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effect in a great measure their own political | sentatives of the nobles of sixteen towns told extinction. the Tsar in the boldest language: Thy clerks (officers) receive pay in money, property, and lands, and being always employed in thy State matters, become rich by their unrighteous venality; they have bought many estates and built many houses and stone palaces beyond our powers of description. Former sovereigns and people of high rank never had such houses, although worthier to dwell in them; order, Sovereign, that they furnish horse and foot from their estates, and pay them out of their gains.' They proceeded to recommend the Tsar to levy a similar contribution in men and money on such of their compeers who had evaded His Majesty's service, as well as on those who were in the habit of avoiding the payment of taxes by their changes of residence. The spoliation of the Church was urged in the following decided terms :-'And shouldst thou speedily require for thy treasury over and above what thou canst in this manner levy,-order, Sovereign, the treasure of the Patriarch, of the metropolitans, of the archbishops, of the bishops, and of the monasteries to be taken from them for thy royal service.'

In 1625 the title of Autocrat was again introduced into the legend engraved upon the Great Seal, from which it had been effaced on the election of Michael Romanof. Prince Dolgoruk of states that about this time, or between 1620 and 1625, the original charter granted by Michael is supposed to have been replaced by another, in which the conditions limiting the power of the sovereign were omitted; the persons still living, signataries of that charter, were compelled to affix their names to the new one, still preserved in the archives of the Russian Foreign Office. There is evidence of the fraud in the fact of several signatures being accompanied by titles acquired many years after the charter of 1613. The history of the earlier charter is certainly wrapped in great mystery. Some Russian historians deny its existence altogether; at the same time the box in which it is supposed to be contained is still shown in the Museum of the Palace of the Kremlin; and the very secrecy which has been maintained on the subject would lead to a conviction, in the absence even of direct proof, that the charter imposed by the States-General must have contained clauses inconsistent with autocracy. The wily Patriarch was very likely to cherish, and ultimately to accomplish, the desire of annulling conditions imposed on the accession of his son at the age of sixteen, and which interfered with his own despotic projects.

The Patriarch died on the 1st October, 1633; but during the fourteen years in which he had exercised sovereign power he succeeded so well in re-establishing absolute monarchy, that for several years after his death the States-General had only a feeble tenure of life as a consultative chamber. But dangers once more threatened the country, and the States-General, having met at Moscow on the 29th January, 1634, voted some new taxes and heavy subsidies to be levied on all classes, for the prosecution of the war with Poland. The inferior nobility, anxious to preserve their peculiar institution,' willingly voted supplies to the absolute ruler on whom their fortunes now depended.

In 1641, the Tsar had to decide whether he should annex the town of Azof, which had been seized by the Cossacks of the Don, or should restore it to Turkey. He accordingly summoned the States-General on the 3rd January, 1642, to obtain their advice. The composition of this assembly appears to have varied somewhat from that of others, in the admission of a new class of members-the mayors of towns,--and to have been particularly unruly and outspoken. The repre

The traders were equally unwilling to furnish a military contingent. They represented that they had no lands, and that it was the duty of those who possessed such to supply the State with soldiers. Complaint was made that taxes were being imposed in thousands where they had formerly been levied in hundreds, and all the while their trade was on the decrease. The inhabitants of towns had been impoverished and ruined by His Majesty's voevodes and lieutenants, who treated the merchants on their journeys with extreme violence and oppression; whereas in former reigns the citizens had their own courts, and the towns no voevodes (military governors). The corporation of inferior merchants represented that they had been ruined by conflagrations, heavy taxes, and contributions of every kind; and that they could therefore afford no assistance to the Tsar in the shape of troops or supplies.

Seeing so little chance of obtaining supplies, notwithstanding that the States were in favour of a war with Turkey, the Tsar ordered the Cossacks to restore Azof to the Turks; unwilling, no doubt, to hazard his autocracy by engaging in a war which might have become disastrous and unpopular.

