THE 
 
 WORKING OF THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 THE FKATEENITY $ B K 
 
 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 
 June 28, 1888. 
 
 By CHARLES W. ELIOT. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
 SSniijerstts ?&ttss, 
 1888. 
 
THE 
 
 WORKING OF THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 THE FRATEENITY $ B K 
 
 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 
 June 28, 1888. 
 
 By CHARLES W. ELIOT. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
 1888. 
 
.E4 
 
 WJrW YORK PUBL. unK 
 
THE WORKING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. 
 
 I PURPOSE to examine some parts of the experience of 
 the American Democracy, with the intention of suggesting 
 the answers to certain theoretical objections which have 
 been urged against democracy in general, and of showing in 
 part what makes the strength of the democratic form of 
 government. 
 
 For more than a hundred years there has been among 
 civilized nations a decided set of opinion towards democratic 
 institutions ; but in Europe this set has been determined 
 rather by unfavorable experience of despotic and oligarchic 
 forms of government, than by any favorable experience of 
 the democratic form. Government by one, and government 
 by a few have been tried through many centuries, by dif- 
 ferent races of men, and under all sorts of conditions ; but 
 neither has ever succeeded, — not even in England, — in pro- 
 ducing a reasonably peaceful, secure, and also happy society. 
 No lesson upon this subject could be more forcible than 
 that which modern Europe teaches. Empires and mon- 
 archies, like patriarchies and chieftainships, have doubtless 
 served their turn ; but they have signally failed to realize 
 the social ideals — some ancient and some modern in origin 
 — which have taken firm hold of men's minds since the Amer- 
 ican Revolution. This failure extends through all society, 
 from top to bottom. It^i^s- as conspicuous in the moral con- 
 dition of the upper classes as in the material condition of 
 
the lower. Oligarchies call themselves aristocracies ; but 
 government by the few has never really been government 
 by the best. Therefore mankind tends to seek the realiza- 
 tion of its ideals in broad-based forms of government. 
 
 It can hardly be said that Europe has any experience of 
 democracy which is applicable to a modern State. Gallant lit- 
 tle Switzerland lives in a mountain fastness, and exists by the 
 sufferance of powerful neighbors, each jealous of the other. 
 No lessons for modern use can be drawn from the transient 
 city democracies of ancient or mediseval times. The city as 
 a unit of government-organization has gone forever, with the 
 glories of Athens, Rome, and Florence. Throughout this 
 century a beneficent tendency has been manifested towards 
 the formation of great national units. Witness the expansion 
 of Russia and the United States, the creation of the German 
 empire, the union of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, and the 
 unification of Italy. At least within these great units prevail 
 a common peace and an unrestricted trade. The blessings 
 which result from holding vast territories and multitudes un- 
 der one national government are so great that none but large 
 governments have any future before them. To succeed, 
 democracy must show itself able to control both territory 
 and population on a continental scale. Therefore its methods 
 must be representative, — which means that they are neces- 
 sarily deliberative, and are likely to be conservative and slow. 
 Of such government by the many Europe has no trustworthy 
 experience, either in ancient or in modern times. The so- 
 called democracies of Greece and Rome were really govern- 
 ments by a small caste of free citizens ruling a multitude of 
 aliens and slaves : hasty and tyrannical themselves, they 
 naturally prepared the way for tyrants. Yet when all the 
 world were slaves, that caste of free citizens was a wonder- 
 ful invention, France, since the Revolution, has exhibited 
 some fugitive specimens of democratic rule, but has had no 
 stable government of any sort, whether tyranny, oligarchy, or 
 democracy. In short, such experience as Europe has had 
 of so-called democracies — with the exception of admirable 
 
Switzerland — is worse than useless ; for it is thoroughly 
 misleading, and has misled many acute observers of political 
 plienomena. 
 
 In this absence of available European experience, where 
 can mankind look for trustworthy evidence concerning the 
 practical working of democratic institutions ? Solely to the 
 United States. The Australasian colonies will before long 
 contribute valuable evidence ; but at present their population 
 is small, and their experience is too recent to be of great 
 value to students of comparative politics. Yet it is upon ex- 
 perience, and experience alone, that safe conclusions can be 
 based concerning the merits and the faults of democracy. On 
 politics, speculative writing — even by able men like Sir George 
 Cornewall Lewis and Sir Henry Maine — is as perilous as it is 
 on biology ; and prophecy is still more dangerous. To the 
 modern mind, ideal States lilve Plato's Republic, Sir Thomas 
 More's Utopia, and Saint Augustine's Civitas Dei, are utterly 
 uninteresting, — particularly when they rest upon such vision- 
 ary postulates as community of goods and community of wives 
 and children. The stable State must have its roots in use and 
 wont, in familiar customs and laws, and in the inherited hab- 
 its of successive generations. But it is only in the United 
 States that a well-rooted democracy upon a great scale has 
 ever existed ; and hence the importance of accurate obser- 
 vation and just judgment of the working of American demo- 
 cratic institutions, both political and social. Upon the success 
 of those institutions rest the best hopes of the world. 
 
