LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALfrORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 vK Dvei 
 
 M <v -..-»-- 
 
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 DEMOCRACY. 
 
 ' A. new science of politics is indispensable to a new world ' 
 Dk Tocquevillk. 
 
 BY GEORGE SIDNEY CAMP. 
 
 NEAV YORK: 
 HARPER. & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, 
 FBANKLIN SQUARE. 
 
 1859.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1841, by 
 
 Uaeper & Brothers, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York
 
 PUBLISHERS ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The publishers of the Family Library offer the 
 following work to the public as a treatise on " De- 
 mocracy" in the broadest sense of the word — gov- 
 ernment by the People. Such a treatise may, they 
 think, not improperly lay claim to novelty ; no 
 work, to their knowledge, having ever yet been 
 published, the express design of which is to eluci- 
 date the democratic theory. That some such work 
 ought to be in the hands of every American citi- 
 zen it is needless to urge. To claim the right of 
 political self-government, without being able to tell 
 why — to declaim about liberty, without being able 
 to define what that liberty is — are what, in this 
 country, no one should be guilty of; and yet how 
 few among us really understand the fundamental 
 principles of institutions which all are ready to eu- 
 logize, in the rights and benefits of which all equal- 
 ly participate, and the practical operation of which 
 all unite to direct.
 
 IV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 A work on the theory of democratic government 
 has long been a desideratum in our literature. 
 How far the present volume will supply the de- 
 ficiency must be left to the American public to 
 decide. 
 
 The Democracy treated of in the following 
 pages, it will be seen, is not the democracy of one 
 party, but of all parties. Had anything like a par- 
 tizan character appeared in it, the volume would 
 never have found a place in the Family Library ; 
 but it is believed that the author has studiously, as 
 he has to our view successfully, avoided a tenden- 
 cy which, without serving the cause of any party, 
 would have seriously impaired the general useful- 
 ness of his work. Still, the publishers do not take 
 it upon themselves to assert tliat all his doctrines 
 will alike command the assent of all. It is impos- 
 sible to think without being independent ; or to 
 be at all original without occasional pecuharity. 
 They have thus thought themselves bound fairly to 
 allow for liberty of opinion. So often, however, as 
 the reader shall discover himself to be at variance 
 with the author, he will find such differences to be
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. V 
 
 differences between individual and individual, and 
 not comprised in any of those political disputes in 
 which party has been arrayed against party. No- 
 where has allusion been made to such disputes, as, 
 it is believed, the subject itself steers above them. 
 The object which the author has proposed to 
 himself is an elevated one — no less than to por- 
 tray the true nature, and demonstrate the intrinsic 
 and universal propriety, of republican government. 
 It will accordingly be found that, in pursuit of it, 
 the minor differences of domestic parties have been 
 lost sight of, while his aim has been to vindicate 
 that grand national party, composed of all repub- 
 lican America, against the aspersions of foreign 
 commentators, and the enmity of European mon- 
 archists. 
 
 H. &B. 
 
 New-York, September, 1841.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 Introduction Page 9 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Nature of Political Science ..... 22 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Self-Govemment by the People the only legitimate Form of 
 Government. — The universal Right of Mankind to Democratic 
 Government, and their Competency to administer it . 39 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The same Subjects continued 88 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Origin and Supports of Monarchical Government . 107 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Common Objections to Democracy considered.— The Character 
 and Spirit of Monarchical Government still farther illus- 
 trated 129 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Permanency of Democratic Government, and the eventual 
 Prevalence of Democratic Principles .... 159
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The alleged "Tyranny of the Majority" in America Page 183 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 The so-called " Right of Instruction" .... 206 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Aristocratic Society in America 220 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Immigration . . 239
 
 DEMOCRACY 
 
 PART I 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There is this remarkable difference between 
 monarchical and aristocratical systems of gov- 
 ernment on the one hand, and the democratic 
 system on the other, that, while the former are 
 based upon prescription, the latter is based upon 
 the right of the people to govern themselves. 
 The former are founded on custom, and the ac- 
 tual, prevalent order of things ; the latter on the 
 moral relations of men. 
 
 Of course, there ought to be found correspond- 
 ing differences in the political theories by which 
 these two descriptions of government are sus- 
 tained. On the one hand, we ought to receive 
 from monarchical and aristocratical writers an 
 extended consideration of those various views 
 of expediency on which their systems are pro- 
 fessedly maintained, and an attempted vindication 
 of them, as imbodying great practical skill and 
 B
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 wisdom, however little of speculative accuracy ; 
 and, on the other, we may well look to demo- 
 cratic writers for a full development of the right 
 of man to self-government, and from them re- 
 quire, at least, a portraiture of the abstract per- 
 fection of the democratic system. 
 
 In a democratic country, where self-govern- 
 ment has been successfully exercised by the peo- 
 ple for nearly three quarters of a century, it might 
 naturally have been expected that such demo- 
 cratic writers would not have been rare, and that 
 a democratic nation would not have been so long 
 without a democratic literature. Yet to what 
 book or to what author shall we look for a 
 demonstration of the right of the people to man- 
 age their own government? To what source 
 shall we refer the young democratic disciple for 
 proof of what he has always understood to be 
 the fundamental principles of our government? 
 for a theory of politics, I will not say, that does 
 not violate every popular conviction, but that 
 does not indirectly assail popular institutions ? 
 Eloquent vindications of popular rights, eloquent 
 assaults upon hereditary prerogative, may oc- 
 casionally be found scattered, at very rare points 
 and very distant intervals, in the world of litera- 
 ture j but no work digesting such views in a
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 philosophical system, and giving us a clear, con- 
 sistent, and harmonious theory. 
 
 Hence the following brief essay. It will doubt- 
 less appear presumptuous, in an inexperienced 
 writer, thus to have attempted a subject the dis- 
 cussion of which might well challenge the exer- 
 cise of the greatest abilities. My apology must 
 be, that a field where nothing seems as yet to 
 have been even attempted, may well be entered 
 upon by the most enterprising without waiting 
 for the most able ; and, however much I may 
 fall short of my theme, it will be my consola- 
 tion, that to agitate just principles is to advance 
 them, and that first, feeble, and failing essays to 
 grasp the truth are always the earnest of its final 
 and triumpliant establishment. 
 
 It is our common belief that our government 
 is distinguished in principle from other govern- 
 ments, is radically different. If a man were se- 
 riously to propose for our adoption monarchical 
 or aristocratical institutions, he would be over- 
 whelmed with public obloquy. We should feel, 
 not as if he were indulging a mere harmless 
 error of the understanding, not as if he had 
 erred simply on a question of expediency, but 
 as if he had been guilty of a moral delinquen- 
 cy on a moral question ; and, should he actual-
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ly attempt to carry his plans into execution, he 
 would be execrated as a public traitor having 
 designs upon our liberties ; no party, and no in- 
 dividual, but would shun the contamination of 
 his alliance. Now, if this public sentiment be 
 correct, the books we at present have that treat 
 of politics must be radically wrong, for they dis- 
 tinctly recognise three systems of government as 
 equally legitimate, reducing the difference be- 
 tween them to a mere question of convenience 
 and expediency, and, if the truth must be allow- 
 ed, making republican government the most un- 
 wise and inexpedient of the three. They admit 
 that, perhaps, as to its mere theory, none offers 
 so fair; but insist that this abstract perfection 
 is its practical defect ; that it is found to be 
 weak, if not impracticable, upon experiment, 
 and stationed the next door to anarchy; in 
 other words, that it is like a very good-natured, 
 well-intentioned, but harmful imbecile, whose 
 chief tendency is towards self-destruction ! Yet 
 it is a fact that Paley and Blackstone, Burke, 
 Burlamaqui, and Montesquieu, firmly maintain- 
 ing such doctrines, and esteemed, with, perhaps, 
 the exception of the last, the greatest favourers 
 of arbitrary power, are the most constantly read, 
 the most universally adopted in colleges, and the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 most frequently quoted of all political authorities 
 in republican America; while it may be confi- 
 dently asserted that a connected and 'philosophical 
 exposition of the peculiar theory of democratic 
 government has never yet been written. Thus we 
 journey on, living in the rich experience and 
 practical enjoyment of democratic freedom, but 
 in entire and reckless indifference to its abstract 
 principles. 
 
 Even foreigners hardly seem so indifferent to 
 our political system as we ourselves. Many in- 
 telligent men among them have professed to re- 
 gard its operation, on so grand a scale, as a great 
 and wonderful political phenomenon, and have 
 thought it worth their while to come here to 
 examine more narrowly into its practical nature, 
 and speculate upon its probable results. Its suc- 
 cesses have often furnished an embarrassing ar- 
 gument in the hands of the popular partisan of 
 the Old World, and, doubtless, not unfrequently 
 appeared awfully portentous to crowned heads. 
 We alone appear to be indifferent to its real 
 nature and fundamental principles. Nay, our 
 men of education are dwelling in rapture over 
 the flowery pages of Burke, or carefully treasu- 
 ring up the artificial systems of a Paley or a 
 Blackstonej while our men of wealth and lei-
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sure are learning abroad to admire the external 
 splendour that surrounds the favoured classes of 
 aristocratic Europe, and acquiring a distaste for 
 the plainness and simplicity of our social and 
 political systems. 
 
 If we search, therefore, for just political sen- 
 timent, there seems more of it to be found with 
 the humbler classes, whence it was originally 
 ushered among nations, than in our favoured 
 ranks, where there are too many who have been 
 foreign tributaries for knowledge, or formed 
 tastes for the excesses of European refinement. 
 Popular prejudices on this subject seem to be 
 just ; and the American labourer, who looks upon 
 his own as the only free country, seems to me to 
 be much nearer the truth than the man of educr 
 tion, who too often regards freedom as pretty 
 nearly synonymous with well-regulated govern- 
 ment. It is singular, yet it is, I think, true, that 
 among educated men, a majority would willingly 
 establish a property qualification as requisite for 
 every voter — a demand vitally at war with de- 
 mocracy ; and a very large proportion would be 
 found not to understand, or absolutely to assail, 
 the maxim of the natural equality of mankind, 
 the fundamental principle of our government. 
 
 Our political opinions seem to have retro-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 graded since the Revolution. The national ani- 
 mosities of that period anticipated some of the 
 truths of philosophy. Those laid aside, we were 
 immediately immersed in the active concerns of 
 life ; and from that time to the present, contented 
 with the practical results of our system, we have 
 paid but little attention to the patient study of 
 its abstract nature. We have been, from cir- 
 circumstances, a nation of practical rather than 
 speculative habits. We have had the forest to 
 subdue, a new continent to occupy, a new gov- 
 ernment to establish ; and, hitherto, our republic 
 has been engaged in the acquisition of its inde- 
 pendence, in the settlement of its constitution, in 
 the vindication of its rank and honour, and in 
 the hurried, enterprising, and laborious industry 
 incident to the difficulties of a new country, and 
 the embarrassments of a recent nation. We have 
 been all action. A bustling and enterprising ac- 
 tivity has been our national characteristic. As 
 individuals, we have had everything to do. 
 Early thrown upon our own resources, a vast 
 practical career has continually been spread out 
 before us. There has been no room for the 
 thinker ; he has been jostled one side. The chief 
 speculators we have had have been those in 
 merchandise and real estate. Instead of de-
 
 16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 veloping our theories from our practice, we 
 have taken up with systems which we have 
 found already digested to our hand. Deriving 
 our origin and our language from Great Britain, 
 having one common literature, one common re- 
 ligion, and, to a great extent, common habits and 
 common laws ; deriving a great many of our po- 
 litical principles, more of our political institutions, 
 and all our love of liberty, from the old country, 
 we have been slow to discover where our pupil- 
 age should have ended, and what bounds the 
 stern dictates of principle should have placed to 
 our filial reverence. We have thus adopted, to 
 a great extent, British politics, with British laws 
 and literature. Thus it has come to pass that, 
 in our politics, we are yet tributary to the Old 
 World ; that, while we have been so original in 
 action, we have been so strangely servile in the- 
 ory. Hence, the strange inconsistency of a na- 
 tion of republicans suffering themselves to be 
 instructed in the elements of political knowledge 
 by monarchists. Look to monarchists for cor- 
 rect theories of politics on which to base cur in- 
 stitutions — the world might as well have expect- 
 ed a reformation from the pope, or Christianity 
 itself from the Scribes and Pharisees. 
 We have altogether failed to appreciate our
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 position. We have been guilty of a great prac- 
 tical error in supposing that our Revolution is to 
 be regarded simply as an historical event, of no 
 consequence in its results to anybody but our- 
 selves. On the contrary, it was of a twofold 
 character. It not only made us independent as a 
 nation, it made us free as men ; and this freedom, 
 still subsisting, is a standing, permanent fact, in- 
 dicative of the political capabihties of mankind, 
 that renders the period from which it takes date 
 an era in the moral history of the species. Yet 
 while, as a national event, it has found its im- 
 perishable record in our national annals, though 
 it has furnished an example to all nations, and is 
 opening the eyes of mankind to errors which 
 have for centuries caused the past to tyrannize 
 over the present, it has made no alteration, and 
 found no place, in the systems of political sci- 
 ence : as if Philosophy were blind to practical 
 achievements, and cared not to celebrate the tri- 
 umph of her most exalted principles. 
 
 Our government was not the result of an ac- 
 cident. Neither blind casualty, nor force, nor 
 fraud, had anything whatever to do with its in- 
 stitution. It was the product of the voluntary 
 mind of man. It was not less the choice than 
 the irabodied wisdom of the people. In its in-
 
 18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 stitution was presented the sublime spectacle of 
 a whole nation deliberating and acting upon the 
 highest and most comprehensive of terrestrial 
 interests. They provided for their common wants 
 out of their common experience. The united 
 aim of the people was to provide, in the choice 
 of a government, for the good of the governed. 
 " The eye" of the body social was " single," and 
 " the whole body was full of light." No exist- 
 ing government controlled the choice or subsi- 
 dized the votes of the American people. They 
 were not awed by the fear or seduced by the 
 favour of a feudal and vicious aristocracy. No 
 military power mocked at their deliberations. 
 No hierarchy subdued their souls with supersti- 
 tious terrors. Corrupt and unnatural prejudices 
 and factious interests, never found concurrent ex- 
 cept among the few, were necessarily unheeded, 
 when the appeal was made alike to all. No 
 class could have had an undue influence, or se- 
 cured to itself singular privileges and immuni- 
 ties, when none was distinguishable from the 
 multitude, or when those who owed to temporary 
 circumstances a transient distinction were to re- 
 lapse immediately into the common mass. All 
 stood in those equal relations, as respected their 
 choice of the principles of a government, which
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 mankind at large, were they once unshackled, 
 would universally and reciprocally sustain to 
 each other. Our present system, thus commend- 
 ed to a vast and unorganized people, comprising 
 almost every description of character, habits, po- 
 sition, and interest, that, independently of politi- 
 cal institutions, diversifies the condition of our 
 race, it would seem that the only ground of its 
 acceptation must have been those original senti- 
 ments common to all men, that constitute the 
 very laws of nature. 
 
 The abstract character of this system, and its 
 fundamental principles, ought to have attracted 
 the earliest attentions of the American scholar. 
 Its speculative perfection alone ought to have 
 won for it numerous disciples. 
 
 But, independently of its abstract beauty, an 
 understanding of its nature has for us a great 
 practical value. What is our Constitution but 
 the mere creature of the public will, and how 
 can we be sure of its integrity and preservation 
 if the public mind be misinformed or perverted ? 
 We are all sovereigns : ought we not all to be 
 statesmen ? Should not an American be always 
 ready to show by what title he claims to be a 
 free citizen ? to vindicate the system by virtue 
 of which he exercises such peculiar and such ex- 
 alted prerogatives ?
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Faith is as necessary to the repubhcan as to 
 the Christian, and the fundamental characteristic 
 of both. We must beUeve in the capacity of 
 man for self-government, or the framework of 
 our Constitution will be altered. On what basis 
 does that conviction now rest 1 We may guard 
 ourselves from foreign enemies by physical force; 
 soldiers, arras, artillery, and fortifications may 
 render us safe from foreign aggression ; but the 
 sacred ark of our liberties is kept in the temple 
 of the human mind, and can only be preserved 
 inviolate by gathering around it the forces of 
 .Truth, and intrenching it behind the deep and 
 enlightened convictions of the moral sense. Men 
 will not risk much for what they believe to be 
 but a transient blessing. The permanency and 
 the excellence of self-government are our only 
 motives to be loyal to our sovereign, the people, 
 our only motives to patriotic and self-sacrificing 
 devotion ; it behooves us, therefore, to be fully 
 assured, not only of its immediate and practical 
 value, but of its high moral rectitude and intrin- 
 sic propriety, its ennobling qualities, and its ab- 
 solute capability of duration. 
 
 Any citizen who merely professes to love his 
 country and to honour her institutions, may well 
 be justified in attempting to assert some better
 
 IJfTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 argument in their favour than mere national prej- 
 udice. They are inquiries worthy to be agitated, 
 whether all nations are capable of self-govern- 
 ment ? whether the invariable laws of justice im- 
 peratively demand its universal institution, inde- 
 pendently of the particular circumstances of each 
 separate nation 1 and what are the prospects of 
 its permanency and universal prevalence 1 Ques- 
 tions to which, strange to tell, American litera- 
 ture yet furnishes no answer. 
 
 1 cannot believe that our government is to be 
 a perpetual "experiment;" that its practica- 
 bility can never be demonstrated. Nor am 1 
 among those who hold that it is simply the best 
 government for us, and that we are, by means 
 of any fancied intellectual or moral superiority, 
 or by the particular favour of Providence, alone, 
 of all the human family, blessed with a monopoly 
 of good government. 
 
 When the question of republic or no republic 
 is agitating the elements of society in the most 
 enlightened nations of Europe, it is believed that 
 it cannot be uninteresting to a people who, in the 
 solution of this question, are looked upon as an 
 example, and should be able, from their uncon- 
 strained position, to anticipate the future judg- 
 ment of the world
 
 22 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Nature of Political Science. 
 
 I AM well aware how unsafe and unprofitable 
 abstract political speculations are usually held to 
 be ; that they are peremptorily set down as nev- 
 er justified by experience, liable to a thousand 
 qualifications from actual circumstances, and ut- 
 terly incapable, to a great extent, of any prac- 
 tical application. 
 
 Hence the man who relies much upon gener- 
 al principles in politics is looked upon as little 
 better than a visionary. He is continually told 
 that his notions are well enough upon paper; 
 that they may do very well for the closet, but 
 that he is guilty of a great absurdity in attempt- 
 ing to apply them to the actual management of 
 affairs. That he theorizes too much, is not 
 enough of a practical man, that he regards men 
 too much as they ought to be, and too little as 
 they are. 
 
 Thus political speculations are usually turned 
 over to men of leisure, as a sufficiently appro- 
 priate entertainment for fine, subtle intellects,
 
 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 23 
 
 not engaged in the active duties of life, and de- 
 nounced as an idle occupation for, and to be es- 
 chewed by, practical and politic statesme 
 
 Let us understand the difference between prac- 
 tical and abstract notions, and see how far the 
 reproach of being too theoretical and refined is 
 just in general ; how far it is just in its applica- 
 tion to this particular subject of politics. 
 
 A man, viewing a multitude of facts, deduces 
 general conclusions from them. Every man of 
 business does this. The most practical man has 
 his theories, and a great multitude of theories, 
 on which he conducts his business. Every busi- 
 ness rule is a theory. Experience furnishes no 
 lesson but what amounts to a theory. When 
 one not immediately engaged in business deduces 
 general principles from a multitude of facts, he 
 differs from the business man, not in framing 
 theories, nor in his mode of framing them, but 
 in taking more prominent and more numerous 
 facts as his basis, and forming rules of a more 
 extensive application. No theory is bad as a 
 theory, but only bad when not sustained by the 
 facts from which it professes to be a deduction. 
 The question is thus, in all cases, whether a the- 
 ory is sustained by its facts ? If it be, it will not 
 be enough to overthrow it to say that it is ah-
 
 24 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 sfrad, as every theory is an abstract theory, and 
 the process of mind by which individual facts 
 are separated from their particular circumstan- 
 ces and reduced to a general proposition is al- 
 ways an abstraction. Thus the practical rules 
 of the business man are, in reality, abstract the- 
 ories. 
 
 But there is a particular class of general rules 
 and principles which are abstract in a different, 
 and, perhaps, more appropriate sense. These are 
 the laws of morals. They are derived from con- 
 science alone, and are thus formed, not by ab- 
 stracting an aggregation of facts from their ac- 
 cidental circumstances, but by withdrawing the 
 mind entirely from the contemplation of exter- 
 nal facts as facts, to the contemplation of moral 
 relations, of which it informs itself. In this 
 sense all moral rules are abstract principles. 
 They are moral rules for the very reason that 
 they treat of the world not as it is, but as it 
 ought to be. Facts and circumstances may vary 
 their application to particular cases, but can in 
 no manner alter or modify the rules themselves, 
 or their intrinsic obligation. To be correct, we 
 have only to attend to the inspirations of con- 
 science.* The imperfections of man cannot im- 
 * In saying this, I do not, of course, mean to deny the inesti
 
 NATURE OF roLITICAL SCIENCE. 25 
 
 pair the perfection of morals. His accidental cir- 
 cumstances and condition cannot affect a system 
 founded on his essential relations. No rule ever 
 propounded to man is in such utter nonconform- 
 ity with human affairs, and so universally reck- 
 less of circumstances, as our Saviour's great and. 
 comprehensive rule of human conduct, "Love 
 thy neighbour as thyself." It abstracts from all 
 the peculiarities of individual fortune in a race 
 so very widely diversified as ours, and condenses 
 the laws of Divinity to the comprehension of the 
 human heart. The relations of the various parts 
 of a moral proposition are just as fixed, certain, 
 and invariable, independently of a direct appli- 
 cation to any particular subject matter, as the 
 relations of the various parts of a geometrical 
 figure. You might as well seek to know how 
 long the hypotenuse of any particular right- 
 angled triangle is, before venturing to determine 
 what proportion the square of its hypotenuse 
 would bear to the sum of the squares of its two 
 sides ; or, when asked for the proportion, answer 
 
 mable advantages of the Christian revelation in giving absolute 
 clearness and certainty to the convictions of a natural con- 
 science, or to detract from its authority as paramount on every 
 moral question. The scope of the argument would have per- 
 haps saved me from any such inference, but I make this dis- 
 claimer ^o prevent all cavil.
 
 26 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 that it must depend upon the size ; as, when call- 
 ed upon for a moral rule, to inquire the case in 
 which it is to be applied. Thus, for example, 
 the moral law defines theft independently of any 
 actual case, and, when what it calls a theft is 
 clearly made out, we do not ask whether the 
 man plundered, in any particular instance, was 
 plundered of gold or iron, of much or little, 
 whether he was good or bad, rich or poor, wise or 
 simple, strong or weak ; nothing but an absolute 
 and imperative necessity, that overturns all mor- 
 als, contravenes the o-eneral rule thus abstract- 
 edly laid down. If actual circumstances could 
 modify moral rules in the slightest degree, they 
 would utterly destroy them. Thus those rules 
 are the same for all men, under all circumstan- 
 ces ; they are derived from conscience, and con- 
 science is, by nature, the same in all. 
 
 There is, then, this difference between the two 
 classes of abstract propositions above denoted, 
 that while, as to the first, their abstractedness, 
 when they are assailed, can furnish no just 
 ground for anything more than a preliminary 
 caution, to awaken the attention to facts, and to 
 prepare the mind for the argument to follow, 
 which must show, if it amount to anything, that 
 the theory is not sustained by its facts \ on the
 
 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 27 
 
 other hand, in regard to moral propositions, so 
 far is their abstractedness from being a ground 
 of reproach, that it would never be even alleged 
 against one clearly and distinctly appearing as 
 such. 
 
 But the difficulty with this subject of politics is, 
 that, embracing, as it does, in its differient branch- 
 es, both these kinds of abstractions, their different 
 provinces have not been kept rigidly distinct. 
 Distinguished speculative writers, in debating 
 subjects involved under the practical department, 
 have advanced theories of government which are 
 merely theories, entirely abstracted (and not in 
 any respect deductions) from actual events and a 
 practical experience, where events and experi- 
 ence are the only sources of truth, and have thus 
 unhappily involved both the moral and the prac- 
 tical branches of political theories and abstrac- 
 tions under an imputation which the particular 
 idle schemes of those writers have alone de- 
 served. 
 
 Politics deals in theories, as every other science 
 does. It requires, therefore, abstractions. It is 
 an abstract science ; purely abstract, so far as its 
 moral principles are concerned ; only abstract in 
 the same manner and to the same extent that 
 every science is necessarily abstract, so far as its
 
 28 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 practical rules are concerned. For, in part, its 
 office is, when the fundamental character and 
 principles of a sovereignty have been determined 
 on, to prescribe practically by what mechanism 
 it shall act ; what are the safest and most efficient 
 agencies to be employed, consistently with its 
 nature, in the execution of its will ; how far the 
 executive, the judicial, and the legislative powers 
 shall be separated or conjoined ; whether the 
 legislature shall be composed of two houses or 
 one ; the executive be divided or single ; the 
 judiciary supplied by election or by appoint- 
 ment ; and, in dividing the Legislature, how often 
 it shall be divided, and on what different bases 
 its various departments supplied. These are 
 questions to be settled by circumstances and ex- 
 perience alone, as mere questions of expediency ; 
 and in settling these practical questions, theories 
 should be rigidly deduced from modes that have 
 actually been tried, and be properly varied and 
 adapted to suit the peculiar and actually exist- 
 ing situation of the people for whom they are 
 devised. Yet, in handling this branch of the 
 subject, speculative writers have arbitrarily allot- 
 ted an imaginary people by rule and measure 
 into mathematical divisions ; have supposed them 
 to be different, both in themselves and their cir
 
 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 29 
 
 cumstances, from what any people ever were; 
 and have then invaded every department of pri- 
 vate hfe with their artificial systems, and made 
 their schemes embrace very nearly the sum total 
 of human existence, as if men lived only to be 
 governed. Thus have they ended in creating an 
 imaginary' mankind for a scheme of government, 
 instead of a scheme of government for mankind. 
 This is speculation with a witness : mere theory, 
 mere abstraction, without facts to sustain it ; the 
 fertile soil of Utopian fables. Of such schemes 
 it has been said, that they represent men as they 
 ought to be, not as they are ; though, with more 
 propriety, it might have been said, that they 
 neither represent men as they ought to be, nor as 
 they are. Of such schemes, with some truth it 
 might be alleged, that their mathematical pre- 
 cision, their apparent " abstract perfection, is their 
 practical defect." Against such systems, and all 
 other systems that attempt thus arbitrarily to de- 
 fine precisely what mechanical and subordinate 
 agencies a government ought to employ for its 
 administration, irrespective of the various natu- 
 ral circumstances and the acquired character and 
 habits of different people, all that has ever been 
 said against abstract theories and systems of gov- 
 ernment may justly be launched.
 
 30 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 These mechanical arrangements and subor- 
 dinate agencies, however, are so far from being 
 the whole of government, that they are, com- 
 paratively, but an inconsiderable part of it. Not 
 by what means and through what channels 
 shall its powers be exercised, are the great 
 questions ; but how do its powers originate, and 
 within what limits are they to be legitimately 
 restricted ? Those practical details which re- 
 spect simply the agencies by which government 
 can best act, and present mere questions of expe- 
 diency, are objects of inferior regard in politics. 
 Political is, for the most part, a branch of moral 
 science. When you prescribe to me a law, or 
 hold up to me an authority, which you say I 
 ought to obey, you present to me a case of con- 
 science coming within the jurisdiction of morals. 
 You assume a moral power ; have you a moral 
 right 1 If, indeed, I ought to obey, that obliga- 
 tion is deducible from those fundamental moral 
 principles wdiich Nature has implanted in our 
 bosoms. Facts cannot arbitrarily prescribe in 
 the settlement of the question; it is determina- 
 ble by the moral and essential relations of man 
 to man. States and nations are but men — mere 
 aggregations of individuals. Their rights are 
 merely the duties that one owes to various men j
 
 NATURE OP POLITICAL SCIENCE. 31 
 
 their powers are simply the powers which one 
 man may acquire over another, and acquirable 
 only by the same means. Morals deal simply 
 with men, not w^ith bodies corporate or politic. 
 We have, then, but to interrogate our ordinary 
 systems of morals to know what power one man 
 may acquire over another, and by what means. 
 We find no difficulty in determining the rights, 
 relations, and duties of individuals with refer- 
 ence to each other. If we wish to determine the 
 rights, relations, and duties subsisting between 
 one and a multitude, we refer to the same moral 
 code. The addition of numbers makes no dif- 
 ference in the application of moral principles. 
 No matter whether the individuals claiming any 
 right over or duty from me are one man or ten 
 millions ; the laws of morals do not regulate men 
 by tens, or thousands, or millions, but by units ; 
 conscience has no reference to the question of 
 their multitude. The political are thus gov- 
 erned by the same set of rules as the moral rela- 
 tions of mankind. Hence, to determine how a 
 political sovereignty can be legitimately consti- 
 tuted, we need no knowledge of actual establish- 
 ments ; w^e ask no illumination from experience, 
 no extensive collection and comparison of facts ; 
 we care not what is the description or the an*
 
 32 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 tiquity of governments that do rule ; we care not 
 what are the circumstances of people that are 
 ruled ; we have to do with man under all cir- 
 cumstances ; with his moral nature and relations 
 and the judgment of conscience upon them, and 
 not with circumstances. 
 
 Here, therefore, the science of politics rises to 
 the dignity, conclusiveness, universality, and par- 
 amount obligation of moral demonstrations. Of 
 this branch of politics alone do we here treat. 
 The question involved in the choice of a sover- 
 eignty is not a question of expediency, but of 
 justice. It is to be determined abstractedly, by 
 the reciprocal rights and relations of mankind. 
 The decision is no more fluctuating than right 
 and wrong. It makes a part of the law of hu- 
 manity ; and we need no more an intimate knowl- 
 edge of the physical and intellectual condition 
 and social habits of distant people, to determine 
 what the intrinsic nature and essential principles 
 of their government should be, than to designate 
 for their use a code of morals. The relations 
 sustained to that aggregate whole called a state, 
 are part of the relations which individuals sustain 
 to each other. And, indeed, it would be a sin- 
 gularly anomalous case in morals, if the whole 
 could escape that moral jurisdiction that com-
 
 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 33 
 
 prises each. The great law of justice presides 
 over the organization of government, as well as 
 the subsequent details of its administration, and 
 our rulers must derive their powers over us from 
 sources whence we might derive the same or a 
 similar control over others. Though this univer- 
 sal and inflexible operation of the law of justice 
 has been generally admitted to regulate the in- 
 tercourse of independent nations, it has been 
 almost universally disregarded in the more fa- 
 miliar relation of states to their own constitu- 
 ency. Yet it pervades with its impartial energy 
 every moral relation ; and, blind to the distinc- 
 tions of foreign or domestic, great or little, pow- 
 erful or weak, ancient or modern, many or few, 
 attaches with impartial reciprocity and indis- 
 criminate power on everything that bears the 
 impress of humanity. 
 
 Thus, then, we have the means of threading 
 the labyrinth of confusion presented by actual pol- 
 itics ; for, whatever rights states have, like our 
 individual and private rights, of which they are 
 but a part, may be referred immediately to nature 
 or traced to convention. That great moral neces- 
 sity, which is superior to nature and convention, 
 may sometimes temporarily intervene ; but as it is 
 the utmost violence which human affairs can ex
 
 34 NATURE C/F POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 perience, and is, in its very essence, an exception 
 to the ordinary current of events, and not a rule, 
 it can never be the lasting foundation for any 
 permanent order of things. Equally certain, 
 permanent, and universal are the relations of 
 states to their members, and the rights, duties, 
 and oblio-ations that we recognise in our ordina- 
 ry intercourse between man and man. 
 
 The idea cannot be too severely reprobated, 
 that the principles of this branch of political 
 science are too abstract for practical uses and 
 application, subject to a conformity with every 
 variety of government, and shifting their ground 
 and altering their aspect to authorize and es- 
 tablish the prevailing power in every state 
 and nation spread over the face of the whole 
 earth. If the relations of justice are universal 
 and immutable, so are these principles. If the 
 duties of men to each other are inflexible, so are 
 the mutual obligations subsisting between com- 
 munities and each of their constituents; and 
 these can be superseded only by such an abso- 
 lute necessity as would exempt us, in our ordina- 
 ry conduct, from the jurisdiction of acknowledged 
 moral precepts, and that but momentarily. So 
 long as man retains the essential characteristics 
 of his nature, and reason, truth, and justice prove
 
 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 35 
 
 everywhere the same, the fundamental principles 
 of this science will continue invariable, and right 
 and liberty preserve one uniform signilication, 
 irrespective of circumstances, in every quarter of 
 the globe. 
 
 It is not true, therefore, that " circumstances 
 give to every political principle its distinguishing 
 colour and discriminating effect," and that " our 
 liberties, varying with times and circumstances, 
 admit of infinite modifications, and cannot be 
 settled upon any abstract rule."* 
 
 It would be equally philosophical to assert the 
 dependance of private and individual, which rest 
 on the same moral bases as our public and polit- 
 ical principles, upon times and circumstances, as 
 if they were entirely extrinsic, and dwelt with- 
 out, not within us ; and just as rational to assert 
 that a good man is produced, like any physical 
 phenomenon, by a fortuitous concurrence of 
 events. The distinctions of morals are uniform, 
 because they repose upon the essential charac- 
 teristics of our universal nature j and the tran- 
 scendent excellence of moral rules, from which 
 political relations and civil liberty proceed, con- 
 sists in their absolute inflexibleness and entire 
 nonconformity with circumstances. 
 
 ♦ Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution.
 