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The Tsar Michael died on the 12th July, 1645, and was succeeded as Autocrat by his son Alexis. Alexis,' says Manstein, another Swedish officer, 'found himself so powerful by the support of the strelitzes, that he had little need to seck the favour of his nobles,

In the case of the Assembly of 1648, the collection and codification of the ancient statutes were confided to a committee of five. Only the new statutes-not more than nineteen in number-were dealt with by the Plenum of the Assembly. Early in October, about three months after the convocation, the Sovereign listened to the reading of the new code with the Patriarch, the bishops, the boyars, the gentlemen sewers, and the nobles of the council: the Lower House listened to the reading at a separate session. It was here, doubtless, that they presented their petitions, for several articles are known to have been subsequently added to the code, in consequence of the petition of the deputies. This Parliament sat from July to the 3rd of October.

and could encroach on their liberties at plea- | into further consideration. The final resclusure.' Other writers have likewise stated tions of the Assembly were based on the colthat Alexis inherited an absolute authority, lective representations made by the delegates which his father had not enjoyed at the com- from the several orders. mencement of, his reign, and that he signed no engagements, like his father, at his accession to the throne. Alexis directed his attention to legal reforms, and his reign is most remarkable for the improvements which he introduced. The Imiannoy Ukases, or Personal Decrees of the Sovereign, had become almost the only laws of the country; their great number and variety rendered the administration of the law most uncertain, produced endless contentions, and fostered corruption. To remedy this evil, he summoned the StatesGeneral in July, 1648, for the compilation of a new code. The composition of this assembly again differed considerably from that of others. The Assembly was more particularly distinguished by its division into two Houses. The first, over which the Tsar presided in person, was composed of fourteen representatives of the Clergy-and of the Chamber of Boyars, containing then fifteen boyars-of ten gentlemen sewers-three council-nobles, of whom one kept the Great Seal and another was Treasurer-and three Secretaries of State. The Lower House, consisting of 301 members, was under the presidency of the Boyar Prince George Dolgorukof This peculiar feature of the States-General is, however, attributable to the fact of the session having been devoted to the compilation of a code by the selection and arrangement of the edicts of former Tsars.

The custom was, to open the sittings of the States-General in the large Gold Hall of the Granovitaya Palace in the Kremlin. Sometimes the Tsar pronounced a speech, stating the object for which they had been convoked; sometimes the Clerk of the Privy Council spoke or read a speech for the Sovereign to the same effect. A copy of this speech was distributed for information, or probably for preliminary consideration. The several orders spoke according to their social rank; the deputies of each order having agreed amongst themselves expressed their opinions or demands, as a body, through a speaker who generally terminated his discourse with the words- Such is the opinion and deposition of us nobles of various towns' (or citizens, as the case might be). Each order or class of delegates had its own clerk, who recorded their opinions, resolutions, and speeches. It sometimes happened that a member of some order or class was not satisfied with the explanation afforded by his colleagues; it was then competent for him to make an explanatory or supplementary speech, which was accordingly recorded and taken

There was another meeting of the StatesGeneral on the 1st of October, 1653, when they were summoned to consider the petition of the Cossacks of Little Russia, who, oppressed by the Poles, offered the suzerainty of their country to Alexis. The States-General counselled a war with Poland, and the acceptance of the suzerainty. The contact, says Prince Dolgorukof, which ensued between the Russian nobles and. those of Poland and Lithuania, opened the eyes of the former to their abject position, subjected as they were to the despotic tyranny of their masters, and even to corporal punishment. Alexis observed the increasing discontent, and established near Moscow a political Inquisition, which spread great terror and consternation. On the least suspicion, persons were condemned to linger out their lives in the cells of the Inquisition, and many died under the application of torture.

Alexis, dying in 1676, was succeeded by his son Theodor III., who, although of feeble constitution, held the nobles in check by means of his Strelitz guards. In the last year of his reign he felt anxious to abolish the corrupt system of mestnichestvo (or the system of precedence among the nobles according to the rank held at court by their fathers and grandfathers). The States-General were very willing to co-operate with the Sovereign in such a necessary reform, long desired by the majority of the lesser nobles; but the death of Theodor in April, 1682, brought their deliberations to an untimely conclusion, and terminated the series of Parliaments convoked by the Sovereigns of Russia since 1550.