 In discussing some parts of our national experience I intend 
 to confine myself to moral and intellectual phenomena, and 
 shall have little to say about the material prosperity of the 
 country. The rapid growth of the United States in popu- 
 lation, wealth, and everything which constitutes material 
 strength is, indeed, marvellous ; but this concomitant of the 
 existence of democratic institutions in a fertile land, rich also 
 in minerals, ores, oil, and gas, has often been dilated upon, and 
 may be dismissed with only two remarks : first, that a great 
 
6 
 
 deal of moral vigor has been put into the material develop- 
 ment of tlie United States ; and secondly, that wide-spread 
 comfort ought to promote rather than to hinder the civilizing 
 of a people. Sensible and righteous government ought ulti- 
 mately to make a nation rich ; and although this proposition 
 cannot be directly reversed, yet diffused well-being, comfort, 
 and material prosperity establish a fair presumption in favor 
 of the government and the prevailing social conditions under 
 which these blessings have been secured. 
 
 The first question I wish to deal with is a fundamental one : 
 How wisely, and by what process, has the American people 
 made up its mind upon public questions of supreme difficulty 
 and importance ? Not how will it, or how might it, make up 
 its mind ; but how has it made up its mind ? It is commonly 
 said that the multitude, being ignorant and untrained, cannot 
 reach so wise a conclusion upon questions of state as the cul- 
 tivated few ; that the wisdom of a mass of men can only be 
 an average wisdom at the best ; and that democracy, which 
 in things material levels up, in things intellectual and moral 
 levels down. Even De Tocqueville says that there is a mid- 
 dling standard of knowledge in a democracy, to which some 
 rise and others descend. Let us put these speculative opin- 
 ions, which have so plausible a sound, in contrast with 
 American facts. 
 
 The people of this country have had three supreme ques- 
 tions to settle within the last hundred and thirty years : 
 first, the question of independence of Great Britain ; secondly, 
 the question of forming a firm federal union ; and thirdly, the 
 question of maintaining that union at whatever cost of blood 
 and treasure. In the decision of these questions, four genera- 
 tions of men took active part. The first two questions were 
 settled by a population mainly English ; but when the third 
 was decided, the foreign admixture was already considerable. 
 That graver or more far-reaching political problems could 
 be presented to any people, it is impossible to imagine. 
 Everybody can now see that in each case the only wise de- 
 cision was arrived at by the multitude, in spite of difficulties 
 
and dangers which many contemporary statesmen and pub- 
 licists of our own and other hinds thought insuperable. It 
 is quite the fashion to laud to the skies the second of these 
 three great achievements of the American democracy ; but the 
 creation of the Federal Union, regarded as a wise determina- 
 tion of a multitude of voters, was certainly not more remarka- 
 ble than the other two. No government — tyranny or oligarchy, 
 despotic or constitutional — could possibly have made wiser 
 decisions or executed them more resolutely, as the event has 
 proved in each of the three cases mentioned. 
 
 So much for the wisdom of these great resolves. Now, by 
 what process were they arrived at ? 
 
 In each case the process was slow, covering many years 
 during which discussion and debate went on in pulpits, legis- 
 latures, public meetings, newspapers, and books. The best 
 minds of the country took part in these prolonged debates. 
 Party passions were aroused ; advocates on each side disputed 
 before the people ; the authority of recognized political lead- 
 ers was invoked ; public spirit and selfish interest were ap- 
 pealed to ; and that vague but powerful sentiment called 
 love of country, felt equally by high and low, stirred men's 
 hearts and lit the intellectual combat with lofty emotion. 
 In presence of such a protracted discussion, a multitude of 
 interested men make up their minds just as one interested 
 man does. They listen, compare what they hear with their 
 own experience, consider the bearings of the question on their 
 own interests, and consult their self-respect, their hopes, and 
 their fears. Not one in a thousand of them could originate, 
 or even state with precision, the arguments he hears ; not one 
 in a thousand could give a clear account of his own observa- 
 tions, processes of thought, and motives of action upon the 
 subject, — but the collective judgment is informed and guided 
 by the keener wits and stronger wills, and the collective wis- 
 dom is higher and surer in guiding public conduct than that 
 of one mind or of several superior minds uninstructed by 
 million-eyed observation and million-tongued debate. 
 
 In all three of the great popular decisions under considera- 
 
8 
 
 tion, most remarkable discernment, patience, and resolution 
 were, as a fact, displayed. If these were the average qualities 
 of the many, then the average mental and moral powers of the 
 multitude suffice for greatest deeds ; if they were the qualities 
 of the superior few infused into the many by speech and press, 
 by exhortation, example, and leadership, even then the asser- 
 tion that the operative opinions of the unlearned mass on 
 questions of state must necessarily be foolish, their honesty 
 only an ordinary honesty, and their sentiments vulgar, falls to 
 the ground. The multitude, it would seem, either can distil 
 essential wisdom from a seething mass of heterogeneous evi- 
 dence and opinion, or can be inspired, like a single individual, 
 from without and above itself. If the practical wisdom of the 
 multitude in action be attributed to the management or to 
 the influence of a sagacious few, the wise result proves that 
 these leaders were well chosen by some process of natural 
 selection, instead of being designated, as in an oligarchy, by 
 the inheritance of artificial privileges. 
 
