of the whole income of many persons within the protection of the
Constitution of New York, and the overthrow of the Constitution of that
State and of the United States. It may be within the competency of the
British Parliament to enact such a confiscation of rent without a
revolution, there being not only no allodial tenure of land in Great
Britain, but, it would appear, no limit to the power of a British
Parliament over the lives, liberties, and property of British subjects,
but the will of its members. But it is not within the competency of the
Congress of the United States, or of the Assembly of New York, to do
such a thing, the powers of these bodies being controlled and denned by
written Constitutions, which can only be altered or amended in a
prescribed manner and through prescribed and elaborate forms.


VII.

By the middle of October 1886 it became clear that Mr. George, whose
candidacy had at first been regarded with indifference by the party
managers, both Democratic and Republican, in New York, would command a
vote certainly larger than that of one of these parties, and possibly
larger than that of either of them. To put him at the head of a poll of
three parties would elect him. This was so apparent that he and his
friends, including Dr. M'Glynn and Mr. Davitt, were warranted in
expecting a victory.

It was hardly therefore by a mere coincidence that this precise time was
selected for opening the war in Ireland against Rent. It is quite
possible that if Mr. Dillon and his Parliamentary friends had been in
less of a hurry to open this war before the return of Mr. Davitt from
America, it might have been opened in a manner less "politically