64TZ Z&-> ct<-i ^.^^ Q 
 
 QUALITY 
 
 THE PREVAILING ELEMENT IN 
 
 REPRESENTATION 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM B. WEEDEN. 
 
 m 
 
QUALITY 
 
 THE PREVAILING ELEMENT IN 
 
 REPRESENTATION. 
 
 BY WILLIAM B.'-"WEEDEN. 
 
 From Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, at the 
 Annual Meeting, October 24, 1S9L 
 
 WORCESTER, MASS., U. S. A. 
 
 PRESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON, 
 
 311 MAIN STREET. 
 
 1895. 
 

 £ 
 
 \ 
 
QUALITY THE PREVAILING ELEMENT IN 
 REPRESENTATION. 
 
 My purpose is to examine the history of New England, 
 that we may trace out the origins of a principle which has 
 affected our whole development in common with the United 
 States. Perhaps the movement has been more marked in 
 our district than elsewhere, and we may well look in these 
 New England States for the clearest working of a political 
 principle, which has constantly exercised profound influ- 
 ence in shaping the destinies of America. 
 
 Representation, the delegation of the sovereignty of citi- 
 zens to a body of trustees or legislators, has been fully 
 treated in various ways and by differing schools of thought. 
 To my mind there should be discrimination in representa- 
 tion itself. It has been the qualitative element in this sys- 
 tem of delegated functions which has controlled the action 
 and the resultant government of the voters, legislators and 
 governors of New England. It is the essence, rather than 
 the bulk, of the governed, which has manifested itself in 
 the choice of officers, and which has finally issued forth in 
 legislative and executive action. The meaning of the word 
 is always most affected by its great opposite — quantity or 
 bulk. In this study we need a closer definition. Locke, 
 after explaining his doctrine of ideas, says, "whatever the 
 mind perceives in itself, or is the immediate object of per- 
 ception, thought or understanding, that I call idea ; and the 
 power to produce any idea in our mind I call quality of 
 the subject wherein that power is." 
 
 The practical Blackstone gives a definition that we can 
 handle and feel in its actual contact with common affairs. 
 
"The true reason of requiring any qualification with regard 
 to property in voters, is to exclude such persons as are in 
 so mean a situation that they are esteemed to have no will 
 of their own." I would not draw out the differing tenden- 
 cies of the word, but rather develop its sympathetic side. 
 There is the tendency of like to like in all forms of repre- 
 sentative government, wherever that government accords 
 with the ways and wants of its constituent people. 
 
 Society had a new opportunity, when the bands of Eng- 
 lish adventurers planted themselves in these colonies. 
 Europe had been working itself into nationalities run in 
 the moulds laid by the Komans. A powerful municipal 
 life had grown up within the larger political field of empire, 
 and this life had been modified by the ecclesiastical func- 
 tions of the Koman Church ; latterly, by the severe restraint 
 of the Reformed Church, as it prevailed in Northern Europe. 
 Over and through all, the great organizing power of feudal 
 society carried its sinews of military domination, and firmly 
 kept its nervous grasp on the land. 
 
 All was changed in the new England, that transported 
 the habits and customs, but not the substance and under- 
 lying structure, of the old England. The land here was 
 not occupied by peasants, alternately wielding a spade for 
 their own bread and taxes, and a pike and spear for their 
 count or earl. Excepting the hindrance of a few savage 
 tribes, meadow and forest waited for the hand of the farmer, 
 who should soon come to be a citizen. Earth, standing- 
 room, the privilege of a grave, was no longer the basis of 
 existence and the main-stay of the State. Man in his own 
 right, a legalized social being but an individual master, 
 stood forth, to control the soil spread out to receive the 
 new institutions he was about to plant upon it. 
 
 Again, these individuals and families were a picked lot. 
 For the first two centuries the best of their kind came to 
 America and the weakest dropped out by the way. Ex- 
 ceptional races furnished their contingents, Even in New 
 
England there was an effective admixture of blood ; Ireland 
 and Scotland, Germany and France, were mingled in the 
 larger English stream. It will be understood, I do not 
 mean that the best individuals came to America leaving 
 the worst in Europe, or that those coming excelled the 
 better sort of those remaining at home. Culture and social 
 privilege — with their inevitable results — remained with 
 the older institutions of Europe. I would simply note that 
 a new and large opportunity was opened to these average 
 citizens, who had been selected and were to be arranged by 
 new social processes. 
 
 This rupture of old social ties and new arrangement 
 under changed conditions has led many observers to con- 
 strue New England as a democratic society. Nothing 
 could be more unlike the actual state of affairs. We need 
 not refer to Cotton or Winthrop to show the antipathy of 
 the most trusted leaders to democratic methods. The 
 necessary drift of the new country carried the settlers away 
 from democratic equality, and carried them, not into ranks 
 and classes, but classified their energies for the final good 
 of the whole community. Rhode Island, alone, by force 
 of her peculiar circumstances, began with pure demo- 
 cratic methods. Soon the American drift carried her into 
 legislation and government, whose general political effect 
 can hardly be distinguished from the more aristocratic 
 hierarchical development of Massachusetts and Connecticut. 
 
 At the very first, whether at Plymouth, Salem, and Bos- 
 ton, or New Haven, Connecticut, and Providence, the public 
 business got under way as it could, and government adapted 
 itself to the varying circumstances of these settlements. 
 It is generally agreed that representation in Massachusetts 
 was fairly instituted in about three years after the founding 
 of the Bay plantations. 1 And this representation worked 
 
 1 Representation and Suffrage in Mass. Haynes, 12 Hopkins, University 
 Studies, VIII. 14. I have freely used this careful essay. 
 
6 
 
 itself out on the lines I have briefly indicated. The social 
 customs, the ingrained political ideas, the resulting institu- 
 tions of Englishmen, took root in a new soil and developed 
 rapidly into a new line of institutions, which ultimately 
 came to be the organs of a new State. It was the quality 
 and essential nature of these people which directed the lines 
 of this development and gave final unity to different com- 
 munities. We gain little by too minute classification of 
 these historic incidents according to the terms of Greek, 
 Roman or English experience. The influence of a corpora- 
 tion issuing from the Crown of England and planting itself 
 on a wide territory, that influence must make itself felt, 
 even when it was not strictly corporeal. 1 Yet it was not a 
 mere corporation, nor was that corporate body succeeded 
 by an oligarchy. 
 
