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over every act or meeting impends the shadow of the Tsar. His delegate or commissioner is always near and may, though he seldom does, reverse all the proceedings. Thus autocracy stands forth alike in the lowly mir or in the Imperial Senate. Not far astray is the Slavic proverb, "In Russia two are everywhere, God and the Tsar."

This system is not the result of usurpation by violence or fraud. The process of its evolution and corresponding sanction is to be read on every page of Russian history.

The first articulate cry of Russia was a prayer for a ruler. The Russian Nestor tells the story. In 862, one thousand and forty-three years ago, in their first assembly, the Russians said, "Let