[Footnote A:  We have taken for granted the soundness of the views of Niebuhr on the Roman Agrarian contests and laws, that eminent scholar having followed in the track of Heyne with distinguished success; but it must be allowed that in some respects his positions have been not unsuccessfully assailed.  Those who would follow up the subject are recommended to study Ihne’s Researches into the History of the Roman Constitution, in which some of Niebuhr’s views are energetically combated.  The main points, however, that the Agrarian laws were not directed against private property, or aimed at placing all men on a social equality, may be considered as established.  Yet it must in candor be admitted that the general subject is still involved in doubts, the German commentators having thrown as much fog about some portions of the Roman Constitution as they have thrown light upon other portions of it.]

The feeling that was allowed to have such sway in Rome, and the triumph of which was followed with such important consequences, has often manifested itself in modern times, in the course of great political struggles, and has proved a powerful disturbing cause on several occasions.  One of these occasions has fallen under the observation of the existing generation, and some remarks on it may not be out of place.

The French Revolution of 1848 was followed by an alarm on the part of men of property, or of those whose profits depended on the integrity of property being respected, which produced grave effects, the end whereof is not yet.  That revolution was the consequence of a movement as purely political as the world ever saw.  There was discontent with the government of M. Guizot, which extended to the royal family, and in which the bourgeoisie largely shared, the very class upon the support of which the House of Orleans was accustomed to rely.  Had the government yielded a little on some political points, and made some changes in the administration, Louis Philippe might have been living at the Tuileries at this very moment, or sleeping at St. Denis.  But, insanely obstinate, under dominion of the venerable delusion that obstinacy is firmness, the King fell, and with him fell, not merely his own dynasty, but the whole system of government which France had known for a generation, and under which she was, painfully and slowly, yet with apparent sureness, becoming a constitutional state.  A warm political contest was converted into a revolution scarcely less complete than that of 1789, and far more sweeping than that of 1830.  Perhaps there would have been little to regret in this, had it not been, that, instead of devoting their talents to the establishing of a stable republican government, several distinguished Frenchmen, whom we never can think capable of believing the nonsense they uttered, began to labor to bring about a sort of social Arcadia, in which all men were to be made happy, and which was to be based on contempt for political