 To comprehend this matter let us glance at some criti- 
 cism of unfriendly observers. Thomas Morton gives us 
 his notion of John Endicott. "This man thinking none so 
 worthy as himself, took upon him infinitely : and made 
 warrants in his own name ... To these articles every 
 Planter, old and new, must sign, or be expelled. . . . That 
 in all causes, as well Ecclesiastical as Politicall we should 
 follow the rule of God's words . . . for the construction of 
 the words would be made by them of the Separation to 
 serve their owne turnes." 2 This might be Morton's idea 
 of the "free handling" of Scripture, which two centuries of 
 experience may have somewhat justified. Not so, honest 
 John Endicott in his day and generation. He wrote to 
 Bradford, "God's people are all marked with one and the 
 same mark and sealed with one and the same seal, and 
 have for the main, one and the same heart, guided by one 
 
 1 See Genesis of the Massachusetts Towns, Proceedings Mass. Hist. Soc, Jan., 
 1892, where the whole subject is discussed by Adams, Goodell, Chamberlain 
 and Channing. 
 
 2 New English Canaan. Book III., Chap. XXI. 
 
and the same spirit of truth ; and where this is there can 
 be no discord." 1 This was admirable in the spirit and not 
 vexatious for the body, until it came to be rendered politi- 
 cally and to affect the every-day business of mankind. 
 Then Edward Johnson, "a very devout and explicit Puri- 
 tan," shows us the proper method of governing a State. 
 He said, in 1637, that his brethren "also hate every false 
 way, not that they would compel men to believe by the 
 power of the Sword, but to endeavor all to answer their 
 profession ; whether in Church Covenant or otherwise, by 
 knowing they bare not the Sword in vaine." 2 
 
 It is true that Bradford and Winthrop were larger and 
 more in accord with the type of the colonial Massachusetts 
 which was to come. But in that day the average planter 
 and Puritan was very like Endicott and Johnson. It was 
 not because John Endicott wielded the power of a corpora- 
 tion, deriving from the Crown, nor that Edward Johnson 
 could move a church gathering and moderate a town meet- 
 ing according to his own will, that these worthies could 
 set up what Thomas Morton conceived to be a tyranny. 
 ' These men were of the same quality as those they repre- 
 sented. All or nearly all the men who obtained a foothold 
 in Massachusetts and Connecticut believed in the same 
 way, that they were sealed with the great seal of the 
 Almighty. Occasionally, one like Wheelwright, Anne 
 Hutchinson or Roger Williams might hold a signet which 
 varied by a line or a shadow from the established mark. 
 He might get out. His ways were not God's ways, as 
 conceived by the average Puritan, and there was no occa- 
 sion that the fold of the Puritan lambs should be troubled 
 by these ungodly shepherds. The lambs desired to be let 
 alone. Not even Winthrop, with his large benevolence 
 
 1 Morton's New England's Memorial, 5th ed., p. 143. 
 
 2 Wonder Working Providence, p. 107. 
 
and his reason bred in the true insight of the State, could 
 resist this impelling flood of public sentiment. His pro- 
 found sorrow in consequence was most pathetic. Cotton 
 was not a bad nor ignorant man, but he could not lift him- 
 self a hand's breadth above the quality of the Johnsons, 
 .who bore not the sword or the mace of banishment in vain. 
 
 It was the merit of Roger Williams that, after he had 
 clashed signets for a time with the men of the Bay and of 
 Plymouth, he perceived that the impressions became some- 
 what blurred and not available for expression and use in 
 constable's warrants and decrees of banishment. If Endi- 
 cott's one spirit of truth was comprehended in any one 
 mark, which was a mechanism, then it was the best busi- 
 ness of man to hold fast to that mechanism. But Williams 
 discovered, after much travail of spirit, that Johnson's 
 sword might be sheathed, for once, in matters ecclesiastical. 
 Hence the compact made at Providence, "we subject our- 
 selves in active or passive obedience . . . only in civil 
 things." 1 It was an exception of tremendous consequence, 
 too large to be contained in the commonwealth that gave 
 it birth and afforded the first practical exposition of relig- 
 ious liberty. 
 
 It was the merit of Thomas Hooker, that while he came 
 far short of Roger Williams in the large perception of a 
 complete division between "civil things" and things eccle- 
 siastical, he organized Connecticut on a basis which enabled 
 it to work a political government, modified by its ecclesi- 
 astical connections, for nearly two centuries without sub- 
 stantial changes. Rhode Island, the smallest of principali- 
 ties, was developed into a State on religious liberty, pure 
 and simple. This was a great object lesson for the whole 
 world, both Protestant and Catholic. Whether a larger 
 community and combination of commonwealths, like New 
 
 1 Arnold, History of Rhode Island, I., 100. 
 
England, could have been worked together on the same 
 basis of principle we shall never know ; for it was not tried 
 in that day. Hooker did formulate the Puritan principle 
 into a solid form of law, which could be administered and 
 which made a most prosperous and homogeneous com- 
 munity. That is, the men whom Hooker animated and 
 whom he represented did this work. Hooker has been ex- 
 alted as the father of American democracy. This has been 
 sufficiently refuted. 1 He did prune down the theocratic 
 rhapsody of the Puritans into some definite form, which 
 the Connecticut farmers administered admirably, to bring 
 out the social life and prosperity which they wanted. 
 
 The written constitution of Connecticut did not differ 
 much in essence from the theocratic ideas which underlay 
 the practical administration of Massachusetts Bay, and 
 which interpreted the charter as it was applied to the neces- 
 sary business of the incipient State. But we shall see that 
 this constitution was interpreted by a group of statesmen 
 whose quality was exactly like that of their constituents 
 and whose action was therefore harmonious. Meanwhile 
 Massachusetts was agitated and torn by parties, which in 
 time worked out a political evolution of another sort. The 
 men of Connecticut said, " . . .a people gathered together, 
 the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and 
 union of such a people, there should be an orderly and 
 decent government established according to God, to order 
 and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as 
 occasion shall require ; do therefore associate and conjoine 
 ourselves to be as one public Estate or Commonwealth." 2 
 Connecticut did not, like Massachusetts, require freemen 
 to be church members, yet the political result was the 
 same. "Town government and church government were 
 
 i See Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., Jan., 1890. Doyle, Puritan Colonies, I., 158. 
 '* Hinton's Antiquities, p. 20. 
 
10 
 
 but the two sides of the same medal, and the same persons 
 took part in both." 1 Let us look into Hooker's "Survey 
 of the Surame of Church-Discipline," published in its pres- 
 ent form in 1648, after his death. "Men sustain a double 
 relation. As members of the commonwealth they have civil 
 weapons, and in a civil way of righteousnesse, they may, 
 and should use them. But as members of a Church, their 
 weapons are spirituall, and the work is spirituall, the cen- 
 sures of the Church are spirituall, and reach the souls and 
 consciences of men." 2 He did not hold and is careful to 
 guard himself from religious toleration. 3 He further elabo- 
 rates the idea of separation between Church and State. 
 "iVb civil rule can properly convey over an Ecclesiasticall 
 right. The rules are in specie distinct, and their works 
 
 and ends also, and therefore cannot be confounded 
 
 But the taking up an abode or dwelling in such a place or 
 
 precincts is by the rule of policy and civ ility Ergo, 
 
 This can give him no Ecclesiasticall right to Church-fellow- 
 ship." 4 Here is a dim recognition of the difference there 
 ought to be between spiritual and temporal things in the 
 office of government. 
 
