d
to be independent. But Judge Bradley was a Republican in his political
antecedents, and whenever a question came to a close issue, he decided
with his party.

On the second of March, only three days before the time for the
inauguration, a final decision was reached. The Republican candidates
were declared elected _by one electoral vote_ over Tilden and
Hendricks. Mr. Tilden had himself counseled peace and acquiescence.
The decision was sullenly accepted by the Democrats, and the most
dangerous political crisis in American history passed harmlessly by
without violence or bloodshed. No patriot will care to see such a
crisis come again.

THE DOUBLE FETE IN FRANCE AND GERMANY.

The Third Republic of France has passed its twenty-fifth anniversary,
and the German Empire has just celebrated its semi-jubilee. The French
held their fete in September of 1895, and on the eighteenth of the
following January all the Fatherland shouted greetings to the grandson
of old Wilhelm the Kaiser. The Gaul and the Teuton have thus agreed to
be happy coincidently; but for very different reasons! The Gaul has
his Republic and the Teuton his Empire. Side by side on the map lie
the two great powers, representing in their history and present aspect
one of the strongest contrasts to be found in human annals.

What the German Empire is we may permit the Emperor himself, in his
recent anniversary address, to explain. His speech shows that Germany,
of all civilized nations, has gone furthest in the direction of
unqualified imperialism. The utterances of Emperor William surpass the
speeches of the Czar himself, in avowing all the pretensions and
fictions of monarchy in the Middle Ages. The Hohenzollern potentate
openly makes the pretence of governing his subjects by rights and
prerogatives in nowise derived from the people, but wholly derived
from himself and his grandfather. Why should Germany be an Empire and
France a Republic? How could such an amazing historical result come
into the world? The French Republic and the new Empire of Germany were
not made by generals and kings and politicians in 1870-71. Indeed,
nothing is made by the strutters who are designated with such titles.
The two great powers having their centres at Berlin and Paris have
their roots as deep down as the subsoil of the ages. They grew out of
antecedents older than the Crusades, older than Charlemagne, older
than Augustus and the Christ. They came by law--even if the res