There is nothing new under the sun, and the military governors whom we are beginning to appoint find a prototype in the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell.  After the execution of the King and the establishment of the Commonwealth, the Protector conceived the idea of parcelling the kingdom into military districts, of which there were eleven,—­being precisely the number which it is now proposed, under the favor of success, to establish among us.  Of this system a great authority, Mr. Hallam, in his “Constitutional History of England,” speaks thus:—­

“To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper’s wish, but can seldom be in his power.  The Protector abandoned all thought of it.  Dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at the head of each a major-general, as a sort of military magistrate, responsible for the subjection of his prefecture.  These were eleven in number, men bitterly hostile to the Royalist party, and insolent towards all civil authority."[8]

Carlyle, in his “Life of Cromwell,” gives the following glimpse of this military government:—­

“The beginning of a universal scheme of major-generals:  the Lord-Protector and his Council of State having well considered and found it the feasiblest,—­’if not good, yet best.’  ’It is an arbitrary government,’ murmur many.  Yes, arbitrary, but beneficial. These are powers unknown to the English Constitution, I believe; but they are very necessary for the Puritan English nation at this time."[9]

Perhaps no better words could be found in explanation of the Cromwellian policy adopted by our President.

A contemporary Royalist, Colonel Ludlow, whose “Memoirs” add to our authentic history of those interesting times, characterizes these military magistrates as so many “bashaws.”  Here are some of his words:—­

“The major-generals carried things with unheard-of insolence in their several precincts, decimating to extremity whom they pleased, and interrupting the proceedings at law upon petitions of those who pretended themselves aggrieved, threatening such as would not yield a manly submission to their orders with transportation to Jamaica or some other plantation in the West Indies."[10]

Again, says the same contemporary writer:—­

“There were sometimes bitter reflections cast upon the proceedings of the major-generals by the lawyers and country-gentlemen, who accused them to have done many things oppressive to the people, in interrupting the course of the law, and threatening such as would not submit to their arbitrary orders with transportation beyond the seas."[11]

At last, even Cromwell, at the height of his power, found it necessary to abandon the policy of military governors.  He authorized his son-in-law, Mr. Claypole, to announce in Parliament, “that he had formerly thought it necessary, in respect to the condition in which the nation had been, that the major-generals should be intrusted with the authority which they had exercised; but in the present state of affairs he conceived it inconsistent with the laws of England and liberties of the people to continue their power any longer."[12]