ON
DEMOCRACY.
BY
J. ARTHUR PIARTRIDGE,
AUTHOR OF
"COALITIONS AND FRONTIERS IN 1860-1,"' THE FALSE NATION AND
ITS BASES; OR WHY THE SOUTH CAN'T STAND;" "THE MAKING OF THE
AMIERICAN NATION; OR THE RISE AND DECLINE OF OLIGARCHY
IN THE WEST," &c., &c.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT A-ND CO.
1866.




This work arose out of considerations suggested
by another work, published concurrently herewith,
and'entitled " The Making of the American Nation,
or the Rise and Decline of Oligarchy in the
West."
The one is a study on the great, and indeed,
only precedent of Democracy; its origin, history,
qualities, conflicts, and reconstruction. The other
work; the present one, is a consideration of the
general theory of Democracy, with special reference to the traditions and future of England.




ON DEMOCRACY.
"' If the popular party exceed more in quantity than they
are excelled in quality, Democracy must prevail."-Aristotle.
" Every Government is composed of two distinct elements,
its nature (or organisation) and its principle (or motive power).
Laws ought to be no less relative to the principle than to the
nature."-AMontesquieu.
" European Society is in a state of transition from Feudal
to Federal principles. This I conceive to be the sole cause of
all the convulsions that have occurred and that are to occur."
-Disraeli.
"' Unity will once more be restored, but not through the
canon and feudal law, for the new Catholic element was the
People."-Bancrojt.
"' It is the third huge Gate of Barbarism, the monarchical
Gate, which is closing at this moment. The nineteenth century hears it rolling on its hinges." —Hugo.
ad 2




" The History of the world is nothing but the development of
the idea of Freedom. Philosophy concerns itself only with the
glory of the idea mirroring itself in History and the process
of its development. That History is this process of Development and realisation of spirit, is the justification of God in
History.
" Freedom of a low and limited order is mere caprice.
Freedom does not exist as original and natural. Rather must
it be first sought out and won; and that by an incalculable
medial discipline of the intellectual and moral powers. Freedom
is spirit in its completeness. Society and the State are the
very conditions in which Freedom  is realised. Reason is the
comprehension of the divine work. The strength of a nation
lies in the Reason incorporated in it. The conception of God
constitutes the general basis of a People's character."- Hegel,
"Philosophy of History," p. 38, 40-2-3, &c., Trans.'"The only possible purpose of nature, to manifest and
maintain Reason."-Eichte, Vocation of Man, p. 197.
" It is a work good and prudent to be able to guide one
man; of larger extended virtue to order well one house; but
to govern a nation piously and justly, which only is to say
happily, is for a spirit of the greatest size and divinest mettle.
And certainly of no less a mind, nor of less excellence in
another way, were they who by writing laid the solid and
true foundations of this science, which being of greatest
importance to the life of man, yet there is no art that hath
been m6re cankered in her principles, more soiled and slubbered with aphorisming pedantry, than the art of policy; and
that most, where a man would think should least be, in
Christian commonwealths. They teach not that to govern
well, is to train up a nation in true wisdom and virtue, and
that which springs from thence,-magnlanimity (take heed of
that); and that which is our beginning, regeneration, and
happiest end,-likeness to God, which, in one word, we call
godliness; and that this is the true flourishing of a land, other
things follow as the shadow does the substance: to teach thus
were mere pulpitry to them." —Milton.




PREFACE.
"The question as to what constitutes the State is one of
advanced science, and not of popular decision... The great
point is that Freedom has not subjective Will for its principle:
the process by which Freedom is realised, is the free Development of the successive stages of the Universal (God's) Will. History is the Development of Spirit in time."-Hegel, on the
Philosophy of History, pp. 28, 48, 45.
"De sorte que toute la suite des hommes pendant le cours
de taut de siiecles doit etre conside're comme un meme homme
qui subsiste toujours et apprend continuellement."-Pascal,
Penseus.
"The organisation and establishment of Democracy in
Christendom is the great political problem of the time." —De
Tocqueville.
*" And though no one now living may be permitted to enter
into this land of promise (a perfect system of legislation), yet he
who shall contemplate it in its VASTNESS and BEAUTY, may
rejoice, as did Moses when on the verge of the desert from the
mountain top he saw the length and breadth of that good
land, into which he was not permitted to enter and take possession."- Jeremy Bentham, on Influence of Time and Place.
" I need not ramble over earth and sky to discover a wondrous object woven of contrasts of greatness and littleness
infinite, of intense gloom and of amazing brightness,-capable
at once of exciting pity, admiration, terror and contempt. 1
find that object is myself. MAN springs out of nothing, crosses
time, and disappears for ever in the bosom of God. He is
seen but for a moment,-staggering on the verge of the two
abysses; and then he is lost!"-De Tocqueville.
The organisation of the national thought concerning Democracy, is a necessary prelude to the
peaceful organisation of Democracy itself, and
whilst it is necessary to know the genius, nature, and




vi                PREFACE.
average preparedness of our national manhood, it
is necessary, above all things, to believe in manhood.
Whilst many political writers have pointed out
the means whereby manhood will get the victory
over privilege, and whilst some have clearly anticipated that result, it is strange that only one (De
Tocqueville) has directly asserted that there is in
every community a single preponderating power
of which the only final and universal issue is Democracy; and, as far as I know, only four, De Tocqueville, Bentham, Coleridge,' and Goldwin Smith,
who have ventured to deride that God of English
idolatry, "a mixed Government." "Preponderance"
was bad, because it was the preponderance of
sections, but arguments against preponderance are
confidently and incessantly repeated as against
Democracies, —as though the preponderance of the
all could be anything else than equality, or as though
the material, intellectual, and spiritual progress of
nations could result in anything less.
As on the morrow of the new Reform Bill,
England will be, not an Aristocratic, but a Democratic Republic, the subject is piquant.
This question of preponderance is indeed a
paradox, which has taken in and done for many
notable politicians.   The whole recent Reform
Debate on the Opposition side, was conducted on
the assumption that it is possible to prevent the
preponderance of Democracy.
* See " The Friend," v. ii, p. 57. Ed. 1844.




PREFACE.                Vii.
A preponderance, to do harm, must be either a
preponderance of interest over right, or of ignorance over knowledge; in other words, a preponderance of a class, or of the uninstructed.
As long as power is in the hands of the one,
the few, or the many,-autocrat, oligarch, or middle
class, it is a partial and sectional, and, therefore, a
sinister power. Such interest not only is, but must
be, against right. And doubtless, if power could be
shared equally by the uneducated all the result
would be that disastrous contradiction,-" the
servant ruling."
But as power gets out into the universal, and
as the all become educated (without which their
power were mere anarchy and confusion) the sectional disappears in the process, quality is added to
quantity, the mass of individual units, is, as argued
fully in the sequel, balanced by individual multiples, or men with material, moral, or intellectual
accumulations of power, or by individual varieties,
and local or party combinations.  Capital and
knowledge become multiples of labor, and make a
property stake and interest universal, and the
universal interest and right, not only are, but
must be identical.
I say, then, that though a knowledge of history,
tradition, and national genius is necessary to the
conservatism of progress, a belief in manhood is
essential to both. The tendencies of the whole
race are to health and life, whilst those of the parts




Viii              PREFACE.
may be to disease and death, if not corrected by
the universal.
Development, Organisation, Unity, are the
gradations of the teaching of the past, and although
civilisation may be, as Guizot says, in its infancy,
we know that nothing contrary to these can
continue.
Judaea gave us Law and Love and Immortality.
Greece, liberty of thought,-" reason, her own
starting point and guide." Rome, unity,-the
organisation of municipality, church, and empire.
Primitive Germany, the spirit of liberty and of
voluntary association. France, feudality, or, "the
fusion of property and sovereignty." Scandinavia,
the organisation of monarchy as a confederation, of
which the organic germ or unit was the hoerad or
hundred. Anglo-Saxondom, the folk-mote, courtleet, shire-gemot, and witenagemot, —the local
courts and the council of peers.
WVVhat element is there of all these that is not
now in our Institutions, and that has not done its
part in helping us on even towards the goal of
politics,-Equality?
Peers and Ecclesiastics united with Peasants
until English liberties were safe. The local courts
administered justice and kept freedom alive when
centralisation must have meant tyranny. The hundred and the witenagemot organised our nation till
money drew the sovereign into a limited partner



PREFACE.                ix
ship with it. Feudality was a modified sovereignty
which organised downwards and defied upwards,
when the relations between the individual and the
nation were immature. Municipalities, have they
not been reorganised by the Corporation Act?
The spirit of liberty and the liberty of thought, our
heirlooms from Germany and Greece, have worked,
the one within, organising intellect, the other
without, organising facts, till thoughts and deeds
together, helped on by supernal inducements, and
guided by the higher law, have combined in systems
which are the net result of all the past.
Thus the great facts of the world conspire with
the teaching of its greatest men. Unity and life
depend upon organisation, and organisation depends upon the preparedness and education of the
Units.
The substance of the boast of the "New York
Times" is widely feared in this country. That
paper lately said: "This is the beginning of an
Americanising process in England.  The new
Democratic ideas are gradually to find embodiment.
The separation of Church and State, a complete
secularisation of politics, a removal of the Irish
Church, the destruction of entail, and the greater
freedom given to the transfer of land, the duty of
a popular system of education apart from all associations with creed or Church."
However this may be, it is undoubtedly true
that one of the primary institutions of Democracy




X                 PREFACE.
is in the way to be adopted amongst ourselves.
The "Caucus," or the submission of great questions
beforehand to the People's initiative and will, and
the discipline of parties and instruction of members
accordingly, is becoming established here.
If the forms of the past and the power of the
present point to the opinion of the majority as our
future master, there is only the greater reason for
educating "' the royal infant, the People," while we
may.
To be a politician, it is necessary to believe and
to know.
To believe what? The Ideal and the Infinite,
towards which the People always advance.
To know what? The People. Men and things.
The practicable. The circumstantial. The actual.
Human nature, which always advances towards
the Infinite, which it will never reach.
The man who believes not is scarcely a man,certainly not a Statesman.
He who cannot adjust belief to knowledge, the
ideal to the actual, may be a poet or a lunatic, a
madman or a demagogue, but he knows not Politics. "The perfect lawgiver," says Macaulay, "is
a just temper between the mere man of theory who
can see nothing but general principles, and the
mere man of business who can see nothing but
particular circumstances."




PREFACE.                 Xi
The science of Politics is a science of adjustment-the People and the System. "How much
Reason is there in this nation, and in what classes
and proportions does it exist?" is the question
upon which all reform bills must be based. Or, to
pass from Hegel to Mill, the equal objects in
legislation are not only to take the "next step"
rightly, but to prepare the way for "all future
steps."
For "Constitutions," says Macaulay, "are in
Politics what paper money is in commerce. They
afford great facilities and convenience. They are
not power, but symbols of power." And the power
is in the quantity and quality of national manhood.
Thus a Statesman knows the People. What
they want. Wherein they fail. What they have.
How they will rise, and by what steps. And that
as a whole they will rise,-if not in this country, in
that.
Thus a man may be a Bonapartist in France,
an Imperialist in Russia, a Constitutionalist in
England, a Republican in A.merica, and a Revolutionist in some places,-not for want of, but by
reason of political intelligence arid consistency.
The term " Radical," used as a party epithet,
means a man who cannot adjust the ideal to
the actual. His theories are too fine for facts.