 36 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 It is common, in the discussion of political 
 subjects, to admit a proposition erected on a 
 moral basis as an abstract principle, and still to 
 qualify, not its operation, but the principle itself, 
 by a reference to circumstances. But the very 
 end and the renewing agency of moral, under 
 which I include fundamental political truths, 
 consist in rectifying the disorders everywhere 
 prevalent in human affairs. What is meant 
 when, by way of impeaching their authority, 
 they are styled abstract? Is it meant that they 
 are brought from internal sentiments and feelings 
 merely ? From what other sources are moral 
 principles derivable ? Are not these internal 
 suggestions the axioms of moral demonstration ? 
 Is not justice, like truth, approved by its own 
 nature solely? To tell to whom property be- 
 longs, must we know in whose hands it is? 
 To tell whether our native liberty belong to us, 
 must we know in what government it reposes, 
 or what is the strength, or what are the services, 
 or what is the antiquity of that government 1 
 I assert the actual constitution of human nature, 
 you appeal to the actual condition of human af- 
 fairs; the first alone determines the nature and 
 extent of moral obligations, to whose force and 
 p^^wer the last should passively submit; the
 
 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 37 
 
 province of the first is to command, of the last to 
 obey ; the first embraces all the principles of our 
 moral deliberations, the last are merely the sub- 
 jects of them. "Whence, then, the authority of 
 circumstances to modify moral rules, or, what is 
 the same thing, political relations 1 What ref- 
 erence should be had to circumstances, when the 
 only condition for the complete operation of mor- 
 al rules, founded in the actual constitution and 
 necessary relations of man, is humanity 1 
 
 Those abstract truths, therefore, embraced 
 within the province of political science, are real 
 truths and authoritative lessons of practical wis- 
 dom. Least of all does it behoove Americans 
 to impeach them, since, in the very act whereby 
 they vindicate their independence, and formally 
 register their name in the catalogue of nations, 
 they make a dignified appeal for the rectitude of 
 their intentions and the justice of their conduct, 
 from actual and legal authority, ancient, pre- 
 scriptive, and long recognised, to abstract prin- 
 ciples alone.* 
 
 Political science is no vain chimera. It does 
 
 not mock its votaries with notions theoretically 
 
 systematic and accurate, but impracticable. It 
 
 yields them truths beautiful in theory and sub- 
 
 * " We hold these tvutJis to be self-evident,"
 
 38 NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 stantial in the experience. While it thus re- 
 wards the mere votary of science, it may assert 
 a higher claim to om- patriotic regard as Amer- 
 icans, from the protection it is within its province 
 to afford us against foreign influence, however 
 remote and circuitous. With us the integrity of 
 our principles is the integrity of our government. 
 In vain w^ould we be independent of despots if 
 we voluntarily subserve the principles of despot- 
 ism. The farther maxims are removed from the 
 ordinary questions that convulse us, the more fun- 
 damental are they ; the more universal their op- 
 eration, the more subtle and sure their sway
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT J}i» 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Self-Government by the People the only legitimate Form of 
 Government. — The universal Right of Mankind to Democratic 
 Government, and their Competency to administer il. 
 
 It is a part of man's nature to be free. The 
 same constitution that makes us moral, makes us 
 self-governing beings. The right to control our 
 own actions is a necessary consequence of the 
 freedom of the will. If we have not this right, 
 our entire moral structure is a piece of folly in 
 its end, and a piece of awful mockery in its Au- 
 thor. Our passions prompt us to action, our 
 moral and deliberative powers regulate us in our 
 choice of actions, and the will sets the whole ma- 
 chine in motion. But to what tends all this ma- 
 chinery but to adio7i ? and, if we are not jTree to 
 act, to what purpose are we yree to will ? If, 
 the instant we begin to act, we must be sub- 
 jected to some external governing power, the 
 whole man is nonplused at once ; and those ex- 
 alted powers, that liken us to the image of God 
 himself, are made superfluous lumber in the hu- 
 man breast. To avoid consequences so absurd,
 
 40 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 yet so inevitable on any other hypothesis, it must 
 be admitted that man was made by Nature to 
 act for himself. 
 
 While, however, he is thus made the sover- 
 eign arbiter of his own actions, he cannot dis- 
 claim the obligation of those moral principles 
 which, constituting an essential part of his na- 
 ture, form the basis of his freedom ; and, at the 
 utmost, he can pretend to no more than the right 
 to conform, in the independent regulation of his 
 own conduct, to the unseen but invariable stand- 
 ard of moral rectitude. A right to do wrong he 
 cannot have. How could it ever have been im- 
 agined that rights, which belong to men only by 
 virtue of their moral attributes, can subsist in the 
 absence or in derogation of moral obligations ? or 
 that man in a state of nature possesses the free 
 and uncontrolled liberty of doing whatever he 
 pleases, at the same time that he is impelled by 
 natural reason and the innate power of conscience 
 to pursue the right and to shun the wrong ? No- 
 thing, certainly, but the authority of great names 
 could ever have given countenance to such absur- 
 dities. While, therefore, the same nature that 
 makes us moral makes us free, and the same dis- 
 pensation that makes us responsible for our actions 
 gives us a right to control them, we cannot violate
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 41 
 
 the conditions, and subvert the foundations of this 
 freedom, by a disregard of that moral constitu- 
 tion by virtue of which we possess it. God has 
 invested us with exalted powers ; this is, of itself, 
 a sufficient authority for their independent exer- 
 tion. But these powers are not merely execu- 
 tive, they are deliberative also. Not power, 
 simply as such, but only a power to pursue our 
 own good, enters into the composition of our 
 natural liberty. We are impelled by nature to 
 the pursuit of our own true and substantial hap- 
 piness, but governed and controlled in the pur- 
 suit of it by certain inherent moral principles : 
 hence the origin and the limit of our natural 
 rights. Though human beings in a state of na- 
 ture may find their hands and feet unshackled, 
 they are not therefore to assume at once the 
 condition of the savage, and course the forest in 
 pursuit of prey, or arm their hands with the tom- 
 ahawk and scalping-knife, in violation of every 
 man's rights and safety ; they have likewise rea- 
 son and conscience incorporated in their natures, 
 which teach them to be rationally and morally 
 free. 
 
 Natural liberty, then, consists in the uncon- 
 trolled disposition of our persons and our property, 
 agreeably to our own will, provided tha<" we do 
 D
 
 42 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 not transgress the natural or moral law ; or, in 
 the words of Montesquieu, " it is the power of 
 doing what we ought to will, and the not being 
 constrained to do what we ought not to will." 
 
 This natural liberty is by no means irrespective 
 of our condition as social beings. Since it re- 
 gards man in his natural, it must comprehend his 
 social and related capacity. Society is rendered 
 indispensable to us, not less by the instincts of 
 our nature than the necessities of our physical 
 condition ; and so irresistible are the combined in- 
 fluences of both, as to have prevented the appear- 
 ance upon the earth, even in its earliest ages, of 
 such a phenomenon as single, individual, isola- 
 ted man. 
 
 When, therefore, we enter into the political 
 state, are our rights abridged because they must 
 be accommodated to the rights of others 1 By 
 no means. I never had a right, in any condition, 
 to trespass upon my neighbour. Nature has 
 adapted us to one another in a social state, and 
 1 am bound, by the law of Nature, to " love my 
 neighbour as myself," not less than by the law 
 of civil society to do him justice. Neither re- 
 quires me to surrender anything that is mine, but 
 that I should give to every man his own. Nat- 
 ural liberty is, therefore, entirely compatible with 
 
 \
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 43 
 
 the social condition of man ; and as nothing can 
 be more unnatural than that wild and savage 
 state which it is common, under the sanction of 
 great and numerous authorities, to* consider as a 
 necessary condition to natural liberty, so nothing 
 can be more absurd than the theory which de- 
 fines natural liberty to consist in the unrestrained 
 allowance of every man's inclination or caprice. 
 But when it is said that no man has a right to 
 do wrong, or to transgress the natural or moral 
 law, let us not be understood as asserting that 
 any one has a right to prescribe to any other 
 what that law is, or to punish every infringe- 
 ment of it. On the contrary, it is of the essence 
 of that individual liberty of action which we 
 possess as moral beings that each be allowed to 
 determine that point for himself; for to this end 
 Nature has endowed each of us with rational 
 and moral faculties. But suppose this personal 
 liberty of ours to be infringed by another, we 
 judge the aggressor, not for transgressing the 
 limits of his own freedom, but for trespassing 
 upon ours ; of the former he is the judge, of the 
 latter we, by the same right, are the judges. He 
 may go beyond the fixed and absolute limit of 
 his own freedom, but we have no right to inter- 
 fere, unless, by so doin^, he enters into conflict
 
 44 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 with US, and encroaches upon our equal rights. 
 This right of sell-defence, so far from abrogating 
 our own individual independence, is based upon 
 it, on the ground that those rights cannot be ours 
 which everybody may with absolute impunity 
 appropriate to himself. And hence our right to 
 protect ourselves from injustice confers no author- 
 ity over our fellow-men (as it would otherwise 
 be at war with its own original), but merely al- 
 lows us to insist on what is already our own, 
 and to assume a hostile attitude within our own 
 limits. 
 
 One man has no right, by nature, to make 
 laws for another. He may repel another when 
 his own rights are infringed, but he has no right 
 to govern him. He is sovereign merely over 
 himself, not over another. He has a right of 
 self-protection, but that he has within his own 
 province. He may say, " Do not infringe upon 
 ray rights ;" but he has no right to define the 
 rights of third persons, or forbid any infringe- 
 ment upon them. If, however, he unite with 
 others in a convention for mutual protection and 
 defence, then the rights of each become the 
 rights of all ; what was before individual be- 
 comes common, and still the community keep 
 within the limits of their own concerns when
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 45 
 
 they say to a stranger, " Do not infringe upon 
 the rights of either of us, or we will jointly repel 
 you," though they do not thus acquire any right 
 to direct him in his intercourse with others. 
 Thus man enjoys hy nature, in relation to other 
 men, the right of repulsion, and not the right of 
 direction. The ditlerence is, that the exercise of 
 the former right is confined exclusively to one's 
 self, the latter extends to and arrogates the di- 
 rection of the affairs of third persons. The of- 
 fice of society is to define what individual rights 
 are (not arbitrarily to direct individuals what 
 they shall or shall not do), and to bind the whole 
 for the defence of them. When a society does 
 this for itself, it is employed in its own concerns, 
 it operates within its own legitimate sphere; 
 when a constituent part only of a society do it 
 for the rest or for the whole, they assume a duty 
 and a responsibility for which there is not the 
 shadow of an argument to show that Nature ever 
 designed them. 
 
 We are not made for authority over our fel- 
 low-beings. That moral nature, by virtue of 
 which alone we could claim it, has evidently 
 been given us for the regulation and government 
 of ourselves alone. Moral duties are revealed to 
 our species by nature as individuals, and discov-
 
 46 ^ELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 erable by us, each for himself solely, upon the sep- 
 arate inspection of his own heart. There is Na- 
 ture's sole depository of the immutable law of 
 right and wrong, justice and injustice, in its ap- 
 plicability to human actions. Its only natural 
 sanction is vested in every man's individual con- 
 science, which reproaches or applauds him for 
 his own actions merely. Thus Nature has made 
 each, for himself alone, the executor of her laws, 
 and she qualifies no man to prescribe and act for 
 another. His moral attributes are not more than 
 sufficient to accomplish him for his own respon- 
 sibilities; and he may only repel injuries, be- 
 cause they violate those rights of which Nature 
 has made him cognizant, and constituted him the 
 sole guardian and judge. 
 
 Such being the prerogatives of all, who shall 
 assume, on the authority of Nature, definitively 
 and authoritatively to settle and enforce the ex- 
 act demands of justice in disputed cases between 
 man and man ? Clearly no one but that Su- 
 preme Being, possessing in his own essence a be- 
 nevolence that is infinite and a wisdom that 
 cannot err, and who, by virtue of his Divine pre- 
 rosatives, is the natural Governor and Lord of 
 the Universe. 
 
 It is treason towards God himself, and a mock-
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 47 
 
 ery of the majesty of Heaven, not less tlian an 
 injury to the rights of man, for any merely human 
 being to arrogate a claim so high as that of 
 sovereignty over a race of the same rational and 
 moral nature as himself. In the absence of Di- 
 vine authority, and while we are conversant with 
 but one order of intelligent beings, universally 
 the same in their essential attributes, one in genus 
 and one in species, all are morally equal, that is, 
 equal in those respects which constitute moral 
 accountability (and this is what is meant by the 
 natural equality of man), and each has a right 
 to determine the limits prescribed to his actions 
 by the moral law for himself; being still hable 
 to repulsive violence, in consequence of the uni- 
 versal extension of the same right to others, if, 
 by reason of an erroneous judgment upon his 
 own rights, his actions conflict with the rights 
 of others. 
 
 We go yet farther, and contend that, as this 
 liberty of action is derived to man through his 
 moral nature, of which it is the necessary con- 
 comitant, he can as well abdicate his moral at- 
 tributes and shift his moral accountability, as al- 
 ienate it ; and that, on the other hand, he is just 
 as capable of acquiring a new nature, and as- 
 suming before God the responsibilities of other
 
 48 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 moral beings, and aggravating his own, as of 
 governing other men in opposition to their own 
 free and deUbcrative will. 
 
 Man is by nature the free and sovereign ar- 
 biter of his own actions ; and as it has been 
 proven that there is nothing in the nature of 
 society, either in the rights it respects or the sac- 
 rifices it requires, incompatible with the unlimited 
 exercise of his native freedom, so we have shown 
 that he does not, because it inheres in his nature, 
 and he cannot, resign it upon becoming a mem- 
 ber of organized society. 
 
 Not such, however, is the theory laid down in 
 foreign w^orks and servilely copied by American 
 writers. Instead of adhering to their definition 
 of natural liberty, which we have substantially 
 adopted, they affix to it the idea of the " absolute 
 and uncontrolled power of doing whatever a man 
 pleases," then compel him to " give up a part of 
 his liberty on entering into society," in opposi- 
 tion to one of the most prominent axioms, sol- 
 emnly and authoritatively announced by the pa- 
 triots of our Revolution, that liberty is among our 
 inalienable rights ; and, finally, as a natural and 
 proper consequence, declare that " expediency 
 and the general advantage of the public" define
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 49 
 
 the limit to which political power shall encroach 
 upon human rights.* 
 
 " Natural liberty," says Blackstone (and the 
 systems of British writers are quite uniform on 
 this subject), " consists, properly, in a power of 
 acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or 
 control unless by the law of nature ; being a 
 right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts 
 of God to man at his creation, when he endued 
 him with the faculty of free will. But every 
 man, whe?i he enters info society, gives up a part 
 of his natural liberty as the price of so valuable 
 a purchase ; and, in consideration of receiving 
 the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges him- 
 self to conform to those laws which the commu- 
 nity has thought proper to establish. And this 
 species of legal obedience and conformity is in- 
 finitely more desirable than that wild and savage 
 liberty which is sacrificed to obtain it. For no 
 man that considers a moment would wish to re- 
 tain the absolute and uncontrolled poiver of doing 
 whatever he pleases : the consequence of which 
 is, that every other man would also have the 
 
 * " The moment you abate anything from the full rights of 
 men each to govern himself, and sufler any artilicial positive 
 limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole or- 
 ganization of government becomes a consideration of conve- 
 nience." — Burke on the French Rcvolulion. 
 
 E
 
 50 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 same power, and then there would be no secu« 
 rity to individuals in any of the enjoyments of 
 life. Political, therefore, or civil liberty, which 
 is that of a member of society, is no other than 
 natural liberty so Jar restrained (and no farther) 
 as is necessary and expedient Jhr the general ad- 
 vantage of the public.''* 
 
 Who is to judge of this expediency, and to 
 determine what the general advantage requires ? 
 If, by the mere fact of becoming members of po- 
 litical society, we resign a part of our natural 
 liberty in consideration of civil and political ad- 
 vantages, of course the current usages and insti- 
 tutions of the society at the time of our incorpo- 
 ration indicate the terms of the compromise ; we 
 oblige ourselves, by that act, " to conform to 
 those laws which the community has thought 
 proper to establish;" the established governors 
 and the established laws are the judges. We 
 have abdicated forever the right to judge for 
 ourselves.f Our rulers, by virtue of the powers 
 
 * Blacks. Comm., vol. i., book i., chap, i., p. 125. 
 
 t " If civil society be the oflfspring of convention, that con- 
 vention must be its law. That convention must limit and 
 modify all the descriptions of constitution which are formed 
 under it. Every sort of legislature, judicial or executory pow- 
 er, are Us creatures. They can have no being in any other state 
 of things ; and how can any man claim, under the conventions
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 61 
 
 with which they are actually vested, looking only 
 to what they can do to determine what they may 
 do, are restrained by no limits but their own dis- 
 cretion. Our natural rights are entirely devour- 
 ed by our civil and social privileges. 
 
 Thus, if to constitute civil liberty, our natural 
 liberty must be restrained, upon general consid- 
 erations of convenience and expediency, to effect 
 the greater good of the whole, our rulers, of 
 course, as the guardians of the public w'eal, are 
 the exclusive judges of what the good of the 
 whole demands, and it needs but the lowest de- 
 gree of discernment to perceive that, upon this 
 hypothesis, liberty is as much the concomitant of 
 Turkish as of British, and of British as of Amer- 
 ican government ; or, in other v/ords, that it is 
 
 of civil society, rights which do not so much as suppose its ex- 
 istence ? Rights which are absolutely repugnant to it? One 
 of the first moiives to civil society, and which becomes one of 
 its fundamental rules, is, that no man shall be judge in his own 
 cause. By this each person has at once divested himself of the 
 first fundamental right of uncovenanted man, that is, to judge 
 for himself and to assert his own cause. He abdicates all right 
 to be his own governor. He inclusively, in a great measure, 
 abandons the light of self-defence, the first law of nature. Men 
 cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state togeth- 
 er. That he may obtain justice, he gives up his right of deter- 
 mining what it is in points the most essential to him. That he 
 may secure some liberty, he makes a surrender in trust of the 
 whole of it."— Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution.
 
 52 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the inseparable concomitant of governm'ent in all 
 its forms ! 
 
 The error of this system is sufficiently appa- 
 rent in the absurdity of its consequences. 
 
 Mankind do not need the aid of organized so- 
 ciety to plunder their rights, but to enable them 
 to enjoy them. They associate together in free 
 communities, simply to define their rights by 
 their mutual counsels, and to protect one another 
 by their common strength. Each man attends 
 to his private, the aggregate whole to the public 
 concerns j each takes an equal part in the public 
 deliberations as he has an equal share in the 
 public interests. When the Legislature makes a 
 law, or a court of justice passes judgment, we act 
 by our agents, and submit to a tribunal constitu- 
 ted by our own voluntary consent. 
 
 A republic is what Cicero long since correctly 
 defined it to be : simply " the union of a multi- 
 tude, cemented by an agreement in what is right, 
 and a participation in what is useful."* 
 
 This theory is exactly conformable to what 
 Jefferson has said : " Our legislators are not suf- 
 ficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their 
 powers; that their true office is to decide and 
 
 * Ccetus multitudinis juris consensu, et utilitatis communione 
 Bociatus. — De Repub., lib. i., 25.
 
 PELF-GOVERNAIENT. 53 
 
 enforce our natural rights and duties, and to take 
 none of them from us. No man has a natural 
 right to commit aggression on the equal rights 
 of another ; and this is all from which the laws 
 ought to restrain him : every man is under the 
 natural duty of contributing to the necessities of 
 the society, and this is all the laws should en- 
 force on him. The idea is quite unfounded, that 
 in entering into society we give up any natural 
 right."* 
 
 Natural liberty, then, consists in the possession 
 of certain rights ; civil liberty, in the enjoyment 
 of them. Natural liberty is what inheres in our 
 persons ; civil liberty, what we procure by gov- 
 ernment and laws. In other words, civil liberty 
 is natural liberty established and secured upon 
 fixed principles. 
 
 Political liberty, therefore, is that of a commu- 
 nity of individuals voluntarily agreeing where 
 the limit prescribed by the natural or moral law 
 to their respective private wills is to be fixed, 
 and uniting together with their common strength 
 to maintain it. In other words, as man requires 
 civil government only by virtue of his rational 
 and moral nature, and as by that rational and 
 moral nature he is essentially a self-governing 
 
 * Jefferson's Correspondence, Letter cxxxi.
 
 54 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 being, self-government by the people is the only 
 legitimate form of civil government. 
 
 The law of justice between man and man es- 
 tablishes the republican principle. Let every 
 man accord to every other the possession and 
 enjoyment of his own, his rights as well as his 
 property, and a republic will be the necessary 
 consequence. A republic is only the application 
 of the law of justice to politics. The result is 
 invariable equality. The just is nothing but the 
 equal. If, therefore, what are right and wrong, 
 are right and wrong everywhere, irrespective 
 of locality, and always irrespective of time or 
 change, it is absurd to allege that one form of 
 government is just and right in America, and not 
 equally and exclusively so in Europe, Asia, or 
 Africa. 
 
 When our Saviour propounded the universal 
 iaw of human conduct, he reduced mankind to 
 a level ; he recognised no higher personage in 
 morals than our " neighbour." When we have 
 discharged o\m duty to our "neighbour," we 
 have fulfilled our duty to mankind; for mankind 
 are our equals and not our superiors, and we owe 
 to our " neighbour" neither obedience nor alle- 
 giance. 
 
 As the word just has an absolute signification,
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 55 
 
 BO the word free has but one meaning, and ad- 
 mits of no qualified sense or any comparative 
 degrees. An action is just or unjust ; a govern- 
 ment is free or it is despotic. If it leave every man 
 in the possession of his native liberty, it is free ; 
 if it depredate upon and circumscribe that liberty 
 in the least degree, it is arbitrary and oppressive. 
 No circumstances can alter the nature of justice; 
 none can palliate the severity and wrong of des- 
 potism. As justice is practicable under all cir- 
 cumstances, because it has its foundation in the 
 nature and constitution of man, so is self-govern- 
 ment, his ability for which is in like manner 
 predicated upon his moral attributes; and the 
 universal practicability of self-government is no 
 more to be questioned than the universal practica- 
 bility of private morals. A treatise on politics 
 that adopts all the various forms of government 
 as equally legitimate, simply because they have 
 all at one time, and in one place or another, been 
 actually reduced to practice, is as absurd as a 
 treatise on morals sanctioning all the actual usa» 
 ges and practices of mankind. 
 
 For more than sixty years the Americans have 
 been governed by a government of their own 
 institution, laws of their own making, and gov- 
 ernors and masfistrates of their own selection.
 
 56 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 This is self-government. It is free government. 
 If, in every country, the majority in numbers were 
 predominant in power, the main body of every 
 people would necessarily prevail in the adminis- 
 tration of the state, and thus examples of self- 
 government would be universal. But in politi- 
 cal arithmetic, it is said, two and two do not al- 
 ways make four. The subjects of political in- 
 vestigation are moral, not physical quantities, and 
 the relative strength of different divisions of a 
 community cannot be determined by their rela- 
 tive physical force, but only by their comparative 
 amount of intellectual and moral strength, which 
 is the presiding and governing principle of the 
 universe. 
 
 It will not, therefore, be hastily concluded, 
 from 3 merely numerical superiority of the gov- 
 erned over the governors, which is found to be 
 the greatest in the most despotic countries 
 that the will of the people does ultimately pre- 
 vail, independently of the form in which the 
 government may be administered. A conclu- 
 sion so preposterous will be avoided, by having 
 regard to the force of prejudice, of antiquity, and 
 of superstition, as well as to the vast authority 
 derived by the estabhshed power from a control 
 of the ordinary channels of the state, the undis-
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 57 
 
 puled exercise of the powers of sovereignty, a 
 possession of the posts of office, and the availa- 
 ble and devoted resources of the treasury and 
 military. Self-government is a government of 
 free and deliberative opinion. The public mind, 
 influenced by passion, or fear, or passive acqui- 
 escence, does not form opinions, but prejudices ; 
 and public and political measures based upon 
 them are not the result of choice, but of a kind 
 of moral necessity. 
 
 It is absurd, therefore, to declare that all gov- 
 ernments are self-governments. Nor are any 
 governments such, except those under which the 
 people themselves possess and exercise the entire 
 sovereignty. When a people do not govern 
 themselves, they are governed. All govern- 
 ments are either governments of force or gov- 
 ernments of opinion 5 governments of usurpation, 
 or governments of consent. There are no inter- 
 mediate stages between the two. Compounds 
 of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy are 
 not the less sovereignties exercised over the peo- 
 ple, because limited : the voice of the nation, in 
 being subjected to modification, is controlled.* 
 
 * Desunt omnino ei populo multa qui sub Rege est ; in pri- 
 misque libertas ; quaj non in eo est, ut justo utamur domino, 
 Bed ut nulla. — De Repub., lib. ii., c. xxlii.
 
 58 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Indeed, so absurd and unjust are the prejudices 
 on which such governments are estabhshed, that 
 they never could have been conceived of in a 
 rational view of the public good, and must, con- 
 sequently, be sustained by an enormous power 
 independently of the public will. And hence 
 we find monarchy always accompanied and for- 
 tified either by an aristocracy or hierarchy, or by 
 both. It must be fortified by kindred prejudices 
 and sympathetic influences. The broad and sub- 
 stantial interests and wishes of the people must 
 be compromised by the prerogatives of a faction 
 — not the less a faction for the considerable per- 
 sons that compose it — subsisting for itself in der- 
 ogation of common rights, and rioting in the ex- 
 ercise of unlawful power; an evil which repub- 
 lics have only to dread, but which monarchies 
 constantly experience. 
 
 The plea on which such governments are sus- 
 tained, and all others that are not self-govern- 
 ments, is that alike of all individual tyrants and 
 all organized tyrannies — necessity. Men, say 
 monarchists, are incompetent to govern them- 
 selves, therefore they must be governed ; some- 
 thing must be abated from those proud rights 
 which they arrogate by nature.* 
 * " Society requires not only that the passions of individuals
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT, 59 
 
 Indeed, the sentiment is quite universal, that 
 the exercise of self-government requires very for- 
 tuitous circumstances, and an uncommon moral 
 and intellectual superiority. Even those are of 
 this opinion who do not scruple to affirm that 
 it is the only legitimate government. But that 
 Nature could have so constituted or placed any 
 part of mankind, that one mode of government, 
 that of being governed by others, should be 
 practicable but wrong, and the only other mode, 
 self-government, right but impracticable, is equal- 
 ly at variance with my ideas of God and of my 
 fellow-men. 
 
 Tlie extreme of vice is of course excluded 
 from these speculations, as, like the extreme of 
 virtue, it is nowhere to be found ; and either 
 would probably, though by means totally unlike 
 and adverse, arrive at the same result, the total 
 annihilation of all government. 
 
 Nor do we mean to affirm that every nation 
 would be alike skilful in the exercise of self- 
 should be subjected, but that even in the mass and body, as well 
 as in the individuals, the inclinations of men should frequently be 
 thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions brought into 
 subjection. This can only be done by a power out of themselves, 
 and not in the exercise of its function, subject to that will and 
 to those passions which it is its office to bridle and subdue." — 
 Burke's Refl. on French Rev.
 
 60 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 government, but that each would exert the de- 
 gree of skill required by their wants, and pro- 
 portioned to the importance of their civil and 
 political affairs. 
 
 Surely, if we are right in our idea of govern- 
 ment, that all the obligations to which it lends 
 its sanction, except such as are purely conven- 
 tional, and respect merely its mechanical arrange- 
 ment and support, exist by nature anterior to 
 any regularly organized society, for the due dis- 
 charge whereof we are answerable to God, there 
 must inhere in our constitution, in order to lay 
 the foundation for that responsibility, a compe- 
 tency to discern and fulfil them. 
 
 And, indeed, were it, in this late age of the 
 world, yet problematical whether self-govern- 
 ment by the people be practicable, and, if prac- 
 ticable, whether its adoption be sanctioned by 
 wisdom and experience, to wJiom would the so- 
 lution of these problems belong, and ivho could 
 avail himself of their practical results 1 If mon- 
 archy and aristocracy be the forms of govern- 
 ment agreeable to nature, who are the monarchs 
 and nobles by nature ? " One is not born," said 
 he whom principle and nature made a republican, 
 but circumstances and ambition an emperor, 
 •' one is not born with a boot on his leg, and
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT, 61 
 
 another with a pack-saddle on his back. Ther* 
 are no naked kings ; they must all be dressed." 
 
 The inability of men to govern themselves m- 
 volves their incompetency to designate either 
 how or hy whom they shall he governed. The 
 claim to rule nations by Divine designation or 
 appointment has been long since exploded ; and, 
 even were an exception to be made in favour 
 of settled dynasties, whence could we derive a 
 claim for the sovereigns of a new country 1 If it 
 be, then, the pleasure of the Being who made us 
 that we be ruled, he has imposed on those he has 
 destined to the sovereignty, as well as those he 
 has marked for subordination, a duty arising le- 
 gitimately out of their circumstances and rela- 
 tions, of which they are not and cannot be ap- 
 prized ; and which he has, therefore, rendered 
 them incompetent, as moral and dutiful creatures, 
 to discharge. Thus, whoever make it impera- 
 tive upon society to sustain an independent and 
 arbitrary domination, establish a plan as agree- 
 able to the course of nature and the will of God, 
 the execution of which, otherwise than by means 
 clearly contradictory to that will, is utterly im- 
 possible ; it must be achieved, if achieved at all, 
 through accident, usurpation, violence, and crime. 
 
 True, human affairs do not enjoy their primi-
 
 62 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 tive perfection, but have been deranged by our 
 depravity. This derangement, however, extends 
 only to the course of human affairs ; it does not 
 impair the essential relations of things. Our 
 duties and obligations remain the same ; conse- 
 quently, our rights and social relations remain 
 unimpaired, as they depend not upon human 
 character, but upon human nature. 
 
 It is of no avail for the advocate of arbitrary 
 power to assert the imperfection incident to every- 
 thing human in our present terrestrial condition, 
 and that, since we will but imperfectly control 
 our own passions, they must be controlled by 
 others. His king is embraced in the wide circle 
 of humanity, and is placed under the same exi- 
 gency as ourselves. The king, therefore, needs 
 the same control as his meanest slave ; and, if 
 his subjects are to impose this control upon him 
 and his actions, they must, after all, intermedi- 
 ately impose it on themselves, and do not require 
 the interposition of a royal automaton. 
 
 It is not sufficient to convict the people of 
 wrong in attempting to assume their own gov- 
 ernment, but some right must be shown to ex- 
 ist independently in the prince. If we must be 
 governed, his authority to govern does not fol- 
 low as a necessary corollary.
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 63 
 
 Royalty can plead no exemption from the in- 
 firmities incident to humanity. Indeed, to exer- 
 cise sovereignty over others demands much high- 
 er qualifications than to impose the control neces- 
 sary to self-government upon one's self. If, 
 therefore, the deficiency exist inherently in sub- 
 jects, a much greater deficiency must be predi- 
 cated of the prince; and if the advocates of 
 monarchical institutions should assert the advan- 
 tages of circumstances and position to accom- 
 plish the one better than the other for his offices 
 and duties, it may be conclusively replied, that 
 they desert the discussion of the natural rights 
 and relations of man, and argue from the arbi- 
 trary allotments of society. Nor can it be denied 
 that the post of government is the very worst 
 place to discipline one for government ; and that 
 those only know how to command who have 
 once learned thoroughly to obey. The passive 
 submission, the pernicious flattery, the unbounded 
 sycophancy that attend upon kings, cherish the 
 most depraved passions of the heart ; and they 
 are accordingly found to be the proudest, the 
 most arbitrary, the weakest, the most cruel and 
 licentious of human beings. Where will you 
 find in private stations the enormity of vice that 
 is heralded with the lineage of kings 1 In vain
 
 64 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 do we seek for a Nero, a Caligula, a Domitian, 
 a Dlonysius, an Alexander of Pherffi, a Richard 
 III., a Henry VIII., a Mary, a Philip II., but upon 
 the throne. The best and greatest examples of 
 kings and despots are those who have risen 
 from private life ; such were two of the Ctesars, 
 Cromwell, and Bonaparte. 
 
 It is but too true that our nature is full of 
 contradictions, errors, and infirmities ; but these 
 are to be moderated by conflicting with each 
 other, and harmonized, as the antagonist forces 
 and apparent disorders of the material world are 
 harmonized, by balancing, and correcting, and 
 repairing the defects of each other. To crown 
 one man king is to give these evils free scope ; 
 it makes them arbitrary and supreme, and gives 
 them license to depredate upon the earth. The 
 passions are what we have to fear. But who 
 can suppose that the evils of our system are at all 
 compromised by making the passions of one sov- 
 ereign; not abating anything from, but cherishing 
 the evil nature of one, and giving it the efliciency 
 of all : or, at least, better compromised than if 
 the passions of all were left to oppose and mod- 
 erate each other, and adjust the universal har- 
 mony ; than if, for instance, the pride of one 
 were opposed to the pride of another, to awaken
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 65 
 
 emulation, rather than that the arrogance of a 
 Ham an should be armed with power to execute 
 exterminating vengeance on a whole nation ? 
 
 Do the vast body of the people need an inde- 
 pendent power to oppose and assail their inter- 
 ests and their wishes ? Compromises do some- 
 times take place in human affairs; but these, 
 when wise, are the results of necessity, not of 
 choice. The only proper checks and balances in 
 a constitution are those that necessarily and natu- 
 rally arise out of the rights and interests to be 
 protected. 
 
 We are not more unfit to be our own govern- 
 ors than to be governed. Duties and obligations 
 are reciprocal ; those we owe to the state are 
 exactly correspondent with those the state owes 
 us ; and if the due measure of both is not definite 
 and fixed, and as intelligible to the one party as 
 the other, we are as unfit to be subjects as sov- 
 ereigns. 
 
 The relation of individuals to government and 
 society, as well as all other relations subsisting 
 between men, in every capacity human nature 
 is capable of assuming, are comprehended in our 
 moral duties to our neighbour, and unitersally 
 embraced within the sphere of our moral ac- 
 countability. Is it possible that such a responsi-
 
 66 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 bility could be predicated of a condition wherein 
 we are unable to perceive or to do what apper- 
 tains to us 1 Is it possible that we are bound 
 by nature to render to each and all others their 
 right, and are yet incompetent by nature to dis- 
 cern what it is, and to perform what is thus our 
 moral duty ? If we can acquit ourselves of our 
 duties to each individually, as the whole have no 
 rights but what are the rights of each, we can dis- 
 charge our duties to all collectively. Our duties 
 as citizens are merely a part of our duties " as 
 neighbours," and comprehended in the great law 
 of Christian morality as expounded by our Sa- 
 viour, Unless, therefore, that fundamental pre- 
 cept presuppose a greater degree of intellectual 
 and moral capability than mankind are universal- 
 ly possessed of, the whole family of man are com- 
 petent to sustain and discharge the duties of free 
 citizens of a free commonwealth. Hence our 
 competency for, and our right to self-government. 
 Can it be believed by a rational and intelligent 
 man, that the Author of our nature has super- 
 added a moral sanction to our social and relative 
 duties, and has yet left us inadequately provided 
 for the fulfilment of them ? Nay, while we are 
 confessedly competent to sustain the responsibil- 
 ities and the agency of moral creatures in all
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 67 
 
 those higher duties which we owe immediately 
 to God, can we not respond to the obligations we 
 owe each other? Have we been made com- 
 petent for the one, and are we not competent for 
 the other? Has the Supreme Being been so 
 provident of the regard due from us to one an- 
 other, that, while He has intrusted us with the 
 guardianship of our own conduct as the subjects 
 of His empire, He is unwilling that we should be 
 committed to our own discretion in a matter of 
 merely terrestrial import, and, in His infinite view, 
 of entirely subordinate interest ? Has He intrust- 
 ed us with the care of our eternal salvation, and 
 not ventured to commit to us the conduct and 
 supervision of all our temporal affairs ? 
 
