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 CONSUL 281 still disputed by parties in the nation and by a minority of its members, was decreed Aug. 30, and the power of Thiers as president was prolonged during its continuance. On Nov. 10 the president, who was suspected of mo- narchical tendencies, formally pronounced for the republic. On Jan. 19, 1872, on a disagree- ment with the assembly on a question of tax- ation, the president offered his resignation, but the assembly refused to accept it, and it was withdrawn; but on May 24, 1873, the differ- ences between Thiers and a small majority of the assembly becoming irreconcilable, his res- ignation was renewed and accepted, and Mar- shal MacMahon was chosen president. Con- stituent assemblies have also been held in some of the Spanish American republics. CONSUL (Lat. comulere, to take care for), in Roman antiquity, the title of two supreme civil and military officers, by whom the re- public was governed after the expulsion of the kings about 510 B. C. The office existed during 1,050 years, and assumed distinct phases in the republic and in the Latin and Byzantine em- pires. The consuls were at first elected an- nually from the patricians, had all the insignia of .royalty except the crown, and were pre- ceded by lictors bearing the symbolic fasces. The only examples of a single consul for part of a year were in' 68 and 52 B. 0. The plebe- ians, claiming a right to elect one of the con- suls from their own estate, obtained as a com- promise in 444 B. C. the election of one of the military tribunes who were invested with con- sular power. About 366 the Licinian law open- ed one of the consular offices to them, and in 172 both of the consuls were for the first time plebeians. In the early days of the republic the consuls were the highest judicial as well as executive and military officers, but about 365 B. C. the praetors took the judicial functions. The consuls commanded the army, proposed laws, convoked and presided over the senate and the comitia centuriata, and received the communications from proconsuls and from for- eign states. They retained their power till Caesar became master of the republic. The office was immediately degraded under the em- pire, its duration often being only from two to four months, and its principal functions being transferred to the emperor or senate. In the Byzantine empire it was a merely honorary dignity conferred by nomination of the em- peror, its duties being only to assist in splendid costume at a ceremonial on Jan. 1. The number of consuls was in this late period in- creased, and they were of various classes. Justinian ceased to nominate consuls in A. D. 541 ; but the office was not legally suppressed till an act of the emperor Leo the Philosopher in 886. The title of consul was revived for a time in the French republic after the revolu- tion of the 18th Brumaire, 1799. The direc- tory being overthrown, those members of the council of the ancients and the five hundred who favored the revolution appointed three consuls, Siey&s, Bonaparte, and Ducos. By the constitution of the year VIII. (Dec. 13, 1799), this form of executive was confirmed, Bonaparte being made first consul with almost absolute powers, and Cambaceres and Lebrun second and third consuls. The first consul, who was elected at first for ten years, was reflected in May, 1802, for ten years additional, and in August of the same year for life. He promulgated laws, and appointed and dismissed the ministers and nearly all the officers, mili- tary, naval, and civil. His income was fixed at 500,000 francs, and he took up his residence at the Tuileries, where he held court in great splendor. The title was displaced by that of emperor, May 18, 1804. The term consul des- ignates in modern times commercial agents ap- pointed by a government to reside at seaports or other important commercial towns of foreign countries, whose special commission is to attend to the interests of the citizens of the nation rep- resented by such agents. They were first ap- pointed in the 12th century, after the crusades had opened to European nations a considerable intercourse with the East. Venice, Genoa, and other Italian states obtained a recognition of semi-official agents resident at places with which there was any considerable commercial inter- course. The precedent was followed by other maritime nations, and the custom has become extended so that it is now the practice of all commercial nations to have agents wherever their citizens have established a trade. The powers and duties of consuls are in some cases regulated by treaty between the governments ; in other cases there is a mere permission to send an agent, without specification of powers. A consul can do nothing that is not authorized by the government of the country to which he is sent, either by treaty or official permission ; but at the present period the nature of the office is so well understood throughout the civilized world, and even by semi-civilized na- tions and tribes which have any commercial intercourse with other nations, that permission to appoint a consul imports that he is to be at liberty to perform the duties usually belonging to such office, unless specially provided other- wise. The duties of consuls, where they are not specified by positive stipulation between two governments, will depend upon the laws of the country represented by the consul, it being understood that such regulations are within the general scope of official powers acknowledged by the commercial world. Sub- ject to this limitation, every nation may pre- scribe to its own consuls the extent and nature of their official duties. In some countries con- suls are vested with judicial authority to set- tle disputes between citizens of the country which they represent ; but this can only be by consent of the foreign government, and it has not been the practice of the English govern- ment, or of our own, to confer such authority upon its consuls, except in semi-civilized coun- ! tries, as the North African and some of the