Xli                  PREFACE.
The term "Tory" means a man who cannot
adjust the actual to the ideal.
The first believes in the catholic and the
absolute (comprehends, as some would put it, the
"subjective" only), but knows not the People:
the last knows only and certainly, what the People
are not.
The first may be light, but he is not base.  He
believes in the angel, though his theories will not
fit the ape. The last imputes his own nature to
the People, and naturally refuses to believe in
them.
The People! capable of all, realising what?
The People, demoniac and angelic,-their Ignorance
and Light, Brutality and Intellect, their nature,
condition, rights, wrongs, wants, wishes, demands,
and preparedness,-the Statesman must know all
this, their present, and believe in all that, their
future, —must rise to all their Heights, and
measure all their Depths,-must at once believe
and disbelieve in the People.
And this thoroughness and clearness of vision
will especially avoid and condemn a trait which has
become almost characteristic of English politics.
" There is in the English mind a highly salutary shrinking
from all extremes. But as this shrinking is rather an instinct
of caution than a result of insight, it is too ready to satisfy
itself with any medium, merely because it is a medium, and
to acquiesce in a union of the disadvantages of both extremes instead of their advantages.... The celebrated theory of
the three powers was got up, which made the excellence of
our constitution consist in doing less harm than would be done




PREFACE.                 Xiii
by any other form of Government."-MIill's 1" Dissertations,"
v. i, pp. 430-3.
Statesmanship is always catholic in conception,
but conservative in action.
It is necessary ever to bear in mind the twin
Principles of Politics,-that Human nature always
advances, and that if any succeed in withholding
the rudiments of Development from a given nation,
they cannot obstruct Human nature, but may
destroy the material, mental, and moral greatness
of that particular country.
Some forms of freedom may, it is argued, be
dangerous without the others. Government education, for instance, may be objected to where the
State could instil servile ideas by means of it, or
where freedom so little prevails, that a fixity or
sameness of type might be communicated to the
national mind by school forms. And this last was
Baron W. von Humboldt's objection.
In reference to the present state of preparedness of England for political equality, I see in our
Institutes of Feudality, and in corporate antipopular interests both in Church and State,
abundant elements wherewith to "temper" the
advance of Democracy, and to neutralise for ages
any possible or impossible " class preponderance"
of an equal voting Demos. Bat no possible obstructions can resist its ultimate triumph.




xiv                PREFACE.
Bearing in mind, therefore, the educational
preparedness of England, nor forgetting how our
Democracy is handicapped, and the strength and
onesidedness of our upper class rule and system, I
conclude that the equal voting representative power
of all adult males having a fixed and registered
residence, and not being paupers, lunatics, or
criminals, is the goal towards which the advanced
guard of lhberalisvm may safely press.
This is not " Manchester meat for roughs," on
the one hand, nor do I suppose, that according to
Mr. Lowe's exquisite illustration, Democracies,
when educated, require to be "held together like
a piece of coal by a pair of tongs." This is a requirement, not of Democracy, but of vast size.
There is with us the Sovereign, the symbol and
centre of unity.
There is the true aristocracy of all ranks; an
aristocracy of culture, intellect, genius, leisure,
earnestness, or power. This class leads the van of
the nation's manhood, organises its opinion, and
always, sooner or later, commands its Will.
This is the "class" that with us always "preponderates."
Of it England breeds more than all other
nations besides,-but it is, I say, handicapped.
For there is amongst us another class, also
recruited from all ranks, except the lowest. They
are sometimes called the great middle-class, but
differ far from the middle-class of former years.




PREFACE.                 XV
They are not, as of old, the advanced guard of
the People, with energies trained by conflict with
necessity. Nor on the other hand have they the
qualities of a ruling race, or of individual achievement. They have the conservative instincts of
plutocracy, and divide instead of uniting the
extremes of Society. The instincts of many of
them are debauched, and their reason is not disciplined. They are often educated out of sympathy but not up to faith. They are refined enough
to sneer, but not strong enough in head or heart,
in fortitude, in enthusiasm, in leisure, in generalisation, or in ideas, to believe.
And why insist on this? Because this
" great middling party " misleads the lower class,
and mistakes the upper. Because the vis inertiae
of their ignorant conservatism obstructs progress.
Because I fear that a new Reform Bill may bring
in more of the dregs of this class, and shut out the
true People.
And what is the remedy?
The union of sympathy which exists between
the crown, the true aristocracy, and the People.
The developing, guiding, and moderating, of
those true revolutionary, but practical and constructive energies, which always characterise the
common People, educated, and in contact with
reality.
Let us note well the advice of Bacon, "in the
declining age of a State, mechanical arts and mer



Xvi               PREFACE.
chandise do flourish." Solon said well to Croesus,
"Sir, if another come that hath better iron than
you, he will be master of all this gold." Of Demosthenes, "And you  abandoned  and despised;
sumptuous indeed in your markets; but as to any
real provision for your security, ridiculously deficient." Of Cyrus, " I am not afraid of a set of men
who have a place marked out in the middle of their
city, where they take oaths and deceive one
another; to whom, not the misfortunes of others
will be matter of consideration, but their own." Of
Hannibal to the weeping merchants, "You are
touched with public calamities only as they affect
your private fortunes, you may quickly find that
these tears have been shed for the least of your
misfortunes." Of Montesquieu, "The mischief is
when wealth  destroys the  spirit of wealth"
(industry.)   Of Burke, "Nation  is a moral
es sence.
There is little hope for a country where wealth
and materialism  overshadow manhood, and this
danger grows upon us. There is reason enough in
the fears of the Hon. R. Lowe about Millionaires
and Demagogues.
Nevertheless, every year will also lessen the
objections to a residential manhood enfranchisement,
take from the arguments of its opponents, and
baffle and confound the politicians who fear manhood rule as the antidote of class rule, and who
will neither trust manhood as it is, nor help to




PREFACE.                    XVii
prepare it for the future, by free and full development.
The "rights" of the parts against the whole,
whether those parts be Feudality or Priestcraft,
will not now be maintained in theory by any
who possess a reputation or are likely to require
one.
An "established" Church is no longer required as
the champion of arts against arms, of the serf
against the seigneur, peace against war, or spiritual
principles and powers against animal force.
As to feudality and its stronghold, the land,
even there it is assailed, and assailed from the
heights of conservative philosophy, witness the following dissertation of Mlill on Coleridge.
"' The land, the gift of nature, the source of subsistence to
all, and the foundation of everything that influences our physical well-being, cannot be considered a subject of property,
in the same absolute sense as that in which no one has any
interest but themselves. As Coleridge points out, such a notion
is altogether of modern growth. The State fails in one of its
highest obligations unless it takes means of providing that the
manner in which land is held, the mode and degree of its division, and every other peculiarity which influences the mode of
its cultivation, shall be the most favorable possible for making
the best use of the land, for drawing the greatest benefit from
its productive resources, for securing the happiest existence to
those employed on it, and for setting the greatest number of
hands free to employ their labor for the benefit of the community in other ways. We believe that these opinions will
become in no very long period, universal throughout Europe."
-Mill's "Dissertations," v. i, pp. 455-7.
The case of the sectional oligarchic slave South,
b




XViii              PREFACE.
against the American nation, is the great leading
case in the series, and it will be followed.
Priests and Oligarchs, as in Volney's famous
vision, have now to exclaim in reality, " it is over
with us, the multitude are enlightened!"
When such men as Fichte, Hegel, Humboldt,
De Tocqueville, Macaulay, Hallam, Mill, Guizot,
Goldwin Smith, and not least though last, Draper,
concur that religious freedom ought to prevail,
it is evident that the principle of inequality,
whether in State or in Church, has no hold on
England, but on its yet unextirpated class interests,
ignorance and superstition.
And politically speaking, " the factors and conditions" of Democratic progress are becominrg so
well understood, that soon few will doubt De
Tocqueville, that the organisation of Democracy is
the great problem of our time, and that to obstruct
it is to obstruct the will of God.
And here Mill considers "that the great difficulty in politics for a long time, will be how to
govern by means of the specially instructed few,
who shall be responsible to the People." He maintains that respecting any nation that possesses a
fair share of the very ordinary wisdom to select
such representatives as the general voice of the
instructed points out as the most instructed,
the argument for universal suffrage is irresistible;
for the experience of ages, especially of all great
national emergencies, bears out the assertion, that




PREFACE.                Xix
whenever the multitude are really alive to the
necessity of superior intellect, they rarely fail to
distinguish those who possess it. The points are
that the people shall be able to discover such men
who shall be responsible to the People, with the
least possible direct interference from the People;
but representatives must not be delegates. But
the multitude will never believe the truths of
political economy until tendered upon authority, in
which they have unlimited confidence, although he is
satisfied this will be given as soon as knowledge
shall have made sufficient progress among the instructed classes themselves, as to produce something like a general agreement in their opinions on
moral and political doctrine.-" Dissertations," vol. i,
pp. 469-70, 473-4.
As to competent leaders in extraordinary
crises, we have therefore the opinion of this
illustrious thinker, that the multitude discern and
promote their true leaders.  This also applies
to heads of important departments in ordinary
times.
As to matters of general local administration,
the People themselves are equal to it, and the
advantage claimed by Mill for a trained bureaucracy,
must be balanced.against the advantage claimed
by De Tocqueville in the security for freedom by
the transaction of the People's business by the
People; bearing in mind that neither the change
of office bearers with the President, as in America,
b2




XX                 PREFACE.
nor the newness of that country, are chargeable on Democracy.
But throughout, we must remember, that in a
true and instructed Democracy, the will of the
nation, is, in its force, intuition, and instantaneous
action, more the result of a living organism, than of
what we are accustomed to call a "constitution," a
" balance," or a "mixture."  The national will
expresses itself constantly, and is omnipotent.
Further, I would contend that the truths of
political economy, and the principles of good
Government are not, after all, of so recondite a
character. That a tolerably instructed People penetrates and comprehends them, and that it is not the
inherent difficulty or abstruseness of truth, but the
operation of perverse and partial interests and influences, that under Governments of the one, the
few, or the many, confound enquiry and perplex
thought.
There is one peculiarity of this book, which
perhaps needs no apology, as it is warranted, if not
demanded, by the nature and traditions of the
subject. The really valuable thinkers on political
science are so few, and they present such a striking
coincidence and concentration of authority on most
important points, that I have thought it best to
present their appropriate dicta together as




PREFACE.                    xx1
mottoes at the commencement of each chapter,
that their combined weight may be fully
appreciated.
On the whole, I cannot better conclude this
prologue than with the words of two Titans of a
Titanic epoch. One of them talks grandly of the
future; the other first put into shape that
test-principle of trust of the People, of which
we have lately heard so much, and experienced so
little.
" Government is founded, not on force, as was the theory
of Hobbs, nor on compact, as was the theory of Locke and
the Revolution of 1668; nor on property, as had been asserted
by Harrington. It springs from the necessities of our nature,
and has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of
God. Man came into the world and into society at the same
instant. There must exist in every earthly society a supreme
sovereign, from whose final decision there can be no appeal,
but directly to heaven. This supreme power is originally and
ultimately in the People, and the People never did in fact freely,
nor can rightfully make an unlimited renunciation of this
divine right. Kingcraft and priestcraft are a trick to gull the
vulgar. The happiness of mankind demands that this grand
and ancient alliance should be broken off for ever.
1" The omniscient and omnipotent Monarch of the universe
has, by the great charter given to the human race, placed the
end of Government in the good of the whole. The form of
Government is left to the individuals of each society; and its
whole superstructure and administration should be conformed
to the law of universal reason.  There can be no prescription old
enough to supersede the law of nature, and the grant of God
Almighty, who has given all men a right to be free.
" The first principle and great end of Government being
to provide for the best good of all the People, this can be
done only by a supreme legislative and executive ultimately
in the People or whole community, where God has placed it;
but the difficulties attending a universal congress gave rise




XXii                   PREFACE.
to a right of representation. The grand political problem
is to invent the best combination of the powers of
legislation and execution; they must exist in the State, just
as in the revolution of planets, one power would fix them to a
centre, and another carry them off indefinitely; but the first
and simple principle is EQUALITY and THE POWER OF THE
WHOLE."
" Nor do the political and civil rights of the British colonists rest on a charter from the Crown.  Old Magna Charta
was not the beginning of all things, nor did it rise on the borders of chaos out of the unformed mass. A time may come
when Parliament shall declare every American charter void;
but the natural, inherent, and inseparable rights of the colonists, as men and as citizens, would remain, and, whatever
became of charters, can never be abolished till the general
conflagration."
" Acts of Parliament against the fundamental principles of the
British Constitution are void."
"The world is at the eve of the highest scene of earthly
power and grandeur that has ever yet been displayed to the
view of mankind.
" Who will win the prize is with God. But human nature
must and will be rescued from the general slavery that has so long
triumphed over the species." —Otis, " On the American Crisis,
1764."
To this add the words of Jefferson:
" Men by their constitutions,'' said Jefferson, " are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust
the People, and wish to draw all powers from them into the
hands of the higher classes; 2. Those who identify themselves
with the People, have confidence in them, cherish and consider
them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise,
depository of the public interests. In every country these two
parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think,
speak, and write, they will declare themselves."
But it must never be forgotten, that whilst the
excellence of Statesmanship is that it understands
the People and the system, and adjusting the one
to the other, prepares to raise them both, yet the
ultimate vindication and warrant of all political




PREFACE.               XXiii
action consists only in this,-that it prepares fair
conditions and a clear stage for the development
of the spiritual manhood of nations. Thus, throughout, are politics related to the final, the universal,
and the infinite.
Reform Club,
May, 1866.