Sophia, the daughter of Alexis, proclaimed Regent after a sanguinary revolt of the Stre

creased intensity, in the subsequent policy of Russia. Moscow, the national focus, was too hot for Peter, and the founding a new city offered the advantages of a removal from the

introducing a foreign civilisation under which the nation might become more reconciled to the enlightened rule which he had inaugurated. At St. Petersburg he could shave his notables and dress them as Germans with impunity.

litzes, decreed the dissolution of the States- | stances under which Peter ascended the General in May, 1682. throne gave a cast to the whole of his reign These assemblies, frequently powerful-an impression perpetuated, often with inenough to convoke themselves, were naturally frank and democratic in their representations to the Sovereign. Allowance being made for the rudeness of the manners and phraseology of the period, the advice ten-seat of discontent and a readier means of dered by the deputies was invariably of a sound and practical description. The manifestations of the popular spirit afford a strange mixture of democratic independence with extreme servility of language. While they use the most abject terms in speaking of their pursuits, and constantly repeating the title of the Sovereign whose slaves they declare themselves to be, the merchants and burghers openly refuse to supply the royal exchequer at the expense of their own needs and interests; stating, nevertheless, in general terms their readiness to serve the Tsar. They were guided by no abstract considerations; they brought the experience of practical life to bear on the demands made upon them. The deputies were perfectly justified in demanding an equitable distribution of the taxation of the country, and a proper control of the expenditure. The Tsar, in want of men and money, was told that none of his subjects should enjoy immunity from taxation to the prejudice of the agricultural classes and the traders. The traders showed that the interference of Government in their pursuits was highly prejudicial, and therefore protested strongly against the system of administration by military governors, and against the suppression of their ancient privilege of self-government.

Altogether the attitude and results of the States-General of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be looked back upon by the Russian people with feelings of pride and with much hope for the future. Although they were occasionally debased by the Sovereign to suit his own selfish policy, and although they contributed to maintain for a couple of centuries longer the establishment of serfdom, yet they saved the country on many an emergency; and they latterly gave evidence of a political maturity not attributed to the Russian people by their rulers of the present day.

The reign of Peter I. was pre-eminently unconstitutional, to use the mildest terms. Possessed with the idea of drawing nearer to Europe, he directed all his brute will to the attainment of that object. Despotism was perhaps the only title by which he could retain the Crown in the face of an oppressed servile population, of a nobility anxious to reassert their ancient rights, and of a soldiery in a chronic state of rebellion. The circum

The nobility gradually became less averse to the new despotism. They felt the need of an efficient central authority to retain them in the enjoyment of a system of serfage which gratified all their wants and rendered them almost indifferent to the acts of the Tsar. They had plenty of opportunity of wielding a despotic sway themselves, and they little heeded the distant thunder of Peter. Here then, again, we find the curse of slavery bearing its fruits;-the nobles bent on brutalising their serfs, the Tsar determined to reduce his nobility to utter insig nificance, to deprive them entirely of their ancient constitutional privileges, and to raise a class of adherents by introducing the German system of bureaucracy-a system to which most of the present evils of Russia are attributable. No wonder, then, that under such circumstances and under such a man, Russia became the representative of despotism in Europe.

The Chamber of Boyars, or Privy Council, which had been remodelled in the reign of John IV., and invested with an authority which often encroached on the privileges of the other classes, was reformed, or rather abolished, by Peter in the early part of the 18th century. It had always been more a Court of Appeal than a State Council; but Peter required neither. The Executive Senate,' a mere dummy of legislative wisdom and authority, was established in its stead, and exists to this day, after many still more neutralising modifications by subsequent sovereigns.

The constitutional history of Russia now becomes a history of its code, the only matter in which a few of the sovereigns after Peter admitted the participation of the people.

An attempt to limit the power of the Empress Anne in 1730 alone intervenes to prove the vitality of constitutional ideas.