 The advocates of arbitrary power, so that it 
 be properly acclimated, and fall to the dole of 
 ignorance and misfortune, do yet steadfastly in- 
 sist upon the nobility and supremacy of man, as 
 a being furnished with the prerogatives of sover- 
 eignty over the earth, and endowed with a nature 
 in the semblance of God himself. Vain boast- 
 ing, if, while the lower orders of creation are 
 competent to fulfil the ends of their being, and by 
 the force of mere animal instinct to regulate their 
 own economy ; if, while man himself is so abun- 
 dantly supplied for the sustenance of his animal
 
 68 SELF-GOVERNMENT, 
 
 nature, those exalted gifts and prerogatives must 
 prove so entirely futile in enabling him to fortify 
 himself upon the very threshold of existence. 
 Wretched is our supremacy, if we be found un- 
 able to maintain those just and equal relations 
 upon which we depend for our entire protection, 
 and to which all our rights and terrestrial enjoy- 
 ments are made subordinate. 
 
 Upon a hypothesis contrary to that laid down, 
 the continual occurrences of the providence of 
 God are as inexplicable as the apparent injustice 
 of his original disposition of us. Look at the va- 
 rious nations of the earth. Their different expe- 
 riences, which are but the experiences of various 
 communities of private individuals, are, to a great 
 extent, owing to their different governments. 
 Wars that devastate the earth, and peace and 
 plenty that replenish it; commerce and education, ~ -^ 
 that cultivate society, and the preservation of 
 rights, that afford the enjoyment of life, libert}^, 
 and individual happiness, are in the highest de- 
 gree dependant upon municipal regulation, the 
 effects of which, in all their rigour or all their 
 benignity, must be sustained by the constituent 
 people. When they are thus made answerable 
 to God and to each other in this public and arti- 
 ficial capacity, ought they not, in justice, to con-
 
 SELr-GOVERNMENT. 69 
 
 trol this relation, and should not their probation 
 be coextensive with the sphere of their retribu- 
 tions 1 And yet, if they are not, in their natural 
 state and independently of adventitious circum- 
 stances, able to govern themselves, they may, nay, 
 in most cases must, be rendered responsible for a 
 culpability not their own. The earliest instincts 
 of humanity teach us that when we have done no 
 wrong we should be obnoxious to no punish- 
 ment; that our duties as a neighbour and a citi- 
 zen are embraced within the sphere of our moral 
 agency, and ought legitimately to be not less un- 
 der our control than our duties as a husband and 
 a father. I am a party to the government in the 
 effects of its measures and regulations, I ought to 
 be in establishing those measures and regulations. 
 If the relation of governors and governed commu- 
 nicate downward, it should be communicative up- 
 ward ; and, when any barriers are interposed by 
 accident or usurpation to self-government, they 
 interrupt the free communication which Nature, 
 in the equity of her distributions, originally estab- 
 lished between our duties and our responsibilities. 
 
 An individual has the same right to be inde- 
 pendent that a nation has. 
 
 "Whence otherwise does man, whether civil- 
 ized or savage, derive that innate feeling of in-
 
 70 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 dependence that revolts at servitude, and that 
 prompts him, in every emergency, to rely upon 
 and act for himself? Why do the efforts of 
 those who aspire, even vainly, at their own gov- 
 ernment, elicit so much of the admiration of the 
 world 1 Why does the fate of Brutus even yet 
 awaken a tear of sympathetic emotion, though 
 he reposes beneath the ruins of republican Rome 1 
 Why does the cause of the Polish exile come 
 with the inspiration of poetry and music to the 
 heart 1 Is it not that there is something natural 
 to man in self-government, and that Nature has 
 placed a cord in e\ ery breast, which, despite of 
 human sophistry on the one hand, or fatal mis- 
 chance on the other, will resound to a single 
 note of liberty from any part or any period of 
 the world 1 
 
 This natural impatience of control, this admi- 
 ration for those who sacrifice themselves at the 
 altar of Liberty, are useless passions, and with- 
 out any correspondent aim, unless the Deity 
 made us for self-government ; nay, an incredible 
 artifice of Nature to seduce us from the path of 
 legitimate obedience, and subject us to the accu- 
 mulated evils of a most jealous tyranny. Contin- 
 ually thwarted in what we feel ourselves com- 
 petent to achieve, unable to assert an independ- 
 ence derived to us with existence, we would
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 71 
 
 otherwise appear at a war with ourselves, in 
 which the worst cause must triumph, and the 
 more worthy and honourable principles of our 
 nature be ignobly sacrificed. 
 
 With what wondrous potency are examples 
 of self-government charged. One of the chief 
 causes of the revolutionary movement in France 
 was, undoubtedly, the successful achievement of 
 our independence. That revolution inflamed 
 England, and Italy, and Germany, while it 
 roused all Europe from the sleep of centuries. 
 
 If the principle of self-government is not in 
 harmony with the nature of man, why have his 
 energies been developed just in the proportion 
 that he has governed himself? It would be in 
 vain to inquire, upon any other principle, for the 
 reason that free governments, occupying as they 
 have but a small portion of the geography and 
 chronology of the world, have gone so far towards 
 monopolizing its history 1 Although the tran- 
 sactions of the ancient republics transpired upon a 
 small theatre, all that is classic in literature, pro- 
 found in science, or illustrious in greatness, seems 
 to be intimately associated with them. And al- 
 though, among the moderns, the examples of 
 such states have been too few, and too small, and 
 too imperfect to establish the argument, yet, in 
 modern as in all other ages, history grows impor-
 
 72 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 tant just in the degree that the government of 
 the people of whom it is written approximates 
 to self-government. 
 
 With just pride, the unexampled prosperity of 
 our own country may be adduced. The com- 
 monplaces of hyperbole are sober statements of 
 truth when applied to the rapid march of culti- 
 vation over our land. From a bankrupt colony 
 we have become the second commercial nation 
 of the world. From a population equal to that 
 of only two counties in Great Britain, we boast 
 now to equal, if not surpass, her in numbers. 
 From being confined upon the Atlantic seaboard 
 by the ocean on our right, and savages and in- 
 terminable wildernesses on our left, we have sub- 
 dued and occupied half a continent. Cities and 
 villages spring from beneath the feet of the ad- 
 venturer as he pauses at the West ; and those of 
 a few years in this, challenge comparison with 
 the growth of as many centuries in other coun- 
 tries. Education and Christianity are so widely 
 diffused that they seem to knock at every man's 
 door, and almost to beg admission for the gifts 
 and offerings they bring. Churches and schools, 
 and books and newspapers, are identified with 
 the most intimate habits of the people. Com- 
 merce floats upon artificial rivers, and rides, with
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 73 
 
 the speed of the elements, in artificial vales. In 
 estimating the more prominent characteristics of 
 the whole, so commonly shared are the necessary 
 comforts and substantial supports of life as to 
 make us overlook them, and forget that in these 
 the humblest cultivator of the soil may challenge 
 comparison with the wealthiest banker. We 
 forget that every loghouse furnishes a satisfac- 
 tory meal to the daintiest appetite; that when 
 it sends forth its youthful inmates to feed else- 
 where, in a sound mind and sound body, it gives 
 them all that is needful to feed themselves ; that 
 Merit seeks no patron, and Poverty itself does 
 not ask alms. 
 
 Let those who think the picture exaggerated 
 and overcharged look at the condition of the 
 great mass in other countries. I will not say the 
 few ; as the wUd beasts of the wood might as 
 well claim to restrain the cultivating hand of 
 man, and vindicate the wilderness for their do- 
 main, as a few, in any country, claim a monop- 
 oly of the benefits which God has made for the 
 common enjoyment of all. Look at the mass in 
 other countries. What proportion of them are 
 beggared 1 W^hat proportion of them know of 
 the protecting arm of government except in the 
 experience of the punishments it inflicts 7 of the
 
 74 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 mild, consolatory, and reforming influences of 
 Christianity, except in the exaction of tithes and 
 penances ? of the importance of education, ex- 
 cept in the frowning aspect of their colleges 7 
 How many of the mass till their own lands, sleep 
 in their own houses, and eat the bread they earn ? 
 Whoever, upon the survey of these circumstan- 
 ces, judges the language we have used to con- 
 vey too strong an impression of our comparative 
 advantages, may be allowed to impeach our de- 
 scription as declamatory and idle. 
 
 Revolutions in favour of liberal principles 
 have ever been prolific periods of greatness. 
 When will revive our revolutionary congress of 
 great men ? Look through the slumbering ages 
 of despotic France, and you will search in vain 
 for the mighty energy that characterized the pe- 
 riod when each individual in that nation indul- 
 ged, however delusively, the thought that he was 
 an integral part of it, and a unit in society — the 
 ennobling persuasion that, from the abject condi- 
 tion of a subject, he had become his own sover- 
 eign. You will hardly find such a galaxy of il- 
 lustrious orators, statesmen, and generals as in- 
 troduced, directed, and closed her disastrous 
 revolution of '92, The same causes operated 
 in the neighbouring islands of Britain, and that
 
 SELl-GOVERNMENT. 75 
 
 kingdom must wait for another such display of 
 genius and eloquence as characterized her own 
 senate at that period, until the same principles 
 again agitate the elements of society on her 
 own or on neighbouring soil. No man in his 
 senses can be supposed to justify the deeds 
 of that revolution ; and I do not speak of it in 
 that view. I refer merely to the mighty energy 
 which the mere persuasion of freedom, though 
 false and delusive, developed in those who were 
 the subjects of such a sentiment, and elicited 
 from the antagonist minds of others. If a vi- 
 cious freedom rouse human agency to such stri- 
 king achievements, what may we not expect 
 under a just and true freedom, where human 
 power, equally stimulated and strengthened, is 
 expended for the promotion of human happi- 
 ness? 
 
 Upon a review of all these considerations, can 
 we still subscribe to the sentiment that man, 
 when he needs a magistrate, must make a ty- 
 rant ; when he wants a government, must make 
 himself a slave ? Is it not more conformable to 
 truth, as well as to the generous impulses of our 
 nature, to assert the dignity of the human mind 
 as sufficient for its condition, and to vindicate 
 the providence of our Maker in adapting us to
 
 76 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 all the exigencies of our state ? Certainly there 
 is a character of truth, though perhaps some- 
 thing of irreverence, in the remark of Jefferson, 
 " If the people cannot manage self-government, 
 it will be hard for me to believe that God is not 
 a malevolent Being." 
 
 It may be insisted that these conclusions are 
 falsified by historical truth, and, consequently, 
 directly opposed to the absolute results of actual 
 experience. Indeed, so universally prevalent is 
 the opinion that history bears witness against 
 the competency of men for self-government, 
 that it passes almost universally unquestioned, 
 and is esteemed a quite well-established, and al- 
 most incontrovertible position. 
 
 It is falsely said that republics have not 
 proved to be of long continuance, and this false 
 assumption is sophistically alleged as conclusive 
 proof of their inability to answer the ends of 
 their creation ; as if despotic institutions might 
 claim to be exempted from the ruin incident to 
 everything human ; and as if a government, to 
 be good, must be eternal. 
 
 I do not find that republics were more evanes- 
 cent in ancient times than other governments. I 
 do find that they excelled in whatever contrib- 
 uted to the embellishment and happiness of life.
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 77 
 
 in arts and knowledge, in defending themselves 
 from dangers, in reviving under disasters, in sub- 
 duing enemies and planting cities, in making 
 themselve? honoured and feared ; and that thus 
 their destruction was the more signal. The Ro- 
 man republic lasted as long as the Roman mon- 
 archy of the West; the Carthaginian republic 
 lasted as long as the Spartan monarchy ; and the 
 Athenian republic endured a century longer than 
 the Macedonian kingdom. 
 
 But the decision of this subordinate question is 
 entirely apart from the merits of republican gov- 
 ernment, and the practicability of self-govern- 
 ment by the people. The ability of collective 
 bodies of men to govern themselves must depend 
 solely upon their capacity, morally and intellect- 
 ually, to establish and enforce laws suited to the 
 exigencies of their condition. Their strength 
 and courage to defend a free government may 
 affect its permanency, but, so long as it endures, 
 cannot impeach its intrinsic excellence, nor, if it 
 endure at all, its absolute feasibility. If, as a 
 form of government, it accomplishes all the ends 
 designed by any mere form, it belongs to the 
 people to defend their institutions and preserve 
 their inde'pendence. All people have by nature 
 merit enough to govern themselves ; but all peo-
 
 78 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 pie may not still have intelligence and vigilance 
 enough to defend their own favourite institu- 
 tions. We may hope for their continuance, we 
 may fear their destruction ; but the object itself 
 remains the same, independently of our hopes 
 and fears. A bad government would not, in it- 
 self, be any worse, if from extrinsic causes it 
 should be rendered perpetual, however pitiable 
 the condition of its subjects might be. So, on 
 the other hand, the government and dominion of 
 Rome, pronounced eternal by her orators and 
 poets, have not been rendered less complete and 
 perfect by our subsequent knowledge of their 
 ruin, notwithstanding that the condition of the 
 people was more precarious, and their glory more 
 unsubstantial than they imagined. If an able 
 and efficient prince be supplanted by fraud and 
 violence, and an insolent and tyrannous usurpei 
 reign in his stead, are the ability and efficiency 
 of his previous administration necessarily impli- 
 cated in his disasters ? Neither, if a republic be 
 of short duration, is the ability of its constituents 
 to govern themselves necessarily called in ques- 
 tion ; such a misfortune only involves their in- 
 competency to perpetuate it. We need not be 
 prophets, but only statesmen, to exercise a deci- 
 sive choice among governments 3 for we have
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 79 
 
 only to decide upon their present relative value 
 and intrinsic merit.* It is early enough to make 
 the election of a bad one when it is forced upon 
 us by the compulsion of necessity; we may en- 
 dure a bad government, but will never choose 
 one. Meanwhile, a march will be gained upon 
 the hard and adverse conditions of our being. 
 
 No government has yet proved immortal. The 
 most stupendous fabrics of despotism have not 
 withstood the brunt of time. Governments 
 that were the enemies, as well as those that were 
 the friends of humanity, are mouldering in mon- 
 umental history. Why should we not reject all 
 forms because all are alike transitory ? And 
 shall not men of science relinquish the present 
 advanced state and improved condition of the 
 sciences, because they have not resulted in the 
 discovery of the philosopher's stone, or the in- 
 vention of a restorative ui human life ? 
 
 If History is to be interrogated as to whether 
 
 * " It is common to say, ' Wait ; these are early days. The 
 experiment will fail yet.' The experiment of the particular 
 constitutions of the United States may fail ; but the great prin- 
 ciple which, whether successfully or not, it strives to imbody — 
 the capacity of mankind for self-government — is established 
 forever. It has, as Mr. Madison said, proved a thing previously 
 held impossible. If a revolution were to take place to-morrow 
 in the United States, it remains an historical fact that, for lialf a 
 century, a people has been self-governed." — Miss Martineau'? 
 Society in America, vol. i., chap i.
 
 80 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 all men are competent by nature to govern them- 
 selves, let her be asked, what that could be call- 
 ed a republic has ever proved recreant to the 
 ends of its institution, and has not, according to 
 the peculiar relations of its people, their age, 
 their country, their natural constitution, and ac- 
 quired character and habits, been found to govern 
 wisely, efficiently, and justly ? Are not the in- 
 stitutions and laws of republics more curious rec- 
 ords of practical wisdom and political skill, as 
 well as of public virtue and scrupulous justice, 
 than can be paralleled throughout the universal 
 constitution of monarchical and despotic gov- 
 ernments of the same period ? While we may 
 inquire, whence are tyrannies 1 whence the op- 
 pression mankind have suffered from the ear- 
 liest ages, by means of ignorance, weakness, 
 and licentiousness ? Tyrants and despots are 
 the names of kings and emperors. Hereditary 
 legislators and governors, those who inherit by 
 their bodies the sovereignty over millions of their 
 fellows, who suck in its delicious sweets from 
 the breasts of crowned nurses, governors by Di- 
 vine right, these have fertilized the pages of 
 history with blood — domestic blood — the blood 
 of peace. Sometimes, indeed, as in the case of 
 the French Revolution, demagogues and anar-
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 81 
 
 c.hists, mobs and factions, have assumed the 
 name and the authority of the people, and with 
 the cap of hberty upon their heads, and the sa- 
 cred name of the republic in their mouths, have 
 treated the people as slaves, and sacrificed them 
 as brutes. Unless we believe the only actual 
 difference between one government and another 
 to consist in the name, despotism, not republican 
 government, must be held responsible for such 
 enormities. So far as men have suffered from 
 bad governments, just to that extent have they 
 been tyrannized over, in opposition to their wills, 
 by arbitrary power — just to that extent have they 
 been governed. 
 
 Let not Liberty, then, be flouted with the re- 
 proach of our inability to preserve, as proof of 
 her incapacity to govern ; others have misruled, 
 and many in her name, but never with her sanc- 
 tion ; so far from it, that all tyrants and tyran- 
 nies must be judged by the manner and the ex- 
 tent of their deviation from her prescribed rules. 
 Let self-government stand approved a mode of 
 government the most perfectly adapted to reason 
 and nature, adorned by the most brilliant pages 
 of history, and a refuge accessible to all men 
 whom God has made, whatever be their genius, 
 
 character, or condition. 
 G
 
 82 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 As Americans, at least, we will cherish and 
 defend it, while to cherish and defend it is a vir- 
 tue ; we will maintain it, since, by the reluctant 
 concession of its enemies, it is in itself the most 
 perfect form of which political affairs are suscep- 
 tible ; we will stand by it in honour of our na- 
 ture, since every other political system is based 
 upon human degradation. 
 
 The voice of History has been belied. It 
 yields its decisive testimony in favour of the 
 practicability of self-government ; as it discloses 
 to us the fact of the actual exercise by man of 
 his own government, under all the various phases 
 which his nature, with its destitutions and in- 
 firmities, its ignorance and precariousness, has 
 ever exhibited ; from the wandering Tartar and 
 primitive Indian, through the successive revolu- 
 tions, gradual advances, and final perfection of 
 Greek and Roman society, down to the latest pe- 
 riod of modern times, with our luxuries cheap- 
 ened by science, our territory widely extended by 
 nature, and our habits modified by Christianity, 
 in republican America.* 
 
 Whether we refer ourselves, therefore, to the 
 
 * Caesar, De Bel. Gal., 1. iv., 23. Tacitus, De Ger., xi., 7. 
 Robertson's America, 162. Jefferson's Works, vol. iv., 278. 
 Colden's Hist, of the Five Nations, passim. See, also, Mit- 
 ford's Greece, chap, iii., sec. 9-
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 83 
 
 perfections of the Being who made us, the 
 goodness and wisdom of His purposes and the 
 rectitude of His providence, or to our experience 
 of our own constitution, and the unsophistica- 
 ted, unbought sympathies of our nature, or to 
 the testimony of historical truth, we meet with 
 but one uniform result, equally consonant with 
 our ideas of the Creator and honourable to our- 
 selves, that MAN IS, BY NATURE, independently of 
 adventitious circumstances, competent to govern 
 
 HIMSELF. 
 
 Society is, therefore, when legitimately con- 
 stituted, entirely voluntary in its origin, and civil 
 government must derive all its legitimate pow- 
 ers from the consent of the governed. We, in 
 our public capacity as the people, retain our 
 right to be judges in our own cause, and the max- 
 im of contrary import is applicable only to pri- 
 vate and individual disputes. And, indeed, to 
 whom could the whole community resign this 
 power ? Not certainly to one, or to any of its 
 constituent members ; since, in being the consti- 
 tuted judges in the cause of all the rest, thej' 
 would necessarily retain the prerogative of judg- 
 ing in their own. Hence the futility of Burke's 
 objection to self-government: "'No man shall 
 be the judge in his own cause;' by this each
 
 84 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 person has at once divested himself of the first 
 fundamental right of uncovenanted man, that is, 
 to judge for himself and assert his own cause." 
 We have seen that, in free communities, the set- 
 tling of disputes according to that fundamental 
 rule is merely an accommodation of interests, by 
 a mode to which all who compose the society 
 have voluntarily consented, and by men whom 
 they have voluntarily chosen. The citizens still 
 virtually judge for themselves by their agents. 
 They themselves judge, not divested of any 
 rights, but only of their passions, which w^ould 
 otherwise disqualify them for the honest exercise 
 of those rights. 
 
 Females, infants, maniacs, and idiots are not 
 allowed a voice in national affairs. As to ma- 
 niacs and idiots, as they are not rational and 
 moral beings, they want the necessary conditions 
 of political freedom. Infants are, for a time, en- 
 tirely helpless by nature ; Nature indicates to 
 them, therefore, during that period, a condition 
 of necessary dependance, and provides, in the af- 
 fectionate solicitude of the parent, for their neces- 
 sary protection during its continuance. They 
 are free by nature as moral beings ; but they 
 have not yet arrived at the maturity of that na- 
 ture. The only difficulty lies in determining
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 85 
 
 when they arrive at that maturity. If the law 
 prescribe too late a period, the law is wrong in 
 that respect, but not in excluding infants, prop- 
 erly so designated. Woman has all the requi- 
 sites of political freedom in their perfection. But 
 whether or not she has been confined to the cir- 
 cle of domestic life by the appointment of Prov- 
 idence, and subjected to the dominion of man by 
 an express ordinance of Heaven,* are questions 
 which I do not care to discuss, as I would rather 
 admit the invalidity of the exception than im- 
 pair the force of the general rule. 
 
 Liberty is inherent and inalienable ; but, what- 
 ever the right of a people under an arbitrary 
 government may be to vindicate their freedom, 
 the declaration is not intended to be made, that it 
 is just and proper for any one, or a few, to as- 
 sert that right without any reasonable prospect 
 of success, but with the certainty of involving a 
 kingdom in discord and blood ; or that it is the 
 individual duty of each subject to be a rebel. It 
 is a common remark, that what would have been 
 esteemed a treasonable rebellion had not success 
 glorified it, is often lauded as a most just and 
 glorious revolution. That fickleness of opinion 
 
 * " Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule ovei 
 thee."
 
 86 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 on this subject, which the remark is designed to 
 reprove, is the offspring of a just sentiment ; for 
 although it be not only the right, but the duty, of 
 the concurrent whole to assert their freedom, yet, 
 if the artificial strength of the government be 
 far superior to what a revolt in favour of liberal 
 principles can excite against it, and the mass of 
 the people so acquiescent in a state of servitude 
 that it is in vain to attempt resistance, the mag- 
 nanimous impulses of liberty can never justify 
 an attempt that must inevitably end in riveting 
 the chains of slavery. The question, under such 
 circumstances, will involve considerations of pru- 
 dence which no rational man can or will disre- 
 gard ; and a man has no more right to discard the 
 use of his reason and the ordinary maxims of pru- 
 dence in the government of his conduct, than he 
 has to discard the use of his moral faculties. 
 Indeed, the gift of the latter presupposes the 
 full and complete exercise of the former. Thus, 
 though circumstances do not impair human rights, 
 they may and ought to influence us in our de- 
 liberations about wresting them from the hand of 
 oppression ; and if we see an unfortunate issue 
 to the struggle to be inevitable, w^e cannot, with- 
 out renouncing our understandings and becoming 
 temporarily mad; engage in it.
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT 87 
 
 However, this is a consideration for the op- 
 pressed alone ; it is no argument for the oppress- 
 or. He can only allege the right of the strong- 
 est, which, in the very nature of moral reason- 
 ing, can never be any right at all. Be it once 
 granted that all are universally competent to 
 practice self-government, the tyrant is stripped 
 of his plea, the usurper must be dumb in his own 
 justification, and the monarch must abdicate his 
 throne, how ancient soever the tyranny that up- 
 holds it, or live in a state of lawless and adulter- 
 ous union with Power.
 
 88 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 The same Subjects continued. 
 
 Nothing can be more simple than the theory 
 of republican government. It may be readily 
 comprehended by the plainest minds ; it appeals 
 to the first maxims of common-sense observa- 
 tion, and the universal principles of morals. 
 When you tell the plainest man that every one 
 understands his own business best, that every one 
 is the best guardian of his own interests, you 
 appeal to acknowledged truths, which he has 
 long since known to be of constant application 
 in the daily affairs of common life. When you 
 tell him that God never made one man to be the 
 master of another, you appeal to sentiments to 
 which no human bosom is a stranger. When you 
 tell him that we sustain, in the ordinary allot- 
 ments of Providence, the consequences of our 
 political regulations and civil laws, and ought, 
 therefore, to have the making of them ; that we 
 are moral beings, and therefore invested by 
 Providence with the regulation of our own con- 
 duct in all our moral relations, he is at no loss
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 89 
 
 to recognise the ready application and irresisti- 
 ble force of fundamental moral rules. In the 
 plainness and simplicity of republican princi- 
 ples, the characteristics of truth and justice are 
 manifest. Government, like religion, is essential 
 to our happiness, and was designed by the Au- 
 thor of our being for universal use ; it is a proof 
 of the justice and propriety of a scheme of gov- 
 ernment, as it is of the genuineness of a religious 
 system, that it may be easily and universally 
 comprehended. 
 
 The first act of every other but republican 
 government over the citizen is an act of usurpa- 
 tion. Man issues from the hand of his Maker 
 without any trammels. The moment any exter- 
 nal restraint is put upon his will, the condition of 
 nature is violated. 
 
 Leave every man in the possession of his nat- 
 ural prerogatives, and a republic follows. Let 
 every one manage his own business and interests, 
 and so simple and common-sense an arrange- 
 ment unavoidably establishes the same result. 
 No man is conscious of having bartered away 
 his rights. You cannot divest him of his vilest 
 chattel without his assent ; can you transfer the 
 sura of all his rights, not only without his con- 
 sent, but without his knowledge 1 Is our prop- 
 H
 
 90 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 erty so sacred, and our right of property so as- 
 sailable ? Is our person inviolable so long as 
 we have been guilty of no crime, and are our 
 rights of person so unprotected and defenceless ? 
 
 Transatlantic politicians do yet strenuously 
 contend that this transfer has been made. How 
 is it made to appear? Is it established as a mat- 
 ter of fact, susceptible of proof, such as would be 
 required in a court of justice, from a man asserting 
 a claim to an article of the most trivial value ? 
 or is it absurdly reasoned out, by the force of a 
 mere abstract and unsustained theor}' ? 
 
 Other supporters of monarchy argue that some 
 government is necessary, and that it is inexpedi- 
 ent to attempt an alteration of established forms, 
 hence endeavouring to make out the rectitude 
 of their favourite system, where it actually pre- 
 vails, from eocfediency. But this alleged inex- 
 pediency of resistance no more rightfully trans- 
 fers our liberties to the government, than the su- 
 perior power of a robber and the inexpediency 
 of resistance transfer Ihe property in our purse. 
 The rights with which we were endowed at 
 birth by God and nature, must not only be 
 shown to be capable of transmission, which 
 would be the province of theory, but to have 
 actually passed from us otherwise than by vio-
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 91 
 
 lence or power, and this is the appropriate prov- 
 ince of fact. What force and fraud have estab- 
 lished, reason will not sanction. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the rational institution 
 of republican government has resulted in a ra- 
 tional scheme. In a republic, each citizen man- 
 ages his own private interests ; the community 
 provide for common interests. As all attend to 
 the concern of all, each is constituted the guar- 
 dian of his distributive share of the common 
 weal. Each is a public man, and has a political 
 capacity so far as he has public interests. Man 
 governs himself, in all his interests and in all his 
 relations, as he was made by God and nature to 
 do. Neither one man nor five hundred are 
 made the depositories of the public wants, the 
 public wisdom, or the public weal. The state 
 becomes a union of all for the protection of all, 
 cemented by common interests and affections, 
 governed by the united wisdom, and protected 
 by the united strength. The government pro- 
 vides as for a community of men ; of equals, not 
 of inferiors ; of moral beings, and not of beings 
 unendowed with the right voluntarily to re- 
 gulate their own conduct agreeably to the dic- 
 tates of their own will. It provides for gov- 
 ernmenl Iry moral considerations and not by
 
 92 SELF-GOVERNMENT, 
 
 force. The people arc the sovereigns, the goV' 
 ernment their servant. The operation of this 
 system presents no such palpable absurdity as 
 a people, apparently, at least, existing for its 
 government ; as the subordination of the whole 
 body politic to the will of a part ; for, be it re- 
 membered, the struggle is not, properly speak- 
 ing, between the many and the few, but between 
 a part and the whole. If government be " a 
 provision of human wisdom for human wants," 
 a republic is the only proper form of govern- 
 ment, as it is the only one ever expressly and 
 solely instituted with that view, pursuing no in- 
 dependent and extraneous objects, and furnished 
 with no superfluous powers.* It presents the 
 stitctest and most rigid adaptation of means to 
 ends. It exhibits the contrivance of skill and 
 wisdom, and evinces its own elevated design. It 
 vindicates its own character, by exhibiting inter- 
 nal evidence of an intelligent and provisionary 
 origin, free from any ingredient of accident or 
 injustice. It has, and can have, no separate and 
 independent existence apart from the people. It 
 subsists only as a government. It has no indi- 
 
 * Si vero jus suum populi teneant * * * domini sint legum, 
 judiciorum, belli, pacis, foederum, capitis unius cujusque, pecu- 
 niae, hanc unam rite rempublicam, id est, rem populi appellari 
 putant— Cicero, De Repub., 1. i., c. 32.
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 93 
 
 viduality. The officer and the office are not 
 identified. When not in the discharge of official 
 acts, the officer sinks into the citizen ; and this 
 is one of the most striking tests of legitimate 
 government. If the good of the nation to be 
 secured in the administration of its affairs be the 
 object of government, and that it is even the am- 
 bition of despots often proclaims, all its legitimate 
 powers must be subordinate to this end, and ev- 
 ery quality or prerogative inappropriate thereto, 
 or that naturally and obviously transcends that 
 limit, is evidently a fraud and usurpation upon 
 the government's superior. Look at Great Brit- 
 ain, with its king that, in the eye of the Consti- 
 tution, " can do no wrong," and its Parliament 
 that is " omnipotent." These are the attributes 
 of the Almighty, and, as no modification of hu- 
 manity, whether individual or associated, can 
 acquire them, so no human power can lawfully 
 exercise that absolute authority which is predi- 
 cated upon them. 
 
 But how does republican government subsist, 
 so grave and simple in its exterior, allied to no 
 living blood, confederate with no selfish interests ; 
 that inflicts no fear but that of disobeying its 
 laws, and imposes no subjection but a voluntary 
 subjection of the will of man in conformity with
 
 94 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the rules of justice, to the dominion of his rea- 
 son? Does the republican scheme make suffi- 
 cient provision for proper control, for proper in- 
 tegrity, proper intelligence, and proper force ? 
 
 The general opinion that republican govern- 
 ment requires for its basis an unusual amount of 
 virtue, is one that adds but little to the energy 
 of benevolent efforts for the promotion of good 
 morals (best left to their own appropriate con- 
 siderations), while it has a strong negative influ- 
 ence in deterring enlightened minds from favour- 
 ing liberal efforts, and nations from making the 
 experiment of freedom. 
 
 In reality, the virtue it requires is the virtue 
 which almost necessarily results from our having 
 a moral nature ; a degree so low, that no state 
 nor nation can, under any circumstances, be sup- 
 posed to be destitute of it. For, while we are 
 not, on the one hand, to suppose men to be per- 
 fect, and presume upon that perfection as a ba- 
 sis for our political systems, neither should we, 
 on the other hand, suppose them to be depressed 
 to the lowest extreme of vice, and from hence 
 deduce their inabilty to govern themselves ; but, 
 in all our speculations, consider them as being, 
 what they really are, mingled masses of good 
 and evil.
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 95 
 
 It is, however, common to treat of self-gov- 
 ernment as if it required a moral power of self- 
 restraint in individuals, as effiectual for the pur- 
 poses of civil control as law is in aristocratic 
 and monarchical counti'ies. The subject is rea- 
 soned upon as if each individual, whenever a 
 dispute arises between him and his neighbour, 
 were required to be his own judge and his own 
 executioner, and political self-government ren- 
 dered essential that superhuman excellence which 
 would lead a man, under such circumstances, to 
 lay down and enforce, with absolute impartiality, 
 as against himself, the perfect demands of jus- 
 tice. Now such is by no means the case. 
 
 Republican communities have two offices to 
 discharge : in the first place, to define and settle 
 what the law shall be, and, secondly, to secure 
 it.« prompt administration. 
 
 They do not legislate for particular cases and 
 individual instances as they arise any more than 
 other governments, nor (as we have no such di- 
 visions) for separate classes, but by general rules, 
 which must have a uniform operation. Thus 
 they enact that property shall be taxed a certain 
 per centage, independently of its amount or its 
 owner ; that it shall be acquired by a certain 
 title, which shall be applied indiscriminately to
 
 96 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 all cases of, acquisition ; that a certain conduct 
 which it defines shall constitute a crime, and be 
 followed by a prescribed and definite punish- 
 ment, whoever may be guilty of it. In other 
 words, they are, like other civilized communities, 
 communities of laws. They cannot plunder the 
 rich, for rich and poor are denominations utterly 
 unknown to the laws ; they cannot punish ob- 
 noxious individuals who have been guilty of no 
 crime, for they pass no ex jtost facto laws. There 
 is no room for discrimination among individuals, 
 and the distinction of separate and distinct po- 
 litical classes does not exist. 
 
 It is clear that, under such circumstances, the 
 law of justice will form the rule of legislative 
 conduct, no matter what may be the particular 
 and accidental shade of the moral character of a 
 people. 
 
 Because, first, the separate interests and pas- 
 sions of large multitudes of people drawing in 
 different directions, the law of justice furnishes 
 the only practicable basis for a general rule. 
 Justice alone can harmonize and reconcile these 
 various and conflicting interests and passions. " It 
 is the only neutral ground on which all parties 
 can meet. There are no political classes ; the 
 con' est is between individuals. No individual
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 97 
 
 will can be predominant, because individuals are 
 equal. Their particular interests are all different ; 
 their common interest only is the same ; and the 
 law of justice is their common interest. It is, 
 therefore, the only available ground of compro- 
 mise ; and if republican communities harmonize 
 at all, that is, if they can exist at all, it must be 
 by adopting it as the basis of their convention. 
 
