zigzag, advances in the same direction cannot be doubted, while community of race and former relations make the comparison between its condition and prospects and those of the United States more mutually interesting and instructive than any that could be instituted between either and another foreign country.