ON DEMOCRACY.
CONTENTS.
BOOK 1.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.-Democracy: its Factors and Conditions   1-42
CHAPTER II.-Democracy: What it is..    43-77
CHAPTER 1II.-Demlocracy no longer empirical.    79-95
CHAPTER IV. —Democracy must become universal    97-110
CHAPTER V. —Authorities...  111-133
CHAPTER VI.-Argument on Authorities, chiefly
in reference to the heresies of Mill.  135-156
CHAPTER VII. —Equality the Essence..  157-317
CHAPTER VIII.-Democracy and National Unity;
Individuality and Nationality; Powers
of Association and Nationality; The
People and great Men..  175-193
CHAPTER IX.-Democracy in America; The Precedent; The Conservatism of Democracy.  195-230
BooK II.
CHAPTER I.-Democracy in England; From Tacitus
to the Reform Bill; Outline of Forms and
Powers....  231-261
CHAPTER II. —The Problem; Can Democracy organise....  263-276
CHAPTER II. —The Preponderating Power of the
Past and its Organisation; or, Democracy and Local Self-Government.  277-296
CHAPTER IV.-Innovations and Usurpations; lHow
they came and what they will lead to.  297-325
CHAPTER V. -The Preponderating Power of the
Future and its Requirements; Industrial
Freedom; Political Freedom; Religious
Freedom....  327-382
CHAPTER VI.-Democracy and Centralisation; or,
The old Power and the modern Organisation....  383-417








DEMOCRACY:
ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.
"Two elements enter into our enquiry. The first the idea of
spirit; the second, the complex of human passions; the one
the warp, the other the woof of the vast arras web of universal
history. The concrete mean and union of the two is liberty
under the conditions of morality in a State."-Hegel.
"A Commonwealth ought to be as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth'and stature of an honest man, as big and
compact in virtue as in body; for look what the grounds and
causes are of single happiness to one man, the same shall ye
find them to a whole State, as Aristotle, both in his ethics and
politics, from the principles of reason, lays down."-Milton.
" Freedom can exist only where Individuality is recognised as
having its positive and real existence in the divine /3eing. Secular
existence, as merely temporal-occupied with particular interests
-is only relative and unauthorised, and receives its validity
only in as far as the universal soul that pervades it-its principle-receives absolute validity, which it cannot have unless
it is recognised as the definite manifestation, the phenomenal
existence of the divine essence.  On this account it is that the
State rests on Religion."-Hegel's Philosophy of History, pp. 348,
396, 53, trans.
" With regard to the limits of its activity, the State should
endeavour to bring the actual condition of things as near to
the true theory as possible. Now the possibility consists in
this, that men are sufficiently ripe to receive the freedom which
theory always approves. The other consideration, that of
opposing necessity reduces itself to this, that freedom ifgranted
is not calculated to frustrate those results without which all further
progress is endangered. In both cases the Statesman's judgment must be formed from a careful comparison between the
present condition of things and the contemplated change, and
between their respective consequences."-Baron W. von Humboldt, "Sphere and Duties of Government (The Statesman),"
pp. 201-2.




" What is the first part of policy? Education. The second?
Education. And the third? Education. Fewer laws, but
strengthen the principle of laws by education. Before the
State found the commune, before the commune found the man.
Only the education given in the commune ought to emanate
from the State."-Michelet.
" The Peoples of Christendom present in our day a frightful spectacle. The movement that bears them on is already
too strong to be arrested, but not to be guided. Instruct
Democracy. -An entirely new world demands a new political
science."-De Tocqueville.
"The State's activity should always be determined by
necessity, the principle towards which as to their ultimate
centre all the ideas advanced in this essay immediately converge.
" In theory the limits of this necessity are determined
solely by consideration of man's nature as a human being; but
in application we have to regard in addition, the individuality
of man as he actually exists. This principle of necessity should
prescribe the grand fundamental rule to which every effort to
act on human beings, and their manifold relations, should be
invariably conformed.
" The necessary chiefly requires negative measures, since
owing to the vigorous and elastic strength of man's original
power, necessity does not often require anything save the
removal of oppressive bonds.
"' There is no other principle so perfectly accordant with
reverence to individuality and solicitude for freedom. Finally
the only infallible means of securing power and authority to
laws, is to see that they originate iv this principle alone."Baron TV. von Humboldt, " Sphere and Duties of Government
(The Statesman)," pp. 201-2.
"There is a general principle in every nation which is the
invariable basis of power, and when once this principle is too
much loaded, it infallibly shrinks into smaller dimensions."Montesquieu, v. 3, p. 172. Edition 1777.




CHAPTER I.
DEMOCRACY:
ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.
"To build on a rock means to establish a Government on:Democratic Principles."-Napoleon III.
"The first and simple principle is Equality and the power
of the wvhole."-Otis., 1764.
"Let no one quote the old proverb against me. that whosoever builds upon the People, builds upon sand. When a Prince
puts his confidence in the people, who is a man of courage
himself, and knows how to command others, nor deficient in
other necessary preparations, he will never be deserted by
them. — Machiavel, "The Prince."
"Men are governed by several kinds of laws, and the sublimity of human reason consists in perfectly knowing to which of
these orders the things that are to be determined ought to have a
principal relation, and not to throw into confusion those prin.
ciples which should govern mankind." —Montesquieu.
"On this ground, then, a man engaged in a design like
that which is the object of this work, might lay claim to the
attributes of UNIVERSALITY AND ETERNITY for the rectitude of his doctrines,-with as little arrogance as he could
gclaim for them the most confined and temporary expediency —
provided that in the execution of his plan he has boldness and
strength of mind enough to set apart all along whatsoever is
peculiar to certain times and places, and to raise his contemplation to that elevated point of view from which the whole map
of Human interests and situations lies expanded to his
view."-Jeremy Bentham, " On Influence of Time and Space."
Government consists of two things, —the first
is called the Spirit, or passion, or motive power;
the second is the-organisation.
B




2                DEMOCRACY:
In all Governments but Democracy, the two are
separate, and, to an extent, hostile.
The motive power of all Government is manhood. The excellence of Government consists in
the amount of manhood it can represent and " organise." Often the question of questions is, Is there
more of this manhood in the Government, or out
of it?
And the essential value and power of Democracy consists in this,-that it combines, as far as
possible, power and organisation; THE SPIRIT,
MANHOOD, is at one with THE BODY, ORGANISATION.
Only the parallel cannot be complete, because
as systems must be worked by men, in all systems
but that in which the aggregate manhood entirely
iprejponderates, there is a permanent and dangerous
official corporate life and interest.
" There is," says Montesquieu, "in every nation
a general spirit upon which power itself is founded,
When power clashes against this spirit it clashes
against itself, and is necessarily stopped." The
question is, whether Education can develop and
organise the general universal spirit of Humanity,
so that manhood, which has always ruled by Individuals or Sections, may rule universally.
Democracy is Government by the People. It
is a national Royalty.
" The People" is the whole (approximate) manhood of a nation. The necessary exceptions are
Paupers, Lunatics, and Criminals.




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.        3
"Government" involves Power, Organisation,
and Unity.
"Government by a whole People" must of
course be by representation, and by freedom and
equality of representation, —Freedom as between
Individuals and the State; Equality, the only
Freedom as between Individuals, and its only
guarantee as against the State.
Democracy, therefore, becomes possible when
the whole national manhood can organise itself on
a basis of Equality: and the two-fold question is
whether Government can so be organised, and how?
The first and general question, "Can Democracy organise itself  "' is one of principle. If there
be no radical, essential, and unalterable difference
between the political capacity of races, bloods,
castes, and classes, then Democracy is possible; —if
not, not. If there be such a difference, oligarchy
has its warrant in Principle, and will be eternal.
But assuming, as here we must, that there is
no such difference, then education will of necessity
organise the national intellect on a common platform of political truth.
Education, therefore, is the factor of Democracy,
and cannot but be so, for when quality is added to
quantity, "Democracy must prevail."
But the second question, "whether Democracy
can organise itself upon a basis of freedom and
equality? " is not, upon the surface of it, so easy.
B2




4                DEMOCRACY.'
For if it be true that to give Freedom  and
Equality to numbers is to erect a class preponderance, then to give an equal voting power to the
masses is not to abolish Despotism, but to establish
it, and so Freedom and Equality involve a contradiction in express terms and in essential principles.
This supposition, however, is as puerile as it is
specious. The answer is five-fold. First; if true it
is unavoidable, for the causes that have brought on
Democracy to its present shape will now act withl
accelerated force, and we are already doomed to this' Despotism of numbers!"  Second; the People, if
uneducated, cannot organise. - Third; if educated,
~hey will -be traiined to the discovery of truth.
Fourth; representation is not Government, and the
people's representatives have always been men of a
higher class. Fifth, the People are naturally as
divided in opinion as any other class; and, as to
class interest, Despotism and outlawry alone now
cause them to unite.
The present, however, is not the place for this.discussion.
The third question, "how Democracy can be organised," is one of detail and circumstance, and of
principle.
The principle, we say, is that of Development
or EDUCATION of the national Intellect and
Character. This must be of a certain quality and
quantity to become the means of Democratic organisation.




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.        5
Education means, therefore, universal Free
common Schools. " Free," because some cannot pay.
"Common," because no more should be done than
is necessary.
Free Press, which, however, to be free, must be
cheap, otherwise its proprietary and constituents
will both belong to the exclusive classes.
Free assembly is equally necessary for education
of the national manhood, and for the declaration of
its will.
Free Church, also, must educate the character,
and will always and only mean a Church paid for
by those who want it and use it. A Church paid
by the State always and only means a Church that
obeys the State, and that is based on physical force
and social servility.
As a question of detail and circumstance, this
four-fold freedom has, as in America, to be introduced at once and wholesale by the immigration of
a prepared people, or it has, as in old countries, to
be prayed, thought, and fought for.
But it is an inevitable d priori conclusion, and
demonstrated also in the only country where it has
been tried, that this four-fold freedom not only
capacitates men for Association, but compels them
to it. It is the necessary habit of men with ideas
in common, and it is the notorious custom of free
countries.
Thus education begets association, and the association of educated men is already political power.
Education begets association; association begets
Equality. That is the genesis of Democracy. These




6        ~      DEMOCRACY:
are the epochs and the principles by which the
world ascends.
And a national unity based on opinion is of a
higher order and more enduring texture than one
based on force.
And a national unity compacted of the infinite
ramifications and varieties of free intelligence is
stronger than any other.
If anything can solve the problem of the political eternity of nations, it is this principle of
Equality, which gives a fair chalice and a free career
to the best of every man, which incorporates every
man with the State, and arouses everything that
belongs to the Soul.
Therefore Democracy tends to make the loftiest,
strongest, most lasting, and most united nation,
and Equality is the goal of national political progress.
Amongst Democratic nations, the quality and
the quantity of Development mark the grade.
"NATION " is a LIVING  ORGANISM,
but it is only as a nation is also a Democracy, that
it can complete its material Bases, its organic
Functions, and its Individuality or character,-it is
only as it organises the power, and the life, and the
will of the all, that it organises the whole.
And nations thus prepared can alone enter as
units into those vaster Federal combinations towards which the most advanced nation points.
Thus, to ascend to the universal we must complete in Freedom and Equality, the Individual:




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       7
getting Freedom and Equality, we get variety and
complexity of relationship and interests: getting
this we get "Power, Organisation, and Unity" of
the loftiest and most lasting character, and of
hitherto unconceived proportions.
WE MAKE DEMOCRATIC FEDERAL
EMPIRES POSSIBLE.
Thus the question of the organisation of Democracy is two-fold,-of the institutions, and of the
nation; —of principle and preparation.
As Government consists of Power and Organisation, so at every step in national progress, the
administration partakes of the knowledge and the
ignorance, the advantages and the defects, of the
actual ruling class.
And organisation either expresses the national
Intellect and Will, or is used to suppress it. In
the first case there is harmony, whatever the status
of the nation. In the second, there is revolution
and reaction, or death.
The organisation of Democracy is of necessity
the problem of every advancing age or People, and
the one deadly unpardonable sin of nations is the
failing to revolt against bad Government.
Wherever the best governing qualities govern,
-wherever the actual administration is adjusted to
the real power, there is good Government.
With the Power of the one, the few, the many,
and the all, let there be also administration of the
one, the few, the many, or the all. It is a ques