 Secondly, all men are, in a greater or less de- 
 gree, moral ; all men are sufficiently moral 
 where neither passion nor interest perverts the 
 decisions of conscience. Ask any man to an- 
 nounce a general rule where he thus stands in- 
 different, and he will give you a sufficiently fault- 
 less one. Republican government thus separates 
 the legislator from the impulses of passion and 
 the solicitations of private interest, and calls on 
 him to pronounce a just general rule. If he can 
 do this, he has all the necessary moral qualifica- 
 tion for a republican citizen as a legislator ; and 
 if he be morally incompetent to do this, he can- 
 not justly be made amenable for any part of his 
 conduct to any human government or tribunal. 
 In his capacity as legislator, he views questions 
 of right and wrong in the abstract. To suppose 
 a man, when thus disinterested and unimpassion- 
 ed, coolly to announce a palpably unjust law, is
 
 98 SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 to suppose him possessed of a degree of depravity 
 rarely, if ever, found in any individual of the 
 species, and which can never exist in communi- 
 ties until the race becomes too abandoned to 
 subsist upon the earth. 
 
 Finally, whether honesty be the best policy 
 for all individuals and under all circumstances, 
 universally, there may be men found to question, 
 and specific instances of successful roguery may 
 be appealed to for proof; but that, as a general 
 rule, applied to numerous instances, to communi- 
 ties of men and long periods of time, so as to 
 exempt the general and natural operation of 
 things from chance or accident, the rule of jus- 
 tice prescribes the most expedient course of con- 
 duct, there is no more doubt than that God made 
 the universe. To dispute it would be to deny 
 the natural authority of morals — nay, would be 
 to enter into conflict with the universal experi- 
 ence and express testimony of mankind. When, 
 therefore, one invariable rule must be adopted 
 for all, who doubts that men, suppose them to 
 be as bad as they ever actually are, will adopt, 
 for the internal regulation of their own society, 
 the law of justice as the most expedient, if not as 
 the most just 1 It has been long since noted that 
 even a community of pirates will insist on the
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 99 
 
 most rigid application of that law among them- 
 selves.* If, therefore, we could suppose men to 
 be utterly destitute of moral principle, and sim- 
 ply alive to their own interest, we could not 
 doubt that they would still adopT the laws of 
 justice as the best conventional rules. The citi- 
 zens of republics, in their legislative capacity, 
 not being able to separate their private interest, 
 under the generalities of the law, from the pub- 
 lic weal, the same rule which governs the case 
 of their neighbour prevailing likewise in their 
 own, interest and duty concur in practically in- 
 troducing the great rule of Christian morality 
 into republican legislation. 
 
 These considerations cannot be estimated in 
 figures, nor can their conclusiveness be set down 
 in the form of a mathematical demonstration; 
 yet I hesitate not to affirm that they amount to a 
 sufficient degree of moral certainty to risk any 
 human interest upon. Monarchists must either 
 assent to the moral ability of man for self-gov- 
 ernment, or take refuge under the philosophy of 
 Hobbes, that where men are left in a state of na- 
 ture, without restraint, their natural condition is 
 that of war and depredation upon one another, 
 and add to this that such a condition is their de- 
 liberate choice and preference. 
 
 » ,-: Ho nfn.-;i» lib. u . c. II.
 
 100 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 It is an error to suppose that the existence of 
 republics requires a perfect moral self-control 
 to be actually exerted by individuals in their 
 private conduct. Its establishment is no more 
 based on so absurd a requisition than that of 
 any other form of government. It expects no 
 more than other governments of its citizens. It 
 depends not so much on moral action as on mor- 
 al resolution (with which the most infirm speci- 
 mens of humanity are sufficiently provided), and 
 that not only where a failure to act morally is vis- 
 ited wuth the natural consequences of vicious ex- 
 cesses, but where a failure to resolve morally is 
 visited with barbarism instead of civilization, 
 and a state of unrestricted violence and plunder 
 in place of the dominion of law. Laws are 
 merely the resolidions of community to abide by 
 and enforce the principles of justice. 
 
 Look into republican legislation on all funda- 
 mental laws : what an almost universal concur- 
 rence of minds — what an almost perfect unanim- 
 ity of opinions. On all questions respecting con- 
 tracts and redress for the violation of them, re- 
 specting property, respecting evidence, respect- 
 ing crime and its punishment, respecting the 
 organization of courts and sectional administra- 
 tions, there is hardly the slightest diversity. The
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 101 
 
 public at large scarcely take any interest in them, 
 because of the unqualified confidence they feel 
 in the result. In most of our states complete 
 codes of laws have been passed at a single ses- 
 sion, and without interrupting the ordinary busi- 
 ness of legislation, or unduly protracting the sit- 
 ting. On all the great, vital, fundamental points, 
 legislators are immediately agreed. Almost all 
 party disputes are, in comparison, of infinitely 
 subordinate consequence, not affecting, in a 
 scarcely perceptible degree, our individual liber- 
 ties, our fortunes, or our happiness. Their final 
 settlement often occupies but a sentence in the 
 statute-book — they are about matters for the 
 most part of commercial regulation or of inter- 
 nal improvement, best left to themselves — agita- 
 ting the propriety of taking private interests 
 under the public guardianship. Those points of 
 legislation about which men differ so much in re- 
 publics are, mostly, not matters of justice at all, 
 or involving, in the slightest degree, the moral 
 capabilities of mankind for self-government, but 
 merely subordinate matters of public policy ; and 
 it may well be conjectured that, when the busi- 
 ness of government shall be restricted to its prop- 
 er sphere, political and party strife, such as is 
 now known, will be abolished forever. The ne-
 
 102 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 cessaries of legislation, like the necessaries of 
 human life, are cheap and of easy acquirement ; 
 it is the superfluities that cost the greatest toil, 
 and expense, and difficulty. 
 
 As the legislative duties of a republican com- 
 munity do not require an extraordinary amount 
 of moral integrity among a people, so neither do 
 its executive functions. 
 
 De Tocqueville thinks us in no danger from 
 the weakness of our administration, but rather 
 from its strength.* 
 
 We feel that the force of the community is our 
 own force; we feel that its executive energies 
 are employed to enforce our own wills ; it com- 
 mands all the moral strength of a virtuous appro- 
 bation, because we know that its determinations 
 are the nearest practicable approximation to ab- 
 solute justice ; but, above all, we feel that our pri- 
 vate interest is entirely implicated in the public 
 weal. The innate sense of justice universally 
 pervading the mass, governing the good by the 
 excellency of its own nature, the indifferent by 
 a regard to their own interest, the bad by a con- 
 
 * " In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic in- 
 Btitutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted 
 in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering 
 strength." — Democracy in America, chap. xv.
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 103 
 
 viction of its prevalence and power, and exert- 
 ing upon all in a greater or less degree the sanc- 
 tion of conscience, gives to republican govern- 
 ment that silent but sovereign power that sways 
 the state. It is the strong presumption of justice 
 arisinff in favour of the laws that makes the 
 stalF of a petty constable as potential as the ca- 
 duceus of a Mercury, and confers on one, as the 
 officer of the laws, the executive power of all. 
 It is not necessary to the efficacy of that princi- 
 ple that all should be invariably just, nor does it 
 assume any imaginary perfectibility in the spe- 
 cies. The efficiency of its support is predicated 
 upon the fact that men in general, without any 
 particular interest of their own in view, or any 
 private passion to gratify, will concur in the ulti- 
 mate decision of tribunals of their own institu- 
 tion as just, and will feel that in maintaining the 
 rights and interests of others as settled by them, 
 they are actually establishing the firmest legal 
 guaranty of their own. Republican government 
 does not rely upon the state of the public morals, 
 but upon the union of the virtuous impulses of a 
 moral nature with the strong motives of a person- 
 al interest ; and, whatever doubts may be enter- 
 tained, under various possible circumstances, of 
 the sufficiency of either separately, there can be
 
 104 SELF-GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 no doubt of their being all-sufficient in a state 
 of combination. 
 
 If an individual be not thus the best guardian 
 of his own interest, it may be doubted wheth- 
 er republican governments have any sufficient 
 ground of reliance. It must then be asked 
 whether any other system proposes a better. Is 
 there any system which offers a better guaranty 
 for good government than the alliance of duty 
 with the strong natural impulses of self-interest 1 
 Do monarchy and aristocracy present instances in 
 which the fellow-feeling of the higher ranks and 
 orders have provided a better security for the 
 masses than the self-interest of those masses 
 would have provided for themselves? cases in 
 which benevolence has proved stronger than self- 
 love ? cases in which humanity has outstripped 
 Divinity, and done works of supererogation, by 
 loving its neighbours better than itself? What 
 moral securities do they furnish ? Doubtless, 
 abundant, that they will govern us enough; but 
 what security that they will not govern us too 
 much ? What that they will govern themselves ? 
 Duty, perhaps, but not self-interest; for here these 
 are found in apparent, if not real collision; al- 
 ways seeming and seen to be hostile. 
 
 But, if they do not provide better moral, do
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 105 
 
 they provide better intellectual guaranties for 
 good government ? With just the same kind of 
 wisdom and skill will a people manage their po- 
 litical as their private affairs ; that is, in a man- 
 ner always proportioned and suitable to their 
 circumstances. The intelligent chemist may 
 think he can manage ptactical agriculture better 
 than the poor farmer ; but he will find, on exper- 
 iment, that the farmer will make a fortune where 
 he will lose one. So it is throughout every de- 
 partment of human life. Everybody under- 
 stands his own business and his own wants best, 
 and individual skill and personal interest make 
 the best provision for them. These are truths 
 which political economy has been slow to de- 
 velop; for the governments of the Old World, 
 after having kindly undertaken the guardianship 
 of a race thrown by an improvident Creator upon 
 the earth, utterly unprovided, as is said, with 
 requisite moral capabilities, have undertaken, 
 quite consistently with the regulation of the ex- 
 ternal relations of mankind, that of their private 
 business also ! The " let alone" principle, which 
 the political economists have at length so success- 
 fully demonstrateil, extends also to the region of 
 politics. W^hat does the palace know of the ne- 
 cessities of the cottage 1 or how can a central 
 I
 
 106 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 administration be informed of popular wants 
 so well as those who have suffered them, or un- 
 derstand so well the operation of laws as those 
 who judge from a personal experience? No 
 form of government could have less of a prac- 
 tical nature than a monarchy or an aristocracy. 
 None could be more ignorant of detail or of 
 facts; while republican government is, through- 
 out its whole administration, entirely based on 
 the closest and most rigid deductions of those 
 who have had a practical and experimental 
 knowledge of the evils to be redressed, and of 
 the various expedients that have been devised to 
 redress them.
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 107 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Origin and Supports of Monarchical Government. 
 
 Having seen that mankind are free by nature, 
 and not less competent to govern themselves 
 than to sustain the responsibility of moral beings, 
 let us trace, as far as we can, historically, the ac- 
 tual origin of monarchical governments, and see 
 by what plea the usurpers of human rights justify 
 their supremacy. 
 
 Most writers are -pleased to consider the con- 
 dition of the primitive families as exhibiting the 
 image of monarchical governments, to which 
 they therefore assign the rank of the highest 
 antiquity; while monarchists plume themselves 
 upon this assumed fact as an argument in favour 
 of the simplicity of their favourite system, and of 
 its natural conformity to the wants of man. But 
 those who have no preconceived theories to sup- 
 port will be puzzled to discover, in the Mosaic 
 account of the first age of mankind, the features 
 of any political organization. Different families 
 lived, without any common superior, upon the 
 footing of distinct and independent nations. The
 
 108 monaiiciiical government. 
 
 only kind of authority known was that of a father 
 over his children, springing voluntarily from rev- 
 erence and filial love. Among us, that authority 
 over the primitive famihes has acquired the des- 
 ignation of 'patriarchal government. But it can- 
 not with any propriety be called, in the political 
 sense of the term, a form of government. It was 
 not different in its nature from what family gov- 
 ernment now is, and has been in all ages. The 
 same power has subsisted since, not only under 
 the sanction of law, in far greater perfection, but 
 (as under the Roman government, embracing 
 the most absolute disposal of propert)', person, 
 and life) to a far greater extent. When gov- 
 ernments followed, this paternal authority was 
 not superseded. Not supplying the place of 
 government, it cannot properly be characterized, 
 as such. Society may strictly be said to have 
 subsisted, during its primitive age, in the ab- 
 sence of all government. 
 
 When revealed to us at its next stage, fami- 
 lies have become tribes; domestic have given 
 place to political relations; the ties of habit 
 and association supply the place of the more in- 
 timate ties of kindred, and an experience of the 
 benefits resulting from numerous counsel, con- 
 centrated power, and mutual defence, cements 
 their vet free and v-^luntn"/ nnion
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 109 
 
 Jefferson describes our Indians as beino- evi- 
 dently in this state. " Every man with them," 
 he writes, " is perfectly free to follow his owi 
 inclinations. But if in doing this he violates the 
 rights of another, if the case be slight, he is pun- 
 ished by the disesteem of his society, or, as we 
 say, by public opinion ; if serious, he is toma- 
 hawked as a dangerous enemy. Their leaders 
 conduct them by the influence of their character 
 only ; and they follow or not, as they please, him 
 of whose character for wisdom or war they have 
 the highest opinion. Hence the origin of the 
 parties among them adhering to different leaders, 
 and governed by their advice, not by their com- 
 mand." " The Cherokees," continues Jefferson, 
 " the only tribe I know to be contemplating the 
 establishment of regular laws, magistrates, and 
 government, propose a government af represent- 
 atives elected from every town. Of all things, 
 the least they think of is subjecting themselves to 
 the will of one man. This, the only instance of 
 actual fact within our knowledge, will be, then, 
 a beginning by republican, and not by patri- 
 archal or monarchical government, as specula- 
 tive writers have generally conjectured." 
 
 The transient glimpses of history that reveal 
 to us the early condition of the Greeks, Gauls,
 
 110 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Britains, and Germans, exhibit a state of societj 
 exactly similar in all respects to that described 
 by Jefferson, and of the utmost possible freedom 
 of organization. 
 
 They are wrong, therefore, who represent 
 primitive man as readily and naturally submit- 
 ting himself to his father as a king, and to his 
 chief as a despot. 
 
 At the next stage of observation, the tribe 
 forms a nation, with a king at its head ; but in 
 the intervening period, its domestic struggles 
 have not been of sufficient importance to attract 
 the notice of history. We, however, do know 
 the wild and intractable nature of man in his 
 native state ; how jealous of his independence ; 
 how impatient of control ; and we ourselves 
 have felt that the original instincts implanted in 
 our breasts, the natural dictates of our under- 
 standings, are all in favour of personal independ- 
 ence. The voluntary subjugation of one's own 
 will to that of another would be the last act of 
 cultivated man. Even on the hypothesis that 
 such an act be, under certain limitations, politi- 
 cally necessary, by what reasons could a semi- 
 barbarian have been convinced of it? The 
 doomed subject, under any circumstances, would 
 be the last to perceive or to recognise the neces-
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. Ill 
 
 sity ; the superior, the first to anticipate his do- 
 minion ; and this antagonist position must have 
 been sufficient of itself to have throvi'n the two 
 parties into forcible collision. 
 
 It is not to be denied that monarchical gov- 
 ernment has its foundation in the successful usur- 
 pation of arbitrary power by an individual. Its 
 origin may be referred to two distinct periods in 
 the history of human society ; the first, as we 
 have seen, succeeding immediately after the pri- 
 meval distribution of mankind into tribes ; the 
 second, an advanced period, which takes date 
 from the fatal termination of republics. In the 
 first case it is the offspring of a barbarous, in the 
 last, of a corrupt age. In both cases it supplants 
 free governments. 
 
 If any doubt arise as to the means by which 
 the first revolution was achieved, from the ab- 
 sence of direct historical information, it must be 
 entirely removed by the analogy which the con- 
 version of free into absolute government in the 
 latter period furnishes for its solution. No man 
 will contend that society required at its most ad- 
 vanced stages of cultivation and refinement harsh- 
 er means to sway it than in the iron age. That 
 Ca}sar or Bonaparte was less scrupulous of 
 means than a chief dealing with semi-barbarousr
 
 112 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 or savage people. It must, then, be allowed, 
 that monarchy, at both stages alike, has taken its 
 original in fraud, violence, and usurpation : that 
 it was instituted, not for the nation, but the man j 
 not to answer the rational ends of human gov- 
 ernment, but to gratify the cupidity of human 
 ambition.* 
 
 The issue, therefore, between republican and 
 monarchical governments is, whether the vices 
 or the wisdom of man have made the best pro- 
 vision for human wants. 
 
 Thus originating, it becomes matter of curi- 
 ous inquiry, by what plea is monarchical govern- 
 ment sanctioned 1 how does it commend itself 
 to the reason of man? to what fundamental 
 principles does it appeal ? 
 
 Are European constitutions professedly the 
 result of a people's judgment on what is best or 
 what is right ? Are they founded on the actual 
 condition of things as the best provision for the 
 present ? Are they the choice of the generation 
 for whom they are designed ? 
 
 The direct contrary of all this. They are es- 
 tablished by precedent, and ascertained by refer- 
 ence to the musty records of centuries long since 
 past, and the practice of generations long since 
 * See Burlamaqui, Nat. and Pol. Law, booki., c. ii.
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 113 
 
 dead. The whole order of nature is reversed ; 
 the past is placed in front of the present, and the 
 dead prescribe law to the living. 
 
 " The queen of slaves, 
 The hoodwink'd angel of the blind and dead, 
 Ctuitom, with iron mace, points to the graves 
 Where her own standard desolately waves." 
 
 If interrogated by the whole body of the na- 
 tion, " By what right do you rule ?" no sover- 
 eign would dare refer it to their consideration, 
 that the established government subsists because 
 it is in its frame the best ; it is of the nature of 
 monarchical and aristocratic governments to de- 
 bar their subjects from the decision of that ques- 
 tion. The monarch's only justification is, " I 
 have ruled, therefore I rule." The government 
 can only say, " We have exercised this power in 
 time past, therefore we exercise it now." What 
 does this indicate but an origin in force ? what 
 better right than the right of the strongest ? 
 
 Monarchy is undoubtedly a government of 
 force. Why not yield the reins to the people 1 
 " Because," its plea is, " they would not govern 
 themselves wisely or justly." Would not the 
 monarch and his agents and ministers still con- 
 stitute parts of the nation ? " Undoubtedly ; but 
 the people would not listen \o them." How is it
 
 1 14 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 better under a monarchy 1 " Because the gov- 
 ernment has the power to coerce." Thus any 
 apology for monarchical government must re- 
 solve itself into an acknowledgment tliat it is a 
 government of force. Indeed, the designation 
 of "subjects," given to every individual of the 
 nation but one, implies as much. All modern 
 European governments are immediately derived 
 from the feudal system — an institution of the dark 
 ages, designed to maintain subjection among a 
 conquered people and in a conquered country — 
 a kind of martial law incorporated with the civil 
 jurisprudence. This system has never been rev- 
 olutionized, but only meliorated ; and it is unde- 
 niable that all the governments of monarchical 
 and civilized Europe are but mere meliorations 
 of Gothic tyranny. 
 
 Monarchical government claims to subsist by 
 prescriptive right, \vhich, as applicable to such a 
 subject, is no better than a right by conquest, the 
 actual foundation of it. 
 
 Prescription can of itself confer no right. It 
 IS merely a legal presumption, and, as such, no- 
 thing more than a rule of evidence. By virtue 
 of it, an uninterrupted possession for an indefi- 
 nite period, under a claim of right, is sufficient 
 evidence, in the absence of conflicting circum*
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 115 
 
 stances, of a grant from him or them in whom 
 the absolute propriety had been last known, in 
 the view of the law, to reside. If the presump- 
 tion be rebutted, the prescription fails. If a claim 
 be acknowledgedly unjust in its inception, no 
 mere lapse of time can impart to it any sanction 
 or validity. Prescription, therefore, never has al- 
 tered, nor can it alter, the absolute rights of par- 
 ties. As constituted by any limited period of 
 time, it is not known to morals. As famiharized 
 to us, it is purely a conventional principle, volun- 
 tarily adopted by a settled community in a spirit 
 of compromise, that the quiet of society may not 
 be disturbed by endless litigations, and the pos- 
 session of property unsettled by continued and 
 violent changes. Men only agree by that rule 
 how far they will investigate their absolute rights, 
 and what limitations they will put to the reme- 
 dial power of their laws. In this, therefore, the 
 leoal sense of the term, it cannot subsist in the 
 absence of express enactment, nor without the 
 voluntary concurrence of those to be bound by 
 it. Our codes of morals know no statutes of 
 limitations. 
 
 Even if the rule of prescription were appli 
 cable in its utmost latitude, ten thousand years 
 of usurpation would not establish, in the eye of
 
 116 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 morals, the justice of an existing government, as 
 no length of time can win from morals a sanc- 
 tion for what has undeniably taken its origin in 
 force. Nay, the most unequivocal renunciation 
 of human rights, which are in their nature inal- 
 ienable, could only indicate in what temporary 
 and responsible agents certain delegated powers 
 had been reposed, upon which the people would 
 still be at any time at liberty to deliberate in their 
 sovereign capacity, and which they would be left 
 free at any time to resume. On how flimsy a 
 pretext are the most inexorable tyrannies erect- 
 ed ! It is not less an insult to the human under- 
 standing than an injury to human rights, that a 
 kind of government which confessedly originated 
 in fraud and injustice, and which, even in its 
 most enlightened stages, gives to its people the 
 name of subjects, should adduce its power in 
 proof of its justice, and claim to rule for ages to 
 come simply because it had succeeded in main- 
 taining subjection for ages past. 
 
 Prescription, as it is familiarized to us, relates 
 to property, and monarchists claim " to receive, 
 to hold, to transmit their government and their 
 privileges in the same manner in which they en- 
 joy and transmit their property and their lives." 
 But government is not of the nature of property j
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 117 
 
 it is not acquired by the same means, held by the 
 same right, or capable of transmission on the 
 same principles. 
 
 Our right to property, and our right to transmit 
 it to our descendants, are not, as some have suppo- 
 sed, dependant upon the law of the land or upon 
 any human convention ; they are natural rights. 
 
 Nature, in giving to man existence, imparted 
 to him also, at the same time, a right to maintain 
 it; and not only to use her bountiful provisions 
 for his absolute sustenance, but for his lawful en. 
 joyment, and the proper cultivation and develop- 
 ment of his natural faculties. To this end indi- 
 vidual appropriation was requisite. The natural 
 sense of mankind suggested prior occupancy as 
 the mode of appropriation, and it became, there- 
 fore, the original groundwork and legitimate 
 mark of property. Civil society did not institute 
 this order of things, but received it as already 
 established by nature, and has merely surrounded. 
 It with positive sanctions. Nor are present ine- 
 qualities in what was originally and naturally 
 common stock, at variance with the theory of the 
 natural origin of the right of property ; these 
 inequalities are but an obvious consequence of 
 the original appropriation. 
 
 We have offspring, helpless beyond all com-
 
 118 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 parison with those of other races, and Nature 
 evidently imposes upon us the obligation to main- 
 tain and provide for them. It is a duty we owe 
 to them and to society, having been the occasion 
 of bringing them into the world. Hence, by 
 every means within our reach, we ought to pro- 
 vide for the supply of their wants in such a man- 
 ner that their existence may be a blessing to 
 themselves, and their addition the ornament and 
 strength of society. Such, however, are the ac- 
 cidents of human life, that the state of helpless 
 infancy sometimes may, and such is the ordinance 
 of Nature that it ordinarily must, be prolonged 
 beyond the death of its parentage. It is evident- 
 ly, therefore, the intention of Nature that the ac- 
 cumulations of our lives be transmitted to our 
 children after our deaths for their necessary sus- 
 tenance. 
 
 How, then, does the inheritance of property 
 coincide in principle with the inheritance of gov- 
 ernment ? The relation of monarchical govern- 
 ors to their subjects is not a natural, but an arti- 
 ficial relation. As Nature did not create, so she 
 does not j^erpetuate it ; and no natural obliga- 
 tion to discharge the duties of governor surviving 
 the monarch, there are no natural means or prin- 
 ciples provided for transmitting to his son sover- 
 eign intellect or sovereign power.
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 119 
 
 Government is never, like property, the right 
 cf the incumbent. It is the right of the people — 
 unless, indeed, the good of the whole must be 
 made subordinate to the interest of the few. 
 How, then, can a right be inherited by the son 
 which did not exist in the father ? 
 
 The judicious and philosophical Paley does not 
 assert the least analogy in principle between the 
 two cases of government and property, as ac- 
 quired by prescription and transmitted by in- 
 heritance; nor does he designate the sentiment 
 that views them in conjunction as the offspring 
 of just and enlightened opinion. On the contra- 
 ry, he characterizes the opinion of right in gov- 
 ernors founded on prescription as a prejudice, and 
 labours to show, in our familiarity with prescrip- 
 tion, as applied to property, the reason why its 
 application to the affairs of government meets 
 with respect or attention.* 
 
 Monarchy the right of the monarch, and de- 
 scendible to his heirs ! If so, certainly the nation 
 must be just as much his to govern, as the peas- 
 
 * " They who obey from prejudice are determined by an 
 opinion of right in their governors, which opinion is founded 
 upon prescription. * * * Nor is it to be wondered at that man- 
 kind should reverence authority founded in prescription, when 
 they observe that it is prescription which confers the title to 
 almost everything else," &c.— Paley's Moral and Pol. Phfl., 
 book vi., chap. ii.
 
 120 MONAIICHICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ant's farm is his to till ; and government itself 
 must have been constituted, not for the nation, 
 but merely to afford the monarch an opportunity 
 to govern ; not for the good of all, but to furnish 
 an agreeable diversion for one! 
 
 Notwithstanding that prescription is the chief 
 argument openly urged in favour of monarchical 
 and aristocratical governments, it is easily to be 
 perceived that their iron-handed despotism does 
 not maintain itself upon so imaginary and un- 
 substantial a basis. If institutions so pure and 
 liberal as those of a republican country require 
 the stern supports of reason and virtue to sustain 
 what is commonly thought to be, at the best, but 
 a transient existence, can the corruption and vio- 
 lence of monarchical and aristrocratic govern- 
 ments find suflScient stability in a flimsy prejudice 
 arising from an imaginary prescriptive right ? 
 
 Look at the numbers whose self-interest, in 
 derogation of the common weal, requires the per- 
 manence of such governments, and you will as- 
 certain the real sources of monarchical and aris- 
 tocratic power. 
 
 First, the king himself, with his family of dukes 
 and princes — the chief nobility of the realm dig- 
 nified by menial offices in his household, and the 
 most skilful artists and wealthy manufacturers
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 121 
 
 ambitiously enrolling themselves as the objects 
 of his patronage. 
 
 He is the source of power. Are there states- 
 men of illustrious name, warriors of renown, 
 ecclesiastics that command popular reverence for 
 their learning and piety ; and, through all sub- 
 ordinate grades are there genius, enterprise, ac- 
 tivity, and wealth ? — the king can command in 
 his service the various talents and combined in- 
 fluence of all. From the prime minister to an 
 officer of the customs — from the lord-chancellor 
 to a justice of the quorum — all are raised by his 
 sign-manual to the full sway of office. He is the 
 fountain of honour. His touch ennobles the 
 blood. He keeps the golden gate that bars the 
 plebeian from the aristocratic orders. Duke- 
 doms, bishoprics, stars and garters, are the tokens 
 of his favour and the badges of his service. 
 
 Add to this influence that of the overo;rown 
 monopolies and rotten corporations, that of the 
 debtors and the creditors of government. One 
 branch, at least, of the Legislature, all the ju- 
 diciary, the executive, the nobility, the officers 
 of the army and navy, and the dignitaries of 
 the Church, are creatures of the crown; and, 
 once so created, are pledged by self-interest, by 
 the honours and emoluments of rank and power, 
 K
 
 122 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 to sustain the hand that created them. Thus are 
 abstracted from the cause of the people, and de- 
 voted to the service of the governing party, the 
 greater part of the health, vigour, and activity of 
 the body politic. The government is, indeed, 
 made up of a minority, but a minority as superior 
 in power as it is inferior in numbers. The selfish 
 interest of the monarch multiplies itself, and oc- 
 cupies the bosom of every subordinate ; not only 
 commanding the numerical force of all, but also 
 all their means of private and personal influ- 
 ence. Appalled by the least prospect of change, 
 they dread revolution as a political death. 
 
 Notice the effect, as it is clearly observable in 
 history, of but one of the various engines of 
 monarchical power — the elevation to the peerage. 
 De Lolme, the eulogist of the British Constitution, 
 exults in this provision of " a modern ostracism," 
 as he styles it, whereby the government may 
 separate the people from their friends when pat- 
 riotic integrity becomes alarming. Bribe with 
 honours ! When one of the most absolute powers 
 known to the Constitution is thus exerted to re- 
 ward political apostacy; when such are the ar- 
 rangements of a government, that ambition re- 
 ceives its highest gratification at the moment that 
 public virtue undergoes a paralysis, what may we
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNiMENT. 123 
 
 not suppose its subordinate provisions to be for 
 subduing and ruling a people ? 
 
 No wonder that the real friend of popular 
 rights is dismayed by the fatal influence which 
 pervades and modifies every social relation, and 
 which, assuming a personal and individual aspect 
 in every influential member of community, is vari- 
 ed, from the complaisant smile of the superior, 
 who is a conservative from self-interest, to the 
 ridiculous truckhng of the dependant, who is 
 either paid for his compliances, proud of his ser- 
 vitude, or debased and swayed by fear : fear, not 
 perhaps of the guillotine or Bastile — not of ban- 
 ishment or confiscation — but of personal hostility 
 and proscription on account of political opinion, 
 from those who control all the energies of society, 
 and whose relative importance in the social scale 
 is dependant upon the permanence of existing 
 orders and institutions. 
 
 He must be incorrigibly stupid who supposes 
 that a standing army is the only engine of arbi- 
 trary power. How is a standing army main- 
 tained ? Under the most despotic governments 
 and in its greatest efficiency, it is a mere instru- 
 ment ; the primal and vivifying spirit is still a 
 different thing. Arbitrary power, whether in an 
 absolute or mitigated form, is sustained by the
 
 124 MONAUCIIICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 same principles, operating only by different 
 agencies. 
 
 There are but two ways in which government 
 can be upheld : either on the voluntary principle, 
 appropriate to all the complicated agencies of ra- 
 tional and moral beings, or by coercion, exer- 
 cised through the passions, and subjecting men, 
 like brutes, to force. The least abridgment of one 
 of these methods induces the necessary applica- 
 tion of the other. The vices that enslave the 
 moral, are the subjugators also of the political 
 world. All that is appropriate to monarchy 
 operates by means of self-interest in the superior 
 and fear in the subordinate, or by a combination 
 of both principles in the union of both characters. 
 There are, it is true, many, very many better prin- 
 ciples in operation ; nevertheless, it is the force of 
 these that gives to monarchy its distinctive form. 
 
 It is true that monarchical government is 
 sometimes found modified by some of the most 
 essential principles of human rights, and that its 
 mechanical means and instruments for the ordi- 
 nary conduct of its administration, and frequent- 
 ly for carrying into effect those principles, are 
 among the wisest provisions ever devised by hu- 
 man skill and ingenuity. That a nation shall 
 not be taxed without its consent, or a citizen 
 condemned to loss of life or limb except by the
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 125 
 
 judgment of his peers, and that every man shall 
 enjoy freedom of conscience in matters of reli- 
 gion, are among the former ; the election of rep- 
 resentatives, the trial by jury, the division and 
 independence of the three powers of govern- 
 ment, are among the latter. The latter are the 
 result of experience, and have been extensively 
 copied by us, in the mechanical distribution and 
 arrangement of political power in our system. 
 But do not mistake. What have been found by 
 monarchs the most apt instruments to govern 
 subjects, we have adopted as the most efficient 
 means for governing ourselves. These provis- 
 ions are irrespective of the animating principle 
 of a government. Whence are the former ? Are 
 they coeval with the origin of monarchy, and in 
 strict consistency with its spirit? Or are thev 
 innovations made by democracy upon monarchy, 
 the encroachment which the rights of the people, 
 strengthened by the physical power of the people, 
 have made upon the prerogatives of the sover- 
 eign ? The history of Magna Charta will tell. 
 Whatever there is of monarchy in foreign gov- 
 ernments is totally and radically wrong ; what- 
 ever there is of democracy is right, and must, 
 therefore, be good ; the dividing line is distinctly 
 marked and easily traced.
 
 126 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 But foreign writers, whom we have so servile- 
 ly followed in our political theories, anxious to 
 vindicate the systems under which they live, have 
 endeavoured to present them as one uniform and 
 consistent whole, without reference to the totally 
 repugnant nature of the materials of which they 
 are composed. The consequence is, that instead 
 of laying down the fundamental principles of 
 politics in all their just latitude, they subject them 
 to the arbitrary domination of circumstances, 
 thus violating their essential nature, and utterly 
 annihilating their authority. They attempt to 
 compound the republican principles w-hich are 
 exhibited in their governments, and which are 
 really the axioms of politics, with the pure mon- 
 archical character which prevails in those gov- 
 ernments — an attempt that is like endeavouring 
 to subject the conscience of man to the operation 
 of physical force. 
 
 What is in them a practical error, is in us a 
 foolish subserviency. We are under no necessity 
 of adopting their systems. So far from uphold- 
 ing democracy, they depreciate it, in the practi- 
 cal scale, below all other governments. By see- 
 ing in the origin and nature of monarchy its un- 
 fitness to be considered a model for any political 
 system, vfe are better prepared to renounce the 
 delusion under which "we have laboured. Unfor-
 
 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 127 
 
 tunately, our predilection for republican govern- 
 ment has been rather a matter of sentiment than 
 of principle; for while we repudiate with hor- 
 ror the idea of succumbing to a monarchy, we 
 have tamely adopted those political maxims and 
 methods of reasoning which sanction and main- 
 tain the monarchical form. We have adopted for- 
 eign politics along with foreign literature, when it 
 would have been just as rational in our school- 
 days to have imbibed the heathen mythology with 
 classical learning. We must be original and in- 
 dependent in our politics. To say that repub- 
 lican government is the best, while we admit 
 other forms to be legitimate, is occupying but 
 very debateable ground in favour of our own 
 institutions. To say that it is the best for us, on 
 account of some fancied superiority of intelli- 
 gence and morals, or extraordinary felicity of 
 position and circumstances, is taking still more 
 doubtful, and, certainly, far more invidious 
 ground. Establish the truth that republican gov- 
 ernment is the only form compatible with human 
 rights, and the question is fixed on an immutable 
 foundation, secure from the fallible and ever-va- 
 rying results of human calculations, and all the 
 capricious decrees of fortune. 
 
 Differing from the world as we do in our po- 
 litical oroanization, we must not search for iho
 
 128 MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 fundamental principles of politics among the 
 ruins of European despotism. We must exercis* 
 the same independence in thinking that our fore- 
 fathers exercised in acting. We must no more 
 search for precedents in principle than they sought 
 for precedents in practice. True, from Great 
 Britain our blood, our language, our literature, 
 our laws and religion, were originally derived ; 
 but " why should w^e," as Jefferson has said, 
 " be always looking backward instead of forward 
 for improvement ?" 
 