No progress having been made in legal reform during the reign of Peter, but little success could be expected under Catharine I. The Senate gave orders to hasten the codifi

cation of the laws, and summoned deputies | inferior nobility and by acting on the stupid to Moscow to represent the wants of the ignorance of the lower classes, a revolution country with reference to legal reform. But was soon organised. The populace assem50 copecks banco (about 6d.) a-day was not bled in crowds at the palace, and asked to sufficient inducement; and when, after many see the Empress, who was initiated in the sethreats, the deputies did arrive at Moscow, cret. They asked her whether she was at they proved unfit for the functions they were liberty, and called to her to resume her desired to perform. authority. The Empress played her part well. Sending for Prince Dolgorukof, she inquired what the people wanted? and on being told, said to the Prince, You have been deceived. You have not known the wishes of the people. They are calling upon me to govern like my ancestors-to assume autocratic authority. What have you said in your constitution?' The Arch-Chancellor showed her the constitution with trembling hands, and taking it from him, the Empress tore it into pieces before the applauding multitude. The fate of the Dolgorukis was instantly sealed; they went through all the phases of political persecution until at last the pitiless Biron had them all broken on the wheel, while their partisans were banished to the mines of Siberia for ever.

During the reign of Peter II. the nobles had plotted the limitation of the power of the Tsar; but the sudden death of the youthful sovereign upset their plans. Never theless, the partisans of the Dolgorukis were determined to make a struggle for their principles. A kind of constitution was prepared, guaranteeing the rights of the Imperial Council. It was decided to choose a sovereign from the family of Peter, viz., Anne Duchess of Courland, on condition that she should take an oath to observe the constitution established by the Council. The principal points of this charter, as given by Mickiewicz, are:-Without the advice of the Council, rendered irremovable, the Sovereign could neither declare war nor make peace; nor could he choose a successor, appoint to the higher offices of State, or impose new taxes. The Sovereign was not to punish the gentry, either corporally or by the infliction of fines, without submitting their offences to the ordinary courts of justice.'

The Duchess of Courland accepted all these conditions, and was proclaimed Empress. But unfortunately there were elements of discord in the Council itself on which the new constitution was based. It was composed partly of foreigners-the Ostermans, Loewenwolds, Bruces-all of German, Courland, or French extraction, who soon foresaw that the Government, once set in motion, would eventually rid itself of the foreign element and fall entirely into the hands of the national party, led by historical families; and that they, the favourites of the hour, might any day fall into disgrace and incur severe penalties.

The foreign party now detached themselves in secret from the Council which they had assisted in establishing. The Empress could not be averse to intrigues which aimed at restoring the absolutism she had surrendered, and she was bound by strong ties to that party. They soon succeeded in persuading the lesser boyars of Moscow that the Council had usurped all the authority of the Crown; that the members of the Council had invested themselves with privileges which they were not disposed to extend; and, lastly, the populace were taught that the Dolgorukis had imprisoned their Sovereign in her own palace, from which it was now necessary to rescue her. By exciting the jealousy of the

Catherine II. came to the throne eager for fame, and anxious to put in practice the philosophic doctrines of the age. It may be said she was anxious to do as much for constitutionalism as serfage would permit her. But Catharine was most anxious to be a lawgiver, and her more liberal and advanced councillors took advantage of the desire to promote the cause of representative government, such as had formerly existed. On the 14th December, 1766, it was announced by manifesto that the Empress intended to appoint a Commission during the following year at Moscow, for the preparation of the draft of a new code of laws. Deputies were ordered to be sent by the senate, synod, all the colleges (viz., Military, Foreign Affairs, Justice, &c.) and chanceries, one from each; from each district where there were nobles, one nobleman; from the inhabitants of towns, one from each town; from the freemen (or descendants of nobles who, having refused service under Peter I., had been deprived of their nobility) of each province one deputy; from the military colonies and various servants of the Crown and others forming the land-militia, one deputy from each province; from foreign races not leading a roving life, of whatever religion, Christians or not, one deputy from each people in every province. The settlement of the number of deputies from the Cossack troops was left to their superior commanders. The deputies were not to be under twenty-five years of age: they received pay from the Government; were freed during their lives from the penalty of death, from torture, corporal pu

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nishment, and confiscation of property. A double punishment was awarded to any one who insulted a deputy. The election of deputies was to be made by ballot, by a majority of votes. Each deputy received from his electors a power of attorney, and an instruction stating the wants and demands of the community, drawn up by five electors chosen for the purpose.