 It is fair to say that one reason why democratic decisions 
 of great public questions are apt to turn out well, and there- 
 fore to seem to posterity to have been wise, is, that the state 
 of the public mind and will is an all-important factor in deter- 
 mining the issue of such questions. Democracy vigorously 
 executing its own purpose demonstrates by the issue its wis- 
 dom before the event. Indeed, this is one of the most legiti- 
 mate and important advantages of the democratic form of 
 government. 
 
 There is a limited sense in which it is true that in the 
 United States the average man predominates ; but the politi- 
 cal ideas which have predominated in the United States, and 
 therefore in the mind and will of the average man, — equality 
 before the law, national independence, federation, and indis- 
 soluble union, — are ideas not of average, but of superlative 
 merit. It is also true that the common school and the news- 
 paper echo received opinion, and harp on moral common- 
 places. But unfortunately there are many accepted humane 
 opinions and ethical commonplaces which have never yet 
 
been embodied in national legislation, — much less in inter- 
 national law, — and which may therefore still be repeated 
 to some advantage. If that comprehensive commonplace, 
 " Ye are all members one of another," could be realized in 
 international relations, there would be an end of war and 
 industrial isolation. 
 
 Experience has shown that democracy must not be ex- 
 pected to decide wisely about things in which it feels no 
 immediate concern. Unless its interests are affected or its 
 sentiments touched, it will not take the pains necessary 
 to arrive at just conclusions. To engage public attention 
 sufficiently to procure legislation, is the reformer's chief diffi- 
 culty in a democracy. Questions of war, peace, or human 
 rights, and questions which concern the national unity, dig- 
 nity, or honor, win the attention of the many. Indeed, the 
 greatest political questions are precisely those in which the 
 many have concern ; for they suffer the penalties of discord, 
 war, and public wrong-doing. But it is curiously difficult to 
 secure from multitudes of voters effective dealing with ques- 
 tions which relate merely to taxation, expenditure, adminis- 
 tration, trade, or manufactures. On these lesser matters the 
 multitude will not declare itself until evils multiply intoler- 
 ably. We need not be surprised, however, that the intelligence 
 and judgment of the multitude can be brought into play only 
 when they think their own interests are to be touched. All 
 experience, both ancient and modern, shows that when the 
 few rule they do not attend to the interests of the many. 
 
 I shall next consider certain forms of mental and moral ac- 
 tivity which the American democracy demands of hundreds 
 of thousands of the best citizens, but which are without 
 parallel in despotic and oligarchic States. I refer to the 
 widely diffused and ceaseless activity which maintains, first, 
 the immense Federal Union with all its various sub-divisions 
 into States, counties, and towns; secondly, the voluntary 
 system in religion; and thirdly, the voluntary system in 
 the higher instruction. 
 
10 
 
 To have carried into successful practice on a great scale the 
 federative principle, which binds many semi-independent States 
 into one Nation, is a good work done for all peoples. Federa- 
 tion promises to counteract the ferocious quarrelsomeness of 
 mankind, and to abolish the jealousy of trade ; but its price 
 in mental labor and moral initiative is high. It is a system 
 which demands not only vital force at the heart of the State, 
 but a diffused vitality in every part. In a despotic govern- 
 ment the intellectual and moral force of the whole organism 
 radiates from the central seat of power ; in a federal union 
 political vitality must be diffused throughout the whole organ- 
 ism, as animal heat is developed and maintained in every 
 molecule of the entire body. The success of the United States 
 as a federal union has been and is effected by the watchful- 
 ness, industry, and public spirit of millions of men who spend 
 in that noble cause the greater part of their leisure, and of 
 the mental force which can be spared from bread-winning 
 occupations. The costly expenditure goes on without ceas- 
 ing all over the country, wherever citizens come together to 
 attend to the affairs of the village, town, county, or State. 
 This is the price of liberty and union. The well-known 
 promptness and skill of Americans in organizing a new com- 
 munity result from the fact that hundreds of thousands of 
 Americans — and their fathers before them — have had prac- 
 tice in managing public affairs. To get this practice costs 
 time, labor, and vitality, which in a despotic or oligarchic 
 State are seldom spent in this direction. 
 