 The principles of our government are the prin- 
 ciples of common sense and common honesty. 
 While w^e enjoy the peaceful dominion of these 
 principles around our sacred .and unpolluted 
 hearths and altars, and view their reflected im- 
 age in the wealth, enterprise, high moral and 
 intellectual condition, and universal comfort of 
 our citizens at home, and the dignity and inde- 
 pendence of our nation abroad, why should we 
 suffer to pass unrebuked the opprobium of those 
 who cry out that " their abstract perfection is 
 their practical defect ;" and who eulogize meas- 
 ures which they style " practical, for no other 
 reason" (as one has happily expressed himself) 
 " than that they have had the misfortune to put 
 them in practice V
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEiMOCRACY. 129 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Common Objections to Democracy considered. — The Character 
 and Spirit of Monarchical Government still farther illus- 
 trated. 
 
 We think we have conclusively established 
 the position, that mankind universally have the 
 same right to manage their political as their pri- 
 vate interests, and that all have the same right 
 to manage the concerns of all that each has to 
 manage what exclusively concerns himself. Who 
 is to provide for my private and individual wel- 
 fare ? There is not a government of any civil- 
 ized nation but would say that I myself; and ac- 
 knowledge that any interference with the volun- 
 tary direction of what are exclusively my own 
 private affairs would be tyrannical. But is not 
 a nation as competent to manage its own affairs 
 as an individual, his ? And, by the same right, 
 is it not entitled to the direction of them ? Does 
 any part of a nation possess a power, a right, or 
 a degree of wisdom that does not reside in the 
 collective whole ? Have a part a right to rule the 
 whole, and not the whole to rule the whole ? 
 L
 
 130 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 Having established the right, who shall deny 
 that it is expedient ? who shall deny that it is 
 practicable ? Who shall say that what is just 
 is inexpedient or impracticable ? the just and 
 the right growing out of the essential relations of 
 things, who shall thus impeach the Author of 
 Nature, or say that His wisdom or His power 
 was unequal to His rectitude in determining our 
 condition, and establishing our relations as moral 
 beings ? 
 
 One of the most prominent objections to re- 
 publican government is, that it gives the same 
 power of controlling the state to men who are 
 qualified by their habits of thought and business 
 to judge well, and to those who are utterly and 
 brutishly ignorant, making no discrimination; 
 that it cannot be, in the very nature of the case, 
 that the poor labourer who toils in the streets of 
 our cities, and the jurist who presides in our 
 courts of justice, or the statesman who rules in 
 our Senate, are equally qualified to judge of po- 
 litical measures and political men, while our in- 
 stitutions, by giving all an equal vote, give these 
 different descriptions the same right and the same 
 power. 
 
 But, if the right of voting were dependant 
 upon intellectual qualifications, the distinctions 
 
 1
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 131 
 
 in this respect between men would be as innu- 
 merable as the individuals of the species. Not 
 only would the statesman and jurist be distin- 
 guished from the poor labourer, but neighbour 
 from neighbour ; the man of collegiate from the 
 man of common school education ; the man of 
 travel from the domestic man ; the man of wit, 
 though poor, from the blockhead, though rich. 
 One rule would be applicable to one individual, 
 another to another; nay, as man is never station- 
 ary at any period, there would be an infinite 
 number of gradations of power and influence 
 in the state, applicable to the same individual in 
 passing through life, according to the various 
 stages of his progress; and it would be impossi- 
 ble for the combined wisdom of mankind to de- 
 vise a scale by which the relative power of each 
 one in community should be graduated and de- 
 termined. 
 
 The poor labourer has an equal voice in the 
 state because he is a constituent part of it. It 
 is not a power conferred on him because he is 
 particularly well qualified to exert it, but it is a 
 right that inheres in him, that he has been en- 
 dowed with by God, who made him a moral 
 being. It is exactly like the equal right which 
 belongs to every roan of managing his own prop-
 
 132 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY 
 
 erty. The wise can manage property better 
 than the foohsh ; but those laws are still un- 
 impeachable which give to both the same right 
 to dispose of their own agreeably to their own 
 will. There is the same apparent absurdity in 
 those laws that suffer the rich fool to control his 
 millions, while the wise man, who is far better 
 qualified to dispose of them judiciously, starves 
 in a neighbouring garret, as in the political sys- 
 tem that allows an ignorant labourer the same 
 power to vote as the learned jurist or the accom- 
 plished statesman. 
 
 "Ah, but," it may be insinuated, "in the one 
 case a man disposes of his own as it seems meet 
 to him ; in the other, he arbitrarily disposes of 
 what belongs to another." By no means. When 
 the jurist or the statesman votes, does he do it 
 because he has rights over another, or because he 
 is himself a free citizen ? For the latter reason, 
 undoubtedly. He is merely exercising his own 
 freedom, not prescribing law to another. So with 
 the poor labourer. He votes because he is a 
 member of the state. He does it to protect him- 
 self; it is in the course of his own business and 
 interests. He does it because self-o^overnment is 
 his right. When a community act for themselves, 
 the result of their joint deliberations must be de-
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY 133 
 
 termined by a plurality of voices ; each mem- 
 ber of that community only acts for himself, and 
 disposes of his own, therefore, when he votes to 
 direct that public determination either in one 
 way or the other. 
 
 The " I'm-as-good-as-you principle," as it is 
 called, is greatly calumniated, without being cor- 
 rectly understood. When we say that all men are 
 by nature equal, we mean nothing more than that 
 all are by nature equal in their moral attributes 
 — equally moral and accountable beings — and, 
 therefore, equally entitled to the regulation of 
 their own conduct, as that is the basis of moral 
 accountability ; therefore, all by nature equally 
 entitled to exercise their own government, pri- 
 vately and publicly, socially and politically. This 
 is a principle which God and Nature have estab- 
 lished, and they who dispute it enter into con- 
 troversy wuth the essential foundation of morals. 
 
 Republicans do not contend for the annihila- 
 tion of social distinctions. Distinctions of rank 
 in society are legitimately allowed in matters of 
 taste and fashion. A republican may be as fas- 
 tidious as he pleases in the selection of his as- 
 sociates without violating his principles ; but 
 whoever would convert arbitrary distinctions 
 into political rights and franchises, whoever
 
 134 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 would give one man a higher consideration than 
 another, in the eye of the Constitution or the 
 laws, plots against the liberties of his fellow- 
 man. If I am a man of education, I shall throw 
 open my doors to a man of education ; if a man 
 of wealth, to him whose usual gratifications are 
 similar to mine ; if a man of polish and refine- 
 ment, to him whose habits and manners do not 
 disgust me. No party is injured by this distinc- 
 tion. If I am ignorant, I do not like to be mor- 
 tified by a comparison between my acquirements 
 and those of a learned man ; if I am not rich, 
 I feel most contented and happy with those with 
 whom I can enjoy a reciprocity of favours; if 
 unaccustomed to high rank, the fastidiousness of 
 mode and fashion is more disgusting to me tha._ 
 my rudeness is shocking to them. These social 
 preferences and affinities are a mere matter of 
 taste, convenience, or caprice ; and, however ar- 
 bitrarily they may be exercised, never can af- 
 fect one's rights or occasion an injustice. 
 
 That there are inequalities among men, fur- 
 nishing important grounds of distinction, the re- 
 publican does not deny ; but he does deny that 
 any man is different from another in his essential 
 moral attributes. He does not deny that one 
 man has a more exalted understanding, a more
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 135 
 
 vivid imagination, a more powerful judgment, 
 than another; but he holds that no man is des- 
 titute of reason and conscience ; that diversities 
 are, therefore, in degree, not in kind ; that they 
 cannot affect the essential relations of man to 
 man; that they cannot, therefore, make the 
 rights of one man greater than those of an- 
 other. 
 
 If one man has a more inventive genius, a 
 more comprehensive prudence, a more enlarged 
 experience, a more scrupulous integrity than an- 
 other, what is the natural, I may say, the inevi- 
 table consequence, from the possession of such 
 superior qualities ? He possesses superior power 
 and influence. How ? from the arbitrary force 
 of circumstances, or the coercive power of human 
 laws 1 No : it is from the voluntary homage of 
 the human mind and heart. Distinctions such as 
 those I have mentioned ai*e the only just distinc- 
 tions among men, and they vincHcate themselves. 
 They are the distinctions of nature and reason, 
 and they are established by nature and reason. 
 These distinctions, so far from being repudiated 
 by republicans, exhibit themselves in their utmost 
 latitude in republican countries, where there are 
 no arbitrary laws and usages to con-trol their oper- 
 ation and effect. It is true that Nature has estab-
 
 136 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. <^ 
 
 lished inequalities in the world of man as well 
 as in the world of brute and inanimate objects. 
 But Nature has not been so impotent as to require 
 human aid to execute her decrees. The distinc- 
 tions which she has designed she has not wanted 
 power to carry into effect ; nay, she never makes 
 known her plans but by the execution of them. 
 It is absurd, therefore, for man to come in with 
 his empirical devices of monarchy and aristocra- 
 cy, as if he had caught Nature in travail and un- 
 able, by her own means, to effect the same har- 
 mony of ranks and orders in society which she 
 has so successfully achieved in the vegetable and 
 animal creation. 
 
 Republicans are far from being levellers ; they 
 are for distinctions and inequalities; not for the 
 ranks and orders established by the arbitrary 
 decrees of man, or the accidental allotments of 
 birth and fortune, but for the distinctions and 
 inequalities of reason and nature in their most 
 unqualified extent. Not so with monarchists and 
 aristocrats. They are the worst levellers in the 
 world. They are worse than levellers \ for they 
 not only do all in their power to annihilate the 
 just grounds of distinction among men, but they 
 establish in their stead distinctions of the most 
 false and arbitrary character. They not merely 
 dethrone the only true lords, but they establish
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 137 
 
 stupid idols in their places. In America the 
 distinctions of society are constituted by the 
 various kinds and degrees of real merit alone ; 
 in Europe, no matter how legitimate the grounds 
 of distinction one may allege in his favour, he is 
 inevitably subordinated to the kings, princes, and 
 nobles of the empire — constituted how 7 by birth ! 
 The highest degree of rational and moral worth 
 is degraded beneath the most capricious accident 
 that presides over human destiny ! 
 
 Aristocrats omit, in their zeal for the inequali- 
 ties and diversities of rank and power, the most 
 essential part of the argument they profess to 
 urge, and an indispensable condition to its being 
 wielded in their favour. That Nature and rea- 
 son have established grounds for the utmost di- 
 versity among mankind is absolutely undeniable ; 
 all experience is in favour of it ; but that she 
 has constituted birth and family the indices of that 
 superior merit which entitles one by natural right 
 to great power and an extended influence, was 
 never, I believe, seriously argued. If it were to 
 be, we should not dispute the advocate's reasons, 
 but question his sanity. 
 
 A republic provides for the proper divisions 
 of rank and grade in society on the true grounds 
 of distinction, and for the exercise of their legiti-
 
 138 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 mate influence in its appropriate mode, and to a 
 just extent : that is, it leaves the matter entirely 
 to the regulation of itself. It leaves reason to 
 acquire its just force by the control which a su- 
 perior understanding inevitably gives over other 
 minds ; morals, to sway mankind by the influence 
 of an elevated character and example ; experi- 
 ence, to be honoured in the verification which its 
 lessons receive from practical results ; and all 
 the power which Nature has given one rational 
 and moral being over another, to be exercised by 
 rational and moral means. Leave men free, and 
 it is natural that, not being governed by force, 
 they should place themselves under the dominion 
 of reason. 
 
 If a poor and ignorant man wants a lawyer or 
 a doctor, or wishes to put his son at school, and 
 cannot of himself arrive at a satisfactory judg- 
 ment among the competitors for his choice, he 
 asks his wiser or more experienced friend, and 
 governs his conduct by the advice or the conduct 
 of others. The same lights that he avails him- 
 self of in the direction and government of his 
 private affairs, he employs to regulate his public 
 and political conduct. This natural result gives 
 to the wise their just influence, while it enables 
 the ignorant and uneducated to act judiciously, 
 and leaves thera in the unrestricted enjoyraentcf
 
 OBJECflONS TO DEMOCRACY. 13U 
 
 their rights. It is not more difficult, and, certain- 
 ly, to the immediate interests of the individual 
 concerned, not a more important task, to choose 
 a public representative than to choose a counsel- 
 lor to attend to one's legal interests, or a physician 
 to whom to commit one's health and life ; and 
 the same means of information and the same mea- 
 sure of intelligence accomplish every man to 
 make in either case an equally judicious choice. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, the people do not choose 
 the wisest governors, nor always the wisest meas- 
 ures. But this evil can never be very striking, 
 because it would then be apparent ; and, being 
 aj^arent, would be remedied by the people, who 
 can only have their own true and substantial in- 
 terest at heart. Besides, if they choose poorly, 
 no one has a right to complain ; their power to 
 choose emanates from God, and they are respon- 
 sible only to Him. 
 
 A mistake, however, is often made on this 
 head. The greatest statesmen and men of the 
 most shining abilities are not always, perhaps I 
 may say, are not usually, chosen ; but this feature 
 in the practical operation of our institutions is a 
 subject of congratulation rather than chagrin to 
 the real friends of republican government. For, 
 in the iirst place, the greatest geniuses and states- 
 men dc not always make the most judicious gov-
 
 140 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 ernors : as they do not always make the best fa- 
 thers of families, so they do not always make the 
 most provident heads of nations. A sound judg- 
 ment, which is not invariably an accompaniment 
 of the most shining and brilliant qualities, is one 
 of the most essential qualifications for the exercise 
 of power ; while a bright genius always expands 
 in particular directions, and is not apt to take a 
 general and comprehensive survey of all the dif- 
 ferent views and interests that ought to be taken 
 into account. 
 
 I think I can discover the reason why the mod- 
 erately great, rather than the very great, are apt 
 to be selected for office, and, at the same time, see 
 in it a provision for the safety of republican insti- 
 tutions. If a man is elected to office in this coun- 
 try, it must be by the supremacy of party. But 
 one whose genius prompts him to rely upon 
 and act for himself, will be very apt to yield re- 
 luctantly that subordination to party which is 
 requisite with us to give effect to any political 
 organization. It is not very likely, therefore, 
 that such a man will be chosen as the leader of 
 a party. For this same reason, however, the man 
 who is fixed upon will command the more hearty 
 reliance of the community ; as he must be more 
 dependant upon the people, and have less confi- 
 dence in himself independently of his siiin^orters.
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 141 
 
 He will, therefore, be more prone to consult his 
 interest by devoting himself to the public good, 
 than in pursuing plans of individual ambition. 
 The very great, if they have more power to do 
 good, have greater power, as well as greater 
 inducements, to do harm; and, if the book of 
 experience be consulted, it will be found that 
 nations have ever suffered more from a want of 
 integrity than a want of ability in their rulers. 
 
 The liberty that republics accord to all men 
 of every rank of governing themselves, elevates 
 their characters, and qualifies them for self-gov- 
 ernment. The elevation which this freedom con- 
 fers on people of the lowest station, stimulates to 
 a degree of self-improvement, and attention to the 
 improvement of their families, which does not 
 cease to surprise even those who daily witness its 
 results, in the case of foreigners coming to our 
 land without consideration or character, but rank- 
 ing in the second generation with the wealthiest 
 and most influential of the nation. Deprive a 
 man of influence, let him become of no account, 
 and consequently pass unobserved in society, and 
 he loses one of the highest inducements to ac- 
 quire character, or to preserve his integrity ; but 
 add to his weight and respectability, let him feel 
 that he and his children are integral parts of the 
 nation in the midst of which they live, parties to
 
 142 ©BJECTIONS 10 DEMOCRACY. 
 
 its laws, and equal partakers of its rights and 
 privileges, and you increase, as much as human 
 means can, the force of his moral motives and 
 the energy of his active powers. 
 
 Many weighty objections are urged against 
 republics because they do not provide for a rep- 
 resentation of property, and there are not a few 
 among us, even, who contend that the exclusive 
 privilege of directing the state ought to be se- 
 cured to those, at least, who have some property ; 
 partly because it has a natural tendency to ensure 
 a greater amount of intelligence in the direction 
 of public affairs (and so far the argument has 
 already been anticipated), partly because, as it is 
 asserted, the man of property has a greater in- 
 terest at stake than the poor man. We will en- 
 deavour to reply briefly to the latter argument. 
 
 From the right of self-government follows the 
 right of representation. Of course it belongs to 
 all of whose moral constitution the right of self- 
 government can be predicated. It does not be- 
 long to property. It belongs to what are, prop- 
 erly speaking, the constituents of the state. The 
 state is made up of an association of individuals 
 on certain common principles on which all are 
 agreed ; and all the parties to the association have 
 a right to participate in its common concerns; 
 property, however, is not one of the parties.
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 143 
 
 The object of government is to provide for and 
 secure the rights of men. But all men are equal 
 in their rights ; therefore all have an equal in- 
 terest in the common stake. Laws do not oper- 
 ate upon property directly, but indirectly, in set- ' 
 tling and fixing the right of property, and the 
 principles upon which it shall be acquired and 
 transferred, without reference to the amount; in 
 making the laws, therefore, all ought to have an 
 equal voice independently of the extent of their 
 wealth. My right of property is not less impor- 
 tant to me, though worth but a hundred dollars, 
 than yours to you, though worth a hundred thou- 
 sand ; the same law which protects your prop- 
 erty protects mine, and the same law which 
 breaks down the barriers of your property leaves 
 mine also unprotected and defenceless. And, 
 though I have nothing, yet I depend on the same 
 law for the benefit I expect from my future earn- 
 ings, for prompt returns from my daily labour, and 
 a shield from the wretchedness of immediate des- 
 titution, as does the millionaire to enforce the 
 payment of his rents and mortgages. The statute- 
 book is a code of general rules, and the consid- 
 eration of rich and poor, of great and little 
 amoimts of property, cannot arise in the business 
 of law-making, to which, therefore, the poor ar«
 
 144 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 equally competent as the ricli, having not only no 
 antagonist, but not even any separate, interest. 
 
 Which do we esteem most clearly, our rights 
 of person or our right of property ? Does any 
 man hesitate whether to prefer the inviolability 
 of his property or the sacredness of his domestic 
 relations, and the inviolability and security of his 
 person 1 Does one doubt for a moment whether 
 he would rather have his wife and children in- 
 sulted and outraged, his character traduced, him- 
 self and all who are most dear to him loaded 
 with every kind of contumely and abuse, without 
 redress, and hold the lives and personal safety 
 of himself and his family at the mercy of every 
 villain in the community, or be stripped of every 
 cent in the world ? But at least the personal 
 rights of the poor are the same as those of the 
 rich. The poor man's life, his domestic com- 
 forts, his wife and children, are as dear to him 
 as those of the richest man in the world are to 
 him ; and it must be allowed that there is no man 
 in the world so rich but that he esteems himself 
 above his property : therefore the poor man, 
 however poor, has a stake in society and the 
 laws greater than is represented by the millions 
 of the richest man in corara\mity, however rich. 
 If great public works are to be constructed,
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 145 
 
 whose labour is to build them 1 If battles are 
 to be fought, who is to fight them ? — every hu- 
 man being counts one in the muster-roll of armies. 
 The poor man has, in his hands, the only com- 
 modity which has original value, the first price 
 of all other commodities — human labour. He 
 can dispense with the capital of the rich, but 
 the rich cannot dispense with his labour. It is 
 not true, therefore, of any man, that he has no 
 stake in society. 
 
 All should have an equal voice in the public 
 deliberations of the state, however unequal in 
 point of circumstances, since human rights, by 
 virtue of which alone we are entitled to vote 
 at all, are the attributes of the man, not of his 
 circumstances. Should the right to vote, the 
 characteristic and the highest prerogative of a 
 freeman, be at the mercy of a casualty ? I am 
 rich to-day, worth my hundred thousands ; but 
 my wealth consists in stock and merchandise; 
 it may be in storehouses, it may be upon the 
 ocean ; I have been unable to effect an insurance, 
 or there is some concealed legal defect in my 
 policy; the fire or the storms devour my wealth 
 in an hour : am I the less competent to vote ? 
 Have I less of the capacity of a moral and in- 
 telligent being 1 Am I the less a good oiti- 
 M
 
 146 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 zen 1 Is it not enough that I have been depri- 
 ved of my fortune — must I be disfranchised by 
 community 1 
 
 My having a greater or less amount of prop- 
 erty does not alter my rights. Property is mere- 
 ly the subject on which rights are exercised ; its 
 amount does not alter rights themselves. If it 
 were otherwise, every one of us would be in some 
 degree subject to some wealthier neighbour, and, 
 if the representation of property were consist- 
 ently carried out, the affairs of every commu- 
 nity, instead of being governed by the majority 
 of rational and intelligent beings, would be gov- 
 erned by a preponderance of houses, lands, stocks, 
 plate, jewellery, merchandise, and money ! It is 
 not true that one man has more at stake in the 
 commonw^ealth than another. We all have our 
 rights, and no man has anything more. If we 
 look at the subject philosophically, and consider 
 how much superior man is by nature to what he 
 is by external condition, how much superior his 
 real attributes are to w-hat he acquires from the 
 accidents of fortune, we shall then view the dis- 
 tinctions of rank and wealth in their true com- 
 parative insignificance, and make as little dif- 
 ference on these accounts w'lih the political as 
 with the moral man. 
 
 From what has already been observed, it will
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 147 
 
 be seen that we do not maintain republics on the 
 ground that " the majority are always right ;" 
 and, therefore, the many arguments which have 
 been urged against the absurdity of such a prop- 
 osition do not assail the truth and propriety of 
 republican principles. The real foundation of 
 republican government is the truth of the propo- 
 sition, that men have a right to judge for them- 
 selves ; that whether they judge right or wrong, 
 therefore, if they do not infringe the equal right 
 of another to judge for himself, they are amenable 
 to no human tribunal. We maintain that there 
 is no common superior among men who are not 
 connected by any human convention ; that those 
 who make up a community have the same right 
 to act for themselves in their common and public 
 concerns, that as individuals they have in their 
 private and individual affairs ; and, consequently, 
 that the right of nations to self-government no 
 more depends upon the assumption that they al- 
 ways act right, than that of an individual, in his 
 private capacity. The proposition is, simply, that 
 they have in all cases the right to act ; and, as 
 the only way in which communities can act to- 
 gether is, when they act in particular cases and in 
 aggregate masses, to abide by the decision of 
 majorities, that, therefore, the majority have in 
 such cases a right to decide.
 
 148 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCIIACY 
 
 Indeed, now at length it would seem that the 
 objections to republican governraent have been 
 rather captious than real. 
 
 In the earliest part of our history, its enemies 
 were foreboding that it would be able to main- 
 tain no more than a transient existence ; but, now 
 that subsequent events have shown the perma- 
 nency of our institutions, they have turned from 
 impeaching our principles to ridiculing our hab- 
 its and depreciating our people. 
 
 Happily, we are impregnable by this new 
 method of attack so long as we are truly repub- 
 lican in our tastes, feelings, and habits ; and when 
 we are guilty of the foolish vanity of emulating 
 European extravagance, or aping foreign and in- 
 appropriate usages, we richly deserve the rebukes 
 we are quite sure to receive. We ought to know 
 wherein our strength lies, and rest in that as our 
 stronghold : it is not in the condition of the few, 
 but in the universal contentment and happiness 
 of the mass. We are truly flattered that our 
 circumstances are such as to suggest a compari- 
 son, as to the luxuries and embellishments of 
 life, between the two worlds, and that the coun- 
 try of one century falls no farther behind that 
 of ten centuries. But, if the foreign traveller 
 washes to know what we really are, he must not
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 149 
 
 confine his excursions to the fashionable saloons 
 of our cities, where he will only learn what we 
 are not ; nor seek for fine castles, fine cabinets, 
 fine parks and gardens, fine equipages, and laws 
 of etiquette. He must traverse the interior, look 
 at our farms, enter our farmhouses and our shops, 
 converse with our farmers and labourers, exam- 
 ine our schools and our churches, and ascertain 
 the circumstances and condition of our common 
 people. Let him inquire as to the number of 
 paupers and criminals ; contrast the relative 
 safety of our woody wilds with the open and 
 inhabited country of the Old World ; observe 
 the relative intelligence and virtue of the mass- 
 es by which both countries are occupied. Let 
 him ascertain how commonly the ordinary and 
 necessary comforts of life are shared by all; 
 what provision industry and economy, without 
 fortune, can make for the present, and what 
 hopes reasonably cherish of the future ; and, if 
 circumstances throw him much into the com- 
 pany of the wealthiest, the most intelligent, or 
 the most powerful in the land, let him inquire 
 the history of their early fortune, and learn from 
 what origin they sprang, and by what means 
 they have risen. 
 
 We, too, in our turn, have been too observant
 
 150 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 of those externals that strike at first glance. 
 Dazzled by the adventitious splendour which 
 surrounds foreign governments, our view is di- 
 verted from an inspection of their intrinsic at- 
 tributes. We are apt to confound the govern- 
 ment with the nation, and to give to the govern- 
 ment the credit of what the nation has achieved 
 in spite of its government. When the subject 
 of monarchy is considered, the imagination im- 
 mediately crowds upon the mind an assemblage 
 of chiefs of the greatest and most enlightened 
 nations, in the ancient, peaceful, and undisputed 
 exercise of sovereignty, commanding the greater 
 part of the wealth, intelligence, and power of the 
 world. But the moral judgment abstracts from 
 all these external circumstances, and considers 
 government, as it weighs an individual, apart 
 from accidental position, and in relation simply 
 to the question of the just or the unjust, the good 
 or the bad. And who can endure the absurdity 
 of monarchical government in all its naked ab- 
 straction ? A sovereign, selected, not by choice, 
 but by fortune ; not from among those possessing 
 competent qualifications, but taken indiscrimi- 
 nately from the embryo in the w'omb, the child 
 at the breast, the boy in his bib, the youth in his 
 teens, or the old ifian or woman in their dotage 
 or insanity, as the capricious chances of birth and
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 151 
 
 death in the royal family happen to determine. 
 These chances have now* made a female and a 
 minor sovereign over one hundred and fifty mill- 
 ions of people, comprising one of the most en- 
 lightened portions of the human family. The 
 ablest statesmen of the age, the most profound 
 scholars and jurists, and the most renowned gen- 
 erals, yield to a supremacy as ridiculous, if not 
 as idolatrous and profane, as the worship of the 
 Egyptian Apis or the Grand Lama. The su- 
 preme execution of the laws is vested in a girl, to 
 whom, were she in private life, those laws would 
 not intrust the disposition of her own pin-money. 
 One to whom, perhaps, in a different position, a 
 discreet father might not have allowed the direc- 
 tion of her own wardrobe, governs a Icingdora ; 
 arbitrarily disposes, without question and without 
 appeal, of every civil and military post in the 
 greatest of modern empires ; and, by holding in 
 her hand the powers of peace and war, need only 
 utter a capricious decree to embroil a world ! 
 
 And how is it with the hereditary nobles and 
 legislators ? an order of men, in the caustic lan- 
 guage of Burke, " swaddled, and rocked, and 
 dandled into legislators." Are they a race dis- 
 ciplined to business, or a race nurtured to pleas- 
 * A.D. 1839:
 
 152 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 we 1 a race of statesmen, or merely a race of gen- 
 tlemen? The order would sink into universal 
 contempt were it not receiving continual recruits 
 from the plebeian stock. And as it is, when we 
 would think a literary body no better than a con- 
 gregation of lunatics were it to make a profes- 
 sorship hereditary, or an individual a fool if he 
 should acknowledge the office of his meanest ar- 
 tificer to be transmissible by descent, how absurd 
 to acknowledge an hereditary right to the most 
 elevated and responsible authority that man can 
 possibly exercise over his fellow-man. 
 
 What is the consequence 7 The laws are ex- 
 pressly made to countenance and build up this ab- 
 surdity ; and, though equality is the very essence 
 of justice, this first principle is studiously violated 
 in the distiibution of property. Those children 
 who have an equal claim to a competent provis- 
 ion are, from pride of caste and family ambition, 
 though nature has made them equal, arbitrari- 
 ly allotted to different ranks, the very worst pas- 
 sions being thereby generated in the midst of the 
 most tender and intimate relations. A soil hard- 
 ly ample enough to sustain its population on the 
 most just and equal division, is studiously accumii- 
 lated and presci-ved, by the acknowledged policy 
 of the laws, in the fewest possible hands. But,
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 163 
 
 the more there is thus absorbed by the few, the 
 less is left to be distributed among the mass ; and 
 where you find fortunes inordinately great on the 
 one hand, you will find a proportionate amount of 
 poverty and destitution on the other. Providence 
 has given this earth and the blessings it contains 
 for all those who live on it. If a greater portion 
 is to be enjoyed by one than another, it is by him 
 who is most richly endowed with those qualities 
 that deserve it. While the justice of the laws 
 will not suffer any arbitrary alteration of the land- 
 marks of property, their policy ought not to place 
 restrictions upon desert in obtaining it. 
 
 The nobility " the Corinthian capital of soci- 
 ety ?" They do far more to debase it by their 
 vices than to adorn it by their accomplishments. 
 Labour, which was to primitive man a curse, is to 
 fallen man his chief blessing. Active life de- 
 velops all the elevated energies which our nature 
 is capable of exerting, while it is the parent of 
 every virtue. An hereditary aristocracy, with 
 whom the necessity of labour is superseded, soon 
 come to regard all industrial occupations as dis- 
 honourable. Anything but amusement and j)leas- 
 ure appear unbefitting their rank; and when 
 amusement and pleasure, instead of being a re- 
 laxation from toil and business, become thein-
 
 154 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACV 
 
 selves the business of life, they immediately 
 degenerate into vices. Aristocracy is not mere- 
 ly itself corrupted ; it becomes a powerful agent 
 of corruption in its turn. Furnishing an ex- 
 araj)le to other classes, it induces all sorts of 
 extravagance, and makes vice itself fashiona- 
 ble ; while, from its elevated position and com- 
 manding influences, it has means of seduction 
 happily unknown where there is no definite and 
 permanent division of ranks. From this inequal- 
 ity of ranks springs the distress everywhere inci- 
 dent to monarchical and aristocratic govern- 
 ments: hence one quarter of the annual income 
 devoted to taxes ; hence one quarter of the pop- 
 ulation devoted to beggary. 
 
 Luxury ought always to be the subsidiary or 
 the reward of labour ; so far as it is not, it is the 
 curse of society. When it comes to solace a man 
 in the progress of his labours, or to greet him v/ith 
 repose and comfort at the close of them, it finds 
 no enemy in the political economist. But when 
 a whole class, from generation to generation, and 
 from century to century, transmit excessive for- 
 tunes,, acquired without labour and preserved 
 without merit, it is a sign of disease in the body 
 politic, which will inevitably display itself in the 
 debased condition of the lov^er classes. Such a 
 state of society does not result from the natural
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 155 
 
 operation of things, but from vicious laws. In 
 such a restricted territory as that of Great Brit- 
 ain, to industriously convert large portions of the 
 earth, designed for the subsistence of mankind, 
 into its original wilderness state, to afford an op- 
 portunity for noblemen to indulge in the sport 
 of the chase, while thousands around them are 
 starving for the want of what is consumed by the 
 game, is a perversion of the gifts of nature and 
 the bounties of fortune which shocks the moral 
 sense. 
 
 Yet republicanism is not of an agrarian char- 
 acter or spirit. Its immediate object is an equal 
 division of rights, not of property. Institutions 
 which lay their only sure foundation in the law 
 of justice, which claim to exist only by virtue of 
 that law, cannot aim at spoliation. They estab- 
 lish the firmest legal guarantee of private rights, 
 as they repose the guardianship of the sacred trust 
 in those whose interest as well as whose duty it is 
 to defend it. But republicanism does aim a death- 
 blow at all those laws and usages the object of 
 which is to perpetuate property in certain hands, 
 or to give it a particular and exclusive direction 
 as a means of political power. It has no fellow- 
 ship with the law of entails or the law of primo- 
 geniture. While it meddles with no vested rights 
 its tendency is to break down all those impolitic
 
 156 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 regulations which serve to make property a polit- 
 ical element. The landmarks of private prop- 
 erty are as sacred and immovable in a republic 
 as in a monarchy. It is political institutions and 
 matters of public policy only that are thrown en- 
 tirely into the hands of the people; and, under 
 that control, while those laws only are enacted 
 which respect future acquisitions and not any 
 present, vested right, property is made easily 
 transmissible from hand to hand, and liable to 
 a party's legal obligations ; those perpetuities are 
 prevented which serve only to pamper the pride 
 of wealth and family, without answering any 
 purpose which the law ought to encourage, and 
 the natural operation of things achieves the rest, 
 distributing wealth among the industrious and 
 deserving. 
 
 Republicanism is the uncompromising enemy 
 of a political aristocracy in all its forms, whether 
 of property or of birth. It will not allow that an 
 inanimate possession or a mere casualty should 
 prescribe to beings of a rational and moral nature. 
 
 It shows the same stern hostility to a hierar- 
 chy that Christianity itself, when an unpreju- 
 diced ear is lent to its precepts, is most clearly 
 understood to announce. A union of church and 
 state, from the advent of our Saviour, beginning
 
 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 157 
 
 with the then existing Jewish hierarchy, down to 
 the present time, has been the nurse of bigotry 
 and superstition, and the parent of all the religious 
 persecution which has disgraced the annals of our 
 species. The fruitful source of tyranny on the 
 one hand, and of hypocrisy and corruption on the 
 other, under its baneful influence the Church has 
 been made a stepping-stone of political power 
 and ambition, the profession of its tenets a mere 
 worldly fashion, and Christianity itself, from be- 
 ing the great and paramount object of an immor- 
 tal existence, has been degraded to a subordinate 
 means of terrestrial and temporary distinction. 
 
 These, then, are the ends which republicanism 
 proposes to itself: no exterminating war but 
 that of reason against force ; no destruction but 
 of tyranny ; no division but of rights ; no su- 
 premacy but that of principle. 
 
 The prevailing tendency of our institutions is 
 to place the common enjoyments of life within 
 the reach of all ; to make popular books, cheap 
 newspapers, education accessible and attainable ; 
 to spur forward mechanics to that perfection 
 which will bring manufactures within the means 
 of all, resting for their success upon the number 
 rather than the quality of their patrons ; leaving 
 unobstructed to enterprise and merit every station
 
 158 OBJECTIONS TO DEMOCRACY. 
 
 in society ; tending to " the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number. " 
 
 The reverse tendency is manifest in the opera- 
 tion of monarchical and aristocratical govern- 
 ments. The few, acting on the assumption that 
 they are Heaven's favourites, aim to raonopohze 
 its bounties, while they in fact engage in a con- 
 troversy with Heaven, and the benefits and bless- 
 ings which Providence makes abundant, their 
 constant effort is to make rare.
 