 We may now cite a statement which has been latterly 
 brought out or translated from an abstract of a famous ser- 
 mon preached by Hooker in 1638, and which is justly sup- 
 posed to have influenced the formation and direction of the 
 constitution of Connecticut. "The choice of public magis- 
 trates belongs unto the people, by God's own allowance. 
 . . . The privilege of election, which belongs to the people, 
 therefore must not be exercised according to their humors, 
 but according to the blessed will and law of God." 5 
 
 1 Johnson's Connecticut, pp. 59, 220. 
 
 2 A Survey of the Summe of Church-Discipline, London, 1648, p. 4. 
 s Ibid., p. 13. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 13. 
 
 6 Cited by Palfrey, History of New England, I., 536 n. 
 
11 
 
 Now, if we survey the whole substance of Hooker's doc- 
 trine, as formulated by himself, we easily perceive that he 
 was forging out a practical method of theocratic govern- 
 ment, rather than stating any doctrine of political equality 
 administered by a large majority of the people, as we under- 
 stand democracy in its modern sense. 
 
 Another ray of light on the political ideas of Connecticut 
 is reflected from a sermon preached to the soldiers going 
 out to crush the Pequots. This is attributed to Hooker; 
 whether the words were spoken by him or not, they were 
 out of the heart of his system. "Every common soldier 
 among you is now installed a magistrate ; then show your- 
 selves men of courage ; I would not draw low the height 
 of your enemies' hatred against you and so debase your 
 valour." An essentially Puritan idea, to elevate a man by 
 making him into a representative and trusted agent. And 
 nothing better illustrates the principle I am seeking in the 
 historic record, that quality animated the method of the 
 Puritan representation. 
 
 Another and a greater man towers above these men who 
 made New England. We cannot overlook John Winthrop 
 in the most hasty survey of the beginnings of our history. 
 His work is so well known and his record of himself is so 
 complete that we need not dwell upon his part in the 
 drama, further than to cite, "the best part of a community 
 is always the least, and of that least part the wiser are still 
 less." 1 Or his more general affirmation, "democracy is 
 among most civil nations accounted the meanest and worst 
 of all forms of government." Greater than any expressed 
 thoughts of Winthrop was his masterly action. States are 
 never conceived in the closet, nor made upon paper. He 
 did the right thing at the right time and enlarged the nar- 
 rowing tendencies of his sanctimonious brethren, whenever 
 
 1 Winthrop, History of New England, II., 428. 
 
12 
 
 and however they moved forward in common action and 
 together. 
 
 Representation should finally deal with the body person- 
 ated and the delegates must stand for the conviction and 
 possible action of those who put power into the hands of 
 representatives. Who were the men who stood behind 
 these leaders, who followed them to achieve these new 
 methods of government, to attain to new forms of political 
 and social life? The charter of King Charles was suc- 
 ceeded by the freemen of the towns of Massachusetts Bay. 
 The General Court intervened, whether as mother or mid- 
 wife, has occasioned much learned discussion. 1 If we study 
 the process at any point we may not be absolutely sure 
 whether we are dissecting the chicken or the egg, but the 
 principle of representation I have stated, is never absent. 
 In 1633 these freemen, in the most solemn and formal man- 
 ner, subscribed to this oath: "Moreover when I shall be 
 called to give my voice touching any such matter of this 
 state, wherein freemen are to deal, I will give my vote 
 and suffrage as I shall judge in mine own conscience may 
 best conduce and tend to the public weal of the body, with- 
 out respect of persons, or favor of any man." 2 These 
 heroes had not arrived at Roger Williams's conception, that 
 the consciences of others should have equal rights and full 
 liberty in matters of conscience, but how fully they com- 
 prehended themselves as loyal parts and duteous repre- 
 sentatives of the State. There had been an oath previously 
 taken in 1631. Palfrey 3 estimates that of the 118 freemen 
 who took the oath at that time, from one-half to three- 
 quarters of the number were Church members. In 1633 
 the General Court enacted the restriction, "no man shall 
 
 1 See G-eoesis of the Massachusetts Towns, Adams and others. 
 
 2 Mass. Col. Rec, I., 117. 
 
 BVol.I.,348. 
 
13 
 
 be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such 
 as are members of some of the churches within the limits 
 of the same." 1 Apologists 2 have referred this action to an 
 especial desire to propitiate Puritan purists in England. 
 Cotton wrote to Lord Say and Sele and others "for the 
 liberties of the freemen of this commonwealth are such as 
 require men of faithful integrity to God and the State." 
 But such petty criticism fails to grasp the significance of 
 the whole movement in the colony of the Bay. These 
 restrictions were in the line of development prescribed by 
 the opinions of Endicott, Edward Johnson, Wilson and the 
 rest. Where men are marked with "God's mark" there 
 can be no discord. Of course the practical effect was, as 
 it must be, notwithstanding Hooker's distinctions above 
 cited, 3 to make the church door a way of political prefer- 
 ment. But the labels were scriptural and doctrinal, as 
 ecclesiasticism always depends much on labels. Next to 
 the freemen 4 in political and legal privilege came the inhab- 
 itants. These were not simply dwellers in the place, 
 they were "all male adults, not admitted freemen of the 
 colony on one hand, nor servants on the other, who by 
 general laws or by special town acts were allowed to 
 become permanent residents of the town." 5 The restric- 
 tions on persons not having the freemen's privilege were 
 somewhat relieved as early as 1641, when "every man, 
 
 i Mass. Col. Rec, I., 87. 
 
 2 Palfrey, History of New England, I., 345. 
 
 3 Ante, p. 10. 
 
 4 At no period were the freemen any considerable proportion of the popula- 
 tion. In 1679 small towns of twenty freemen were entitled to the regular 
 delegation of two deputies to the General Court. Boston had a population 
 which, in 1075, had been estimated at 4,000. She wished for a larger representa- 
 tion and remonstrated against the inequality of the parity, " sball 20 freemen 
 have equal privileges with our great town which consists of near twenty times 
 twenty freemen?"— (Ernst, Constitutional History of Boston, p. 17.) 
 
 5 Hopkins, VII., 28. Haynes here accepts Chamberlain's definition. Genesis 
 of the Mass. Towns, p. 72. See also Ibid., Adams, p. 12. Goodell, p. 44. 
 