 The successful establishment and support of religious in- 
 stitutions, — churches, seminaries, and religious charities, — 
 upon a purely voluntary system, is another unprecedented 
 achievement of the American democracy. In only three gen- 
 erations American democratic society has effected the com- 
 plete separation of Church and State, a reform which no 
 other people has ever attempted. Yet religious institutions 
 are not stinted in the United States ; on the contrary, they 
 abound and thrive, and all alike are protected and encour 
 aged, but not supported, by the State. Who has taken up 
 
11 
 
 the work which the State has reUnqnished ? Somebody has 
 had to do it, for the work is done. Who provides the money 
 to build churches, pay salaries, conduct missions, and educate 
 ministers ? Who supplies the brains for organizing and 
 maintaining these various activities ? This is the work, not 
 of a few officials, but of millions of intelligent and devoted 
 men and women scattered through all the villages and cities 
 of the broad land. The maintenance of churches, semina- 
 ries, and charities by voluntary contributions and by the ad- 
 ministrative labors of volunteers, implies an enormous and 
 incessant expenditure of mental and moral force. It is a 
 force which must ever be renewed from generation to gen- 
 eration ; for it is a personal force, constantly expiring, and as 
 constantly to be replaced. Into the maintenance of the vol- 
 untary system in religion has gone a good part of the moral 
 energy which three generations have been able to spare from 
 the work of getting a living ; but it is worth the sacrifice, and 
 will be accounted in history one of the most remarkable feats 
 of American public spirit and faith in freedom. 
 
 A similar exhibition of diffused mental and moral energy 
 has accompanied the establishment and the development of 
 a system of higher instruction in the United States, with 
 no inheritance of monastic endowments, and no gifts from 
 royal or ecclesiastical personages disposing of great resources 
 derived from the State, and with but scanty help from the 
 public purse. Whoever is familiar with the colleges and 
 universities of the United States knows that the creation of 
 these democratic institutions has cost the life-work of thou- 
 sands of devoted men. At the sacrifice of other aspirations, 
 and under heavy discouragements and disappointments, but 
 with faith and hope, these teachers and trustees have built 
 up institutions, which, however imperfect, have cherished 
 scientific enthusiasm, fostered piety, literature, and art, main- 
 tained the standards of honor and public duty, and steadily 
 kept in view the ethical ideals which democracy cherishes. 
 It has been a popular work, to which large numbers of 
 people in successive generations have contributed of their 
 
12 
 
 substance or of their labor. The endowment of institu- 
 tions of education, including libraries and museums, by 
 private persons in the United States is a phenomenon 
 without precedent or parallel, and is a legitimate effect of 
 democratic institutions. Under a tyranny — were it that of 
 a Marcus Aurelius — or an oligarchy — were it as enlightened 
 as that which now rules Germany — such a phenomenon 
 would be simply impossible. The University of Strasburg 
 was lately established by an imperial decree, and is chiefly 
 maintained out of the revenue of the State. Harvard Uni- 
 versity has been two hundred and fifty years in growing to its 
 present stature, and is even now inferior at many points to 
 the new University of Strasburg ; but Harvard is the crea- 
 tion of thousands of persons, living and dead, rich and poor, 
 learned and simple, who have voluntarily given it their time, 
 thought, or money, and lavished upon it their affection; Stras- 
 burg exists by the mandate of the ruling few directing upon 
 it a part of the product of ordinary taxation. Like the volun- 
 tary system in religion, the voluntary system in the higher 
 education buttresses democracy ; each demands from the 
 community a large outlay of intellectual activity and moral 
 vigor. 
 
 There is another direction in which the people of the United 
 States have spent and are now spending a vast amount of in- 
 tellectual and moral energy, — a direction not, as in the three 
 cases just considered, absolutely peculiar to the American re- 
 public, but still highly characteristic of democracy. I mean 
 the service of corporations. Within the last hundred years the 
 American people have invented a new and large application of ^ 
 the ancient principle of incorporation. We are so accustomed 
 to corporations as indispensable agents in carrying on great 
 public works and services, and great industrial or financial 
 operations, that we forget the very recent development of the 
 corporation with limited liability as a common business agent. 
 Prior to 1789 there were only two corporations for business 
 purposes in Massachusetts. The English general statute 
 
13 
 
 which provides for incorporation with limited liability dates 
 only from 1855. No other nation has made such general or 
 such successful use of corporate powers as the American, — 
 and for the reason that the method is essentially a democratic 
 method, suitable for a country in which great individual or 
 family properties are rare, and small properties are numerous. 
 Freedom of incorporation makes possible great combinations 
 of small capitals, and while winning the advantages of con- 
 centrated management, permits diffused ownership. These 
 merits have been quickly understood and turned to account 
 by the American democracy. The service of many corpora- 
 tions has become even more important than the service of 
 the several States of the Union. The managers of great 
 companies have trusts reposed in them which are matched 
 only in the highest executive offices of the nation ; and they 
 are relatively free from the numerous checks and restrictions 
 under which the highest national officials must always act. 
 The activity of corporations, great and small, penetrates every 
 part of the industrial and social body, and their daily main- 
 tenance brings into play more mental and moral force than 
 the maintenance of all the governments on the continent 
 combined. 
 