When the deputies assembled at Moscow, the Empress, being then at Kolomna, near Moscow, appointed various persons, of very different opinions,' to listen to the Instruction which Her Majesty had prepared for the Commission. A discussion arose at each article. The Empress gave them leave to strike out anything they pleased. They accordingly struck out half the articles which were sent up to them, and began work in a very independent spirit.

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This Parliament, or Commission' as it was called, for fear of rousing the people to a more vivid recollection of their ancient assemblies, was opened at Moscow on the 31st of July, 1767, and was composed of 565 deputies.

An inquiry into the instructions furnished by the constituents gives a curious insight into the requirements and state of the country at that period, but they are too numerous to be stated at length. Most of them referred to Church matters, and law of mortmain was urged by several. Others demand ed a sumptuary law; but the most extraordinary demands were made by the Functionary class, to the effect that all women who led a wanton life should be exterminated; that debtors be given over to their creditors to work out their debts, if not sent to hard labour; that a law should be framed to draw the several classes of the population into closer friendship; and that a census be taken of all benevolent citizens who were to be honoured. The suggestions of the nobility were more practical and useful, although not unselfish. The inhabitants of towns appear to have been most concerned about Church matters, but they presented some very important demands: such as the institution of oral procedure and other reforms in the administration of justice, the establishment of state banks, trade corporations, hospitals, academies, universities, and schools, and, generally, advocated a most liberal policy with the exception perhaps of a request for a prohibitory tariff on foreign goods. The freemen sent up some very sensible instructions, most of their demands having reference to the administration of justice. The merchants, as a class, represented that by the will of God, Russia is governed by the monarchic, not the aristocratic, principle,

and plebeian as well as noble-in fact, all sorts and conditions of men-are equally the loyal slaves of our most gracious Sovereign.' They were most anxious to be relieved of their disabilities, and to be raised from the position of contempt to which they had been reduced. It is instructive to observe that the most absurd and illiberal proposals were made by the class of state servants introduced by Peter the Great.

On the 21st August the Assembly, feeling the healthy vigour of political life, presented an address of thanks to the Empress for having called it into existence; but on their suddenly commencing a searching inquiry into the evil of serfage, the Empress took fright, and, fearing any further discussion, dissolved the Plenum, on the 29th of December, until further notice. The Separate Commissions were alone retained, but with fewer members. In 1774 the entire Commission was dissolved, and a Chancery merely retained for reference.

It is alleged, on the part of the Government, that the Commission assembled by Catharine only prepared a few drafts of laws relating to schools, post-offices, &c., and forty-five criminal statutes, none of which were ever finally examined or confirmed; and that, like its predecessors, it afforded no practical results. But the following is the testimony of the Empress herself on this sub

ject:

'The Commission on assembling afforded me light and information respecting the whole empire, the persons with whom we have to deal, lected the laws and arranged them, and would and those who require our solicitude. It colhave done still more had it not been for the commencement of the war with Turkey. The deputies were then dismissed, and the military members rejoined the army. The instruction to the Commission introduced a far greater unity than before into their rules and debates. Flowers began to be judged by their colours, and not as by those who are colour-blind. At all events they began to know the will of the legislator, and to act according to it.'

But even if this testimony were wanting, a perusal of the several Instructions is sufficient to show that the Empress, anxious to legislate, must have derived great benefit from the Assembly of 1766-7. In fact the glory of her reign is to be attributed to the political wisdom which she surreptitiously appropriated on the occasion. All her subsequent enactments bore the impress of the popular Council, however loth she may have been to acknowledge her obligations.

The nobles had been assuming a considerable amount of power during the feeble reigns of her latest predecessors, who were very

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