14 
 
 whether inhabitant or foreigner, free or not free," was per- 
 mitted by statute to come to "any court, council or town 
 meeting" and urge his motion or complaint. In 1644, 
 enlargement of privilege to non-church members was for- 
 mally refused. 1 
 
 Clearly, the freemen of Massachusetts were a privileged 
 body, selected, as I have shown, by qualitative customs, 
 rather than by a strict rule of suffrage, to represent the 
 whole body of citizens, as we should call the people of the 
 colony. These privileges of the "ins" were constantly 
 vexing the "outs," as occasionally appears in the side 
 lights of history. Winthrop notes, in 1644, that certain 
 decrees were not published, concerning a difference between 
 the governor and council and the magistrates, because 
 "the non-members would certainly take part with the 
 magistrates, and this would make us and our cause, though 
 never so just, obnoxious to the common sort of freemen." 2 
 Lechford's adverse opinion was as follows: "The most of 
 the persons at New England are not admitted of their 
 church, and therefore are not freemen ; and when they 
 come to be tried there, be it for life or limb, name or 
 estate, or whatsoever, they must be tried and judged too 
 by those of the church who are in a sort their adversaries." 
 This whole system of suffrage and representation was very 
 strong and based on the solid convictions of the people. 
 We perceive this in the fact that all the movements for 
 enlarging political privilege yielded little until 1681. 3 Then 
 town inhabitants who had served worthily in local offices 
 were admitted to be freemen. The privilege of property 
 counted very little as against the restrictions of a non-free- 
 man. All the towns guarded jealously the corporate hold 
 upon the land. No one could sell his estate without the 
 
 i Winthrop, History of New England, II., 160. 
 
 2 Winthrop, History of New England, II., 171, and Savages note. 
 
 312 Hopkins, VIII., 53, 58, 59. 
 
15 
 
 consent of the selectmen or town meeting. We should 
 not construe this — as many writers have done 1 — too ex- 
 clusively from the point of view prescribed by religious 
 development. It was not so much orthodoxy, as every 
 doxy, that contributed to build up and strengthen the politi- 
 cal system of Massachusetts Bay. Massachusetts made 
 her people subject to freemen who were Church members. 
 The outs in the early days were constantly contending 
 against these barriers, and often suffered great hardships. 
 Connecticut, with less technical restriction, carried her 
 policy along an even road, prescribed by the concurring 
 opinions of her freemen. Khode Island, having entirely 
 abolished her religious restrictions, developed her polity 
 on lines very similar to the purely political development of 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut. We have noted the agree- 
 ment subscribed in Providence, "only in civil things." 
 In 163| freemen were admitted at Newport, "none but by 
 consent of the body." 2 In 16|$ there was a general as- 
 sembly of the freemen of the Plantations. Those who 
 could not attend, sent their sealed proxies (for election of 
 officers) to the judge. In 1647 a majority of the freemen 
 of the colony were present at the General Assembly, when 
 a compulsory quorum of forty was established. This is re- 
 garded as the beginning of a representative system. 3 After- 
 wards freemen of the towns were always made freemen of 
 the colony on request to the General Assembly. In 1655, 4 
 after nearly a score of years, and customs were well estab- 
 lished, "not every resident was a legal inhabitant." In 
 most cases there was an orderly development of citizens in 
 the modern sense. First a settler, then an inhabitant with 
 rights to common lands, he was eligible to jury duty and 
 to hold the lesser town offices ; if satisfactory he was then 
 propounded to be a freeman. At first the freemen were 
 
 1 See Doyle, Puritan Colonies, I., 134. 
 
 2 Arnold, History of Rhode Island, I., 127. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 202. * Ibid., p. 256. 
 
16 
 
 all owners of land. A few years later others were admitted 
 who held the franchise without land. The famous restric- 
 tion on suffrage was not imposed until 172f . 1 This required 
 a freehold qualification of £100, or an income of £2 from 
 real estate ; the eldest son of a freeholder could also vote. 
 
 The slightest survey shows that in all the colonies there 
 was a general restriction of suffrage and representation. 
 The cause is plain, in that the great unthinking majority 
 determined to be represented by those leaders whose quality 
 accorded with their own political purposes. Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut conceived the Church to be the only means 
 of reaching this end. When Rhode Island cast off this 
 means of primary organization she came at last to the free- 
 holder and the land, as her basis and stay of society, in 
 place of an organization of saints in the Church. In either 
 case, democracy alone could not hold the field. The voice 
 of the people needed some collateral organized system to 
 give stability to the progress of the State. The formal 
 transfer of the powers of the corporation under the Charter 
 of Massachusetts did not occur until the year 1634. A 
 great movement was in process — and the proceedings were 
 as mysterious, so far as records go, as if they had occurred 
 in Athens — this movement brought together deputies of 
 the towns. These deputies reenforced the more aristo- 
 cratic assistants or governor's council, and they formed the 
 rude basis of a popular House of Representatives. 
 
 In some way, no one knows by what authority, the depu- 
 ties assembled. With the crude notions of popular sov- 
 ereignty always prevailing, whether the expositors be dem- 
 ocrats or anarchists, these law-makers looked about them 
 to find out on what ground they stood. According to 
 Winthrop 2 they "desired a sight of the patent." After 
 they found that their only constituted authority required 
 that all laws should be made by the General Court, they 
 
 i Arnold, History of Rhode Island, II., 77. 2 yol. i. 5 153, 
 
17 
 
 took counsel with the Governor. The sagacious statesman, 
 with his usual moderation, explained that the ultimate pur- 
 pose of the Charter undoubtedly intended a representative 
 body of legislators, who should act for the freemen, whose 
 increasing and inevitable numbers must swamp any com- 
 mon meeting. " A select body to intend that work " would 
 in time be necessary, but now, we are not "furnished 
 with a sufficient number of men qualified for such a busi- 
 ness, neither could the commonwealth bear the loss of 
 time of so many as must attend it." There was no spirit 
 of oligarchy here ; it was the old aristocratic notion of 
 rulers and superiors : leave us to do your business and we 
 will do better than you can do for yourselves. Like all 
 sensible executives, Winthrop and the General Court ap- 
 pointed a committee to examine and report, fondly trusting 
 that it would become annual and thus relieve the popular 
 pressure. But the freemen, in town meetings assembled, 
 could not be quieted by such aristocratic taffy, however 
 skilfully administered. Like the child who vaults from 
 the nursery stool to a seat at the family table, or the un- 
 bidden guest who is able to make himself welcome, three 
 deputies from each of eight towns appeared at the next 
 General Court. The other eight plantations of the colony, 
 beins: distant and feeble, did not trouble themselves with 
 the bother about popular or constitutional rights. What- 
 ever prescriptive rights were lacking, the representatives 
 of the freemen proceeded to make rights which should 
 answer their purposes. These purposes had now become 
 political, having worked themselves free of economic re- 
 striction, and having moved out from direct ecclesiastical 
 control. By the Charter only the Governor with six assist- 
 ants could admit freemen to the privileges of the Colony. 
 Now the representatives prescribed positively that only the 
 General Court could admit freemen, or appoint officers, 
 civil and military, or raise money, or dispose of lands. 
 For the first time Winthrop was passed over in electing 
 2 
 
18 
 
 the Governor. Yet he served under Dudley in the second 
 place just as cheerfully. These results show the invincible 
 power of the popular movement, and especially in that it 
 absorbed for the moment the great personality of Winthrop. 
 That the whole arrangement was natural and that Win- 
 throp speedily rose to the enlarged opportunity, is shown 
 by the fact that he soon took the lead again, in the 
 precedence which his abilities and character gave him. 
 