 These propositions can easily be illustrated by actual exam- 
 ples. I find established at Boston, for instance, the head- 
 quarters of a railroad corporation which employs eighteen 
 thousand persons, has gross receipts of about $40,000,000 a 
 year, and on occasion pays its best-paid officer a salary of 
 '135,000. I find there also the central office of a manufac- 
 turing establishment which employs more than six thousand 
 persons, has a gross annual income of more than $7,000,000, 
 and pays its best-paid officer $20,000 a year. The gross re- 
 ceipts of the Pennsylvania railroad system are $115,000,000 
 a year, the highest-paid official of the company receives a 
 salary of $30,000, and the whole system employs one hundred 
 thousand men. A comparison of such figures with the corre- 
 sponding figures for the prosperous and respectable Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts is not uninstructive. The gross 
 
14 
 
 receipts of the Commonwealth are about 17,000,000 a year, 
 the highest salary it pays is |6,500, and there are not more 
 than six thousand persons in its employ for any considerable 
 part of the year. 
 
 In the light of such facts it is easy to see some of the 
 reasons why American corporations command the services of 
 men of high capacity and character, who in other countries or 
 in earlier times would have been in the service of the State. 
 In American democratic society corporations supplement the 
 agencies of the State, and their functions have such impor- 
 tance in determining conditions of labor, diffusing comfort 
 and general well-being among millions of people, and utiliz- 
 ing innumerable large streams and little rills of capital, that 
 the upper grades of their service are reached by merit, are 
 filled as a rule upon a tenure during good behavior and effi- 
 ciency, are well paid, and have great dignity and consideration. 
 Of the enormous material benefits which have resulted from 
 the American extension of the principle of incorporation I 
 need say nothing. I wish only to point out that freedom 
 of incorporation, though no longer exclusively a democratic 
 agency, has given strong support to democratic institutions ; 
 and that a great wealth of intellect, energy, and fidelity is 
 devoted to the service of corporations by their officers and 
 directors. 
 
 The four forms of mental and moral activity which I have 
 been considering, — that which maintains political vitality 
 throughout the Federal Union ; that which supports unsub- 
 sidized religious institutions ; that which develops the higher 
 instruction in the arts and sciences, and trains men for all the 
 professions ; and that which is applied to the service of cor- 
 porations, — all illustrate the educating influence of democratic 
 institutions, an influence which foreign observers are apt to 
 overlook or underestimate. The ballot is not the only polit- 
 ical institution which has educated the American democracy. 
 Democracy is a training-school in which multitudes learn in 
 many ways to take thought for others, to exercise public func- 
 tions, and to bear public responsibilities. 
 
15 
 
 So many critics of the theory of democracy have maintained 
 that a democratic government would be careless of public 
 obligations, and unjust towards private property, that it will 
 be interesting to inquire what a century of American expe- 
 rience indicates upon this important point. Has there been 
 any disposition on the part of the American democracy to 
 create exaggerated public debts, to throw the burden of public 
 debts on posterity rather than on the present generation, or to 
 favor in legislation the poorer sort as against the richer, the 
 debtor as against the creditor ? 
 
 The answer to these questions is not doubtful. With the 
 exception of the sudden creation of the great national debt 
 occasioned by the Civil War, the American communities have 
 been very moderate in borrowing, the State debts being for 
 the most part insignificant, and the city debts far below the 
 English standard. Moreover, these democratic communities, 
 with a few local and temporary exceptions, pay their public 
 debts more promptly than any State under the rule of a despot 
 or a class has ever done. The government of the United 
 States has once paid the whole of its public debt, and is in a 
 fair way to perform that feat again. So much for democratic 
 treatment of public obligations. 
 
 It is conceivable, however, that the popular masses should 
 think it for their own interest to keep down and pay off public 
 indebtedness, and yet should discriminate in legislation in 
 favor of the majority who are not well off, and against the 
 minority who are. There are two points, and only two points, 
 so far as I know, at which permanent American legislation 
 has, as a fact, intentionally discriminated in favor of the poor. 
 The several States, as a rule, exempt from taxation household 
 effects and personal property to a moderate amount, and the 
 tools of farmers and mechanics. The same articles and a few 
 others like them are also commonly exempted from attach- 
 ment for debt, together often with a homestead not exceeding 
 in value one thousand dollars. The exemptions from attach- 
 ment, and even those from taxation, will cover all the prop- 
 erty of many poor persons and families ; yet this legislation 
 
16 
 
 is humane and worthy of respect, being analogous to the com- 
 mon provision which exempts from all taxation persons who 
 by reason of age or infirmity may, in the judgment of the 
 assessors, be unable to contribute to the public charges. It 
 is intended to prevent cases of hardship in the collection 
 either of taxes or of debts ; and doubtless the exemptions 
 from attachment are designed also to leave to the debtor a 
 fair chance of recovery. 
 
 After observing the facts of a full century, one may therefore 
 say of the American democracy that it has contracted public 
 debt with moderation, paid it with unexampled promptness, 
 acquired as good a public credit as the world has ever known, 
 made private property secure, and shown no tendency to 
 attack riches or to subsidize poverty, or in either direction 
 to violate the fundamental principle of democracy, that all 
 men are equal before the law. The significance of these 
 facts is prodigious. They mean that, as regards private 
 property and its security, a government by the many, for the 
 many, is more to be trusted than any other form of govern- 
 ment ; and that as regards public indebtedness, an experienced 
 democracy is more likely to exhibit just sentiments and prac- 
 tical good judgment than an oligarchy or a tyranny. 
 