 PERMANENCY OF DEMOCRACY lb\f 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Permanency of Democratic Government, and the eventual 
 Prevalence of Democratic Principles. 
 
 "If we examine what has happened in France 
 at intervals of fifty years, beginning with the 
 eleventh century, we shall invariably perceive 
 that a twofold revolution has taken place in the 
 state of society. The noble has gone down on 
 the social ladder, and the roturier has gone up , 
 the one descends as the other rises. Every half 
 century brings them nearer to each other, and 
 they will very shortly meet. 
 
 " Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to 
 France. Whithersoever we turn our eyes, wc 
 shall witness the same continual revolution 
 throughout the whole of Christendom. 
 
 "The various occurrences of national exist- 
 ence have everywhere turned to the advant^;^*^ 
 of democracy ; all men have aided it by thcit 
 exertions ; those who have intentionally labour- 
 ed in its cause, and those who have server! ]*■ 
 unwittingly ; those who have fought for it, and 
 those who have declared themselves its oppc-
 
 160 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 nents, have all been driven along in the same 
 track, have all laboured to one end, some igno- 
 rantly and some Unwillingly ; all have been blind 
 instruments in the hands of God. 
 
 " The gradual development of the equality of 
 conditions is therefore a providential fact, and it 
 possesses all the characteristics of a Divine de- 
 cree : it is universal, it is durable, it constantly 
 eludes all human interference ; and all events, as 
 well as all men, contribute to its progress."* 
 
 Thus says De Tocqueville. And this furnishes 
 of itself a strong presumptive argument in fa- 
 vour of the justice and propriety of democrat- 
 ic government. Does God will universal an- 
 archy or universal injustice? the supremacy of 
 the mob, the annihilation of property, or the 
 dissolution of the bands of law and order ? Re- 
 publican government, then, partakes of none of 
 these qualities. Will not the Divine Providence 
 respect institutions founded in justice, and matu- 
 red by wisdom and experience ? Such, then, 
 cannot be the basis, nor such the maturity of 
 monarchical and aristocratical governments. 
 
 The transitoriness of republics has long been 
 a favourite theme «f declamation with the ene- 
 
 * Democracy in America, by De Tocqueville, part i., Intro 
 duction.
 
 IREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACV. 101 
 
 mies of human liberty, while, on the other hand, 
 the constant spread and eventual prevalence of 
 democratic principles ever will be subjects of 
 grateful contemplation to its friends. The ad- 
 mirable discussion of De Tocqueville is based 
 upon the constant and uniform tendency of events, 
 as shown by the light of history. The subject 
 seems to admit equally well of a priori reason- 
 ing, and the conclusion to which he arrives to be 
 capable of a philosophical demonstration, inde- 
 pendently of historical facts. 
 
 We have seen that mankind are universally 
 entitled to the exercise of self-government, as a 
 matter of right, by the law of justice, and that 
 every other form of government is no better than 
 an usurpation. Establish but one uniform law 
 of justice for all mankind, and a republic is the 
 necessary consequence. A republic is not so cor- 
 rectly a form of government as it is the suprem- 
 acy of principle. It is that state in which man- 
 kind enjoy liberty. It is an exemption from all 
 unlawful restraints. Forms of government have 
 been, for the most part, only so many various 
 modes of tyranny. Where the people are every- 
 thing, and political forms, establishments, insti- 
 tutions, as opposed to the people, nothing, there, 
 and there only, is liberty ; such a state, and such 
 N
 
 j;62 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 a state only, constitutes republican government, 
 the fundamental principle of which is not a hu- 
 man invention, buf results from the leaving un- 
 trammelled by human devices the just and natu- 
 ral relations of man to man. Let man be just to 
 his fellow-man, and relinquish all usurpation, and 
 we shall all be as exactly equal in the eye of 
 politics as we are in that of morals. 
 
 The question, then, as respects the progress 
 and eventual supremacy of republican principles, 
 is no more nor less than this : will justice be 
 maintained in the public relations of man to man, 
 and its empire be enlarged, or wull society be 
 surrendered up to the dominion of force ? will 
 men, like brutes, be governed, or, like raional 
 and moral creatures, govern themselves 1 The 
 whole tendency of man's moral nature must de 
 termine him towards self-government, and every 
 step which society takes in moral improvement 
 must bring it nearer to a republican form and 
 spirit. If there be a tendency in the species to- 
 wards progressive improvement, if there be a 
 dispensation over us which points to the eventual 
 realization, in the affairs of men, of those princi- 
 ples of rectitude existing in the Divine Mind, we 
 must be continually approximating to this con- 
 ■iummation of political ji^tice. The cause of the
 
 PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 163 
 
 republican is intimately allied with the highest 
 terrestrial hopes and the best interests of man- 
 kind, and we cannot cherish the prospect of the 
 universal political emancipation of our race with- 
 out elevating", nor relinquish it W'ithout depress- 
 ing, ourselves in the scale of existence. 
 
 We must keep continually in view, in the dis- 
 cussion of this subject, a distinction to which we 
 have repeatedly adverted, between the funda- 
 mental principles of government and its mechan- 
 ical structure and practical operations. The 
 essence of republican government, its peculiar 
 and distinguishing principle, is the supremacy of 
 the popular will. It is this that constitutes a re- 
 public; it is this that makes it an emanation 
 from the eternal and immutable law of justice. 
 That a people have the moral right of self-gov- 
 ernment is equally true of every people in every 
 age and country. This fundamental principle, 
 as permanent, as universal, as the race itself, pre- 
 vents republican government from ever becoming 
 obsolete when once instituted. Its moral nature 
 and relations, like those of man, never change. 
 But in its practical character it is, like man, the 
 mere creature of circumstances. That men should 
 govern themselves is its fixed and unalterable 
 principle, predicated upon the moral character
 
 164 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 of man ; but what particular frame they should 
 adopt in the exercise of self-government, what 
 particular measures of public policy, when the 
 government is once organized, are questions 
 which it leaves to be determined entirely by lo- 
 cal position, by previous habits, by the age, and 
 the thousand other capricious circumstances that 
 make up the diversities of human condition. The 
 people of a republic never can, therefore, be at 
 variance with their government. In its essential 
 principles it is a transcript from their nature ; in 
 its practical character it is the mere creature of 
 their will. A thousand years hence, if we should 
 so long endure as a nation, a republic will be as 
 proper for us as now. Hence it possesses a prin- 
 ciple of permanency which monarchical govern- 
 ment can never acquire. 
 
 Monarchy is ordinarily the product of a dis- 
 tant age, and its authority is generally absolute 
 in proportion as its origin is remote. In every 
 other provision for our wants, in all affairs in 
 which mankind are left free to provide for their 
 own wants in their own way, the dictates of 
 wisdom and our habits of life prompt us to adopt 
 the latest inventions and improvements ; we 
 adopt nothing simply because it is old, nor reject 
 anythinp: simply because it is new ; but, while 
 our preju lifTs ntt.irh us to the (•]{], our rcasr^n
 
 PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 165 
 
 points US to the new, and we subject everything 
 to the test of utility. In the all'air of govern- 
 ment alone, civilized and enlightened men are 
 found weak enough to bind themselves implicitly 
 lo the past, and renounce the benefits of experi- 
 ence and improvement. But how absurd the 
 s}stem that points to a race which lived ten cen- 
 turies ago, as endowed with such supernatural 
 farsightedness as to be able to prescribe for the 
 present generation better than the present gener- 
 ation, with all the experience, and all the accu- 
 mulated wisdom and improvements of every other 
 added to its own, can prescribe for itself. Ori- 
 ginating, as monarchical government generally 
 does, in a veiy remote age, but exercising its 
 functions to provide for the wants and necessities 
 of the present ; ambitious and encroaching in the 
 character of its chief functionary, but inflexible 
 in its constitution to the spirit of improvement j 
 basing itself upon prescription, and governing 
 itself by precedent, it must, in its very nature, 
 be continually at variance with its subjects. It 
 is the past in conflict with the present. It is 
 necessarily at war with every proposed meliora- 
 tion. The people cannot feel a new want with- 
 0}ii its being necessary to assail the constitution 
 in order to obtain it. The governing power must 
 fitick to old landmarks, or it would be entirely
 
 166 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 overwhelmed by innovations. Actuated by a de- 
 sire to maintain its sovereignty on the one hand, 
 and the people actuated only by a sense of in- 
 jury and by necessity on the other, two separ- 
 ate and independent parties are created, hav- 
 ing distinct interests and antagonist forces. The 
 seeds of strife are sown in the very elements of 
 such governments. The longer they endure, the 
 more oppressive become the prerogatives of sov- 
 ereignty, the more numerous, extensive, and irre- 
 sistible the wants of the people. Time inflicts 
 its changes indiscriminately on both parties, and 
 places them more and more widely at variance 
 with each other, until at length the government, 
 which, unless forcibly reformed by the people, 
 only becomes continually more absurd, at the 
 same time that it grows proportionally more vio- 
 lent and tyranical, must finally yield to the 
 growing intelligence, and greater strength and 
 numbers of the people. So much have force and 
 fear to do with the nature of monarchical govern- 
 ment, that every improvement it receives is look- 
 ed upon as a concession; it is not considered 
 whether all has been allowed that the interests 
 of the people demand, but whether all has been 
 conceded that cannot safely be withheld. And, 
 be it observed, every improvement which is thus 
 conceded to the increasing intelligence and liberal
 
 PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 167 
 
 s})irit of the age only assimilates monarchy more 
 nearly to republican government. Thus jealousy 
 of feeling, opposition of interests and of motive, 
 which are only aggravated by time, inhere in the 
 very constitution of monarchical government and 
 predestinate it to destruction, while republican 
 government has for its basis the eternal and im- 
 mutable principles of justice, which preserve the 
 people in an unvarying relation to their political 
 institutions, and admit without disturbance every 
 human improvement. 
 
 Republicanism is the common cause of the 
 species. Republican government is everywhere 
 essentially the same, for it is everywhere the 
 government of man by himself. The division 
 into nations is, therefore, in its view, a question 
 of expediency and convenience merely. The 
 glory of a monarch is his power ; of a republic, 
 its liberties. A monarch aspires to conquest as 
 the means of gratifying his pride and ambition, 
 augmenting his revenue, increasing the number 
 of his subjects, multiplying his means and re- 
 sources for other conquests, and throwing into 
 his hands numerous posts of honour and profit 
 for the gratification of his dependants. But a 
 republic can conquer only to impart its liber- 
 . ties. Under such a supremacy it ceases to
 
 168 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 be an object of ambition for man to subdue and 
 enslave his fellow-man. All mankind are taught 
 by the principles of republicanism to regard each 
 other as of one common family, and national dis- 
 tinctions sink into the most perfect insignificance. 
 In republican principles being thus the com- 
 mon cause of all mankind, the same in every 
 age and nation, we see the real source of that 
 sympathy which binds us so strongly to the pa- 
 triots of Greece, of Rome, and of Poland, and to 
 the brave assertors of liberty in every clime and 
 of every period. The principle of liberty is a 
 fraternizing principle. Republics are bad neigh- 
 bours for other governments. It is, always has 
 been, and always must be so. No state expedi- 
 ents, no vigilance of government can prevent it. 
 The cause of the oppressed of every country is 
 identical. People will make common cause with 
 people. And how contemptible must appear the 
 tyrants and oppressors of the species, how des- 
 picable their strength, how mean their devices, 
 how glaring their usurpation, when arrayed 
 against the innumerable and united hosts they 
 have plundered of liberty, and reduced to the 
 condition of subjects. It is appalling to think 
 of the almost universal combination of interests 
 which really subsists against monarchy, reposing 
 in inactivity only from want of intelligence and
 
 PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 169 
 
 of concert. The physical strength of society, and 
 all its real interests, combine with the justice of 
 republican government to precipitate society into 
 that form. Monarchy subsists only by sufferance. 
 
 The cause of monarchy is, to a great extent, 
 of a personal nature, and undergoes simultane- 
 ous changes with every fluctuation in the fortune 
 of the individual or family with whom it is as- 
 sociated, and is subjected to all the vicissitades 
 of human experience. Not so with republican 
 government. It is of an abstract nature, to which 
 nothing can be added, from which nothing can 
 be subtracted. The hopes and wishes of man- 
 kind are constantly directed towards it as a 
 fixed point. Whatever deviations political tem- 
 pests may force them to undergo, their ultimate 
 course must and will be rectified by this polar 
 star. 
 
 Combinations are much more easily effected 
 to subvert monarchy than to support it, to ad- 
 vance liberal principles than to uphold usurpa- 
 tion. Every other political cause but that of 
 democracy is the cause of ■power ; it addresses 
 itself to the interest of its associates. It can 
 command as many as it can bribe with the expec- 
 tation of rewards; it can retain them while it can 
 h()1d out a prospect of success. It fmils its read-
 
 1/0 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 iest converts in those who are most corrupt- 
 Not so with combinations in favour of democ- 
 racy. It is the cause of principle, of justice. It 
 is easily made known. Its confederates do not 
 address themselves to personal and individual in- 
 terests, but to the conscience. If they wish to 
 make a proselyte, they have not to exhibit a mus- 
 ter-roll of their strength and numbers, or make- 
 an imposing display of the multitude and extent 
 of their resources. They convert by addressing 
 themselves to the enlightened dictates of the un- 
 derstanding, and the warm and upright impulses 
 of the heart. The merit of the cause does not 
 depend upon its success. Every good man is its 
 natural ally. Its supporters are the best, not the 
 worst of the species. If the attempt fail, failure 
 may bring temporary misfortune, but it brings also 
 permanent fame. Confederations thus easily 
 formed, and of such materials, must always be 
 the apprehension of despotic governments ; and 
 the fact that such are, in the nature of things, so 
 highly probable, must render the existence of 
 monarchy in this age highly precarious, and its 
 long continuance in enhghtened countries ex- 
 tremely problematical. Attempt after attempt 
 may fail, but men will pertinaciously persist in a 
 cause that commands so much virtuous admira- 
 tion, and is so congenial to our native impulses.
 
 PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 171 
 
 Every failure will but give birth to a new enter- 
 prise, until success must eventually crown efforts 
 which, in all human probability, will be inces- 
 santly renewed so long as humanity remains un- 
 changed. 
 
 To have the permaneacy of nature, every in- 
 stitution must conform to the laws of nature. 
 Monarchy is at variance with the natural dispo- 
 sition of man and his innate sense of justice 
 What is unjust cannot in its nature be durable. 
 The Providence which presides over the universe 
 does not admit of it. In the separate and isolated 
 cases of individuals, the law of justice may often 
 be violated, and yet be unavenged by nature. It 
 is certainly, however, the natural tendency of 
 things, even in this life, that vice should be fol- 
 lowed by punishment; and, whatever may be the 
 facfln individual instances, when we comprehend 
 so large a number of individuals, or so long a pe- 
 riod of time, as to represent the aggregate of hu- 
 man experience, the laws of morals will gener- 
 ally be found to have been vindicated by the ret- 
 ributions of Providence. The histories of nations 
 represent the aggregates of human experience. 
 Time — (a lapse of time, which, though long for 
 an individual, is still short for the species) — time 
 has been maturing these great principles for their 
 development, and at this advanced period of the
 
 172 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 world, when society is everywhere in such a fer- 
 ment, it needs no hardy prophet to predict the 
 proximate downfall of monarchy in civilized 
 states. 
 
 Infirmity is involved in the very form and con- 
 stitution of monarchical government. It is the 
 sovereignty of the few over the many ; compar- 
 atively few, therefore, are directly interested in 
 its defence and preservation; yet, the absolute 
 strength actually residing in the masses, it is 
 compelled to trust its defence to those who have 
 no immediate interest in its preservation, nay, to 
 those who, if they properly appreciated their own 
 situation, would become sensible of a direct in- 
 terest in its downfall. To the subject, usurpation 
 or conquest is merely a change of masters; 
 whereas, on the contrary, every republican has a 
 direct personal interest in asserting and main- 
 taining the liberties of his country. Hence repub- 
 lics often arm en masse, and no republic has ever 
 been conquered until it has first been corrupted. 
 
 Every form of government which is not self- 
 government is necessarily centralized ; is in the 
 few. It has a separateness and locality admit- 
 ting of every unfriendly attempt being concen- 
 trated upon one or a few points, which, once 
 carried, it falls. Hence, in the most despotic 
 countries, as Russia and Turkey, a successful
 
 PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 173 
 
 plot in the palace changes the sovereignty of 
 the nation; in countries less so, a successful 
 emeute in a city. The scene of the late revolu- 
 tion in France was confined to the streets of 
 Paris. It is an invariable ordinance of nature, 
 the more despotic the power, the fewer hands it 
 must be concentrated in, and the more unstable 
 "will be its foundation. The same defect may be 
 predicated of every government of one man or 
 set of men over others ; and, though it becomes 
 less and less, in proportion as power is less con- 
 centrated, yet, as the disproportion between the 
 governors and the governed in monarchies must 
 always be great, it is an intrinsic and unavoid- 
 able defect which predisposes all such govern- 
 ments to decay and dissolution. Not so with re- 
 publics. The sovereignty is coextensive with 
 the limits of the state. What matters it to their 
 citizens if their capital be taken ? It no more 
 deranges their measures of defence than if it 
 were the most inconsiderable town in the coun- 
 try. Accustomed to be informed and to act upon 
 every public interest, to regard their governors 
 as their servants, and not as their masters, they 
 are prepared for every emergency. They are 
 not subdued while the smallest part of them is 
 free. No secrets of state repose in the portfolios 
 P2
 
 174 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 of their ministers. If their governors are pris' 
 oners of war, the people are not dismayed. The 
 nation is the government, and the government the 
 nation ; and the government will subsist until the 
 whole people are subdued. While a man is free, 
 he knows that he has something to fight for ; for 
 he feels that he himself is a sovereign. 
 
 The infirmities in monarchical government 
 from the concentration of its powers are equally 
 apparent, whether reference is made to its dan- 
 ger from internal or from external force. They 
 are the concomitants of a subjecting power in all 
 its forms, whether that of kings, or of nobles, or 
 of cities. 
 
 Hence the destruction of ancient republics. In 
 violation of liberty, they lorded it over neigL 
 bouring cities and whole nations. In their in- 
 terior economy, indeed, they were republican; 
 but in their relation to other states and commu- 
 nities they were monarchical. They had all 
 the centralization of monarchical government. 
 Athens ruled Attica with imperial sway ; Spar- 
 ta, Laconia ; Thebes, Boeotia; Rome, the world. 
 The natural and inevitable consequence by de- 
 cree of Nature followed. They broke in pieces 
 from the extent of their dominion. Their empire 
 was augmented in an arithmetical ratio ; their 
 strength and durability were diminished in a ge-
 
 r-REVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 175 
 
 ometrical or compound ratio ; the numbers in 
 terested in the sovereignty became comparatively 
 less, while the extent of conquest to be maintain- 
 ed became continually greater. The citizen sol- 
 dier was supplanted by the mercenary. The ser- 
 vant of the state, and himself a constituent part 
 of the state, fighting in self-defence, was sup- 
 planted by the soldier of fortune, attached to the 
 person of his general, and fighting for the acqui- 
 sition of plunder or power. While the empire 
 was coextensive with the republic, the state de- 
 pended upon itself for its armies, and was ade- 
 quate to its own preservation ; but when the con- 
 quests of the republic were so widely extended, 
 it had to employ a force able to dictate its own 
 terms to the empire.* The republic was no better 
 off with its subjects than its armies. The nations 
 it subdued became less warlike; they were easily 
 detached from their sovereign ; they had no per- 
 sonal interest in maintaining the power which 
 had subjugated them. It is an invariable law of 
 Providence, which nothing can resist, that man, 
 not being made for the government of his fellow- 
 man, can never hold him in permanent subjection. 
 The extensive dominion of the ancient repub- 
 lics was likewise one of the chief causes of their 
 corruption. Hence the tribute derived from sub- 
 * Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, chap. v.
 
 176 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 jugated provinces, that enabled the idle populace 
 of the imperial cities of ancient times to subsist 
 on the public treasury, and furnished their lead- 
 ers and demagogues with the means of corrupt- 
 ing the people with their own money. It was 
 this extensive dominion that eventually brought 
 all occupations, except those of the soldier and 
 the politician, into disrepute, and excluded busi- 
 ness industry, that great preservative of morals, 
 from the ordinary habits of ancient people. It 
 was this that made whole states select individ- 
 ual citizens for their patrons, and fee them with 
 princely presents ; that enabled the great men of 
 those times to realize immense wealth from the 
 plunder of unfortunate provinces, and laid the 
 foundation for that contest of bribery when they 
 were prosecuted for extortion, between their mu- 
 nificent fortunes on the one hand, and the 
 wealth and resources of oppressed states on the 
 other, which brought all the public virtue in the 
 empire into market. Thus the extensive empire 
 of the ancient cities, entirely at variance with 
 republican principles, and gained by unjust con- 
 quests, opened and fed all the avenues of cor- 
 ruption, and Providence, by one of those just 
 retributions which characterize the moral gov- 
 ernment of the universe, made their unjust usur- 
 pations the instrument of their own destructiom
 
 PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 177 
 
 We are not to expect, in the natural course of 
 things, either public or private degeneracy in a 
 republic from the influx of public or private pros- 
 perity. Ease and abundance are the appropriate 
 rewards of labour j they ordinarily come at the 
 latter part of a man's career, when moderate 
 habits have rendered him secure from their se- 
 ductive influences. Leave property to seek its 
 own channels, enact no laws to make it inalien- 
 able, and the natural course of things will di- 
 rect its transmission to those who have earned it 
 by their industry and frugality j while the largest 
 accumulations will pass rapidly from the prodigal 
 and licentious, and reduce them and their pos- 
 terity to a condition of want and dependance, 
 whence they can only rise by a renewal of those 
 virtues by which the wealth of their ancestors 
 was originally acquired. There is no danger, 
 therefore, when things are left to take their nat- 
 ural and proper course, our habits not corrupted 
 by vicious legislation, and a perverse policy on 
 the part of our government. There is no dan- 
 ■ ger to be apprehended from the increase of pub- 
 lic wealth, and the multiplication and improve- 
 ment of the comforts of life. Our wants must 
 still be supplied by human labour and skill ; and, 
 so long as these are necessary, in whatever form
 
 178 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAI 
 
 they are exerted, they will operate as an effec- 
 tual protection to the pubhc morals. 
 
 But we have, in these modern times, a more 
 powerful guarantee for the public morals. We 
 have the Christian religion, which Greece and 
 Rome had not. Its code of morals is perfect. 
 Its sanctions are as powerful as it is possible for 
 the imagination to conceive. It is never satisfied 
 with the improvement of its disciples ; it will 
 never cease to make converts, until it embraces 
 the universal race of man. If humanity had a 
 downward tendency, this religion would arrest 
 its progress. It is implicitly believed by us that 
 its achievements will be equal to its aims, and 
 that it will go on conquering and to conquer until 
 it shall have restored our race to its primeval pu- 
 rity. On the contraiy, rites and ceremonies con- 
 stituted the chief part of the religion of the an- 
 cients ; and those rites and ceremonies, so far from 
 improving, corrupted their votaries. The most 
 disgusting and abominable orgies formed a part 
 of them ; while theft had a patron in Mercury, 
 drunkenness in Bacchus, licentiousness in Venus, 
 and every vice a precedent in the conduct of some 
 of the numerous divinities of the ancient mythol- 
 ogy. It may readily be supposed that heathen- 
 ism had but little connexion with the study of
 
 PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 179 
 
 morals, which, while that odious system was 
 universally popular, excited no interest among 
 the people, but was confined to the schools of the 
 philosophers. There was thus no renovating 
 principle for human nature ; and it was left under 
 all the seductive influence of circumstances, com- 
 bined with a religion, itself the offspring of the 
 passions and vices of men, to an uncertain de- 
 pendance on natural temperament and the un- 
 aided sanctions of a natural conscience. 
 
 But the Christian religion not merely preserves 
 our morals from corruption, and gives them a de- 
 cided and continuous impulse towards improve- 
 ment : it tends directly to the institution of de- 
 mocracy. Make men just, and they must be 
 democratic. What will become of usurpation 
 and force, corruption and fraud, as Christianity 
 takes its march over the earth ? It respects no 
 abuses, however ancient. It sanctions nothing 
 but what is wise and what is good. It abhors 
 the corruption, extravagance, and vanity of 
 courts. It imbues man deeply with the fear of 
 God, and those who fear God are inaccessible to 
 any other fear. It fills us with a sense of the 
 absolute equality of the species. It teaches us 
 to respect nothing so much as principle. It in- 
 spires the most dignified independence. It is
 
 180 PERMANENCY AND EVENTUAL 
 
 democratic in its Author; our Saviour himself 
 came from the common people ; he was born in 
 a manger; he was a carpenter's son. It was 
 democratic in its apostles; they were fisher- 
 men, poor, ignorant, and despised. It expresses 
 its pr-eference of the poor. Its morals are di- 
 gested to the comprehension of the poor and illit- 
 erate. Its sanctions, no man so stupid but that 
 he can comprehend. It inculcates the liberty 
 of conscience; and no man who is thoroughly 
 impressed with the truth that his Creator has in- 
 trusted to him his own eternal salvation, can well 
 doubt that the same wise Providence has fully 
 accomplished him for the subordinate relations 
 and responsibilities of this life, and his own gov- 
 ernment among the rest. No book ever written 
 makes us so sensible as the Christian revelation 
 of the dignity of man as man, and the frivolity 
 of all those temporary or accidental distinctions 
 with which the world has been so long oppressed. 
 I cannot refrain from noticinof some strong 
 points of similarity between the history of reli- 
 gion and of democratic liberty ; nor can I believe 
 these points of resemblance between the fate of 
 truth in religion and of truth in politics, man's 
 chief terrestrial and the summary of man's celes- 
 tial good, to be entirely capricious and fanciful
 
 PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY. 181 
 
 Both have always had the predominance of 
 numbers against them. Both are sustained by 
 principle, and would be annihilated by precedent 
 or authority. Both flourish best on the same soil, 
 and sympathize deeply in each other's success- 
 es. Both have always inculcated the same con- 
 tempt for human authority, the same regard for 
 the poorer and humbler classes, the same disre- 
 gard of merely adventitious and accidental dis- 
 tinctions, the same paramount authority of prin- 
 ciple. Both have for their basis the law of be- 
 nevolence. Both have been reproached with the 
 origin and character of their supporters. Both 
 have been stigmatized as the occasion of an ex- 
 tensive destruction of the species. Both have 
 borne the reproach of being disorganizing and 
 anarchical. 
 
 The Christian religion is emphatically a reli- 
 gion for the people. It impregnates the masses 
 ■with something better than humanity. What a 
 religion for the many ! What a basis for popu- 
 lar government ! How elevated and how sub- 
 stantial the hopes of the friend of popular rights, 
 when he feels that the progress of human liberty 
 must keep pace with the progress of Christian 
 illumination, and that the cause of man is thus 
 identified with the cause of his Maker !
 
 PART II. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The alleged "Tyranny of the Majority" in America.* 
 
 We do not subscribe to the principle that the 
 majority are always right and can do no wrong. 
 The presumption is certainly in their favour, 
 from the vast combination of wisdom and of 
 will ; but we are as far from acknowledging a 
 pope in our politics as in our religion, and hold 
 majorities, like individuals, to be but fallible 
 men. 
 
 Let us revert to the foundation on which the 
 power, or, more properly speaking, the right of 
 majorities in republican communities is founded, 
 and see how far it actually extends. 
 
 The great aim and end of civil society are to 
 secure justice between man and man ; and, on 
 examination, it will be found that in republics al- 
 most all its powers are, in point of fact, while it 
 
 * See De Tocqvieville's " Democracy in America," part L, 
 rhap. IV.
 
 184 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 may well be doubted whether, legitimately, all 
 ought not to be, restricted to the necessary means 
 for the accomplishment of this great end. The 
 power to declare war and raise armies is to protect 
 government, and the power to levy taxes, to sup- 
 port it in the administration of this office ; the 
 power to coin money, and the power to regulate 
 weights and measures, furnish it with fixed 
 standards for this object ; its power to issue pa- 
 tents merely secures a right founded on the first 
 principles of justice; and so of most of the other 
 powers of government : its power to make inter- 
 nal improvements, and its power to manage the 
 postoffice, seem to be of a different character. 
 But whether or not the jurisdiction of govern- 
 ment should be exclusively restricted to the ob- 
 ject just mentioned, it is certain that what other 
 powers soever it does exercise are for infinitely 
 subordinate purposes, and sink to nothing in the 
 comparison of importance. When men unite, 
 therefore, in civil societies, it is for the purpose 
 of securing the prompt, uniform, and peaceful 
 administration of justice, or, what is the same 
 thing (as justice is the practical discharge of 
 what our rights claim from other men), for the 
 protection and enjoyment of our rights. But 
 how, when we are all, as we have seen, made
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 185 
 
 the natural judges of our rights, are we to ar- 
 rive at what justice really is 1 There is, in the 
 nature of things, a perfect rulej but we see it 
 imperfectly, and individuals view it under va- 
 rious and different combinations of error. One 
 holds it to be this, another to be that, and this 
 various sense of individuals does not admit of 
 a definite and harmonious action ; we must have 
 a positive rule in order to concentrate the action 
 of community. 
 
 Now, when the existence of society requires 
 a positive rule authoritatively promulgated ; 
 when its primary object demands that this rule 
 shall be the law of justice ; and when the con- 
 stitution of our nature, resulting in human free- 
 dom, demands that we ourselves be the sole 
 judges and interpreters of that law, what can we 
 do, when the subject is submitted to aggregate 
 bodies in their primary capacity, but abide by 
 the determination of majorities ? Theoretically, 
 the prerogative of determining the rule of right 
 resides in the whole ; but, unless all will agree 
 in opinion, which, until men are perfect, they 
 never will, we must take up with as near an ap- 
 proximation to a perfect mode as we can get. 
 Modern republics, by the manner in which they 
 take the public determination by majorities, 
 P
 
 186 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 adopting the representative system, dividing ter- 
 ritory into sections, legislatures into different bod- 
 ies, creating public offices with different tenures, 
 and filling them at different elections, while the 
 sovereignty itself is divided into state and nation- 
 al, make great provision for the sentiments and 
 opinions of the minority also, and bring us as 
 near as is practicable to the aggregate sense of 
 community, and near enough for all human pur- 
 poses. Each citizen being allowed his equal 
 vote, he thus enjoys the utmost possible amount 
 of human freedom, and all that man ever could 
 or ever did desire. 
 
 What then ? Is the positive rule thus adopted 
 in itself right, because it is the determination of 
 the 7najority? No; but we yield it implicit 
 obedience as if it were right, because it is in 
 practice the nearest approximation to the perfect 
 standard, and the best possible compromise with 
 human imperfection. We observe the decision 
 (not the arbitrary will) of the majority, so far as 
 it is announced in the prescribed constitutional 
 modes, as the rule of our civil and political con- 
 duct — as the positive law — until it is reversed by 
 the same authority. Not that, as law, it is per- 
 fect ; but that, as a positive rule emanating from 
 an authority which Freedom herself has? consti- 
 tuted, if we would have constitutions and laws
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 187 
 
 at all, we must observe it. Majorities thus do for 
 us, in a good degree (not absolutely, as will be 
 soon shown), in politics, what the judge does for 
 us in expounding the laws ; and there is the same 
 distinction between perfect enactments and posi- 
 tive statutes that there is between that perfect 
 abstract justice which we call law, and the actual 
 authoritative decisions of the judge. So far as 
 the regular, active interference of society, through 
 the interposition of its organized forces, is con- 
 cerned, the decisions of the judge and positive 
 statutes must be acted upon as if they were ab- 
 solutely and perfectly right, because whatever 
 of abstract perfection is wanting has been sac- 
 rificed to the necessity of positive rules ; but, so 
 far as individual opinion is concerned, they are 
 no more than a presumptive standard, which 
 every citizen is at liberty, if he can by legal and 
 proper measures, to get revoked. 
 
 Thus, though we never assail the decrees of 
 the majority when uttered in the constitutional 
 voice of the whole, yet we often feel the most 
 perfect assurance, in assailing the opinions enter- 
 tained by its individual components, and endeav- 
 ouring to convert it into a minority. In othei 
 wo:ds, we yield an implicit obedience to the 
 laws so far as they are enacted by the constitu-
 
 188 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 tional force of the majority, but we never feel 
 called upon to renounce individual opinions from 
 deference to that majority. 
 
 Even in the enactment of laws we by no 
 means hold the power of majorities to be abso- 
 lute and unqualified. It acknowledges this lim- 
 itation in its very nature, that, being merely au- 
 thorized to announce the law of justice, it can 
 never in any instance extend to the perpetration 
 of a clear and palpable injustice. In this respect 
 political power is subject to the same limitation 
 as the decisions of a legal tribunal. An occa- 
 sion, however, with us for such a limitation to be 
 actually put upon the powers of the majority, 
 can only very rarely, if ever, occur ; for it is im- 
 possible to imagine a case in which a body of 
 citizens large enough to constitute a majority in 
 our large democracies could concur in perpe- 
 trating a palpable injustice.. Against political 
 tyranny in every shape we have the best possible 
 security that human nature admits of j and if 
 we are really still insecure from its assaults, it is 
 only because God has denied all refuge from it 
 to mankind. Contemplate the great numbers 
 which are required to constitute a majority. 
 Now it is possible that among its leaders there 
 may be ambition, may be corruption, tortuous
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 189 
 
 Views, unjust aims ; but among the mass of that 
 majority, never. Its opinions may be mistaken, 
 but its feehngs must be right ; it is morally im- 
 possrible that so large a body should have any 
 other interests, any other sympathies^ than those 
 which belong to the universal whole. It may be, 
 often is, misled; but when it is, it is in pursuit of 
 the public good. It sometimes takes the wrong 
 path by mistake, never by design. Nay, those 
 who hold the balance of power, constituted by 
 the excess of the majority above the minority, 
 are usually a comparatively small number, whose 
 adhesion to the cause of virtue and the common 
 weal is of itself sufficient to save the state from 
 palpably unjust or improper measures. 
 