 Having considered the people in their assemblies and 
 towns, we should turn to those remarkable organs of gov- 
 ernment which articulated between the towns and the com- 
 mon business of living. The town councils, selectmen, 
 town-representatives sometimes called, were out of the 
 very loins of the freemen. Whatever the King's Charter 
 or the ecclesiastical functions of the Church might prescribe, 
 in the selected councils of the towns, the New Englander 
 had his own deputies under his own hand. The selectmen 
 numbered from three to thirteen, 1 chosen by the town to 
 order prudential affairs. In Connecticut 2 and Rhode Island 3 
 they had the probate of wills and administration of estates. 
 In Massachusetts probate was conducted by the County 
 Court. 4 To give the multifarious offices and duties 5 of 
 these minor executives and small legislatures in all the 
 towns of New England, would fill out more than this hour. 
 We are more concerned with the manner of the doing than 
 with the acts done. Dorchester may well be considered a 
 typical town, for on this community John White set his 
 mark, and there was no more potent influence in shaping 
 the pioneers of* New England. These solid Puritans, in 
 1645, "laid 1o heart the disorders that too often fall out 
 among us and not the least was seldomest in our town 
 meetings, . . . being heartily sorry for and ashamed of the 
 
 1 Howard, Local Con. History, p. 75. 2 Ibid., p. 76. 
 
 3 Arnold, History of Rhode Island, L, 209, 369. 
 
 4 Howard, p. 331. 5 Ibid., see pp. 79- 
 
19 
 
 premises." 1 They prescribe the election of " seven or so 
 many of our most grave, moderate and prudent brethren as 
 shall then be thought meet for the managing of the pru- 
 dential affairs of the town for that year." The town goes 
 on to arrange carefully for the conduct of business in the 
 town meeting. " When the company is assembled as afore- 
 said it is ordered that all men shall attend unto what is 
 propounded by the seven men and thereunto afford their 
 best help as shall be required in due order avoiding all 
 janglings by two or three in several companies as also to 
 speak unorderly or unseasonably. ... in case the seven men 
 shall refuse to propound any man's motion the party shall 
 after some competent times of patience and forbearance 
 have liberty to propound his own cause for hearing at some 
 meeting provided all disturbance and confusion be avoided." 2 
 It was also ordered that no man should leave the town 
 meeting without "due notice unto the moderator and de- 
 claring such occasion as shall be approved by the seven 
 men" upon pain " of twelve pence." All the towns were 
 as liberal with their selectmen as Weymouth, which enacted 
 in 1651 : "Wee willingly grant they shall have their Dyn- 
 ners uppon the towns charge when they meete about the 
 Towns affaires." 3 Boston paid £2.18.5 for "diet for the 
 selectmen in 1641." This system of deputing the sub- 
 stance of the public business to the selectmen, worked 
 easily and completely, as it carried out the wishes of the 
 freemen, and through them met the desires of the governed. 
 There was a qualifying action on the part of the prudential 
 or selected body, which screened off and then adapted the 
 public business to the exigencies of town meetings and of 
 circumstance. One proof of this may be inferred from the 
 history of the largest town of all, Boston. Here the origi- 
 nal course of proceeding was followed until 1702, when 
 
 i Genesis of the Massachusetts Towns, p. 13. The records are largely cited 
 by Adams. 
 2 Genesis of the Massachusetts Towns, p. 16. 3 Ibid., p. 23. 
 
20 
 
 the business of town meetings was confined to matters 
 "especially exprest in the Warrant." 1 In 1715 the Prov- 
 ince 52 made a general law to the same effect. So long and 
 so closely did the selectmen and town meeting move in 
 accord with the freemen that no general restraint was 
 needed through a notice in the warrant. We shall gain 
 insight into the practical ways of developing government, 
 especially in Massachusetts, by a glance at the methods of 
 nominating assistants. These were under the Charter, the 
 governor's council ; they were to be the upper house or 
 future senate, and as the name indicates they were intended 
 for a constituent part of the executive and became a legis- 
 lative body in the inevitable development of New England. 
 The nomination of these assistants was a process, wherein 
 the qualifying or selecting methods must be well adjusted, 
 or there could not have been harmony in the clumsy, though 
 simple, mechanism of the period. As early as 1640 there 
 began to be regulation of the nominations. After several 
 expedients, they adopted in 1644 a plan, 3 retained, with 
 slight modifications, until the royal government overrode 
 all such administration. It was thoroughly worked out. 
 In town meeting each freeman first voted for any nominee 
 that he pleased, a committee carried these votes sealed to 
 the county town. These delegates then chose one or two, 
 called "shire selectmen," to cany the sealed votes to Bos- 
 ton. With much formality the central convention reported 
 to the selectmen of the various towns the names of seven 
 assistants who had received the highest number of nominat- 
 ing votes. The selectmen announced these names, and 
 these only were voted for at the regular election of assist- 
 ants. Ballots and proxies were used in elections of magis- 
 trates ; Indian beans — white for election, black for blanks — 
 were formally substituted for the scarce paper in casting 
 
 1 8 Bos. Eec, 17, 21. 2p rov . Laws, II., 30, 
 
 3 Howard, Local Con. History, p. 354. 
 
21 
 
 ballots. In 1(580 Indian corn was adopted instead of beans. 
 These are homely reminders of the constant process of 
 evolution ; by which representative government was root- 
 ing itself in the soil of New England. 
 
 There seemed to be an inevitable development of the 
 freeman, the town, and the legislature, out of the common 
 loins of the people. Many expedients were tried or sug- 
 gested, then sloughed off as unnecessary for these three 
 institutions, which became the trinal support of the State. 
 For example, in 1644 the General Court of Massachusetts 
 moved to substitute county representation for the direct 
 delegation of the towns. They recited the inconveniences 
 and, "furth r forseeing y* as towns increase y° numb r wilbe 
 still augmented," they proposed that twenty deputies be 
 chosen by the freemen of the various shires : six in Suffolk, 
 six in Middlesex, and eight in Essex and Norfolk jointly. 1 
 The towns declined this easy method of compressing their 
 privileges ; power was no longer moving downward from 
 the chartered court, it was ascending from the people. 
 