 An argument against democracy, which evidently had great 
 weight with Sir Henry Maine, because he supposed it to rest 
 upon the experience of mankind, is stated as follows : Progress 
 and reformation have always been the work of the few, and 
 have been opposed by the many ; therefore democracies will be 
 obstructive. This argument is completely refuted by the first 
 century of the American democracy, alike in the field of morals 
 and jurisprudence, and in the field of manufactures and trade. 
 Nowhere, for instance, has the great principle of religious tol- 
 eration been so thoroughly put in practice as in the United 
 States ; nowhere have such well-meant and persistent efforts 
 been made to improve the legal status of women ; nowhere 
 has the conduct of hospitals, asylums, reformatories, and 
 prisons been more carefully studied ; nowhere have legisla- 
 
17 
 
 tive remedies for acknowledged abuses and evils been more 
 promptly and perseveringly sought. There was a certain 
 plausibility in the idea that the multitude, who live by labor 
 in established modes, would be opposed to inventions which 
 would inevitably cause industrial revolutions ; but American 
 experience completely upsets this notion. For promptness in 
 making physical forces and machinery do the work of men, 
 the people of the United States surpass incontestably all 
 other peoples. The people that invented and introduced with 
 perfect commercial success the river steamboat, the cotton- 
 gin, the parlor-car and the sleeping-car, the grain elevator, 
 the street railway both surface and elevated, the telegraph, 
 the telephone, the rapid printing-press, the cheap book and 
 newspaper, the sewing-machine, the steam fire-engine, agri- 
 cultural machinery, the pipe-lines for natural oil and gas, 
 and machine-made clothing, boots, furniture, tools, screws, 
 wagons, fire-arms, and watches, — this is not a people to 
 vote down or hinder labor-saving invention or beneficent 
 industrial revolution. The fact is that in a democracy the 
 interests of the greater number will ultimately prevail, as 
 they should. It was the stage-drivers and inn-keepers, not 
 the multitude, who wished to suppress the locomotive ; it is 
 the publishers and the typographical unions, not the mass 
 of the people, who wrongly imagine that they have an in- 
 terest in making books dearer than they need be. Further- 
 more, a just liberty of combination and perfect equality before 
 the law, such as prevail in a democracy, enable men or com- 
 panies to engage freely in new undertakings at their own risk, 
 and bring them to triumphant success, if success be in them, 
 whether the multitude approve them or not. The consent 
 of the multitude is not necessary to the success of a printing 
 press which prints twenty thousand copies of a newspaper 
 in an hour, or of a machine-cutter which cuts out twenty over- 
 coats at one chop. In short, the notion that democracy will 
 hinder religious, political, and social reformation and pro- 
 gress, or restrain commercial and industrial improvement, is 
 a chimera. 
 
18 
 
 There is another criticism of the working of democratic 
 institutions, more formidable than the last, which the Ameri- 
 can democracy is in a fair way to dispose of. It is said that 
 democracy is fighting against the best-determined and most 
 peremptory of biological laws ; namely, the law of hered- 
 ity, with which law the social structure of monarchical and 
 oligarchical States is in strict conformity. This criticism fails 
 to recognize the distinction between artificial privileges trans- 
 missible without regard to inherited virtues or powers, and 
 inheritable virtues or powers transmissible without regard 
 to hereditary privileges. Artificial privileges will be abol- 
 ished by a democracy ; natural, inheritable virtues or pow- 
 ers are as surely transmissible under a democracy as under 
 any other form of government. Families can be made just 
 as enduring in a democratic as in an oligarchic State, if 
 family permanence be desired and aimed at. The desire for 
 the continuity of vigorous families, and for the reproduc- 
 tion of beauty, genius, and nobility of character is universal. 
 "From fairest creatures we desire increase" is the commonest 
 of sentiments. The American multitude will not take the 
 children of distinguished persons on trust ; but it is delighted 
 when an able man has an able son, or a lovely mother a love- 
 lier daughter. That a democracy does not prescribe the 
 close intermarriage which characterizes a strict aristocracy, 
 so-called, is physically not a disadvantage, but a great ad- 
 vantage for the freer society. The French nobility and the 
 English House of Lords furnish good evidence that aristoc- 
 racies do not succeed in perpetuating select types of intellect 
 or of character. 
 