 When we hear of the tyranny of the majority, 
 one'wottkl think it a body as fixed and perma- 
 nent as a monarchical dynasty rioting in the 
 greatest excesses of power, and responsible only 
 to itself. We know, however, that it is, in truth, 
 an extremely fluctuating body, the composition 
 of which is changing every day, sustaining daily 
 losses, and receiving daily accessions of new 
 converts. It is accountable to an ever-vigilant 
 minority, that is continually and rigidly criticising 
 every measure at the bar of public opinion. Its 
 excesses are visited with the immediate loss of
 
 190 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 its power, and the indignant exclusion of its 
 agents from office. Tiie majority that is is re- 
 sponsible to the majority that is to he. Let it 
 act with violence or tyranny, and it will inevita- 
 bly be converted into a minority. No party can 
 in this country engage in a course of vicious le- 
 gislation, and exempt themselves, as a part of 
 the common country, from its retributive effects; 
 and, when these are felt, it immediately renoun- 
 ces its leaders and its measures by adopting their 
 opposites. A course of tyranny is thus utterly 
 impracticable, unless we are to suppose republi- 
 cans capable of devoting themselves, in spite of 
 sense and suffering, to the work of self-destruction. 
 Nor have we to apprehend a majority's becom- 
 ing so excessive as to exempt it from the salutary 
 restraint imposed by the fear of degenerating into 
 a minority. A majority is, on the contrary, made 
 more infirm by becoming very considerable. It 
 immediately encounters the danger of falling in 
 pieces of its own weight. In proportion as it is 
 small is the necessity of union and the conse- 
 quent perfectness of its organization. Men act 
 together in parties, not because there is a perfect 
 unanimity of opinions, but by a sacrifice of minor 
 differences to paramount public objects. "W^hen 
 a party are very numerous, the necessity of sub- 
 ordination becomes less in point of fact, and still
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 191 
 
 less in appearance ; hence individuals strike out 
 plans of personal ambition, and individual wills 
 set up for greater independence : it falls a sac- 
 rifice, and the evil of too strong a majority thus 
 rectifies itself. The tyranny of majorities is 
 therefore rendered impossible, because they are 
 subject to the continual control of public senti- 
 ment, which is the judgment of the people on 
 their own interests. 
 
 " When an individual or a party is wronged 
 in the United States," says De Tocqueville, " to 
 whom can he apply for redress? If to public 
 opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority ; 
 if to the Legislature, it represents the majority, 
 and implicitly obeys its injunctions ; if to the 
 executive power, it is appointed by the majority, 
 and remains a passive tool in its hands ; the pub- 
 lic troops consist of the majority under arms; the 
 jury is the majority invested with the right of 
 hearing judicial cases ; and, in certain states, 
 even the judges are elected by the majority." 
 All this is mere idle declamation. If a man be 
 injured in this country, and the law afford him a 
 remedy, our judges and juries afford him a 
 prompt, cheap, and effectual mode of redress, 
 as free, not merely from a partial and party 
 bias, but as free even from all suspicion of it,
 
 192 TYRANNY OP THE MAJORITY. 
 
 as any judicatories upon the face of the earth ; 
 and whoever should wish the arbitrary inter- 
 vention of the executive or the army where 
 the law is silent, would call for an agency 
 which would make every possession and every 
 right a pitiful accident, subsisting at the mer- 
 cy of a despotic will. If a man suffer by rea- 
 son of the imperfection of the law, he applies 
 to public opinion, whose creature and slave the 
 majority are, and the present majority will either 
 be coerced by fear of that appeal, or be turned 
 out by sentence passed upon it, and the evil soon 
 redressed by a future majority. The evil will 
 certainly be redressed ; because, arising, on the 
 supposition made, from an imperfection in the 
 law, it must operate with equal severity on all 
 classes of a republican country, where the in- 
 terest of all is inseparably connected with the 
 interest of each, and the interest of each and all 
 is dependant upon just laws. No intelligent 
 member of this republic has failed to observe 
 how every citizen, even the humblest and most 
 ignorant, when he suffers a private injury, re- 
 solves and generalizes the cause from which he 
 suffers into a universal evil applicable to the 
 whole community, and deduces universal conse- 
 quences from it. " What becomes of our boast-
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 193 
 
 ed freedom ?" he says ; " what is the use of laws ? 
 "why call this a free country 1 what is the security 
 of property, if a man under these circumstances 
 can do, and his neighbour must suffer, such an in- 
 justice '?" stating his own injury in the form of a 
 general proposition, to make it tell upon the sym- 
 pathies of those about him. What he thus says 
 in his own case, he understands when said in the 
 case of another ; and he listens to the tale, and 
 unites in the cause of his compatriots, that his tale 
 may be listened to, and his cause promoted, in 
 turn. Thus citizens learn, by continual and per- 
 sonal experience, that the interest or the injury of 
 the individual is the concern of the whole; and 
 public opinion thus becomes as safe a guarantee 
 for the common weal, as private interest is for 
 individual prosperity. 
 
 It is wrong to represent the American people 
 as subject to the uncontrollable will of the ma- 
 jority. It is true, that in the original adoption 
 of a constitution the majority governed, and, 
 whenever it comes in review before the people, 
 a numerical majority must again govern. This 
 is, however, a very rare case ; and it is not in 
 thus setting up the skeleton and framework of a 
 society (in which the legislation of a people is at 
 tlie most distant remove from human infirmity, 
 R
 
 194 • TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 and wherein they are likely to be perfectly unan- 
 imous on all most essential points) that injustice 
 and injury are seriously to be apprehended. Af- 
 ter society is thus organized, and by that very 
 organization, the will of temporary majorities is 
 subjected to many practical limitations. 
 
 In the first place, this Constitution itself is the 
 paramount law. No majority, however great, 
 can ordinarily add to, alter, amend, or in any 
 way contradict it. Until a question be formal- 
 ly presented to the people, on the amendment of 
 the Constitution, that instrument itself towers 
 above, and presents the first broad limitation to, 
 the power of majorities. By giving to the rep- 
 resentative a fixed and independent tenure of 
 office, it places him beyond the immediate reach 
 of majorities. By making requisite, in many 
 cases, a majority of two thirds for the passage of 
 various descriptions of laws, it provides a farther 
 restraint; and, finally, by the creation of two 
 distinct and independent sovereignties. 
 
 We often find one majority among the people 
 of a state, and a different majority in its Legisla- 
 ture ; sometimes a Legislature of one politics, 
 and the executive of another, which gives a tem- 
 porary predominance to the minority ; often, a 
 state with one politics, while one's immediate ter-
 
 I 
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 195 
 
 ritorial administration and judiciary are of anoth- 
 er ; very often a state with one politics, and the 
 nation of another. Rarely, very rarely — indeed, 
 I think I may safely say never — do we find all the 
 political authorities under which we happen to be 
 placed the creatures of one party. The power 
 of one majority is thus modified, and very much 
 modified and controlled, by the power of another; 
 or, if you please, the power of the majority is 
 modified and controlled by the power of the mi- 
 nority, which has thus secured to itself, at least, as 
 great an influence in the administration of affairs 
 as it is entitled to by the relative proportion of 
 its numbers to the aggregate whole. Thus we 
 are fully entitled to say, that by the contrivances 
 of our government we have secured in its ad- 
 ministration the action of the whole people. 
 
 When I first read the sections of De Tocque- 
 ville on the tyranny and unlimited power of the 
 majority in this country, I was for a long time at 
 a loss to conjecture what original could have set 
 to his imagination for the picture. Sensible of 
 no such state of facts as was there described, I 
 could not but wonder that the poor, persecuted 
 victims of too free a state should never have 
 found a voice. Where are their uttered com- 
 plaints ? I asked. The press is free ; it disgorges
 
 196 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 everything, from a schoolboy's complaint to a 
 president's message ; perfect immunity is secured 
 by anonymous publication, to the utterance of ev- 
 ery opinion ; yet, among all the various literature 
 Avhich our books and newspapers present, an 
 American writer complaining of the tyranny of 
 majorities, as majorities, is yet a rara avis quite un- 
 known even to the curious. Indeed, De Tocque- 
 ville himself seems to admit that the evil exists, 
 for the most part, only in apprehension. " I do 
 not say" (he concludes one of those sections) 
 " that tyrannical abuses frequently occur in Amer- 
 ica at the present day ; but I maintain that no 
 sure barrier is established against them, and that 
 the causes which mitigate the government are to 
 be found in the circumstances and manners of the 
 country more than its laws." In other words, we 
 have no security against the passage of tyranni- 
 cal laws but in the people themselves; which, 
 however, is the same kind of security that a com- 
 munity have, that an individual will not voluntar- 
 ily destroy his own property or cut his own ttu'oat. 
 According to the republican theory, it is security 
 enough. We do not require guarantees from 
 ourselves for the judicious exercise of our own 
 powers. Not only " the causes that mitigate,'* 
 but the causes that make the government, are
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 197 
 
 the characters and wills of the people 3 and this 
 fact, so far from exciting our apprehensions, is 
 the foundation of our confidence. We derive 
 our security from ourselves, not from our laws, 
 or only so far from our laws as they may be said 
 to leave the government entirely in our hands. 
 
 De Tocqueville, in his speculations on this 
 head, has evidently confounded two distinct sub- 
 jects, the power of a political majority under re- 
 publican government, and the phenomena result- 
 ing from that almost entire unanimity constitu- 
 ting public apinion, which are not different in 
 their nature (though they may be more powerful 
 in their effects) from what are exhibited under 
 every form of government. 
 
 So far as political majorities in our country 
 are concerned, I think perhaps they may enforce 
 a greater subordination to party than political 
 majorities in other countries, and that such is a 
 natural consequence of greater freedom. Mi- 
 norities, however, are equally tyrannical in this 
 respect, though their organization may be less 
 apparent ; because, while an administration have 
 an independent set of measures to sustain, all 
 that is required to organize an opposition is 
 union in assailing. The truth is, that in repub- 
 lics the organization of parties ought to be more
 
 198 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 perfect than elsewhere, for the very reason that 
 the real subjects of division are fewer and of 
 less importance. What may be called the nat- 
 ural ties of party are weaker ; to act with effect, 
 the artificial ought to be stronger. Where the 
 subjects of division are fundamental and of vitaJ 
 consequence — where they are clearly marked ou' 
 in the nature of things, and the division of inter- 
 ests and of classes — these interests and classes 
 may safely be trusted to themselves : each mac 
 knows his place, and is bound to it. But it has 
 long since been discovered that in republics, 
 where the real subjects of difference are much 
 more minute than elsewhere, they are much less 
 coercive ; and that a party owes a great deal of 
 its success to its organization as well as to its 
 principles. Hence subordination is more rigidly 
 enforced. But this kind of influence exercised 
 by party operates only upon politicians, not on 
 the community at large, who, on the contrary, 
 generally regard the man with greater favour 
 that acknowledges no party trammels. The only 
 consequence that follows from renouncing it is 
 loss of party consideration, and the power and 
 prospects of office ; a loss which he who is guil-ty 
 of defection may be thought perhaps to deserve, 
 by reason of his having impaired the strength of
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 199 
 
 the party through whose prevalence alone he 
 could hope for political rewards. 
 
 " But," says De Tocqueville, " it is in the ex- 
 amination of the display of public opinion in the 
 United States that we clearly perceive how far 
 the power of the majority surpasses all the pow- 
 ers with which we are acquainted in Europe;" 
 and, thus confounding the poUtical force of 
 majorities with the natural force of public opin- 
 ion, he launches his most severe denunciations 
 asainst it. 
 
 Probably the greatest force of public opinion 
 in this country is exercised in suppressing the 
 expression of atheistical and infidel sentiments, 
 while a similar restraint seems to be exercised in 
 preventing the dissemination of views unfriendly 
 to republican government. A keen and sensi- 
 tive observation of its effects in these two in- 
 stances seems to have given birth to De Tocque- 
 ville's erroneous speculations on the tyranny of 
 the majority in America. 
 
 In neither of these instances, however, do we 
 meet with that million-headed monster of tyran- 
 ny so terribly depicted by De Tocqueville, spread- 
 ing itself, like one of the plagues of Egypt, 
 throughout every part of man's daily existence, 
 and depriving him of every comfort and enjoy- 
 ment of life — a tjTarmy that, if it really existed,
 
 200 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 would be infinitely worse than Uie ecclesiastical 
 despotism of the dark ages. 
 
 It is natural that, where opinion is the most 
 enlightened and the most free, it should have the 
 greatest natural force, as the presumption is 
 greater in favour of its justice and propriety. In 
 proportion, therefore, as you relax other forces, 
 you strengthen that of public opinion, and, where 
 government is the weakest, opinion must be the 
 strongest. Is this a fault of governments or of 
 man ? If public opinion be strong here, it is not 
 that government has made it so, not that major- 
 ities have made it so, but that such is the inevi- 
 table result of the nature and constitution of 
 man. If its force be legitim&te and proper, we 
 must rejoice that it is strong with us, and that it 
 is strong because it is right. No man can fail 
 to have observed how much wiser and better we 
 are for our neighbours than for ourselves ; how 
 much more exact we are in laying down a rule 
 for another to act by, than in squaring our own 
 conduct by any rule 3 how much better all, by 
 virtue of continually, as the phrase is, " putting 
 their best foot foremost," outwardly Jippear than 
 they really are : by just so much is public opin- 
 ion better than private practice, and just so much 
 does what is called character, a creature of pub- 
 lic opinion, superadd to the force of our moral
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 201 
 
 motives. It seems to be the great force of this 
 highly efficient and really moral agent which is 
 characterized by De Tocqueville as the tyranny 
 of the majority, and which is represented to be 
 so great as to prevent the avowal of individual 
 opinions. 
 
 It is true that it has a mighty force, though 
 not so great as represented by De Tocqueville, 
 against the atheist and the infidel ;* and why 
 should it not ? It operates in suppressing their 
 opinions as it would in suppressing a vice ; and 
 why should it not 1 It is generally believed that 
 atheism and infidelity sap the foundations of pri- 
 vate morals, of public prosperity, and of political 
 
 * " In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to 
 the liberty of opinion ; within these barriers an author may 
 write whatever he pleases, but he wjll repent if he ever step 
 beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto 
 de fe, but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of dai- 
 ly obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since he has 
 offended the only authority which is able to promote his suc- 
 cess. * * * The Inquisition has never been able to prevent a 
 vast number of anti-religious books from circulating in Spain. 
 The empire of the majority succeeds much better in the United 
 States, since it actually removes the wish to publish them. Un- 
 believers are to be met with in America, but, to say the truth, 
 there is no public organ of infidelity. Attempts have been made 
 by some governments to protect the morality of nations, by 
 prohibiting licentious books. In the United States no one is 
 punished for this sort of works, but no one is induced to write 
 them ; not because all citizens are immaculate in their man-- 
 ners, but because the majority of the community is discreet and 
 orderly." — De Tocqueville's Democracy bh America, pt. i., ch. xv. 
 
 Q
 
 202 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 freedom ; that they are not only untrue in 
 themselves, but that they corrupt our children, 
 render them irreligious and profane, idle, disobe- 
 dient, and vicious; that they lessen the moral 
 restraints of society, prevent our homes from be- 
 ing inviolate, make our domestic relations less 
 dear, oaths and obhgations less sacred, property 
 less valuable, mankind less sympathetic and hu- 
 mane. Now, shall we visit with punishment 
 and disgrace those who commit crimes, and not 
 visit with the moral reprobation of public senti- 
 ment those who are continually beating up for 
 recruits to the ranks of the criminal and the out- 
 law ? Or does the prevalence of a public senti- 
 ment that prevents men in some measure from 
 becoming atheists and infidels, and prevents in 
 a very considerable degree the dissemination of 
 their principles, demand the regrets of the en- 
 lightened politician ? — or does the force of such a 
 sentiment possess any of the qualities of a tyran- 
 nical power ? I rejoice in it, as showing that 
 the just and legitimate restraints of a state of 
 freedom are, for wise and good purposes, more 
 efficacious even than the tyranny of a despotical 
 control. It show's that democracies do not want 
 strength where strength cannot injure. So far 
 from being proof of " little true independence of 
 mind and freedom of discussion," it exhibits the
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 203 
 
 necessary result of the most absolute independ- 
 ence of mind and the most unlimited freedom 
 of discussion. 
 
 Tiiat public opinion often signally errs in its 
 decrees, and that, in such cases, in proportion to 
 its force must be its injustice, cannot be doubted; 
 so long, however, as it does not lay hold of the 
 arm of the law, in the regulation of matters not 
 properly cognizable by law, but is left freely in 
 those matters to the natural operation and regu- 
 lation of itself, the balance of the aggregate ac- 
 count of good and evil influence must be greatly 
 in its favour, and its injuries only accidental, like 
 those of any other great and powerful agency. 
 
 We should follow with public odium the man 
 who would openly advocate the adoption of 
 monarchical and aristocratical institutions.* Is 
 
 * " At the present time, the most absolute monarchs in Eu- 
 rope are unable to prevent certain notions which are opposed to 
 their authority from circulating in secret throughout thei/ do- 
 minions, and even m their courts. Such is not the case in Amer- 
 ica. * * * I know of no country in which there is so little true 
 independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America. 
 In any continental state in Europe, every sort of religious and 
 political theory may be advocated and propagated abroad ; for 
 there is no country of Europe so subdued by any single author 
 ity as not to contain citizens who are ready to protect the man 
 who raises his voice in the cause of truth from the consequen- 
 ces of his hardihood. If he is unfortunate enough to live under 
 an absolute government, the people is on his side ; if he inhabit 
 a free country, he may find a shelter behmd the autnoruy of itie
 
 204 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 
 
 this a persecution by the majority ? If so, ii is not 
 by the majority constituted by a political party ; it 
 is the natural and necessary result from the ex- 
 pression of an opinion not worthy of many fol- 
 lowers, and worthy of no good ones. But would 
 it not be better to let this opinion have a fair 
 chance, and to give it a full and fair trial on equal 
 terms ? It has a fair chance, and it cannot gain 
 disciples. If it has not, it is not our fault, nor 
 the fault of our political system ; it is the fault of 
 man. He is so made that his opinions as to the 
 proper scheme of government interest his feelings 
 withal. He rejects their opposites, not coolly, but 
 with a feeling of moral reprobation. He feels 
 that certain principles, extensively entertained, 
 would affect him, would injure him, would deprive 
 him of freedom. The monarchist and aristocrat 
 are repelled, therefore, as if they were endeavour- 
 ing, whether unintentionally or not. to inflict a 
 wrong and injury — as if guilty of a kind of trea- 
 son against the sovereignty of each free citizen ; 
 and it is not surprising that this repulsive feeling 
 should be as universal as is the sovereign citi- 
 
 throne, if he require one. The aristocratic part of society sup- 
 ports him in some countries, and the democracy in others. But 
 in a nation where democratic institutions exist, organized like 
 those of the United States, there is but one sole authority, one 
 single element of strength and of success, with nothing beyond 
 it." — Democracy in America, part i., chap. xv.
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. 205 
 
 zenship. Such men rest under an odium which 
 they deserve ; and public opinion, in free coun- 
 tries always its own best corrective, does not, in 
 this instance, degenerate into the tyranny of ma- 
 jorities. 
 
 But what then becomes of the dominion of 
 reason, if we must acknowledge such a subser- 
 viency to popular prejudices ? I answer, we are 
 men, and we act like men. We are governed by 
 something else besides the force of a mere syllo- 
 gism. We are not creatures of pure reasoning, 
 and we do not bring everything to the test of 
 logic ; neither do we suffer our convictions to rest 
 in our minds like a demonstrated problem on a 
 black board. We take, and we are obliged to 
 take, a great many of our opinions on trust, until 
 we have time and ability to look into their demon- 
 stration, and the community is a very respectable 
 source whence to derive such opinions : when we 
 have those opinions, we feel from them, and we 
 act on them ; and the public sentiment of a com- 
 munity is in many cases a very proper medium in 
 which to imbody, and through which to enforce 
 them. This is not the tyranny of majorities; it is 
 the nature of man, more prominent only in re- 
 publics, because government has less force and 
 nature more.
 
 206 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 The so-called " Right of Instruction." 
 
 The so-called right of instruction is a false 
 pretence. Under our democratic form of gov- 
 ernment, whatever the people really do will, 
 they have the power to carry into effect. When, 
 therefore, we are honoured with what are styled 
 " instructions from the people to their represent- 
 atives" — instructions from a source whence we 
 have a right to expect commands — we are cer- 
 tainly justified in the suspicion that these do not 
 emanate from the people, but, more probably, 
 from bodies of men who, having neither the right 
 to command nor the right to instruct, hope to 
 conceal the infirmity of their title under the mod- 
 eration of their demands. 
 
 Let us examine and see who they usually are 
 who thus presume to instruct the people's repre- 
 sentatives, and whether they are really " the 
 people," or have any warrant for it from the 
 people. 
 
 And, first, let us understand what is meant
 
 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 20T 
 
 by " the people." We mean the whole peopky 
 and nothing short of the whole people, or a ma- 
 jority of the whole acting simultaneously. It is 
 the government of the whole that alone con- 
 stitutes self-government — democracy. Now this 
 paramount democratic sovereignty is never call- 
 ed directly into action except in forming and 
 setthng a constitution, the very object of which 
 act is to define in what mode the will of the 
 people shall ever after be authoritatively ex- 
 pressed. That done, we have done also with 
 original or primary assemblies, that is, assem- 
 blies wherein the people act in their original, 
 absolute, and sovereign capacity. The people 
 agree, by adopting a constitution, that they will 
 no longer act in an irregular, disconnected man- 
 ner, in separate, unorganized assemblies, and by 
 individual plans and wills, but together only, and 
 in the constituted mode. Town, and ward, and 
 mass meetings, therefore, are by no means, in 
 reality, what they are ordinarily styled, meetings 
 of the people in their primary assemblies. Very 
 respectable organs of public opinion they no 
 doubt are, which are entitled to, and will com- 
 mand, the respectful deference of every wise poli- 
 tician ; but not organs of the sovereign will, which 
 every representative would be peremptorily bound
 
 208 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 to obey. If these indiscriminate assemblages 
 are, really, what they are so often called, the sov- 
 ereign people in their primary capacity, they are 
 certainly omnipotent ; they can make and un- 
 make laws, magistrates, constitutions j and if 
 they are not, they are, as to political rights or 
 political powers, nothing. If they have not all 
 the rights of the original, sovereign people, they 
 have no right to instruct. Let us proceed, there- 
 fore, from these meetings — in which we do not 
 find the only people known to democracy as the 
 arbiter of political differences, and which, when 
 they assume to instruct the people's representa- 
 tives, seem, simply on the ground of having no 
 authorized place in the body politic, to arrogate 
 the paramount authority — to other and constitu- 
 tional assemblages. 
 
 This pretended right to instruct is claimed, 
 and most frequently exercised, by State Legisla- 
 tures over representatives in Congress. 
 
 But what right have State Legislatures to in- 
 struct? It is their constitutional prerogative to 
 elect one branch of the national Legislature j 
 when, however, this election has taken place, 
 that function is discharged ; and they have no lon- 
 ger any duties in the premises until another va- 
 cancy occurs. When elected, the representative
 
 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 209 
 
 is not their agent. They are not his principals 
 or his constituents. He is a representative of the 
 people, and so are they. The people have not 
 authorized them to instruct this representative, 
 nor placed it within the range of their duties 
 or their powers; nay, a power to recall him 
 was proposed, in the Convention that framed the 
 Constitution of the United States, to be given 
 them, and the proposition was distinctly nega- 
 tived. They have no more right to instruct him 
 than he to instruct them. I have said they are 
 not his constituents. The whole state does not 
 comprise his constituents. He is a member of 
 the Congress of the United States, and sworn to 
 discharge his duty as such. The nation are his 
 constituents. He is a representative, not of part, 
 but of the whole. If the paramount interests of 
 the nation at large clearly require the sacrifice 
 of the particular interests of his single state, he 
 is even conscientiously bound to vote for that 
 sacrifice. Because the state, or the State Legis- 
 lature elected him, they are not, as a necessary 
 consequence, to control him. The state names 
 the representative ; but the state alone could 
 never have given him the power which he pos- 
 sesses to affect the whole Union ; the origin of 
 this power dates far back from the state election, 
 R
 
 210 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 at the formation of the gTand national compact;, 
 and the nation at large are alone entitled to be 
 considered as his political creators. 
 
 It is a bad division of labour, as well as an 
 usurpation of power, for men who were elected 
 to attend to state affairs to assume the control 
 of those of the nation. Different powers are re- 
 quired ; a different grade of intelligence ; differ- 
 ent means and opportunities of information and 
 judgment. Is it not enough that so much time is 
 consumed by Congress in debating the grounds 
 of the different national parties; but must the 
 same subjects be again debated and resettled by 
 twenty-six individual state assemblies, to the 
 great obstruction, if not entire neglect, of all do- 
 mestic legislation; to say nothing of the cost, 
 which would, in the aggregate, form no slight 
 addition to national expenditure ? No advocate 
 for a strict construction of delegated powers can 
 consistently maintain that, when the people have 
 sent him to the State Capitol to attend only to 
 those affairs that immediately concern the state, 
 he has a right to usurp the functions or sit in 
 judgment on the conduct of another agent of the 
 people, despatched to a different place, on a dis- 
 tinct errand, and made constitutionally account- 
 able only to the common master of both.
 
 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 211 
 
 But do elections furnish an authoritative letter 
 of instructions from the people to the representa- 
 tive, of which he is bound to take notice; and 
 is he bound, by democratic principles, when a 
 successor of different politics has been elected, 
 to vote in conformity with the opinions of his suc- 
 cessor elect, or to resign ? Elections, it is true, 
 are authorities emanating from the sovereign peo- 
 ple, because they are exercised in pursuance of 
 the constitution established by the whole, and are 
 therefore authoritative so far as they go. But 
 what does such a result to an election signify '? 
 The present incumbent may have been elected on 
 personal as well as political considerations, and 
 at the last canvass not have been a candidate. 
 Therefore, it does not necessarily signify that his 
 political measures are so obnoxious as to prevent 
 his being, in spite of his political course, after 
 all, the preference of the people. Perchance 
 the people, his immediate constituents, wish for 
 a change, but a change after his term shall have 
 expired, and he have had an opportunity to 
 bring his measures in some degree to a test, by 
 carrying them out fairly to the close of that pe- 
 riod. For this only he has any warrant, that the 
 voice of the people, so far as it is the sovereign 
 voice—the voice of democracy expressed in the
 
 212 THE HIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 constitutional mode — signifies in such an adverse 
 election — what 1 (the election designates the 
 man, the Constitution, for what object) — that, 
 after he shall have fulfilled his term, carrying 
 out his measures to the end of it, then the officer 
 elect shall succeed, not now immediately super- 
 sede and supplant him. 
 
 But, were it otherwise, the electors of the 
 representative are but a part, and that a very 
 small part, of his real constituents; and if the 
 democratic principle bind him to observe the will 
 of " the people," it is the will of the whole peo- 
 ple; if the will of "his constituents," the will of 
 the whole of his constituents — the nation at large ; 
 and thus, if the right of instruction by means of 
 elections be effective at all, it can only take ef- 
 fect, consistently with itself, after the entire na- 
 tional majority shall have been settled ; when the 
 result must be, as by the m.agic of an enchanter's 
 wand, by an instantaneous, complete, and over- 
 whelming revolution, to expel utterly any such 
 thing as opposition, and suffer the headlong 
 torrent of a successful party to bear uninterrupt- 
 edly away the entire legislation of the country. 
 
 This brings us to the final \Tiew of this discus- 
 sion, that, as we have seen, we can get no au- 
 thoritative instructions from the real people to
 
 I 
 
 THE RIGHT OF INSTIIUCTION. 213 
 
 the representative, so neither do the people choose 
 to govern in this way, by imparting to their rep- 
 resentatives the momentary changes and impulses 
 of popular opinion : in taking which view it is 
 our purpose to show likewise, that the right of 
 the majority to govern is not, even according to 
 the most latitudinarian democratic theory, by any 
 means absolute and unqualified ; and that the 
 whole people, the sovereign people, being made 
 up of a majority and a minority, some provision 
 has been made for the opinions of that minority. 
 ■ The government, it is true, is merely the agent 
 of the people, and appointed to be the mere ser- 
 vant of their will. But we must distinguish the 
 case of a people from that of an individual, in 
 the appointment of an agent. The public voice 
 is made up, not of the expression of a single will, 
 but of that of a great multitude of individual 
 wills, on which our own can have but little in- 
 fluence. We cannot but think it wise, therefore, 
 to secure a degree of permanency in the public 
 administration ; and, however much of w-isdom 
 and rectitude we may be conscious of in ourselves, 
 and however little restraint we may feel disposed 
 to put upon our own individual wills for the fu- 
 ture, it is not extraordinary that we should feel a 
 greater confidence in putting ourselves in alJ
 
 214 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 cases within the power of the majority, a greater 
 confidence in that multifarious director, the public 
 will, when placed under certain wholesome quali- 
 fications to secure deliberation and discussion ; so 
 as to make that will and that majority the off- 
 spring of the permanent settled wisdom of the 
 nation, rather than of the hasty effervescence of 
 popular passions. The people do not any the 
 less govern, by thus governing in a certain mode 
 which they themselves prescribe, and which they 
 reserve to themselves the liberty at any time to 
 alter. 
 
 In ancient cities, where, in the nature of the 
 case, it was almost impossible to provide such 
 securities, the inconsistencies of democratic legis- 
 lation, commending to a Socrates the hemlock 
 one day, and erecting statues to his memory 
 the next, have been its eternal stigma. This evil 
 is remedied through our representative system, 
 one of the greatest political improvements of 
 modern times, by securing to the representative 
 a definite term of office, independently of popu- 
 lar fluctuations and temporary excitements. And, 
 without this permanency, can we expect good 
 government ? Consistency rises almost to the 
 dignity of the virtues, although not ranked 
 among them ; and it is even morp necessary in
 
 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 215 
 
 the administration of states than in the conduct 
 of individuals. Inconsistency in either is cer- 
 tainly a great fault, and in affairs of govern- 
 ment it is one of the greatest, as it alone suffi- 
 ces to make the best of laws unjust, and the best 
 of governments tyrannical. In the administra- 
 tion of the complicated affairs of government, 
 experience is the only sure guide ; and, if sena- 
 tors and magistrates are not permitted to form 
 their measures into consistent plans, and subject 
 them to the test of continuous experiment, liber- 
 ty may be safe, but unskilfulness must preside at 
 the helm, and disaster and distress will be the 
 inevitable result. We are a people peculiarly 
 impatient in awaiting the results of experiment, 
 and usually form more conclusive determina- 
 tions, and take a more prompt and decided ac- 
 tion, on the results of ten years, than other peo- 
 ple on the experience of a century, or often of 
 many centuries. Hence a hasty, crude, and im- 
 perfect legislation is one of the worst character- 
 istics of the working of our system, until laws 
 have become a standing part of our news, and 
 the columns of a weekly print are sometimes more 
 authoritative than a two years' old statute-book, 
 printed by public authority. These defects would 
 be greatly aggravated by abridging, through un-
 
 216 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 constitutional though indirect methods, the tenure 
 of public offices. Indeed, people wish to be saved 
 the trouble and excitement of such frequent elec- 
 tions as this pretended right of instruction must 
 give rise to, and the absurdity of the practice 
 cannot be better illustrated than by the fact that 
 there have often been two changes of public 
 opinion, counteracting one another, within so 
 brifcf a space, that a representative instructed 
 out of office, through a fancied deference to the 
 voice of the people, has often found his imme- 
 diate constituents again concurring with him be- 
 fore the close of the terra for which he was elect- 
 ed, and the public will thus foolishly cheated 
 by his successor of its just expression. Men 
 might wish, in the particular case of their polit- 
 ical opponents being supplanted by their polit- 
 ical friends, that the term of the former might 
 be abridged, for the advantage of .their own par- 
 tisans ; but they would be as much displeased, 
 on the other hand, at the reciprocal operation of 
 the same rule in the opposite contingency ; and 
 they must see that, in any considerable period of 
 time, these changes must about balance and com- 
 pensate one another. The advantage, however, 
 must be greatly in favour of a fixed, constitu- 
 tional period of office, and the vigilant, consci-
 
 r 
 
 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 217 
 
 entious, and uninterrupted discharge of its du- 
 ties, to an uncertain reliance upon a capricious 
 notion, that cannot be practically enforced, and 
 can never receive, at best, but a capricious, un- 
 certain, and unequal observance. 
 
 The so-called right of instruction, so far from 
 being in conformity with the principles of the 
 Constitution, seems to be directly against them. 
 The Constitution prescribes a definite term of 
 office ; " the right of instruction" would make it 
 uncertain and indefinite. If it had been intended 
 by the people that an election should be taken as 
 a test of the sovereign will, not only to the extent 
 it distinctly imports, but to the extent of chan- 
 ging all immediate representations of the same 
 electors, why did they not establish the prac- 
 tice of voting for all officers at the same time, 
 and at every election 1 — why make any definite 
 term of office at all 1 
 
 Our repubhc is composed of \videly-divided 
 sections, and was originally constituted by a 
 compromise of interests which were to some ex- 
 tent hostile ; the permanency of our representa- 
 tion forms a part of the compact between these 
 conflicting interests. By the more certain and 
 definite tenure of his office, the representative is 
 made more independent of local considerations.
 
 218 THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 interests, and feelings, and liberalized for the 
 general good. It is a violation of that compact 
 to require his conformity to instructions, and 
 present the alternative of his resignation. 
 
 Moreover, the case may involve a question of 
 conscientiousness on the part of the representa- 
 tive, who may have it in his power, perchance, 
 to prevent what he deems a great evil, by the 
 interposition of a vote which he has the power 
 to give, but is instructed to withhold. His oath 
 of office, his conscience, must determine him ; and 
 he who, under such circumstances, relinquishes 
 his office or does violence to his conscience, is a 
 deserter from the post of duty. 
 
 Finally, let us consider for a moment who this 
 majority are that assume to dictate so peremptori- 
 ly ? It is not a body unchangeably constituted of 
 the same materials, but one of which every man 
 sometimes and in some cases does, and in others 
 does not, form a part. The supreme power, ac- 
 cording to democracy, resides in the whole. But 
 we are never unanimous, and, as has already 
 been remarked, to act at all, the majority must 
 govern. Let it not be forgotten, however, that 
 this government of the majority is only an ap- 
 proximation to democracy, though it is the near- 
 est possible approximation; and, with the actual 
 constitution of mankind, we must nores-s^nily
 
 THE RIGHT OF IN S IRUCTION. 219 
 
 take up with an approximation. Pure democ- 
 racy, the unanimous government of the whole, 
 we cannot have. Still the minority are not to be 
 entirely disregarded, as if they were a mere ci- 
 pher. They have some right in the administra- 
 tion of afFaiijg. They have a right to qualify the 
 opinions of the majority, since the majority do 
 not govern by an absolute and unqualified right, 
 but only as a matter of necessary compromise, 
 which ought to prevail no farther than the neces- 
 sity of the case imperiously and inevitably de- 
 mands. We ought to get, as nearly as practica- 
 ble, the opinion of the whole. Now, in the con- 
 stitution of the state, the contingent minority, not 
 yet developed, but of whom you, or I, or any 
 other member of society may perchance be one, 
 by establishing a fixed and independent tenure 
 of office makes some provision for itself; an im- 
 perfect one, it is true, but still the best that the 
 nature of the case admits. It thus secures what 
 is its right, in being enabled to impress a just and 
 proper bias upon the administration of affairs. 
 This compact with the minority is violated when 
 the majority, not content with exercising that 
 lawful predominance which the Constitution for 
 the most part gives them, assume to dictate to the 
 Constitution itself, as if they held not merely the 
 preponderance of power, but a monopoly of it.
 