8               DEMOCRACY 
tion of Adjustment. If those who have the fran-,
chise are more numerous than those who deserve it,
there is anarchy, —if less, Despotism.
Adjustment is the law of Politics: non-adjust-:
ment, its license. For Politics means Power, and
any fancies or fictions about that lead straight to
Chaos, Despotism, or national Death.
But whereunto are systems to be adjusted?
To the actual political competency, at any given
epoch, of the ever advancing People. Until this tide
is at the full, "no everlasting mansions " can be
built upon its verge. But there will be always
building there asylums for Idiots or Lunatics, who
would confine the Power of the few to the function of the one, the Power of the many to the
function of the few, the Power of the all to the
function of the many,-and who would call that
"Statesmanship!"
But to reasonable men we would say,-" either
affirm the necessary and eternal subordination of
the masses, and to support that, affirm further an
essential and absolute difference of races and
bloods,-do this, we say, as " the South" has done,
and be honestly destroyed, you and your theories
together in open fight, or acknowledge your fore-,
gone.defeat, and that at last the Crown and the
Purple of Empire must descend upon the People."
The Theory has been always with us. Now,
yonder, in America, is the fact. All that obstructives can do is to suppress and aggravate the
danger, and make Revolution of that which might
have been order. The time is past for the good




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.
old Tory drivel that repression and safety are one,
and the true alternative is pondered well, that the
People must be let in, or education kept out.
The equal voting power of so much of the
country's manhood as is at any given time educated or developed,-that is the right governing
power of the country, whether it be power of
autocrat, oligarch, middle class, or Demos.
The equal voting power of the (approximate)
whole educated manhood of a country is Democracy, for there is no power without organisation;:,
no organisation without education, and no Demo-:
cracy without the People.
Of any system of Government, except a Democracy, it may be safely said that it is only a transition system, for the system must advance or the
nation recede. If the nation advance, the system
must advance with it or be cast off; if without
advancing, it retains its hold on the nation, it must
destroy it.
Every nation is in its youth and immaturity,
in its manhood, or in its Dotage. If in its minority, and without the equal voting power of its
universal manhood, all intelligent patriots, ill
seek to hasten on its manhood: if in its manhood,
they must look well to, preserve the bases of'
DIemocracy. If it be in its Dotage, and incapable of
any advance, gradual or violent, towards Democracy, then the sooner it gets itself out of the way
of the world the better.




10              DEMOCRACY':
The question therefore respecting any nation is,
"Is it prepared for democracy or national selfGovernment, or must it still be governed from
above or from without? And if the latter, has it
such a measure of preparation as to allow of
middle class rule, or is it only fit for that of the few,
or of the one?" The rule of the all being possible,
national unpreparedness is the only warrant for
the rule of the one, the few, or the many.
And respecting Democracy, or the Manhood of
a People, the only question is that of time and adjustment. There is no question of Principle. IHe
who would inaugurate Democracy too soon or too
late may truly be no Statesman. But he who
denies the ultimate universality of Democracy is
only too plainly a fool.
The whole world gravitates towards Democracy, and those parts of it that do not obviously
partake of this movement, and that yet have before
them a future, do in fact tend to Despotism or to
anarchy first, that they may be prepared for Democracy afterwards.
It is the Policy of Conservatives to graduate
Reform in order to forestall Revolution. It is the
Policy of Liberals to consider how large a portion
of privilege can be destroyed, and how soon.
Statesmanship has to do in this view with two
situations. In the one, where nations have not
the elements of self-Government, to supply them,
for all Government that is not self-Government is
but an expedient and an interregnum.
In the other, where national self-Government is




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       11
a fact, to reconcile, as gradually and peacefully as
may be, forms with fact.
The first is all that can yet be done in England. Educate and prepare. And whosoever helps
to educate the English, prepares them for Democracy (and what perhaps he might call Revolution),
whatever else he thinks he does.  Whosoever
obstructs education, obstructs Democracy, —but he
does two other things also. He prepares for anarchy and Revolution, as well as for the relative
degradation of his country.
Who then, we ask, are the Statesmen, —they
who advance to Democracy through education, or
they who would advance to it through anarchy?
Theoretical question of Democracy there is
none, but the double question always remains of
Institution and People,-are they fitted for one
another. If the nation is not fitted for Democracy, why is it not fit, and how shall it be
made fit. If the Institutions are not fitted for the
People, how are those institutions soonest to be
modified or destroyed?
There is, first, the question of Development of
the country's manhood; second, the question of
its assertion of its right to rule.
Respecting Europe, although it is certain that
every advance leads it towards Democracy, it is
probable that it can never reach it by a peaceful
road.
Notwithstanding all the culture of former ages,
the natural fruits of Development and association




t2.             IDEMOCRACt:
were never reaped within the reach of the associated tyrannies of Europe, till the British Channel
and the sword of Cromwell defied their interventions.
The lesson taught by European history in this
connection is, that notwithstanding the mutual exhaustion of hostile Despotisms, and the many
separate efforts of Freedom, it was never able to
consolidate and secure itself in the face of associated tyrannies, alliances, and coalitions, until it
was partially isolated from them in England.
And even in England, Freedom  could never
blossom into Equality, because of the many hostile
associations against it. Freedom'was gradually
overcome and forced back by centralisation in
Church and in State, and had, after its one glorious
success, to yield to the Stuarts and to the families,
and to their one hundred and seventy years of reaction, and to seek in America a still completer
isolation, before the principle of Equality could
live..
The world owes it to three thousand miles of
ocean that the first nation is now constituted on a
basis of Equality.
It is evident to- all who have considered this
question in any connected or reasonable way, that
all questions of " Government," being questions of
the distribution and organisation of Power, will
practically be decided by the strongest, and that
strength is a question of Development and of
numbers. That the People will not obtain power
till they can conquer it, and that (non-intervention




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       13
being a fact) they will conquer when they deserve
it. That when they can conquer it others will
cease to govern themr, for there are involved
interests too deep and universal, passions too
strong and absorbing, to allow any but the strongest
to govern. That the possession of political Power
depends therefore upon the acquisition of governing
qualities. That these are acquired by education
in the widest sense of the term, and that as education opens to all, so governing qualities and consequent power become at once universal, impartial,
and safe.
Further, that the craft of the sections cannot
long postpone the recognition of the manhood of
a- nation that has really come of age, and that
whilst to emancipate too soon or too late is
-equally dangerous, to deny emancipation altogether
is the last extreme of folly.
True it may be a question, and sometimes a
very fine one, how large a majority in numbers must become possessed of these governing qualities, or what proportion the educated
must bear to the whole, before the whole can be
enfranchised, but that in all living nations a
greater and ever greater proportion must and will
vote, till at last "the all" will be admitted, —of
this there can be no doubt possible. The only
question is whether the nation is to continue
to live and to maintain its relative position in the
world.




14              DEMOCRACY:
Political-questions have to do with nations and
systems of three kinds;1st. With dying nations, destroyed by the suppression of the national manhood,-killed by
conflicts with Democracy, or by victory over it.
2nd. With living and progressive nations that
are advancing loyally towards the Democratic era,
or that have entered upon it.
3rd. With nations that have reached some sort
of completeness as to the elements of national life,
and that have become Democracies.
Of the last, America is as yet the only
complete example. England follows, and is nearer
to her than is supposed, because our forms of
Feudality have not been adjusted to the power of
the People.
Every Government tends to some preponderating power or to anarchy. All so called
mixed Governments are at best prolonged constitutional conflicts between different and hostile
principles of Government, and whatever the local
partial or temporary impulses, the one universal
tendency is towards Democracy, or the power of
the all,-towards a more equal diffusion of the
elements of knowledge, of material advantages,
and of the means of organisation.
As therefore every progressive state tends to
one preponderating power, which will ultimately
represent national unity, and become the equal rule
of the all, it is but safety, economy and common
sense to admit and prepare for our future rulers.
And since Democracy involves Conservatism,




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.        5
and is the postulate of a new and unknown progress,
-the organiser of civilisations more complete, and
national unities, whose life need never decay, and
whose proportions are vaster than have yet been
conceived of,-since it is also perhaps the germ of
an universal Federation, it presents a problem of
vast interest, and of world-involving issues,-a
problem for which all past ages and peoples have
prepared the present.
In this chapter we propose merely to state certain rudimentary propositions:1st. What is meant by that manhood, the
equal universal rule of which is Democracy.
2nd. The right test of manhood.
3rd. The bases and stages of its Development.
4th. How it combines results sought in vain
through other systems.
And firstly, Ywe consider the root of the
matter;WHAT IS MANHOOD?
Manhood is of the Body, Mind, and Character,
and implies (1) Physical maturity, (2j Mental
Development or Education, and (3) Character.
This definition of course excludes Minors,
Paupers, Imbeciles, Lunatics, and Criminals. It
does not exclude civil servants, and the army and
navy.
But the vexed and crucial question about this
manhood doubtless is, —What is to be
THE TEST?
And the answer is, that broadly speaking, all




16                 DIEMOCRACY:
tests of' manhood* are, to those who deny and to the
manhood that seeks enfranchisement, arbitrary,
useless, or superfluous.
This is'a self-evident proposition, as appears in
considering what the real question at issue is.
There are three parties concerned in every
question of enfranchisement.
lst. The obstructives, the privileged, the careless, the trimmers, the doubters, and haters of the
People, the doctrinaires, and the go-betweens,-an
exceedingly great army.
2nd. A  small band of the philosophical and
thoughtful, whom truth influences in questions of
other men's interests.
3rd. The  indignant alienated  mass of the
unenfranchised thundering at the Gates of' the
constitution.
The real question is, not what the second class
can or will do.  That but smooths the -way and
levels the ground between the hostile ranks.. The
real and only question is, what power can the last
bring to bear against the first?
The question of the promotion of a disenfranchised class is not mere "fitness," nor ever
has been.
It is a question of their power and organisation.
It is a question of Battle,-constitutional battle, if
there be a constitution,-if not, not.
Between the class that is privileged, and the
classes that are not, are the conditions, not of dis* Physical manhood is of course not a question, being a
mere' matter of'formal certificate.




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       17
cussion and of right, but of war. Of course the
weapons are those of the People and of the age.
And the question on which side is the prevailing
power and organisation, is again a question of
manhood.
For organisation, two things are necessary,-a
common platform of thought, and mutual confidence, permanently possible only to " character
and education." For Power, add to these qualities,
numbers.  How  can the problem  be otherwise
expressed, when once the phrase has been heard,
than in the everlasting words of Aristotle,-" when
the popular party shall exceed more in quantity
than it is excelled in quality, Democracy must
prevail."
Tests may be and are useful to keep a victorious Democracy pure and competent,-they are
but forms, farces, delusions, pretences, mockeries,
and snares, as applied to a Democracy struggling
against prerogative or privilege for place and
power. To be weak is to be disfranchised. Men
are not kept out because they are not fit, but
because being unfit, they are not strong.
A test is a form of capitulation, or a cartel of
defiance.  Privilege capitulates to those whom it
is obliged to recognise: it defies those whom it
can exclude. If the three, five, six, or ten-pound
renters can be kept out, they will be, and the
"test" is the badge of their subjection. If they
cannot be kept out, the test admits them for the
same reason that battered walls admit besieging
armies.