 In the future there will undoubtedly be seen a great in- 
 crease in the number of permanent families in the United 
 States, — families in which honor, education, and property 
 will be transmitted with reasonable certainty ; and a fair 
 beginning has already been made. On the quinquennial cata- 
 logue of Harvard University there are about five hundred and 
 sixty family stocks, which have been represented by graduates 
 at intervals for at least one hundred years. On the Yale cat- 
 
19 
 
 alogue there are about four hundred and twenty such family 
 stocks ; and it is probable that all other American colleges 
 which have existed one hundred years or more show similar 
 facts in proportion to their age and to the number of their 
 graduates. There is nothing in American institutions to 
 prevent this natural process from extending and continuing. 
 The college graduate who does not send his son to col- 
 lege is a curious exception. American colleges are, indeed, 
 chiefly recruited from the sons of men who were not college- 
 bred themselves ; for democratic society is mobile, and per- 
 mits young men of ability to rise easily from the lower to 
 the higher levels. But on the other hand nothing in the con- 
 stitution of society forces men down who have once risen, or 
 prevents their children and grandchildren from staying on 
 the higher level if they have the virtue in them. 
 
 The interest in family genealogies has much increased of 
 late years, and hundreds of thousands of persons are already 
 recorded in printed volumes which have been compiled and 
 published by voluntary contributions or by the zeal of individ- 
 uals. In the Harvard University Library are four hundred and 
 fifteen American family genealogies, three quarters of which 
 have been printed since 1860. Many of these families might 
 better be called clans or tribes, so numerous is their member- 
 ship. Thus of the Northampton Lyman family there were liv- 
 ing, when the family genealogy was published in 1872, more 
 than four thousand persons. When some American Galton 
 desires in the next century to study hereditary genius or 
 character under a democracy, he will find ready to his hand 
 an enormous mass of material. There are in the United 
 States one hundred and forty-eight historical societies, most 
 of them recently established, which give a large share of 
 their attention to biography, genealogy, necrology, and kin- 
 dred topics. Persons and families of local note, the settle- 
 ment and development of new towns, and the rise of new 
 industries are commemorated by these societies, which are 
 accumulating and preserving materials for the philosophical 
 historian who shall hereafter describe the social condition 
 
20 
 
 of a democracy which in a hundred years overran the habit- 
 able parts of a continent. 
 
 Two things are necessary to family permanence, — educa- 
 tion and bodily vigor, in every generation. To secure these 
 two things, the holding and the transmission of moderate 
 properties in families must be so well provided for by law and 
 custom as to be possible for large numbers of families. For 
 the objects in view, great properties are not so desirable as 
 moderate or even small properties, since the transmission of 
 health and education with great properties is not so sure as 
 with small properties. It is worth while to inquire, therefore, 
 what has been accomplished under the reign of the American 
 democracy in the way of making the holding and the trans- 
 mission of small properties possible. In the first place, safe 
 investments for moderate sums have been greatly multiplied 
 and made accessible, as every trustee knows. Great trust- 
 investment companies have been created expressly to hold 
 money safely, and make it yield a sure though small in- 
 come. The savings-bank and the insurance company have 
 been brought to every man's door, the latter insuring against 
 almost every kind of disaster to which property and earning 
 capacity are liable. Life insurance has been regulated and 
 fostered, with the result of increasing materially the stability 
 of households and the chances of transmitting education in 
 families. Through these and other agencies it has been made 
 more probable that widows and orphans will inherit property, 
 and easier for them to hold property securely, — a very import- 
 ant point in connection with the permanence of families, as 
 may be strikingly illustrated by the single statement that 
 eighteen per cent of the students in Harvard College have no 
 fathers living. Many new employments have been opened to 
 women, who have thus been enabled more easily to hold fami- 
 lies together and educate their children. Finally, society has 
 been saved in great measure from war and revolution, and 
 from the fear of these calamities ; and thus family property, 
 as well as happiness, has been rendered more secure. 
 
 The holding and the transmission of property in families 
 
21 
 
 are, however, only means to two ends ; namely, education 
 and health in successive generations. From the first, the 
 American democracy recognized the fact that education was 
 of supreme importance to it, — the elementary education for all, 
 the higher for all the naturally selected ; but it awakened much 
 later to the necessity of attending to the health of the people. 
 European aristocracies have always secured themselves in a 
 measure against physical degeneration by keeping a large 
 proportion of their men in training as soldiers and sports- 
 men, and most of their women at ease in country seats. In 
 our democratic society, which at first thought only of work 
 and production, it is to be observed that public attention 
 is directed more and more to the means of preserving and 
 increasing health and vigor. Some of these means are coun- 
 try schools for city children, country or seaside houses for 
 families, public parks and gardens, out-of-door sports, system- 
 atic ,physical training in schools and colleges, vacations for 
 business and professional men, and improvements in the 
 dwellings and the diet of all classes. Democracy leaves 
 marriages and social groups to be determined by natural affilia- 
 tion or congeniality of tastes and pursuits, which is the effec- 
 tive principle in the association of cultivated persons under 
 all forms of government. So far from having any quarrel 
 with the law of hereditary transmission, it leaves the principle 
 of heredity perfectly free to act ; but it does not add to the 
 natural sanctions of that principle an unnecessary bounty of 
 privileges conferred by law. 
 