 220 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 Aristocratic Society in America. 
 
 I USE the expression " Aristocratic Society in 
 America" because I find it in use, while I en- 
 tirely disapprove of the term " aristocratic" as 
 applied to any circle in this country. 
 
 We have an upper class, properly designated 
 as the upper or fashionable circle ; not, however, 
 an aristocracy. In the Old World, those who are 
 really the aristocracy, the few who govern, are 
 also the select and fashionable in private life; 
 but the term " aristocratic" is properly a political 
 designation, and should not be appropriated to 
 a private circle, except where political power 
 and social rank go hand in hand. 
 
 Yet people of the Old World talk of our aris- 
 tocracy. Aristocracy is the government of the 
 few. There are no few here who govern. Our 
 first class are simply the leaders of the ton j they 
 rule in the empire of taste and fashion only. 
 We may follow them in the pattern of a carriage 
 or the cut of a coat ; we may determine in a 
 great degree by their patronage, to what public
 
 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 221 
 
 garden or concertj to what theatre or ball we 
 will resort ; we may seek their halls for the most 
 brilliant entertainments and the best company; 
 but do all the prerogatives they thus exercise 
 create an aristocracy ? 
 
 Such prerogatives constitute a distinction, no 
 doubt, but a distinction that the purest democratic 
 feeling is far from repudiating. Such a distinc- 
 tion as it is, therefore, we are very ready to recog- 
 nise ; for democratic principles are by no means 
 incompatible with a just discrimination of ranks 
 in society, so long as that discrimination is volun- 
 tarily made by individuals, and has no political 
 aim. Democracy has always borne the obloquy 
 of cherishing a levelling spirit and aiming at 
 agrarian measures; a reproach that it is much 
 farther from deserving than every other species of 
 government. There has been widely dissemina- 
 ted, as we have already taken frequent occasion 
 to remark, and cannot too often repeat, a mista- 
 ken notion as to the kind of equality that a de- 
 mocracy demands, which is not an equality in 
 the circumstances, but an equality in the rights 
 of mankind. In utterly repudiating all distinc- 
 tion in political rights, it admits freely of every 
 other distinction, to the most absolute and unqual- 
 ified extent. It destroys arbitrary and fictitious.
 
 222 ARISTOCRACY IN i»MERICA. 
 
 to make room for real rank. It annihilates the 
 distinction of rights only to build up the greatest 
 \listinctions of men. All men are not really equal 
 '3 all respects; they are not equal in integrity, 
 ot equal in talent, not equal in practical skill, 
 ,ot equal in diligence, not equal in success; nay, 
 ; o two men are equal. In republics individual 
 ^ left freely to cope, in these respects, with in- 
 dividual, and to establish these differences in 
 their fullest possible latitude. Thus the charge 
 so often alleged against republics, of bringing 
 down men to one level, is highly calumnious and 
 unjust. What shall we say of other systems, 
 which really do substitute, for the absurdity of a 
 single average standard, and the reducing all to 
 a medium equality (falsely alleged against re- 
 publics), the absurdity of divers arbitrary meas- 
 ures that, w^orse than the bed of Procrustes, are 
 used to stretch the small to the dimensions of the 
 great, and to cut down the great to the pigmy 
 stature that naturally and rationally belongs only 
 to the small ? 
 
 Happily, republicans are alike guiltless of both 
 these absurdities. They embrace the division of 
 the social circle, as part of the natural and ne- 
 cessary results of any system which leaves men 
 free, and do not look with envy on the fashion-
 
 ARISTOCRACY iN AMERICA. 223 
 
 able class, so long as all are left to contend on 
 equal terms for what is, after all, a rather trivial, 
 and, at the best, a purely social distinction. 
 
 Foreigners, according to their particular and 
 individual humours, either carp at an organiza- 
 tion of society which, they say, leaves us without 
 an aristocracy, or, admiting us to possess one, 
 sneer at its composition. The first, if, when they 
 speak of our being without an aristocracy, they 
 use that word in its misappropriation to an up- 
 per or fashionable circle, distinctly recognised 
 among us as such, are clearly wrong in point of 
 fact ; if they mean the absence of a political 
 aristocracy, using the word in its proper sense, 
 we admit their allegation, and are as far from 
 regretting the fact as we are from lamenting our 
 deprivation of any other species of degradation 
 and injustice. The last, who only grant us the 
 possession of an aristocracy to overwhelm it 
 with their sneers, contend that we have one 
 founded on money, and that an aristocracy of 
 wealth is the meanest and most sordid of all 
 aristocracies. They forget that our first class 
 does not constitute an aristocracy ; and that what 
 doubtless is very unfit to be an ingredient in the 
 national sovereignty, may be a very essential 
 element and support of an order which professes
 
 224 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 simply to direct taste and fashion, and aspires 
 only to the elegance, refinement, and independ- 
 ence of private life. 
 
 Our aristocracy of fashion (if it may be momen- 
 tarily so called) is principally founded on wealth, 
 it is true; and on what other foundation could it 
 be built 1 How, otherwise, could it command 
 leisure, ease, and elegance, which will always 
 be essential to a superior rank, so long as we 
 have a physical nature to sustain, and five corpo- 
 real senses, with all their refined tastes, to gratify ? 
 
 Before too severely criticising our so-called 
 aristocracy, as based on wealth, Europeans would 
 do well to analyze the composition of their own, 
 and see how much of its consequence it borrows 
 exclusively from that source. Abstracted from 
 its possessions and property, it would about as 
 nearly resemble an aristocracy as a human body 
 without breath resembles a living man ; the 
 order would sink into universal contempt, and 
 utterly cease to exist, if with the blood and ti- 
 tles, its members did not also inherit the estates 
 of their ancestors. 
 
 Let them not sneer at the deference shown to 
 wealth in this country. By making it the meas- 
 ure of political rights, and giving it a preponder- 
 ance in the management of the state, they them-
 
 AniSTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 225 
 
 selves yield to it a much greater deference, while 
 they commit a flagrant injustice : we, certainly, 
 may be pardoned its becoming among us the ba- 
 sis of a purely social and private distinction, it 
 has won its own way to the rank it enjoys here, 
 and hence it must be held to have arrived only 
 at the consideration to which it is justly entitled. 
 When we speak of wealth as the essential, 
 we do not, by any means, intend to designate it 
 as the exclusive basis of our highest circle. On 
 the contrary, it is to be preferred before any 
 other basis, for the very reason that it admits of 
 the readiest and most extensive amalgamation 
 with every other most legitimate and most valu- 
 able ingredient. Talent and education, as well 
 as political distinction, will always mingle more 
 largely in the higher class of a democratic than 
 in that of an aristocratic country— will always 
 more easily command wealth than they can com- 
 mand family pride — of course, much more easily 
 than they can command the pride of wealth and 
 the pride of family united. Indeed, the acquisi- 
 tion of wealth, of itself, presupposes the exercise 
 of some intelligence and many of the virtues ; as 
 the practice of almost any vice requires an expen- 
 sive and prodigal nourishment incompatible with 
 business success. On the other hand, wealth per- 
 S
 
 226 ARISICCAACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 petuated in aristocratic families by aristocratic 
 laws, tends to nourish the bad passions and de- 
 prave the heart. In the one case, industry is re- 
 quired for the success of the individual ; in the 
 other, idleness is imposed by the prejudices of so- 
 ciety. A man who has spent his youth in the fox 
 hunt or the horse-race at home, and in the hells 
 and stews of the domestic, or the more promiscu- 
 ous but less restricted dissipations of a foreign 
 capital, may be a more polished gentleman, but 
 he cannot be a wiser or better man, or a more suit- 
 able head of society, than he who has from early 
 youth been disciplined to patient habits of indus- 
 try, and mingled with men in the various but sober 
 walks of business. The difference may be, on a 
 comparison of the upper classes of society, much 
 in favour of Europe, in externals; but give me, 
 notwithstanding, the internals and essentials of 
 the upper class of American society. Give me the 
 Ionic capital of American society rather than the 
 highly-wrought Corinthian of European. It is to 
 our advantage to have an upper class that has 
 the dross of democracy about it; that is justly 
 subject to much criticism, and cannot assume 
 too arrogant pretensions. It would be uncon- 
 genial, if not dangerous ; it would be the source 
 of much unhappinessj if not of political disaster,
 
 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 227 
 
 could we transfer to our highest rank, as a mere 
 social class, the claims to respect and veneration 
 put forth by European aristocracy. I delight 
 in a want of cultivation and refinement that has 
 the odour of freedom, and would not dispense 
 with one jot or tittle of a rusticity which con- 
 tinually reminds me that I am a free citizen of a 
 free country. The constitution of our society, 
 therefore, seems to me in itself the best, inde- 
 pendently of the price we should be compelled 
 to pay for any other. 
 
 The distinction of wealth, so long as it confers 
 no political privileges, so long as it elevates one 
 in the circles of private society only, is a pecu- 
 liarly democratic distinction ; since wealth may 
 be said to be almost within every man's reach ; 
 at least, every man is free to strive in an equal 
 competition to obtain it. No criterion by which 
 to bestow the first rank in society could possibly 
 be devised more appropriate to the circumstan- 
 ces of a democratic people. It is right that in a 
 republican country the highest class should not 
 be too widely separated from the masses. The 
 two extremes of society ought to communicate 
 by imperceptible degrees. The highest station 
 ought not to be too high and ought not to be too 
 secure. The lowest citizen ought net to be pre-
 
 228 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 eluded from hope nor the highest from fear. 
 Thus society will be properly amalgamated by 
 the force of reciprocal sympathies. It would be 
 nauch to be regretted if we had an upper class 
 with too lofty pretensions and too inaccessible a 
 rank. A first circle, to a great extent formed (;f 
 those who are rewarded by their accession to it 
 for the successful pursuit of wealth, and are de- 
 pendant in a great degree for their continuance 
 in it upon the caprices of fortune, accomplishes 
 for us a very desirable result. 
 
 How could a higher class of society maintain 
 itself without wealth ? Without leisure, society 
 is a tax ; and without wealth, leisure is impos- 
 sible. Wealth places within a man's reach the 
 means of entertaining society. He is thus pre- 
 pared to make his friends comfortable at his 
 house. Fashionable society necessarily implies 
 a degree of luxury. The wealthy man can af- 
 ford it. He can furnish his halls with the nicest 
 specimens of the mechanic arts to subserve per- 
 sonal comfort ; with the finest specimens in every 
 department of the fine arts, for the gratification 
 of a fastidious taste ; he can educate his family 
 in those accomplishments of intellect and person 
 which are in the best repute : thus his house nat- 
 urally becomes the resort of the best company. 
 
 To determine the consideratic n that v/ealtu is
 
 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 229 
 
 entitled to in society, let us see, for a moment, 
 what influence it really commands, in these mod- 
 ern times, in the affairs of the world. 
 
 And, at the first blush of the subject, we are 
 struck with the fact, that in modern republican 
 society, at least, it seems to be the principal ob- 
 ject of desire and pursuit. Wherefore does the 
 student trim his midnight lamp, the artisan an- 
 ticipate the morning's dawn, and the tradesman 
 so often forego the dear domestic delights of fire- 
 side, and wife, and home, to assume an intensity 
 of care that eats deeply into health and life ? 
 What secret spring sets all the energies of soci- 
 ety into such wonderful activity 1 What so 
 much as the universal passion for the acquisition 
 of wealth ? It seems to be the power of wealth 
 that has wrought a great majority of the most 
 important political meliorations of modern times. 
 What originally created the chartered cities, the 
 first germe of modern freedom, but the wealth that 
 purchased their franchises of the needy crusa- 
 ders? What has introduced the most important 
 improvements into the British Constitution, and 
 made it as liberal as it is, but the power assumed 
 by the British Parliament over the money of the 
 nation 1 What peopled this continent, for the 
 most part (the colonization of the Eastern States
 
 230 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 must be excepted), but the pursuit of wealth? 
 What revolutionized it but our jealousy of the 
 control of our money ? What prompts to the dis- 
 covery of new countries so much as the pursuit of 
 wealth ? What so much facilitates the inter- 
 course of old countries, or tends so powerfully to 
 preserve peaceful relations among them ? What 
 is the great means of modern society, means of 
 comfort, means of influence, means of power, 
 means of good 7 What is the great instrument of 
 benevolence and charity — the powerful agency 
 employed to civilize, enlighten, reform, and Chris- 
 tianize mankind ? To be able to subsidize the 
 most sublime powers of genius, to lay under con- 
 tribution every department of human art and in- 
 dustry, and control, to an almost unlimited extent, 
 the direction of the lives and energies of mankind, 
 seem certainly to be among the prerogatives of 
 wealth. Even great states are compelled to bow 
 to its omnipotence. Questions of finance seem 
 to monopolize the politics of the country. How 
 business shall be fostered, commerce promoted, 
 taxes levied, and currency regulated, are the 
 great dividing questions of public policy in mod- 
 ern times. Great princes now no longer draw 
 their support from their own private domains or 
 from conquered provinces. W^ar is no longer
 
 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 231 
 
 sustained by the voluntary aid of imperial citizens, 
 the personal services of vassals, or the plunder 
 of conquered cities and the sale of captive pris- 
 oners ; government must be conducted and war 
 sustained by means of the wealth of the state. 
 Without money, or the means of commanding it, 
 a government is wholly without resources ; it has 
 no power to conduct the operations either of 
 peace or war, and the arm of the national sover- 
 eignty is utterly paralyzed. 
 
 Money is thus the great engine of modern 
 times, and they who possess large shares of it 
 must be prominent in modern society. That 
 wealth, being the object of such universal desire 
 and the means of so commanding an influence, 
 should attract much of the regard of mankind, 
 and the first place in society be generally and 
 voluntarily accorded to it, is certainly not un- 
 reasonable or surprising. Wealth, in this age, is 
 power, and power commands respect. If we do 
 not respect the possessor for his intrinsic quali- 
 ties, we respect him for his position, in the same 
 manner that we may respect an officer for the 
 station he holds, though we may despise the man. 
 
 Those romantic and visionary people who have 
 exerted themselves so often to decry the distinc- 
 tion that wealth confers, would have exhibited
 
 232 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 much more wisdom, and lived to mucli bettei 
 purpose, had they exerted their wits in the acqui- 
 sition of it. I respect a sentiment so universal 
 among mankind as their great regard for wealth. 
 There must be some foundation for it. Spite of 
 all the fine things which have been said, in fits ol 
 philosophical romancing, about indifference to it 
 and the meanness of its creatures, we still see, in 
 point of fact, a degree of respectful deference 
 and sedulous attention paid to the rich, by the 
 philosopher and the boor alike (or, perhaps, of 
 the two, the philosopher is the most obsequious, 
 as he is usually the most needy), which intrinsic 
 merit, unadorned by imposing external circum- 
 stances, is very rarely able to command. Our 
 present existence is but partly, and that the small- 
 est part of it, intellectual, as it depends much 
 more upon physical than upon intellectual com- 
 forts ; and within the more present and immediate 
 sphere which our material nature prescribes to us, 
 wealth seems to domineer almost without control. 
 A good deal of our poetical prejudice against 
 it, as a means of conferring rank in society, 
 comes down to us from the exploded systems of 
 former times. All the social and intellectual re- 
 finement of ancient times was collected in cities — 
 not like our cities, differing only from the coun-
 
 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 233 
 
 try in presenting a larger aggregate of popula- 
 tion, and the provisions which such a population 
 naturally makes for itself, without any peculiar 
 prerogatives — but cities in the midst of conquered 
 and subordinate provinces, like kings in the midst 
 of subjects. Estates were acquired by spoils, 
 and tribute, and patronage. To labour w^as the 
 business of slaves. To work for profit, and man- 
 ifest a desire to gain by thrift, and economy, and 
 industry, was a mean and sordid occupation for 
 the free citizen of an imperial city. The army 
 and the forum furnished the only fit places for a 
 freeman ; of course, military and civic honours, 
 in conjunction wilh hereditary rank, with which 
 they were commonly connected, furnished the 
 only suitable grounds for distinction* 
 
 During the barbarous ages of society which 
 succeeded, war was still the most honourable 
 occupation. The same broad distinctions of sov- 
 ereign and subject were still observed, only the 
 sovereignty was transferred from the imperial 
 city to the feudal lord. Wealth was to the feu- 
 dal lord a thing of course. The arts of peace, 
 the patient industry of commerce, and its reward 
 of wealth, were still despised ; they still confer- 
 red no rank. Wealth had but limited objects 
 
 * Grandeur et Decadence des Romams, chap. x.
 
 234 ARISVOCrtACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 of gratification, and was of little use to its pos- 
 sessor in lawless times. The distinction of lord 
 and vassal swallowed up every other, and the 
 labour of the country was divided between vil- 
 leins and plebeians. Their occupations were es- 
 teemed mean, their rank was fixed, and they 
 could not be ennobled by the successful achieve- 
 ment of wealth. 
 
 The aristocracy of Europe is a relic of this 
 system. The European nobleman is still in pos- 
 session of the demesnes of his ancestors; still 
 prides himself on his descent ; still retains politi- 
 cal power; still takes precedence of the com- 
 moner; still affects to look down upon the ple- 
 beian trader and shopkeeper; tbough this dread 
 of contamination, it must be confessed, is often 
 greatly modified by the want of money which the 
 exigences of modern society have superinduced. 
 
 But this affected and idle contempt of the rank 
 ■which is conferred through wealth on business 
 success, springing from a system founded on the 
 unjust domination of one man over another, and 
 the unjust plunder of one man by another, and 
 sustained only by custom and prejudice, cannot 
 pass the barrier of the Atlantic. We have un- 
 dergone a revolution which foreign aristocracies 
 must sooner or later experience. Labour is no 
 lonj^er despised, and w^ealth is honourable.
 
 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 235 
 
 We therefore maintain that wealth is justly 
 entitled to the distinction which in this country 
 it actually enjoys, of being the basis of, and the 
 most essential qualification for, the first or fash- 
 ionable class of modern society. 
 
 Not that a man's admission into the best circle 
 should follow of course upon his arrival a* 
 wealth, and by no means do I mean that his ex- 
 clusion should follow of course from the absence 
 of that qualification ; but that the first circle, or 
 fashionable society, must be mainly sustained by 
 wealth, and that the man of wealth has, though 
 not an irresistible, yet a very powerful claim, and 
 one which it must require some very considerable 
 disqualification to resist. It is certainly a grat- 
 ification to democratic feeling — the manner in 
 which the distribution of social distinctions by 
 wealth in this country sports with the idle prej- 
 udices imported from aristocratic countries, and 
 shocks and overturns the fastidious caprices of 
 those who aflfect to pride themselves on their 
 family and station, as if they were unapproach- 
 able by others. In every industrial calling the 
 road is open to wealth ; and to wealth, if not to 
 that of the acquirer himself, yet invariably, if its 
 advantages be properly improved, to wealth in 
 the hands of his children, the doors of fashiona-
 
 236 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 ble society must open, whether he be shoemaker 
 or blacksmith, tinker or tailor. The man him- 
 self, if constantly confmed to the details of his 
 trade, the immediate handiwork of his craft, may 
 be uncleanly in his person, rude in his manners, 
 and uninformed by education ; if so, he will nat- 
 urally be excluded ; but if time and good for- 
 tune have enabled him to get the better of these 
 unpropilious circumstances, and his family have 
 improved the advantages of wealth, by acquiring 
 polished manners and cultivating their minds, 
 you may boggle at, but you must accept them. 
 Perhaps in no single respect do individuals of 
 our upper circle appear at so great a disadvan- 
 tage as in entertaining prejudices, and freely, 
 and almost ostentatiously, making an avowal of 
 sentiments, that would put to shame one part of 
 their own career, and, if universally indulged, 
 utterly disgrace probably the greater part of 
 their family, in the ascending, descending, and 
 all its collateral branches. The just reasons for 
 exclusion from any particular grade of society 
 ought to be as powerful with the excluded as 
 the exclusionist ; and, in judging of this ques- 
 tion, trade, occupation, family, origin, should be 
 considered as what the lawyers call only prima 
 facie evidence, furnishing no more than a mere
 
 ARISTOCRACV IN AMERICA. 237 
 
 presumption, to be varied according to the cir- 
 cumstances of each particular case. One may 
 be so situated that his associates cannot be agree- 
 able ; he may be excluded, because he would 
 bring the taint of his set with him. If he be 
 agreeable as to mind and heart, he may be rude 
 and uncouth in manner. He may not be famil- 
 iar with good society, and thus alike embarrassed 
 and embarrassing. His means or his occupa- 
 tion may not admit of a suitable exterior; and 
 in large communities, where every man cannot 
 be known, appearances are not to be disregard- 
 ed. These and other like circumstances are not 
 capricious, arbitrary, and fanciful, but furnish just 
 and solid grounds of discrimination. Still let 
 every man be treated respectfully; let not his 
 feelings, or even his prejudices, be wounded, nor 
 let his pretensions be too slightly regarded ; he is 
 a free citizen of a free commonwealth ; and, as 
 such, a candidate for the highest political hon- 
 ours, as well as the highest private station. 
 
 Our first class is well enough as it is, and the 
 criticisms of a foreign aristocracy only attach us 
 the more strongly to it. What they allege as its 
 very faults and blemishes, are, in our view, its 
 most unexceptionable features. It is the better 
 liked in proportion as it is the more dependant
 
 238 ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 It is not so high and inaccessible as to be be- 
 yond the reach of our sympathies. Its parent 
 Democracy loves it the better for its being an 
 infirm child. It can only become ridiculous by 
 putting forth ridiculous pretensions ; by affecting 
 to interpose between itself and the multitude 
 from which it originates, and by which its ranks 
 must be continually fed, an impassable barrier. 
 We cannot laugh at the coach which conveys it ; 
 but we may be pardoned a smile at the livery on 
 the box, or the coat of arras on the panel.
 
 IMMIGRATION. 239 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Immigration. 
 
 When we look at the condition of the world 
 and its inhabitants, and see how greatly over- 
 stocked some parts of it are with population, and 
 what immense resources of nature, in other parts 
 are exhausting their productive energies upon 
 the wilderness, we may well ask, by what right 
 can the bounties of Providence be withheld from 
 the support of human life 1 When God has 
 given man dominion over the earth to cultivate 
 and subdue it, shall a portion of our race league 
 with the wild beast to resist that ordinance ? 
 Certainly not. We have an undoubted right to 
 regulate the prices of our vast and uncultivated 
 forests ; we have an undoubted right to prescribe 
 all qualifications necessary for the preservation of 
 our liberties and our property ; but to devise any 
 set of regulations, the direct aim of which is ut- 
 terly to exclude the surplus population of the 
 Old World from our soil, I doubt whether we 
 have a right. 
 
 Whether we have the right or not, certainly
 
 240 IMMIGRATION. 
 
 nothing could be more impolitic than practically 
 to assume it. We have an immense and unoc- 
 cupied territory. We want population. Land is 
 cheap ; labour is dear. We have enterprise, en- 
 ergy, intelligence, and practical skill; we want 
 not minds, but hands. Immigrants are the ma- 
 terial exactly suited to our circumstances : great 
 physical power, in want of capital, direction, and 
 application. They compound our wealth in a 
 geometrical ratio, by adding not only to its sum, 
 but still more to its means. By every immigrant 
 that comes to this country, every man already in 
 it is made somewhat the richer ; the circle of his 
 customers is widened ; the demand for his abili- 
 ties, his goods, and his estate is increased, and 
 with it their price. It is a great error to sup- 
 pose that real estate has been so rapidly advan- 
 cing, town and country so rapidly settling, busi- 
 ness so flourishing, and wealth so rapidly accu- 
 mulating, by the mere force of the internal re- 
 sources of the country ; they are but the natural 
 results of a rapidly-increasing population, to 
 which foreign immigration has in no insensible 
 degree contributed. 
 
 Is there danger that the same causes which 
 have alone peopled this country, and brought us 
 to our present height of prosperity, may, by a
 
 IMMIGRATION. 241 
 
 more active operation, precipitate us into a de- 
 cline 1 Shall we adopt a S}'stem of policy that 
 would have excluded our fathers from these 
 shores 1 that would have picked out and exiled 
 some of the best soldiers of the Revolution 7 that 
 would have condemned this country forever to 
 the dominion of savages and perpetual sterility 1 
 
 The benefits of immigration are too manifest 
 to bear extensive comment : let us examine some 
 of its alleged evils. 
 
 Perchance the foreigner is a pauper. If so, 
 he is at least an able-bodied one; the laws 
 provide a sufficient security for that, by requiring 
 a pledge from the man who brings him here of 
 his present ability to maintain himself. Granted 
 that he is an able-bodied pauper; he is, even 
 thus, worth much to this country. Is not an 
 able-bodied slave, who brings with him nothing 
 but his sinews, yet worth much to his master ? 
 Far more is an able-bodied, though destitute im- 
 migrant, as a free citizen, worth to this free coun- 
 try : by all the difference between the cost and 
 profit of the slave ; by all the superadded differ- 
 ence between free and slave labour; by all the 
 overwhelming difference between the blessings 
 of freedom and the inappreciable curse of sla- 
 very. I should perhaps beg pardon for using 
 T
 
 242 IMMIGRAIIUN. 
 
 the comparison : I only do it the more forcibly 
 to show that the immigrant who brings nothing 
 but a sound body, patient of fatigue and capable 
 of labour — the foreign pauper if you please (he 
 is no longer a pauper when he arrives here), 
 still brings to this country a great accession of 
 value, capable, even to a certain extent, of a 
 specific pecuniary estimation. 
 
 The difficulty which prevents our thus consid- 
 ering the subject is, in part, that we only view the 
 foreigner landed and lodged in poverty at our 
 great cities on the seaboard, where he arrives, 
 and where, under such circumstances, his pres- 
 ence often, unfortunately, is an evil. These cities 
 are like an old country overstocked with popula- 
 tion, where there are already more hands than can 
 find employment. Here, therefore, the presence 
 of the immigrant is much felt withal, in an in- 
 creased extent of public pauperism and an in- 
 creased amount of taxation; a burden, by-the- 
 bye, which, owing as it is to accidental position, 
 and sustained for the common benefit, ought to be 
 distributed and borne by the state at large, by 
 which means it would be made light, instead of 
 operating, as now, oppressively. This evil is 
 however a temporary one, and even light, in 
 comparison with the immense, permanent, and
 
 IMMIGRATION. 243 
 
 universal benefits which accrue from the same 
 source. Much enlarged upon by our principal 
 newspapers, which, it so happens, are published 
 in places where its weight is most oppressively 
 felt, it has met with a far more indulgent and 
 sympathetic consideration in prejudicing the pub- 
 lic mind a2;ainst the cause of immigration gener- 
 ally, than from its real comparative magnitude it 
 is justly entitled to. Take the pauperism account 
 on the one side, and a single item which may be 
 mentioned on the other — that is to say, the great- 
 er feasibility and diminished cost of our extensive 
 public works — and I doubt not that this compari- 
 son alone would show" an immense balance in fa- 
 vour of immigration. 
 
 There remain two other objections to the im- 
 migration of foreio;ners, which have been urged 
 with much apparent plausibility, and largely in- 
 ducted into public favour : the pretended appre- 
 hension of danger to our liberties, and of the" 
 spread of an erroneous religious faith. 
 
 It is one of the curses of bad government, that 
 it makes the evils it occasions an apology for the 
 power it usurps and the tyranny it exercises. 
 It first, by its general and indirect operation, re- 
 duces the masses of its people to ignorance, de- 
 prives them of the proprietorship of the soil and
 
 244 IMMlGliATlON. 
 
 a large share of their rights, and then displays 
 the phenomena which a people under such cir- 
 cumstances exhibit, as proof of their incapacity 
 for government. Give men their rights, make 
 •education accessible and property attainable, 
 and you make a different people of them. They 
 become orderly and friendly to government, be- 
 cause they are a part of the sovereignty ; they 
 respect the right of property, because they are 
 proprietors themselves ; and, to be qualified for 
 the exercise of the prerogatives which property 
 and self-sovereignty confer, they zealously apply 
 themselves to the lights of education, and make 
 every exertion to secure its benefits to their fami- 
 lies. They become respectable men, because 
 they are free citizens. So much are we the crea- 
 tures of circumstances, that the same rule of con- 
 duct presents very different motives to a man as a 
 freeholder, and the same man, with the same mor- 
 al characteristics, in the character and condition 
 of an outlaw. Hence, accordingly, it has been 
 found, that in proportion as Ireland, whence the 
 largest number of immigrants come, has been en- 
 franchised, to the same extent has it been redu- 
 ced to order and good government. We have no 
 reason to fear the influx of foreigners; the very 
 operation of our government transmutes them into
 
 immiguaTion. 245 
 
 good citizens. Have we forgotten that even rob- 
 bers and outlaws originally founded and peopled 
 Rome, republican Rome itself, where yet justice, 
 and frugality, and all the severe virtues once flour- 
 ished, in ancient times, in their greatest lustre 1 
 
 To little purpose do we claim the essential ca- 
 pacity of man, under all circumstances, for self- 
 government, if we still view the influx of a foreign 
 population as dangerous to our liberties — as if 
 those liberties must not become their liberties also. 
 And it is singular that we, who have been built 
 up from the foundation by this very means, should 
 quake at the accession of foreigners, when we are 
 ourselves foreigners of but one or two generations 
 old ; as if we were the original population of the 
 soil, and, what the ancient Athenians arrogantly 
 claimed to be, autochthones, that is, sprung from 
 the earth we inhabit. 
 
 But a large proportion of these immigrants are 
 Catholics, and Catholicism has from of old been 
 assailed as unfriendly to freedom. 
 
 Bigotry and persecution have never been 
 without plausible argument ; and the main dif- 
 ference between Protestantism and Catholicism, 
 in these respects, has been, not that one has been 
 guilty of proscribing by law whole classes of 
 men on account of religious opinions, and th* 
 X2
 
 246 
 
 IMMIGRATION. 
 
 other not, but that the degree of punishment has 
 been different, and the -pretext different. The 
 principle of persecution is a common property 
 which history has assigned to both. 
 
 It is not for me to recapitulate the pros and 
 C071S on the question of religious toleration, espe- 
 cially in a country where a state settled by Cath- 
 olics, under Catholic auspices, set the first noble 
 example of absolute and universal immunity 
 from all punishment or disqualification whatever 
 for religious opinions. The principle may be 
 supposed to have been long since sufficiently set- 
 tled, that so long as a citizen is practically a 
 good citizen, he should not suffer on account of 
 any inference which we may deduce, but he does 
 not, from his speculative opinions. I speak of the 
 settlement of the question of religious toleration, 
 because that embraces the other question, whether 
 we have anything to dread politically from the 
 influx of Catholics. If they are really hostile to 
 our liberties, they may justly be proscribed as 
 enemies ; and if we have reason to dread them 
 as such, we ought not to tolerate them. I refer, 
 therefore, those who are so spasmodically patriotic 
 and fearful on this particular question, to those old 
 discussions of the right of religious toleration, 
 with which their opinions on this subject show
 
 IMMIGRATION. 217 
 
 them to be not familiar. They will there find 
 urged, among other things, what history proves to 
 be true, that Catholics are as good citizens as any 
 other religionists; that toleration and political 
 freedom of conscience are not the gift of a par- 
 ticular religion so much as of modern times ; 
 that, on the other hand, bigotry and persecution 
 are not the qualities of any particular faith, but 
 the natural result of an exclusive or too great 
 preponderance of a single sect. If Protest- 
 antism has been more liberal than Catholicism, 
 it has been owing to its circumstances; it has 
 been because it had a later birth. It happened 
 to be the last ; another religion had the exclusive 
 possession ; it had to turn assailant. Hence its 
 character as being favourable to freedom ; one 
 to which it has great, but not by any means ex- 
 clusive claims ; a character, however, often 
 brought forward, in these times, to assail the very 
 cause in whose service it was acquired. 
 
 To urge the influx of Catholics as an evil, in 
 a religious point of view, is a flagrant error. 
 The Protestant Christian, as such, ought to know 
 no particular country. The soul across the At- 
 lantic ought to be as dear to him as that of a na- 
 tive-born American. He ought therefore to re- 
 joice at an event which places the Catholic with-
 
 248 IMMIGRATION. 
 
 in his reach, within his means of influence and 
 conversion — at a change to a place where that 
 (in his view) erroneous faith is more accessi- 
 ble, and truth is re-enforced by the strong auxil- 
 iary power of majorities. The religious Protest- 
 ant oucrht to regard with great satisfaction an 
 event which brings Catholics to his own door, 
 to have their belief rectified if it be not ortho- 
 dox, and thus converts every Protestant neigh- 
 bour into a Protestant missionary. He ough' 
 not to fear for the- cause of truth in an equai 
 competition with error, but rather to invite such 
 competition. The rivalry among religious sects 
 has already redounded much to our secular ad- 
 vantage, and has actually, I believe, made us a 
 more enlightened people. It may well be doubt- 
 ed whether, had the population rapidly settling 
 at the West been all Protestant, the same strenu- 
 ous efforts would have been put forth there in 
 the cause of education, or so zealously sustained. 
 We have, therefore, everything to hope and to 
 gain from the immigration of foreigners, while 
 there is nothing to be endangered or lost by it. 
 The question stands in the same relation to us that 
 it bore to our revolutionary fathers, who made it 
 one of the causes of complaint against the king of 
 Great Britain, that he " had endeavoured to pre
 
 IMMIGRATION. 249 
 
 vent the population of these states, for that pur- 
 pose obstructing the laws for the naturalization 
 of foreigners, and refusing to pass others to en- 
 courage their migration hither." * 
 
 We ought, therefore, to aim at regulation, not 
 restriction. Immigrants come here to seek a 
 refuge in the bountiful bosom of Nature froA the 
 desolating dominion of man. They come on the 
 same mission that our forefathers came, and to 
 be, in common with us, progenitors of a great 
 nation. They are sent by Providence to equal- 
 ize the burden of the earth, and improve the 
 condition of the human family. Let us not be 
 appalled at their numbers. They do not come 
 too rapidly to amalgamate with us. We should 
 interpose no capricious barriers to their amalga- 
 mation. The greater their numbers, the more 
 sensibly do they add to our individual and na- 
 tional prosperity. 
 
 THE END.
 
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