18              DEMOCRACY:
~
To the anticipated objection that the manhood
maybe too low or too little for political copartnership,
we answer that at least it cannot be lower or less than
the average of that through which by constitutional
means, it has just forced an entrance. And further,
it cannot be too low where education is universal.
Education of the rudimentary sort should be
made and kept universal by an immutable law, and
this not so much that the People should be
thereby fitted for the franchise before they attain
it, but that having attained it, the ruling reason
of the nation should never be debased or lowered
to an undisciplined, uneducated, or undeveloped
condition.
It should be the policy of every nation to make
education universal, in order that (not the political
only, but) all the requisite results of manhood be developed. The "man" is prior to, and includes the
"citizen," and the State can still less afford that
any of its citizens should not be "men," than that
being men, they should fail to do a certain act (to
vote] of citizenship once in three or seven years.
All men should be educated, and mental Development is as much an element of manhood, as
bodily maturity, or legal majority. Universal free
common schools, not only can and must, but will
be, established in all free countries, and no manhood
can exist or be recognised, that on the average, is not
educated.
We have here, therefore, nothing to do with the
average quality of the manhood of any given




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       19
country. If it be not high enough it will not become a Democracy. If it be a Democracy, and
should fall from it by reason of failing in these
qualities, it would fall from them as soon, and no
doubt a great deal sooner, under any other form of
Government.
According to the English census of 1860, there
were 3,739,505 houses at an average rental of
~15 5s. Of these by far the largest number,
1,277,956, was at from ~6 to ~10, and there were
only about half that, or 659,724, at from ~3 to ~5,
which equals is. 2d. to 2s. weekly.
This proves two things:ist. That there is very little numerical difference between residential Manhood and a ~5 rental,
for there are twice as many rentals from ~6 to X~10
as from ~3 to ~5. For the latter, it is a question
of principle, and with an universal system of education, few average men of health, ability, and character, could rent under ~5.
2nd. That if they rented ever so low, the proportion of rentals under ~5 would, unless our country
is greatly to degenerate, be as 660,000 to 3,740,000,
or less than one-fifth of that part of the constituency whose average is ~15 5s.
~
What, then, is the difference between manhood,
and an educational, rating, or rental suffrage?
1st. Manhood suffrage is based upon a statesmanlike appreciation of the necessity of qualifying
all the country's manhood for the country's Governc2




20               DEMOCRACY:
ment, —of the deficiencies which all other systems
must labour under. It recognises that all Government is by, for, and through manhood.
2nd. Rental or rating suffrage adopts a false
principle, that of measuring manhood by money,
and it sanctions a low and materialistic habit of
thought.
3rd. Manhood suffrage declares that the all, or
the vast majority, can, and must, and shall be
educated into citizenship and self-support. Money
suffrage either denies or ignores this great national
fact and duty, and is content with its million or so of
paupers vibrating on the edge of anarchy, vitiating
the morals of the People, and weakening the resources of the country.
4th. Manhood suffrage recognises all partial
suffrages as expedients and instalments, or compromises, and thus rightly forms the public mind on
political questions, and prepares it for political
advance.
5th. The only value of money suffrage is, that
it is a bad measure or test of manhood.
6th. Manhood suffrage affirms at once the final
principle of Government.  It says clearly and
boldly, " Suffrage follows manhood." If the all are
not fit to govern they cannot govern, not because
they lack money, but because they lack manhood.
The all must become fit to rule, and then they shall
rule; for the proportion of men without manhood, is
the measure of national anarchy, disease, retrogression, or death.
7th. Because an educational suffrage smacks of




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.      21
the pedagogue and the forcing system. Manhood is
wanted, not a reading machine. School education,
which is but one of the means of manhood Development, can never become its measure or substitute.
And there is this further inevitable result of
these principles. The fact of the political minority
of a nation is an impeachment of the whole political
past of that nation, or of those sections or parties
in it that have obstructed either its political, religious, or material progress. Anything of monopoly
or privileges, in Church or in State, anything that
restricts knowledge or weighs upon material progress; all interests and men that obstruct the means
of material, political, or religious freedom and
equality, obstruct manhood, and, as such, have
already the sentence of political death working
against them.
The third inquiry respectsMANHOOD DEVELOPMENT; its BASES
and STAGES.
We have seen that there are four things which
have been the making of the only Democracy that
has ever endured.
The first is free universal common schools.
The second is free public assembly for political
purposes.
The third is a free and cheap Press.
The fourth is free worship, or the absence of political inducement, penalty, or control, in religion.




22              ]DEMOCRACY:
At first sight these four forms of freedom may
appear contradictory, inasmuch as the first demands
State intervention, and the others repudiate it.
The first says, let the State enable men to acquire
the elements of citizenship. The others say, seek
not to come between the citizen and his fellow
on the forum, or between the citizen and his God
in the Church.
There are, however, innumerable arguments and
precedents, not to be repeated here, why the
State should put within reach of every man the
elements of citizenship, and why it should not follow up that interference with patriarchal or priestly
domination.
Free schools are the basis of Democracy. Without them, there has as yet been no complete
national manhood Development. As political life
compels men to associate, so education enables
them to associate rightly.
Free assembly involves the principle of complete and equal representation, for its essence is the
rule of the ncajority, all voting who are present.
Free Church can acknowledge no irreversible
State-imposed formularies; no political master, no.
legal or money bond to the State, for its essence is
ideal and absolute Freedom.
These cannot fail to complete a threefold
Freedom, material, political, and religious. They
also impress on the nation an intense Individuality
and Ideal, which constitute the very spirit of
a nation, whilst the pou'er and the culture of
the all give the utmost wisdom and impartiality




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.      23
to the national councils, and the utmost strength,
concentration, and stability to the national Executive.
The four provide the elements of national
manhood and of political and religious Unity. The
educated national Intellect is the best diviner of
what is True, and acts directly on the Legislature
and Executive. The Churches, on the other hand,
hlave no direct bearing on politics, except as they
elevate and purify the national manhood, but they
constitute a number of independent and incorruptible republics within the State, appealing through
the conscience to the Right, and upholding the real
national Unity, inasmuch as the Right and the
True are one. They teach a grander ideal, a sterner
resolve, and stronger passions, than mere patriotism,
while they render patriotism itself imperishable.
The Development and Organisation of Manhood
has been the great work of the world, and it ends
in Democracy or failure.
Not Development alone, or Organisation alone;
not the Development and Organisation of a fraction
of the man, nor of a section of men, but the Development and Organisation of the bodily, mental,
and spiritual manhood of nations.
According as you develop and organise the One,
the Few, the Many, or the All, as to numbers, you
have Barbarism, Oligarchy, Middle-class Government, or Democracy. As society advances from
Barbarism to Civilisation, it advances always and
inevitably from the Royalty of the One to the
Royalty of the All.




24               DEMOCRACY 
According as you develop and, organise man
partially, as to qualities, you get physical, mental,
or moral paralytics; a Society that is rotten, a
nation that is doomed. Democracy is the manhood
of nations. It ends the conflict between Conservatism and Progress, for its Progress is conservative,
its Conservatism is progressive.
Development of the Intellect enables man to
find and to accept a common platform of Truth.
Conscience disposes him to yield to others their
rights. The Spiritual gives the irrevocable impulse
and the higher Law. Thus, Development, if it be
sufficiently complete in character, and sufficiently
general in numbers, prepares for association. Thus,
the Revolution and the Reformation always advance together, for Christianity is the mother of
Democracy.
The first great step in the world's advancement
was the advent of the one perfect man. This epoch
was prepared for during more than two thousand
years.
It took sixteen centuries more before a nation
was sufficiently developed to associate. The interim
was filled up with the trial of various separate,
sinister, or partial systems of Development,-with
Developments that destroyed each other, or that
were incompatible with equality, the right and the
interest of the all.
But the Puritan or true Republican stock, born
of and living upon these elements, Press, School,
Church, and  Assembly, can never be beaten
down, and will leaven the lump of the world,.




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       25
unless human nature be changed, and the order of
Providence reversed. It gets its inducements from
Heaven and from Hell. The prizes of Eternity
glitter before its believers. Hell frowns in their
rear. Paradise blooms in their front, and beckons
their advance.
"Religions," false or fettered, are against it, and
will be destroyed or set free. Nations that cannot
associate for public acts are either immature, or
doting and debased. Where childhood is not
educated, manhood cannot exist.
This universal four-fold free system  is selfdependent, self-contained, and of necessity and
nature tends to an universal Equality.
The root of them all is in Christianity. Without that knowledge would be taught, but not
wisdom or Charity, and civilisations would blossom only to wither away! Our right of political assembly may indeed have begun in German
woods, as the page of Tacitus relates, but German
manhood after fifteen hundred years is still Austrianised and Prussianised. It had to cross the
channel to Puritan England before it conquered
Freedom. It has now to cross the Atlantic, and
has waited ever since Tacitus wrote, ere the next
step in this world-logic could be secured, and Germans also advance from their primitive right of
association or "assembly," to Equality.
In the beginning, Government may even create
a nation. In its Infancy it must protect and guide
it; in its manhood it must represent and obey it.




26               DEMOCRACY:
Government is but a function of the national manhood, and the proportion the manhood of a nation
bears to its population as men, decides the character
of the Government. It is against nature for that
which is weaker or worse than another to govern
it.
Hence, Government by the all is a necessary
and inevitable incident of the political maturity of
nations.
Autocracy may secure power and unity, but
they depend on a life. Oligarchy may secure wisdom and a high tone, but it is selfish and immove —
able. Middle-class rule is materialistic and wanting
in initiative. Democracy is not possible except in
an advanced social and political state, but every
partial distribution of power is obviously provisional and precarious.
4thly.-We consider the
RESULTS  OF  MANHOOD-DEVELOPMENT.
All systems are to be tested by their result on
Individuals, Institutions, and Nations.
The right and Development of the INDIVIDUAL
are the very postulates of Democracy. It is, in
fact, the amount of these in a nation that necessitates more or less advanced Institutions. They are
the basis of all combinations that are either stable
or complete.
There are three standpoints fonom which SYSTEMS of Governmrent are judged..




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       27
First. Concerning the constituent; Individual
right to representation.
Second. Concerning the first branch, the Legislature; or the best means of securing good representatives.
Third. Concerning  the  second  branch, the
Executive: How much of Individual action is
compatible with freedom, and what system of Representation will secure the best admninistration 9
Of these in due course.
But the all-involving test is that of NATIONA LITY.
A complete nation is one that has complete and
sound its Material Bases, its Individuality and
Unity, and its Organic Functions.
By the first it exists; by the second it exists
as a nation; and by the third it thinks, administrates, and acts.
The Material Bases of a nation consist of its
Territory, Labour, and Population.
Its Individuality or Unity consist of a oneness
of circumstance, ideas, and interests, and this results from a oneness of Institution, Race, Boundary, Language, and Religion.
Its Organic Functions are its Legislature and
Executive.
And leaving out the mechanical items of Territory and Boundary, it is manifest, as to "Material
Bases," that Democracy develops Labour and
Population. As to " National Individuality," that
Democracy tends to oneness of Institution, Race,
and Language,-for all are equally interested in




28                DEMOCRACY:
the first; there are no castes to separate the
second; and all study the third, while Religion,
being free, secures the essential condition of its
own life. Also as regards " Organic Functions," the
collective universal educated reason is undoubtedly
the best means of choosing the best Legislature,
and procuring the best Executive.
If Democracy be the best system, it must combine the " right," the "means," and the " end."  It
must satisfy Individual Right, select the best representatives, and secure the best system of
Government; or, at the least, it must do these
things, on the whole, better than other systems.
First, then, this book contends throughout that
Democracy satisfies Individual Right in the only
possible way,-by preparing men to exercise it satisfactorily. The only Democracy in the world has
established universal free common schools. All
other systems deny Individual Right as a Principle,
and defy it as a power, and confide it either to the
one, the few, or the many in trust for the all.
Democracy says the franchise right is as much, and
no more, a trust than any other right.
In the second place, Democracy, thus understood, secures on the whole the best representation,
-of material interests, political truth, and moral
right. Material interests, for every man can judge
of his own. Political truth, for the Collective Reason
is its highest exponent. Moral Right, for the interest of all is the right of each.