 From this consideration of the supposed conflict between 
 democracy and the law of heredity the transition is easy to 
 my last topic ; namely, the effect of democratic institutions 
 on the production of ladies and gentlemen. There can be no 
 question that a general amelioration of manners is brought 
 about in a democracy by public schools, democratic churches, 
 public conveyances without distinction of class, universal suf- 
 frage, town-meetings, and all the multifarious associations in 
 which democratic society delights ; but this general ameliora- 
 
22 
 
 tion might exist, and yet the highest types of manners might 
 fail. Do these fail ? On this important point American 
 experience is already interesting, and I think conclusive. 
 Forty years ago Emerson said it was a chief felicity of our 
 country that it excelled in women. It excels more and more. 
 Who has not seen in public and in private life American 
 women unsurpassable in grace and graciousness, in serenity 
 and dignity, in effluent gladness and abounding courtesy ? 
 Now, the lady is the consummate fruit of human society at its 
 best. In all the higher walks of American life there are men 
 whose bearing and aspect at once distinguish them as gentle- 
 men. They have personal force, magnanimity, moderation, 
 and refinement ; they are quick to see and to sympathize ; 
 they are pure, brave, and firm. These are also the qualities 
 that command success; and herein lies the only natural con- 
 nection between the possession of property and nobility of 
 character. In a mobile or free society the excellent or noble 
 man is likely to win ease and independence ; but it does not 
 follow that under any form of government' the man of many 
 possessions is necessarily excellent. On the evidence of my 
 reading and of my personal observation at home and abroad, 
 I fully believe that there is a larger proportion of ladies and 
 gentlemen in the United States than in any other country. 
 This proposition is, I think, true with the highest definition 
 of the term " lady " or " gentleman ; " but it is also true, if 
 ladies and gentlemen are only persons who are clean and 
 well-dressed, who speak gently and eat with their forks. It 
 is unnecessary, however, to claim any superiority for de- 
 mocracy in this respect; enough that the highest types of 
 manners in men and women are produced abundantly on 
 democratic soil. 
 
 It would appear then from American experience that neither 
 generations of privileged ancestors, nor large inherited posses- 
 sions, are necessary to the making of a lady or a gentleman. 
 What is necessary ? In the first place, natural gifts. The 
 gentleman is horn in a democracy, no less than in a monarchy. 
 In other words, he is a person of fine bodily and spiritual 
 
23 
 
 qualities, mostly innate. Secondly, he must have through 
 elementary education early access to books, and therefore 
 to great thoughts and high examples. Thirdly, he must be 
 early brought into contact with some refined and noble per- 
 son, — father, mother, teacher, pastor, employer, or friend. 
 These are the only necessary conditions in peaceful times and 
 in law-abiding communities like ours. Accordingly, such 
 facts as the following are common in the United States : 
 One of the numerous children of a small farmer manages 
 to fit himself for college, works his way through college, 
 becomes a lawyer, at forty is a much-trusted man in one 
 of the chief cities of the Union, and is distinguished for 
 the courtesy and dignity of his bearing and speech. The 
 son of a country blacksmith is taught and helped to a small 
 college by his minister ; he himself becomes a minister, 
 has a long fight with poverty and ill-health, but at forty-five 
 holds as high a place as his profession affords, and every line 
 in his face and every tone in his voice betoken the gentleman. 
 The sons and daughters of a successful shopkeeper take the 
 highest places in the most cultivated society of their native 
 place, and well deserve the pre-eminence accorded to them. 
 The daughter of a man of very imperfect education, who 
 began life with nothing and became a rich merchant, is 
 singularly beautiful from youth to age, and possesses to the 
 highest degree the charm of dignified and gracious manners. 
 A young girl, not long out of school, the child of respectable 
 but obscure parents, marries a public man, and in conspicuous 
 station bears herself with a grace, discretion, and nobleness 
 which she could not have exceeded had her blood been royal 
 for seven generations. Striking cases of this kind will oc- 
 cur to every person in this assembly. They are every-day 
 phenomena in American society. What conclusion do they 
 establish ? They prove that the social mobility of a democ- 
 racy, which permits the excellent and well-endowed of either 
 sex to rise and to seek out each other, and which gives every 
 advantageous variation or sport in a family stock free oppor- 
 tunity to develop, is immeasurably more beneficial to a na- 
 
24 
 
 tion than any selective in-breeding, founded on class distinc- 
 tions, which has ever been devised. Since democracy has 
 every advantage for producing in due season and proportion 
 the best human types, it is reasonable to expect that science 
 and literature, music and art, and all the finer graces of 
 society will develop and thrive in America, as soon as the 
 more urgent tasks of subduing a wilderness and organizing 
 society upon an untried plan are fairly accomplished. 
 
 Such are some of the reasons drawn from experience for 
 believing that our ship of state is stout and sound ; but she 
 
 sails — 
 
 "... the sea 
 Of storm-engendering liberty," 
 
 the happiness of the greatest number her destined haven. Her 
 safety requires incessant watchfulness and readiness. With- 
 out trusty eyes on the look-out, and a prompt hand at the 
 wheel, the stoutest ship may be dismantled by a passing 
 squall. It is only intelligence and discipline which carry 
 the ship to its port. 
 
 l,s^