 One of the curious restrictions made by the first genera- 
 tion was in the exclusion of practising lawyers from the 
 deputies or lower house of the General Court. To be exact 
 it was "any person who is a usual and common attorney." 2 
 While there was a certain propriety or scruple of decorum 
 in this, inasmuch as the General Court was a court of 
 appeal, when lawyers might be concerned in the cases 
 coming there, we may well doubt if such was the main 
 motive. When we consider Lechford's sorry experience, 
 when he was the only regular lawyer and could not maintain 
 himself at Boston, there appears to be a deeper reason for 
 the exclusion. The upper house or assistants was a more 
 aristocratic and naturally exclusive body than the house of 
 deputies. The assistants were better placed, better educa- 
 ted, generally enjoyed longer terms of office, and had 
 
 1 Howard, Local Cou. History, p. 355. 
 
 2 Mass. Col. Rec, IV., Pt. II., p. 87. 
 
22 
 
 many men of legal training among them. Among the 
 deputies the average freeman found himself most at home 
 and he deliberately excluded working lawyers, when their 
 experience and information would have been certainly use- 
 ful. This was the laic instinct in the New Englander. It 
 manifested itself quite as often in mere prejudice as in the 
 matured independence of the layman. He would have 
 liked to exercise the same power and make himself his own 
 priest in the Church, if he could, but he did not quite dare 
 to tackle the unseen world of spirits. And this is no mere 
 figure of speech, when transported to the life of the seven- 
 teenth century. There were actual devils all about and a 
 restless Providence over all, who might oppress or neglect 
 the unwary sinner. The Puritan must have a minister, 
 armed in all the panoply scripture and ecclesiasticism could 
 afford, to breast the attacks of Belial and Satan, to soothe 
 a Jehovah whose methods were rather Satanic. 
 
 But on this firm earth the freeman was sufficient unto 
 himself. He could deal with matter, with the earth and 
 earthly things, to his own satisfaction. Law he could 
 make, and precedent he despised, if it did not run accord- 
 ing to the accordant notion of the saints marked with 
 Endicott's one seal. Therefore he fondly hoped to dis- 
 pense with the trained exponents of human law, and to 
 make his own codes, out of his own practical hardy sense 
 and the crude inspirations of a virtuous people. 
 
 We might cite numerous illustrations from colonial 
 history to support the positions taken in the beginning. 
 They would all tend in the same direction. In the whole 
 course of colonial political life we find the same quali- 
 tative selection and work, and bringing out the force of 
 the people for the immediate business in hand. We shall 
 gain more insight into the matter if we pass to one of the 
 greatest instances of qualitative representation shown in 
 history. 
 
 When the awful chasm yawned between the people of 
 
23 
 
 America and the ministers of George III., who were seek- 
 ing to enforce his royal prerogative ; the people, whether 
 freemen or not, whether church members, landholders or 
 not, looked about for a new means and manifestation of 
 government. The old machinery of government could not 
 serve in revolution, could not destroy itself. Some medium 
 was imperative that should embody the new civic force of 
 the people, and put its faith in an energy which could not 
 be exercised through the King's representatives. This was 
 far from independence. That great word was not even 
 whispered. The people were subjects and, feeling so, they 
 were casting about for new organs of political expression, 
 new legislators and governors, who should bring them in 
 some vague way nearer their master, the King. At least 
 this was the form of the movement, though its spirit soon 
 carried the movers beyond their original purpose. 
 
 Accordingly, throughout the colonies, there were formed 
 local committees of " Safety, inspection and correspond- 
 ence." Poor Hutchinson, born in an unfortunate period, 
 too wise for his time, too scrupulous for revolution, saw 
 the bearing of these committees, which underrun the ground 
 of sovereignty itself. He condemned these committees as 
 "not warranted by the constitution," and declared the doc- 
 trines set forth by the towns "dangerous." The highest 
 quality of the New World went to the making of these 
 committees. Francis Dana, in writing to Elbridge Gerry, 
 called them "the corner stone of our revolution or new 
 empire." By 1774 they had virtually ceased to be sub- 
 jects, for Warren voiced their high purpose in these noble 
 words, "when liberty is the prize, who would shun the 
 warfare, who would stoop to waste a coward thought -on 
 life?" 
 
 The popular character and the representative essence of 
 these committees is fully revealed in the resolutions which 
 accompanied the contributions from all New England to the 
 sufferers at Boston, through the Port Act in 1774. New 
 
24 
 
 Hampshire wrote, the contributions "are from the industri- 
 ous yeomanry ... a small part of what we are in duty 
 bound to communicate (give) to those truly noble and 
 patriotic advocates of American freedom who are bravely 
 standing in the gap between us and slavery, defending the 
 common interests of a whole continent, and gloriously 
 struggling in the cause of liberty." x Connecticut called 
 her remittance "the first payment of a large debt we owe 
 you." 2 Rhode Island looked to the future in the common 
 obligation of all the people. "Due care will be taken in 
 this town to afford you that relief your circumstances may 
 require and our abilities may afford." 3 
 
 Words may or may not stand for things, as results will 
 certainly indicate. But in money and the tax, government 
 always touches the true nerve-currents of political life. A 
 tax voluntarily rendered is a certain touch-stone of repre- 
 sentation. Samuel Adams, Warren and the rest had struck 
 home to the hearts of the people. It was through the 
 essential quality of these leaders, drawing from the like 
 elements in their constituency, that a new representation 
 was established, and that Mr. Dana's new empire came 
 into being. A whole people cannot call forth such a tre- 
 mendous evolution in government as revolution creates. 
 It proceeds from leaders. A significant illustration in the 
 opposite direction is afforded by the destruction of slavery 
 in the United States. Mr. George P. Marsh told me: 
 "Emancipation was the first movement ever initiated by 
 the people of the United States." 
 
 Some general observations are consequent to this study 
 and force themselves upon the mind. We may well leave 
 particular history at the Revolution, and consider the prin- 
 ciples which are involved in this historical development. 
 
 Before fully defining representation we must glance at 
 sovereignty. It is a difficult term. One may say, if the 
 
 *4 Mass. Hist. Col., IV.. p. 145. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 117. s Ibid., p. 192. 
 
25 
 
 people are sovereign, and if each member of the people 
 has personal rights — and this was demonstrated in the 
 American Revolution, in spite of all chartered prerogative 
 and constitutions — if this be the case, then each man is an 
 autocrat and the people are absolute. But wait ! Absolute 
 power, like the divine right of Kings, has become more of 
 a historic figment than a political substance. The royal 
 prerogative in England 1 has been silently disintegrated 
 like an iceberg in its surrounding waters. Absolute power, 
 irrespective of constitutional and legitimate limitations, has 
 become a thing of the past. There have been curious illus- 
 trations of the failing power of this absolute will, whether 
 put forth by haughty Czar or homely freeman. Rhode 
 Island, once an almost pure democracy administered by a 
 social aristocracy, had a constitutional revolution and a 
 rebellion verging upon bloodshed in 1842. In the dis- 
 cussions of the times, a fiery suffrage orator would often 
 exclaim, "if soverinity don't reside in the people, where 
 the does it reside?" So complex was a representa- 
 tive government to an ignorant freeman. 
 