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       29
As to the best Executive, the system that can
organise the will and the Power of the all must be
the strongest, as the system that develops the
Intellect of the all must be the wisest. To combine intensest Unity with completest Freedom, is
the perfection of Executive, for it supplies the
greatest amount of power, and the best organisation of it. It will, in fine, be seen that Democracy
alone can meet the requirements of advanced civilisation. With interchange instant and constant, of
ideas, men, and things, systems that do not or cannot represent, express, and enact the universal, will
soon become mere Governments of revolt, and administrations of chaos or obstruction.
The completer the freedom, the more intricate
and involved the relationships, the more centralised
will be the administration, and the greater the
nation: for "right," "representation," "Government," and "nationality," all support and complement each other.
The objects of the scheme of Hare, namely,
representation of minorities, and representation
by the eclectic intellect of the country, are better
attained by the principles of Democracy, which
" represent minorities " in the only practicable way,
by preparing the People to comprehend all just
ideas entertained by the few. To enable voters to
remove their names from the local registry and
enter them on the national one, with a view to the
certain election of the foremost intellects, would be
a good substitute for Democracy if that system did
not exist. And as to minorities, they would pro



30               DEMOCRACY:
bably obstruct equality, and fail to elect the best
men.
Democracy, as an organised system, maintains
the maximum of the three essentials of Government,
Security, —for the all consent; Power,-for the
all think, and act, and govern; Honesty,-for they
will govern for themselves. It makes a truer
nation than can otherwise be made. It makes a
nation of men, instead of a nation of classes and
corporations.
The fact is that as Manhood, the essence, culminates, Diplomacies and forms recede. With the
majority of souls in a nation incapable of self-control and restraint, you must have your Blondins
of Statecraft with their long poles of elaborated
Institutions to balance withal. With the majority
educated and free, the People will stand as men,
not only not by means of, but in spite of all Statecraft to the contrary. Systems which seek to
govern for and by the Few, are forced to balance
one mistake by another,-mobs by Primogeniture, Ignorance by standing armies. Democracy
leaves Truth and Principle to balance themselves.
There are many American regiments that, give
them but materials, can, amongst themselves, build
boats, bridges, pontoons; construct railways, engines,
carriages; conduct newspapers or magazines;
preach, pray, and build chapels; make garments,
books, or constitutions. Such being the citizens,
what sort of Statesmen would it take to enslave
them?




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       31
The nation that does not adopt Democracy is
either in a rudimentary or a falling state,-it is
slowly labouring up to the true ideas of right, representation, good Government, and nationality,
or it is going slow or fast, but surely, to destruction.
Democracy, or Government of, by, and for the
whole People, is that system which begins in a free
and therefore a varied Development of the qualities of citizenship, which sees all the complex
forces and functions of its manhood thus matured
and prepared for Association, and by association for
self-Government or political Equality; which
having thus created a national manhood, finds it
a living organism of intense vitality and unmatched
power, perfect in the completion of its Individual
forces, compact in a loyalty to itself, strong in an
all-pervading habit of Association, immutable in an
equality which makes every man royal, with an
Executive as intense as the will and the arm of one
man can make it, with an administration based on
the universal will and upheld by the universal
voice, yet everywhere and always free as the living
soul called public opinion, which lightens through
and leavens the mass.
Behold at last the making of a complete nation
and of a settled Government. That is Democracy.
Add to it the principle of Federation now settled
fipon a due adjustment of local and general interests and jurisdictions, and of local and imperial
Sovereignties, and you have a principle which may
encircle the world with Federations, whilst it gives




32              DEMOCRACY:
to the Individual his freedom, to local Governments
their minor life centres, and to the nation Power,
Balance, and Unity.
You cannot get deeper than Individual Freedom and Development, you cannot build safer than
by allowing no bastard sub-sovereignties of Church
or of" State Right " to mock at individual freedom,
or to out-balance, hamper, or defy the aggregate
Sovereignty.  You  cannot invent a completer
Executive Unit than a President, you cannot have
a broader foundation than the universal suffrage of
the universally educated, nor a safer society or
more stable Government than is formed by an
universal habit of association, which forecasts the
national policy and forms opinions abreast of
facts.
It is a Unity reposing on nature, and on a basis
of truths, interests, and forces, universally shared
and understood.
Writing from a country which in thirty years
has made such great advances towards Democracy,
-and of a country which shows us the only Democracy in the world, it is necessary here shortly to
notice their relative positions.
England progresses in Freedom, but will probably never reach Equality.
Our Diplomacy is more open, our taxation more
direct, our suffrage will soon be extended, and toleration is more complete. But six Englishmen in
seven are still unrepresented; we have no House




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.          -33
of " Commons," religion is still endowed by unbelievers, and established by the State.*
Europe stops half way between Development
and Association.' We have secured partial Freedom, and our neighbours an equality tempered with
Despotism. Development has prepared for Association, but the hierarchical principle everywhere
interposes minor Associations of corporate bodies,
to negative those of the People.
It is in vain to speculate as to whether remote
ages will or will not find England still an aristocracy. All her Independencies are becoming democratic, and this at least is certain respecting herself,-she will become comparatively depopulated
or comparatively Democratic. But in England and
Europe the Revolution and the Reformation have
been arrested.
Men of confused thought, and of too much
or too -little  education, or taught to  admire
institutions and constitutions of a narrow and
restricted  tendency, separate  the  means, Democracy, and the  end, good Government, and
actually consider them hostile the one to the
other.
They are accustomed to say that "your conclusions depend on your point of view, and that the
points of view are, either the necessity of giving
* " The History of the Reformation does not close where
many European authors have imagined. It made another
enormous stride when at the American Revolution the State
and the Church were solemnly and openly dissevered from
one another... That (toleration) is perhaps as far as
the movement has at this time advanced in Europe."-Draper's'i Intellectual Development of Europe," v. ii, p. 220.
D




34               DEMOCRACY:
to individuals their civil rights, or to Society, good
Government."
This is the pitfall for those who hiccup about
the British Constitution, without knowing that
that Constitution reasonably adapted to the
present times, is the very last thing which they, as
the opponents of Democracy, would wish for.
When will statesmen learn that it is impossible
to permanently secure good results by bad agents?
The only way to secure "good Government" is to
develop by education the minds and the manhood
of those for whom you would claim " civil rights."
Until the majority are fit for self-Government,
Democracy is impossible, and until Democracy be
possible, good Government is not possible, for
Government by, is always and everywhere Government for.
~
In a Democratic nation there are two forces
which naturally balance or neutralize each other's
evil action, and which cannot otherwise be
balanced.
The first may be called the vis inertia and of
flunkeydom. The tendency of all persons in comfortable circumstances and position to avoid all
extremes, all great efforts; to renounce and abjure
the ideal and the absolute; to look to the lead
of those above, not to the wants of those below;
and to consider the convenient rather than the
right.
The second principle comes up against this in
the shape of the almost revolutionary energies of




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       35
men in contact with the soil and with reality, and
who are protected by no realised property from
the immediate personal pressure of evil institutions
and of want.'Where the all have the vote-power, this principle becomes loyalty and a true conservatism.
Where they have it not, their work can only be
done by agitation or revolution, and after perhaps,
as in England, thirty years of the former.
As the all obtain power the oscillations become
less vehement. We approach a balance of one
excess by the other, and we recede from war.
Moreover in all countries where the all do not
govern, there exists the immutable basis of an
alliance between certain alternate governing factions, against the People. There is the fact of the
People's exclusion, and the wish to perpetuate it.
In England the Whigs and Tories, the "Inns"
and the "Outs," thus combine against the unenfranchised. In America, Slaveholders and Democrats, against the Negro. In all cases where the
People do not govern, the combination exists.
The holders of power may contend amongst themselves, but they will always unite against the
People.
Taking the position and relations between
Whigs and Tories to be to Englishmen the most
intelligible application of this general principle, it
is evident that representing between them the
party and the cause of property, they can usually
command the powers of the press, the purse, and
the screw.
D2




36              DEMOCRACY:
The Whig or more advanced section, is of the
two decidedly the more dangerous to progress, for
they obstruct progress in the name of progress, and
divide liberalism against itself. They can always
reckon on the Tories to plump or split with them
against the Radical, and often on the Radical to
split with them against the Tory, whilst they can
effectually use against the Radical, force, intimidation, and corruption.
In such countries the powers of retrogression
are always strong. There are but three parties;the Few who happen to be in; the Few who happen
to be out; and the People, who are always out.
The first two know that with them it is only
a question of interchange of position, and they
know that if once they let the People in, the
position will not be changed but destroyed.
There is therefore the hopelessly retrograde
party that gets in between the accesses of the
People's indignation and the epochs of their advances. There is also the party that from time to
time uses the People to recover power. It is only
by a determined and skilful use of their needs or
of their terrors, that the third party, the People,
can prevail; and in the order of providence, the
millionaire, the owner of so many English boroughs,
the furthest removed from sympathy with manhood, and the most determined unbeliever in it, is
ever haunted with its approach, and shakes with
fear at its apparition.
Yet till the power of the veritable People preponderates, it is evident that faction and not country




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       37
will be the best and the easiest paymaster, and
that representatives of ordinary abilities will fear
to commit themselves against such a combination.
In the House, Whigs and Tories coalesce against
the People. Out of the House, in almost every
constituency that is not Tory, a Committee or Association rules, and consists of men above and without the People.
The remedy is, in the House a determined
phalanx of men around. an honest and capable
leader; out of the House, numbers, and organisation, to work and balance the constitution against
those who destroy its action by farming the constituencies.
Thus, we say, until " the party of the People"
is formed, powerful enough to swamp the sections
or any combination of them, the power, the falsehood, the corruption, and the hypocrisy of the great
Whig party will always exist and prevail, and
Government will still consist, not of acts done or
abstained from on considerations of Statesmanship,
but, as at present, to a great extent, of a series of
spasms and jerks of agitation, met by sheer obstruction. There can be no complete Statesmanship
without the People, but the theory and practice of
Whigs and Tories alike is, that conservatism shall
not claim their counsels nor progress their energies,
that they shall not, according to the English Constitution, be included in "The State," and that
their exclusion, which causes inertia within, shall
only be remedied by periodical storms of discontent,
in which they enforce their will from without.




38               DEMOCRACY:
This question involves for England that same
two-fold question of Good Government and of
abstract right, of which we have discussed the
position in America,-for neither practical nor
abstract rights are ever conceded as long as the
Few can combine to exclude the all.
Allowing for the difference of circumstances,
there are, in both countries (as in all others), the
same parties and the same objects' The Tories
are as muclh slaveholders as they can be in
England. The Whigs resemble the "Democrats,"
and by turns, use the Tories against the People
and the People against the Tories. They are
neither of, from, nor for the People.  Out of
office, they have been intriguers and liars, in office,
they may become liars and intriguers. In the
bright exceptions, nature overcomes party. The
Radicals, pure, determined, logical, consistent, and
honest, are few and far between, until a crisis
swells their ranks into a host, and they move with
and as the People.  Republicans in America,
Radicals in England, their natural enemies are
Tories, Whigs, and Slaveholders.
The Tories think, and say, and stick to it, that
for the People to be represented, would be dangerous to Church, King, State, and Constitution. The
Whigs know better but do worse. They act as
though they believed it, and talk as though they
did not. Practically, the creed of the two is
one, and it is this, to take office and place, turn
and turn about, one in, the other out, one out, the
other in, —a large party, keeping it all in the family.




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       39
They consider the Constitution saved as long as
the people are kept from restoring its balances
and from interpreting it by the ancient spirit and
by present facts, and they admit as much talent
as is necessary to make themselves respectable.
It may be said that every party when admitted is
always apt to become Whiggish and conservative,
that is, to look after its own interests as opposed
to those of outsiders. This is true, and it is the
great argument for Democracy. Admit sufficient
numbers,-all the qualified of the People, and you
have all interests looked after, you combine conservatism with progress, for the interest of all is the
right of each.
As to England, let us remember that the chief
duty of all her citizens everywhere, is to recognise
that Democracy MUST prevail, and that Education
SHALL prepare the People for it; and to see to it
that no traitorous or foolish schemes for plural or
fractional voting (the reversal of which would be
one of the first results of an universal education)
are meanwhile foisted on them to create distrust,
weakness, and revolution hereafter.
Nature cannot be forced. In political life, the
foundation is the Individual; and the completion
of his physical, mental, and moral nature, by which
completion alone he can be free, is indeed the beginning of all national Unity. Freedom is variety and
Development, and other foundation for Unity can
no man lay, how stupendous soever may be the




40              DEMOCRACY:
national or Federal combinations that hereafter
shall organise and harmonise the world.
From a chaos where all is confounded together,
to a Development where all appears to separate, to
a Unity wherein all is organised,- that is the
formulum of all progress, whether in worlds or in
systems. As Guizot says: "All things at their
origin are nearly confounded in one and the sarme
physiognomy; it is only in their after-growth that
their variety shows itself. Then begins a new
Development which urges forward societies toward
that free and lofty unity, the glorious object of the
efforts and wishes of mankind."
There can be no absolutely sound political com-.
binations that do not rest upon men prepared for
political Equality. From that comes an intense
and varied Individuality, but the secret is that
that very increase of complexity increases also the
organised dependence of men upon one another.
That is Unity. When it has spread far enough it
is Nationality. And the completion of the first
nation upon the basis of individual political equality
is the completion of the first great step of the series
along which Humanity has to advance.
Such a national Unity is America, for itself a
living Organism peerless in organisation and power,
-for the world a moral propagandism which nought
but the conversion of all nations to its principles
can stay.
By Equality we mean of course political
Equality.
The whole educated manhood of a nation




ITS FACTORS AND CONDITIONS.       41
equally voting, is God's natural progress, conservatism, and balance, and only in proportion as it is
realised, can these be secured.
To sum up, the object of this book is to show
that an educated Democracy is the only final Conservatism; —that the war in the West has indeed
been the making of the first precedent for Democracy;-that there can be no complete nation that
is not also a complete Democracy; —that the onlysafe bond of Unity is the preparation of the units,
and that the vaster the conglomerate of Empire
the more perfect must be the component atoms;that minorities should be treated as minorities,
unless and until they call by the natural use of
argument and discussion, convert themselves into
majorities;-that, in fine, the thoughts and will of
the whole People are the true governing and progressive power, and that Statesmanship is of little
value save as it prepares the Royalty and Universal
Manhood of Peoples; while they are but quacks
and doctrinaires who, with infinite pains and
trickery, seek out many inventions for Conservatism and balances without and against the People,
and neglect, abuse, and refuse that true Democracy
which is the end and aim of all political science.
It is by thoroughness of preparation, and
through complexity of relationship, that national
Unity obtains its completest form and highest
expression.
Some politicians may object to Equality or
Individual Development, and think to leave them
out of the series, but both are in the order of Des



42               DEMOCRACY.
tiny. The law which makes Unity is an universal
one, and "we must consent to go with the movements of the Universe, and to march to the step of
Destiny," or be crushed under the resistless tread
of advancing Principles and Peoples.
"Nation " is the mightiest unity yet. But there
is a mightier to come, in which nations may be as
Federated States. That Unity is HUMANITY.
"It is," says Humboldt, "the idea of Humanity
which History exhibits as evermore developing
itself into greater distinctness, setting aside the distinctions of Religion, Country, and Colour."  " It
is," says Fichte, "the vocation of our race to unite
itself into one single body. This is the first great
point. Then shall Humanity move onward."




DEMOCRACY:
WHAT IT IS.
"The universal Commonwealth."-Fichte.
" The state is here a living universal spirit, but which is at
the same time the self-conscious spirit of the Individuals
composing the community." —Hegel.
" In a despotic State a real division is perpetually kindled,
and if at any time a union happens to be introduced, citizens
are not then united, but dead bodies are laid together in the
grave." —Montesquieu.
Freedom is the completeness of Spirit.
Democracy is the completeness of nations.




"Democracy does not confer the most skilful kind of
Government upon the People, but it pr2duces that which the
most skilful Governments are often unable to awaken, namely
an all pervading and restless activity, a superabundant force,
and an energy which is inseparable from it, and which may
under favourable circumstances beget the most amazing
benefits. These are the true advantages of Democracy."-De
Tocqueville, 140, v. 2.




45
CIIAPTER II.
DEMOCRACY:
WHAT IT IS.
"The judgment of a whole people, if unbiassed by faction,
undeluded by the tricks of designing men is infallible."Franklin.
" Many maintain that nations are never their own masters.
Such principles are false and cowardly, and can never produce
aught but feeble men and pusillanimous nations." —De Tocqueyville.
" Every man who is supposed a free agent ought to be his
own governor, but it is fit the people should transact by their
representatives what they cannot transact by themselves."Montesquieu.
" A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and
limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes
of popular opinion and sentiments, is the only true sovereignty
of a free people." —Lincoln.
" The Statesman must allow all restrictions of freedom to
remain which are once rooted in the present, so long as men
do not show by unmistakeable signs that they regard them
as enthralling bonds, that they feel their oppressive influence,
that they are ripe for an increase of freedom, but when this is
shown he must immediately remove them. Finally, he must
make men thus ripe for enlarged freedom by every possible means.
The last duty is unquestionably the most important, for by
nothing is this ripeness and capacity for freedom so much promoted as by freedom itself." —Baron W. von Humboldt, "Sphere
and Duties of Government," pp. 197, 201-2.
Developinent.-By free School, Press, Church,
and Assembly.
Association.
These two produce Equality, and that is Democracy, or Government of, by, and for the People.
DEVELOPMENT endows Individuals with Power,
and when of a certain quality and universality,
produces ASSOCIATION  for public purposes.  In




46               DEMOCRACY:
other words, it causes a common-platform of material, Political, and Moral Truth, to be accepted and
acted on by a competent number.
Thus, DEVELOPED AND ASSOCIATED MANHOOD,
produces material, political, and moral power. In
other words, it is strength and unity,-Power and
Organisation.
POWER produces Equality or Revolution.
Take, in addition to these facts, the axiom in
material as in political science, that the smaller the
molecules the stronger the unity.
And that other maxim vouched by authorities
and common sense, that a mixed Governrient is an
unnatural or provisional state of things, and that
one power will necessarily preponderate in every
living nation.
And also the fact of the substantial oneness of
the race.
Take also History.
The result is, that mankind has, has had, and
can have before it, throughout all its nationalities
and epochs, but three alternatives:
To educate and develop, or to remain barbarous.
To develop and associate, or to be ruled from
above or from without.
To associate for Equality, and to rule itself.
The nation that is a Democracy is also the
strongest nation.
The nation that is a Democracy is the only
nation that while it moves can rest. It has reached




WHAT IT IS.               47
the highest politicalform,-that towards which or
towards ruin, all Peoples for ever gravitate.
There the Government and the People are one.
There power is rightly distributed, and completely
administered.
"The organisation of Democracy" is therefore
the problem, not only of Individuals, but of nations,
not only of " the age," but (politically) of Souls
and of Creation.
And the problem solving in Politics always is
how power shall be developed, or how the policy
and the politicians shall be destroyed.
The Development is an Imperial question; Providence secures it for the whole.
The Destruction is a Provincial question, each
country may settle it for itself.
Order is the first law of earth,-freedom the
next, or perhaps, in its perfect sense, the last. The
Savage obeys the strongest individual. Society
the strongest organisation. As Society advances,
Equality advances, and " Individualities" (save as
servants and helpers), and administrations recede.
The Law of organised existence is, "as much
freedom  as is compatible with order, and no
more; first unity, then the perfection of the
units."
But order is useless, save as it leads to freedom, and when (as now at last in America)
greater freedom for the Individual becomes possible, and there is enough organisation to work it,




48              DEMOCRACY:
then comes Revolution, and out of that, again
a more complete order, and more perfect unity,
Order and Freedom are, in the mind of the
Supreme, the symbols of a mighty equation, but
whilst, in the history of man, they work imperfectly towards that equation, they are in ceaseless
and essential antagonism. Man,. at each stage more
complete, offers himself for a more complete organisation; the organisation wears out its system of
law, and is again modified or destroyed by the
man, again progressed, and further completed.
Perfect unity, or organisation, cannot be reached
without perfection of the units, because their advancing perfection will destroy all other organisation, than thedlast or perfect one.
"How  to Destroy? " becomes then, at certain stages, the question of questions. To graduate wrong into right, and if it may be, to abolish
Revolution by enacting progress, or, if it must be,
to summon, in the last resort, Revolution itself
from the abyss.
When this question comes to be asked, it is
the supreme one, and they who do not agree in the
answering, or who will not abide by the answer,.
contend neither for Freedom or Revolution, Progress or order, but for anarchy-the negation of
both.
Happy the People that has learnt to destroy by
replacing!
Rights arise out of relationships.  Political
Relationships are between man and man, between




WHAT IT IS.                49,
the Individual and the State, and between
States.
The requirements of man in communities are,
protection of Property, Person and Life, conduct
of affairs between States, and the payment of the
expenses of these things.
In other words the Judicial, the Political, and
the Economic departments of Government.
It is usual to say that the " rights" of man are
relative or absolute, original or acquired. That
his original rights are absolute, and that his
acquired rights depend on his fulfilment of his
duties.  We, on the contrary, prefer to put it,
that all " rights" are absolute.
But the getting of right depends usually on the
getting of self-Government, and by the  same
reason, of equal self-Government.
The question is not whether rights are absolute, —that is a truism.
The question is, " what are the rights?"
Rights to protection of Property, Person,
and Life, are called absolute, because they are
absolutely clear, obvious, and simple, until forfeited.
Complex rights also are absolute in the ideal,
but have got to be absolutely proved to be
rights before they are known and accepted as
such.
Political rights are complex. They are rights
to the best mode of obtaining rights.  They are absolute in the ideal, because truth is absolute; they
are only absolute in practice as far as opinion co,
E




50              DEMOCRACY:
incides with Truth, i.e. as far as "the best mode of
obtaining rights" is discovered, agreed upon, and
enacted by Law.
"Man has Rights."  True. "Manhood," also,
has rights. True, also. And the whole circle of
political error is caused by the confounding of
"Man " with " Manhood."
The Rights of man depend upon what the man
is, and he is everything from the angel to the ape,
and from the ape to the Demon.
To say, then, that man has rights is to utter a
betise, a truism, or a lie,-according to what is
understood by " man."
Man has a right to the best possible mode of
securing and obtaining his rights, i.e. to the best
possible Government; but "Government" presupposes Unity, and strength and wisdom are the
qualities whereby Unity is acquired.
Man will never get his rights (such is the
blinding effect of self-interest) until he gets equal
self-Government, and he cannot get equal selfGovernment until he has got the Governing
qualities,-strength and wisdom.
It has been shown that Development (or
Education) and association can alone supply
these.
The question, therefore, " What are the rights?"
depends upon the fact, "What is the manhood?"
The question, how any nation is to get the
rights of manhood, depends upon getting the
national manhood, by which alone equal national
self-Government is possible.




WHAT IT IS.               51
The science of Politics, therefore, seems to
exhaust itself in two problems.
First: What is the average educated or developed manhood of a country, and, therefore, its
appropriate Government?
Second: What is the best mode of raising that
average, and of moulding the Government to it?
For a low or one-sided Development, tyranny
is the best Government, rising, with the Development, from the rule of the one to that of the few
and the many, and at last attaining to that of the
all.
The ideal best Government is of course national
self-Government, and Conservatism joins with progress in seeking the consummation. Self-Government is safest, for it is the broadest base. It is the
object of all progress, for it unites interest and
right.
All theories of thinghood or Property, as opposed to manhood, —of three per cent., or bricks
and mortar, if meant as aught but a rough test of
the qualities of manhood,-are dismissed with the
contempt they deserve. "Let them blare off into
the inane without further note or comment." They
are false, abject, anarchical, material, and retrograde,
-fit only for millionaires or monkeys. All Property that derogates from Manhood is Robbery.
To raise the average national manhood is the
work of Conservatism and the work of Democracy.
You must either sink manhood to perpetuate the
rule of the Few, or raise manhood to hasten on the
rule of the All.
E2




52               DEMOCRACY:
The rule of the all is the only finality. That
must be a very low degree of development that does
not see this, a very low degree of morality that
will not seek to attain it, and an infinite measure
of stupidity that thinks to withstand it.
~
The basis of the relationship of the unit with
Unity,-the Principle of the reconciliation of Individual Freedom with Nationality, with Order, with
Government, or any other real Unity,-is the fact
that each Individual bears the same relationship to
the Universal, and is therefore capable of Harmony
with the natural laws, and with other Individuals.
Things that are like the same thing may be like
one another, and all. are capable of advancing
together towards the Infinite.
Progress consists in an ever truer obedience, by
an ever increasing number, to the eternal laws, and
as this progress but develops the natural relationship of man to his fellow and to the Supreme, so
" Manhood Development" is the right name for the
process.
And as nationality is the most comprehensive
political Unity at present within the sphere of our
knowledge, so, inevitably, as the next great step,
the collective reason of a nation must become (if
the nation is not to be destroyed) the best expression of the national mind. If any minds are excluded as incompetent, they degrade the national
character, or, at least, weaken the national average,
and any fractional reason must be, by comparison




WHAT IT IS.              53
with the true collective national reason, weak, imperfect, arbitrary, and uncertain.
Every man, perfectly free, must, in a measure,
have experienced in his own soul every stage and
struggle for completeness that the world itself has
passed through.
Every nation, truly democratic, must in like
manner have conquered its right to Democracy.
The Individual wins freedom by a symmetrical
manhood Development. Communities win freedom
by those Powers of Association which are the natural and necessary result of Development. The two
together give Unity and Strength, and can never
fail to win Equality. The Individual contends witht
Individuals, and advances as an Individual. But
when he contends for political rights he contends
against Factions and Parties, and can only succeed
by association.
Freedom is the completeness of Spirit.
Democracy is the completeness of nations.
As this question is often put" That is good Government which secures Order,
Freedom, and Progress; and that is the best possible Government which secures the greatest
possible amount of them."
" Is Democratic Government good Government.
Can it, —Does it secure Order, Freedom, and Progress; or the greatest practicable amount of
them."
The "Can it " must be answered by Theory and
Fact.