 We may hope that absolute power — as a working force 
 — has ceased to be in civilized States. The people are 
 sovereign, but we reach the people not through persons 
 exercising personal rights, but through institutions embody- 
 ing the rights of all. Individual wills are subject to the 
 great two-fold will of the people. A mass may vote an 
 absolute decree. Before it can be executed, through the 
 many checks and balances of the State, the corrective 
 judgment of the whole comes to regulate the will even of 
 the larger part of the great voting mass. When the whole 
 State has acted through these time-hallowed organs, we 
 
 i It has been well said of the limitations of sovereignty in England ..." the 
 people may do what they like with their own. But no such doctrines are 
 known to English law. In that noble system the law of political conditions 
 spontaneously finds its appropriate place. . . . Every power aud every privilege, 
 to whomsoever it belongs, is given by the law, is exercised in conformity with 
 the law, and by the law may be either extended or extinguished."— Hearn, 
 The Government of England, p. 3. 
 
26 
 
 have the strange but delightful paradox of a people obey- 
 ing itself, without the absolute power of ruling itself. 
 
 A mystic essence, hard to define, has gathered about the 
 phrase, "sovereignty of the people." Patriots and dema- 
 gogues alike have used it, to urge the purpose of the 
 moment. This is no defined principle, it is a popular 
 fetich, which does not concern us. To get at sovereignty — 
 as it actually works in constitutional States — we must con- 
 sider representation in our land. 
 
 Representation gives to electors in the community the 
 right directly "to depute persons in whom they have con- 
 fidence and trust, to represent them in a legislative body, 
 and to give in advance their sanction to the laws they may 
 enact." 1 Custom and long habits of definition have influ- 
 enced our minds so thoroughly that we almost invariably 
 treat the constitution of society as either aristocratic or 
 democratic in a political sense. This political signification 
 does not apply to American experience, and we must get 
 rid of it. "The politics of democracy considers the equality 
 of men the fundamental law of nature, the supreme law of 
 the State. The politics of aristocracy, on the contrary, 
 finds the basis of all political order in the natural differences 
 between men." 
 
 This fine explanation might satisfy a Greek or French 
 mind ; it would not explain or comprehend the colonial ex- 
 perience I have described, or we may add, the present 
 experience of a western territory or State. The citizen of 
 an English colony or of the United States went to his politi- 
 cal task, partly natural, as the French would say, and 
 partly the creature of the chain of circumstances engaging 
 him. In other words, person and institution combined in 
 the act of that freeman and representative who votes in the 
 first movement toward erecting a State. For example, an 
 indentured servant comes over in a colonial vessel, perhaps 
 bound for his passage money. In a very short time, this 
 
 i Lewis, Use and Abuse of Political Terms, pp. 128-142. 
 
27 
 
 figuratively equal, but politically unfree creature, acquired 
 land and voted alongside Winthrop in Massachusetts or 
 Lord Fairfax in Virginia. It is nonsense to say that any 
 natural equality or natural difference affected this man 
 politically, in one way or another. The individual man 
 had a new opportunity in the new countries, which were 
 being distributed, not according to feudal service or eccle- 
 siastical obligation, but on a new basis and by a political 
 system. He seized this opportunity to become a citizen. 
 Aristocratic difference and democratic freedom met in the 
 person and in the political action of this American land- 
 holder. Land and its contingent institutions afford the 
 most striking illustrations of this evolution, but the same 
 social principles prevail throughout American society. 
 
 The citizens — having been elected or selected, as it were, 
 from the existing society — the technical electorate proceed 
 to constitute the higher organs of government ; the legisla- 
 ture, the executive and the judiciary. The legislature 
 chiefly concerns us at this moment. It is essentially a 
 higher assembly than the old folk-mote or any assembly of 
 the Germanic races. The representation embodied in the 
 electorate, clothes its members with a dignity derived from 
 the whole body of the people. The process of representa- 
 tion might vary and be locally different. Towns and 
 counties, large and small States, must give different models 
 and forms of representation, but they all work from similar 
 principles and achieve homogeneous results. All the forms 
 include and exemplify the following principles : 
 
 I. Representation is based on persons. 
 II. Representation is based on a majority. 
 III. Representation makes a majority effective, rather 
 through qualitative than quantitative action. 
 
 The power of principles and not the mere weight of 
 members controls the State. 
 
 I. 
 
 The suffrage and the representation of the voter here has 
 
28 
 
 potentially rested on persons from the beginning. The 
 principle holds, though occasional facts varied from this 
 standard. Massachusetts had a partial ecclesiastical repre- 
 sentation, as we have seen. South Carolina had a compli- 
 cated method of increasing every ten years the proportional 
 representation of her wealthy southern districts, as against 
 the more populous uorthern districts, by allowing more 
 members in consequence of more taxes paid ; the relative 
 increase becoming the virtual representation of a community 
 and not the direct representation of property. The Charter 
 government of Rhode Island restricted suffrage to free- 
 holders and their eldest sons. Again, the compromise rep- 
 resentation of slaves under the constitution was a partial 
 recognition of property, or of a class of citizens based on 
 property. All these variations were abnormal, and they 
 were gradually rubbed out by the political attrition of the 
 changing time. The representation of the Mormons in 
 Congress — as Mormons, not as citizens — was a virtual fail- 
 ure. It is easy to predict that no recognition of classes or 
 guilds, of vested interests, of social or religious associa- 
 tions, of specialists in any kind — farmers, merchants, man- 
 ufacturers, laborers, preachers, teachers ; — that no recogni- 
 tion of any special classification of citizens will ever be 
 made by the United States. The American franchise is a 
 consolidating force, and it is likewise a dissolving force of 
 great power. 
 
 It might be said that senates are an exception to this 
 direct representation of individual persons. This is more 
 apparent than real. In form, senates — State or congres- 
 sional — are not popular organs of government ; but they 
 are not anti-popular. They are rather the highest evolu- 
 tion of the system, by which town, county, city, State, by 
 which all these organs modulate the action of the citizen. 
 They naturally and properly represent the grand political 
 thought, the deeper consciousness of the whole people. 
 They are not a guild or corporation outside the popular 
 
29 
 
 organs ; they are rather an amalgamating centre which thus 
 far has transmuted the soberest convictions of the people 
 into well measured political action. Their remarkable suc- 
 cess in the past should indicate and direct their necessary 
 course for the future. 
 
 II. 
 
 The representation by persons, the bringing of the largest 
 number into the representative action of the whole people, 
 necessarily carried with it the working superiority of a 
 majority ; when practically all were represented, then the 
 larger part of that all must prevail. Though party govern- 
 ment has not developed in the same form as in Europe, the 
 American representation has constantly tended toward two 
 great parties of voters. This large separation soon sur- 
 passed all minor differences. A third political party never 
 lasted long ; it either became a majority or it was absorbed 
 by a larger principle. 
 
 This was not an accidental tendency, but a legitimate 
 development. Our intense local administration of affairs 
 might have descended into narrow particularism, if the 
 larger national force had not prevailed and had not been 
 generally prevailing over the many and narrow parts. This 
 larger political consciousness even enforced an unconscious 
 respect for the minority, in the action of the majority itself. 
 The majority could not proceed, as if it were the whole, 
 and as if the lesser part did not exist. To illustrate this 
 subtle influence of a minority, we may remember the power 
 of the anti-slavery voters prior to 1860. 
 
 III. 
 
 It is impossible to comprehend or elucidate the actual 
 operation of a majority in America without our third prop- 
 osition. When we consider what the mass of the American 
 people have done in some two centuries and a half; that 
 they have subdued a continent, and in the process have 
 sent back to Europe enough new political ideas to fairly 
 balance the receipt of old social ideas from the elder peo- 
 
30 
 
 pie, — it is worth inquiry, what has been this political pro- 
 cess? Mark you, it has been the great mass of average 
 persons — Mr. Lincoln's plain people — who have done this 
 work. How were they organized to do it? Moreover, as 
 the power of a majority is increasing in all countries, as 
 larger and larger bodies of voting people are coming to act 
 on public affairs, the query, how will they act, becomes 
 more important. Sismondi said, "perhaps the greatest 
 difficulty in politics is to make the people worthily elect its 
 representatives." 
 
 As I have tried to show, our forefathers evinced great 
 sagacity in the art of government when they perceived — 
 intuitively, if not consciously — that the greater and less 
 involve quality as well as quantit}'. While our representa- 
 tion is based on persons, there are many factors entering 
 into the political action of those persons. Property, condi- 
 tion, education — the immediate active condition, what may 
 be called the momentum of each voter — enter into a politi- 
 cal movement, and all these influences inevitably work in a 
 qualitative way. A few perceive a strong and major politi- 
 cal principle ; their conception penetrates wider circles and 
 affects larger numbers, the conception enlarging as it goes. 
 For example, a very small number, in 1789, perceived that 
 federalism must become union, and a union wielding the 
 force of an empire. I have alluded to the course of anti- 
 slavery ; civil service reform likewise has affected politics 
 through its quality, and through a small number of advocates. 
 
 This is a well defined drift and bent of modern democracy, 
 and a leading reason for its success in changing the politi- 
 cal characteristics of various nations. It is not by any new 
 rendering of the dogma of equality, but by better assimila- 
 tion of the mass in a large number to the best purpose of 
 the most enlightened, that democratic government works 
 well. France has strengthened her government by more 
 effective representation of her people as a whole. Her 
 monarchical, imperial and radical parts have been ground 
 
31 
 
 together in a republican mill ; while the result is not ideal, 
 it has enlarged the scope of representative government. 
 
 In the final working of an American majority mere num- 
 bers affect the effective result comparatively little. It is 
 the sympathetic action of the great mass, not its crushing 
 weight, which gives political momentum to the last great 
 factor, the majority ; numbers convey this force, as iron 
 rails carry the locomotive, but there is no essential force 
 in the rails to urge forward the train. The qualitative 
 power of the voter enables him to impress himself on the 
 mass of men, to institute his voting will as an organic part 
 of the machinery of government. This appears in all the 
 forms for guarding the rights of minorities. All impor- 
 tant organic measures require two-thirds to three-quarters 
 of the votes — and generally more than one trial — before 
 they prevail as laws. A majority of 65 per cent, is just as 
 much neutralized as a minority of 49 per cent, is nullified 
 in ordinary legislation. In the casting vote of a president 
 or chairman, the vote thus brought in becomes qualitative 
 and is much stronger than any other vote in the body. 
 
 The qualitative power in representation involves large 
 consequences. The power of the State, the force of the 
 whole community is exerted through the settled functions 
 of the government. The course of action, after being estab- 
 lished by a clear majority, is instituted in a legislature, an 
 executive and a judiciary. A definite political desire, 
 working through the mass of the people, becomes a creature 
 of the State and is administered with its whole power. As 
 said above, whether it be expressed in the proportion of 
 65 per cent, or 49 per cent., the majority and minority are 
 both cared for. This is the power of the people moving 
 outward, through and according with the organs of govern- 
 ment. It is the same process as that of the old dogma of 
 the divine right of kings, which on the contrary moved 
 outward and downward through the people. Consider the 
 political action of slavery from 1820 to 1860. It had a 
 large political advantage ; though a minority in numbers ; it 
 
32 
 
 moved legislature, executive and judiciary at its will until 
 1861. Had the issues been all political, it may be reasona- 
 bly supposed that slavery would have finally converted the 
 whole United States. Its moral defects, and especially its 
 relative economic weakness when it moved masters with 
 slaves in opposition to a homogeneous mass of freemen, in 
 settling new territories ; these defects developed political 
 weakness, insurrection and rebellion. 
 
 A fine illustration of this qualitative influence in affairs, 
 through the inevitable action of the solid parts of govern- 
 ment — and one developed by the American people — is 
 afforded by the United States Supreme Court. Here five or 
 forty cases may be decided by five or forty courts, and then 
 all may be reversed at Washington. Hundreds of lawyers 
 and judges below work toward a certain end; then that 
 end may be reversed by five out of nine men. These men 
 are known to be not inspired ; the courts especially repudi- 
 ate all forces lying outside the reason. Yet numbers im- 
 plicitly yield opinions, property or vested privilege to this 
 institution, which is larger through its quality. Equally 
 remarkable, in another direction, was the political power of 
 the emancipation proclamation in 1863. A comparatively 
 small minority believed in it when the executive put it forth. 
 If the issue had been popular, a majority would have voted 
 it down, probably. The State supported this deliberate 
 act of the executive, resting on a minority in numbers, until 
 the people were changed into a friendly majority, by the 
 qualitative power of the measure and the action of the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 These are deep principles and root-ideas in popular gov- 
 ernment. We began their elucidation among the weak 
 communities and in the wilds of Massachusetts Bay, Con- 
 necticut and Rhode Island. It would be interesting to 
 inquire how Teutons and English acq; ired them so readily, 
 how Romans and Greeks never practised and apparently 
 never perceived them. 
 
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