54              DEMOCRACY:
That it secures Order is admitted. Where " the
all" govern, all obey.
And Democracy not only secures Freedom. It
ss Freedom.
As to Progress, progress is Development, and
the great recommendation of Democracy is that it
depends upon Development.
All these things are admitted as theory, and are
established in the life of the American nation.
What, then, is the difficulty?  What is the
impeachment of Democracy?
Two-fold.
First: "The equal voting all would give an inevitable class majority to Labour.  Democracy,
therefore, after all, impugns Freedom. It would
destroy Equality by Equality."
Second: "High culture, wealth, leisure, and
high Caste, give to aristocracies grand and chivalrous exaltation of soul, breeding therein a love of
glory and of beauty, to which dead level Democracies aspire in vain." But Equality is of the essence
of Democracy, and if this accusation be true,
Democracies do not promote the highest degree of
Progress.
In other words, though Democracy secures
Order, and also a mediocre average Development,
it does not secure the greatest possible amount of
Freedom and Progress.
The first theory is Mill's. The second, Aristotle's. The first is born of fears that can never be
realised. The second, of assumptions which mechanical, industrial, and social science, and a com



WHAT IT IS.               55
pletely altered state of Society, have for ever
destroyed. We shortly proceed to examine both
by the light of their own admissions,-by that of
other great authorities,-and by that only true
Democracy, and only complete nation, of the
making of which we have written.
Fact, theory, and authority will perhaps show
us that Development is the synonym of Order,
Freedom, and Progress. That the faculty of Association (remarkable in Democracies) intensifies,
multiplies, and accelerates progress by competition
on an equal basis,-that it secures freedom by
making public opinion irresistible, and enthrones
Order in an intense executive Unity. That Development means intelligence of common interests,
and Association, an instant, intense, and constant
expression of the national will.
Behold at last the ditch wherein Conservatism,
falsely so called, has got to die.
With Development universal,-national manhood Development or Education, vanishes the
basis of Aristotle's objections to. Democracy, for
Development is wealth, dignity, and glory, and the
true national Unity which Association secures,
secures also defence of national rights, and defence
of Human rights. Where Families rule, but do
not pay, their selfishness leads the nation to fight
for privilege,-their subserviency leads it to fight
for Prerogative. Where nations rule, as well as
pay, there will be no ignoble wars; they will not
fight for families or legitimacy, but they will fight
for national existence or popular rights. As nations,




5 6             DEMOCRACY:
they will fight for nations: as "The All," for
Democracy.
Development being attained, and Association
with it, there remains, therefore, the question of
Equality, pure and simple, which must result therefrom, and that is the whole question; for if that
is not right, then not Development, but restraint,
is the true Gospel, and there is a hitch somewhere,
not only in Democracy, but in Creation. Democracy means Development,-but universal Development. It means also Association, — but association
of the All to promote the "rights of minorities,"
or the supremacy of the Few, is not only not
Democracy,-it is nonsense.
The question of Democracy has to be developed
in its entirety, but the only questions worthy of
discussion amongst advanced thinkers, are those of
Individual greatness, genius, and glory, and
whether or not the whole equal voting (educated)
Developed Manhood of a nation constitutes its
natural Governing power, possessing the three attributes of all that is rightly Imperial, namely:Ist. The conservative element, or the power to
decide what at each stage is the right instalment of
progress.
2nd. The progressive national force.
3rd. The central power, the national will, which
combines these two and balances them, making
progress conservative, and conservatism progressive, developing the thought, passion, and character
of the nation for permanent national uses.
Whether the true, perfect, and complete national




WHAT IT IS.               5 7
Individuality resides in its equal voting developed
manhood, or in some unequal artificially balanced
quasi national manhood.
The latter position is that taken by Mr. Mill.
He says that this equal voting all would throw the
nation of its balance on questions which naturally
affect the majority as a class.
That Equality, if it descend to the all, means
class tyranny, and not freedom. In other words,
that national Equality can never exist. And the
same writer's theories about special rights for
minorities are only another denial of the Principle
of Equality. They deny it none the less that the
scheme may not be pressed for present adoption.
Thought and fact have irrevocably settled every
question of Polity in favour of Democracy, except
this one of Equality.
Democracy says that this is a question of Education or Development.  That an educated national
manhood contains within itself a complete natural
balance of forces and interests. Mill says that it
does not.
The errors of the Human mind seem to reproduce themselves eternally.
Here again are the Hebrew old clothes of
political judaism. Mill has got into the petticoats
of the Hierarchy. The pharisees of civilisation
would make broad their phylacteries over the manhood of the People. They would hide the nakedness and readjust the fulcrum of Creation. The
"Balance of Power," recognised at last as a policy
of idiotcy amongst nations, takes up its last refuge




58              DEMOCRACY:
between classes. It is declared that a true People
can never be, and that Genius, wealth, learning,
and organisation, which must always belong to the
comparatively few, will never be recognised and
deferred to by the all, even when education shall
have rendered their advantages, and the capacity
to appreciate them, universal.
The latest and the least unfavorable form of
this opinion is in Mr. Mill's letter of the 17th April,
1865:"I would not vote for giving the suffrages in
such a manner that any class, even though it be
the most numerous, could swamp all other classes
taken together."
~
But there exist already, in fact, two complete
and " balanced " Individualities, and their existence
guarantees, to our thinking, the others.
GoD,-the All-One. The One-All.
MAN,- (certain Individual men) politically
complete and self-balanced.
NATION,-to be thus complete when its men
are thus complete.'WORLD,-to be thus complete when the constituent nations are thus complete.
We must reason through human nature on to
order and God, or back to Chaos and the absolute
void inane.
To affirm that the world cannot be thus complete, is to affirm that its constituent nations cannot be complete.




WHAT IT IS.               59
To affirm that a nation cannot be thus complete,
is to affirm that its constituent men cannot be complete, that manhood tends to confusion, and that
God is the author of it.
To affirm that man cannot be thus complete,
is to deny God. It is to affirm that Individual
completeness clashes with Political Unity. That
the State and an universal political manhood are
hostile interests. That Equality, the completion of
Freedom, contends with Unity, the result of Freedom and order completed. And it proves nothing
but that the Individual so affirming, is himself
"unbalanced," by reason of excess of the critical
and speculative faculty, or of deficiency in insight
and faith.
Freedom is good because it conduces to Development. But when it has leavened the all, and
made them fit members of the State, then, forsooth, the State meets development and its claims
of Equality with a higher law, and says, " we must
balance interests or men. If men are equal, Interests will be unbalanced. We prefer Interests.
True Conservatism criticises each instalment of
progress to see that it is real.
True Democracy sees in God, the One-All, a
guarantee that Development must justify creation,
-that every Individual Development is not only
not incompatible with, but essential to, a higher or
wider Unity, —that the truths of Freedom and
Unity can never clash, —that free will and Destiny
are one. It therefore advances with confidence to
the future.




60              DEMOCRACY:
False conservatism dreads each advance as approaching the final anarchy,-just as false Democracy patches up false immature unities. The one
is ignorant of the true process; the other disbelieves
in the final result.
Let us who believe in man-nation —world,
because we believe in God, accept only such political theories as allow conservatism and progress,
-manhood Development and national Development, to unite in hope and action for each and
all.
Let us who believe that ONE NATION is
already Royal, and owes its Royalty to Equality,
denounce with every power of our soul and every
effort of our understanding, the fears that would
obstruct the road along which other nations follow.
Let us hail the approach of every planet as it
sweeps towards its predestined place in the political
Heavens,-hail the fact and hail the theory, not
only as right but inevitable, —unless we have the
will and the power to banish from man, nation,
and world, truth, nature, Destiny, Progress, —and
God!
" The People will be able to sit down whenever
the sovereignty of a king shall be exactly of the
same dimensions as the liberty of a man."
The men of the Future must now say to those
great ones of the Past, who live:
"0  men eternal, the minds of this day salute you, but do




WHAT IT IS.                     61
not follow you. Their function is no longer yours. They
have business with the virility of the human race. The hour
which makes mankind of age has struck. They contemplate
creation directly, they observe humanity directly. They have
one model MAN, and one master GOD."
" It is necessary to restore some ideal in the Human mind.
Whence shall you take your ideal?"
All the wits from Asop up to Moliere, all the intellects from
Plato up to Newton, all the Encyclopsedists from Aristotle
to Voltaire — throw all these souls into the "' man."
You will cure the middle class and found the People.
What an aim! to make the people! Principles combined
with science, every possible quantity of the absolute introduced by
degrees into the fact. Utopia treated successively by every
mode of realisation.
They must say also to the men of the present,
respecting the People and their Progress:"Up with you all intellects! It is necessary to construct."
To construct what?
To construct where?
To construct how?
To construct the People.
To construct the People according to the laws of progress.
To construct the People according to the laws of light.
" The progress of man by the education of minds; there is
no safety but in that. Teach! learn! all the revolutions of the
future are enclosed, sunk in this phrase:'Gratuitous and
obligatory instruction!'"
We  conclude from  the  foregoing  argument,
and propose to establish hereafter, the following
principles:1st. That Order or Conservatism, and Freedom
or Progress, are one cause,-the equal and opposite
terms of an orderly Development. The first representing the mode,-the last the essence. That on the
great international scale, the first, means strict




62              DEMOCRACY:
non-Intervention as against Peoples, —the Individual working out of each nation's Destiny. That,
on the small scale, every standpoint of constitutional right should be made the fulcrum of movement, whereon the lever of Democracy shall be plied
till every vestige of prerogative, privilege, feudality, oligarchy, and Barbarism be destroyed.
That the one cause, of which order and Freedom are the positive and negative sides is DEVELOPMENT, —Of the entire national manhood.
That this Development is Democracy, and includes
Conservatism as one of its inevitable results. It
contains within itself "all revolutions," past, present, and to come. But it must be a Development of a certain degree of Universality as to
numbers, and of completeness as to quality, or it
cannot produce that faculty of Association, which
as regards communities is its most essential result.
That the faculty of ASSOCIATING TOGETHER is at
once the means and the result of Democracy. It
is a characteristic of all true Democracies, and replaces the mechanism of centralisation, with the
vital unities of an aggregate national life.
That EQUALITY is of the essence of Democracy,
and the main incentive to Development, just as
Development is the guarantee of Equality. That
Development renders Despotism impossible, by
creating the best possible conditions of social, religious, and political association, and therefore of
the strongest, completest, compactest, NATIONAL
UNITY. That without Equality, Representation is
imperfect, the "balance" of the realm impossible,




WHAT IT IS.                63
and Stability a matter, not of certainty, but of
sufferance.
That Equality, or the supremacy of the COLLECTIVE REASON, in other words, that this equal
voting power of the entire educated manhood of a
country, combines, if not in perfect proportions, at
least in the best possible proportions, the two
objects of- Government-Individual Freedom and
National Unity. That Equality, the completion of
Individual freedom, cannot contend with unity the
completion of national life.  And that the tendency of the Collective Reason always is to discover and elevate its greatest men.
That plural voting is in fact a system of representation without election, and belongs to the oligarchic era of national life.
That in reference to the allegation that the
People would constitute a "class Sovereignty," it
is a self-evident truth that the whole People, with
its broad and multitudinous base, with its ascending hierarchies, professions, and officials; its divisions into sects, parties, localities, classes; its
specialities and influences of thought and learning,
of pulpit, press, platform, &c.; its individuals and
sections with multiples of power, constitute the one
complete, and if not perfect, the best and only possible balance, provided by nature for nations.
Democracy alone amongst political systems, can,
like the stellar firmament, rest and move at
once.
That the preparation and enfranchisement of a
whole People will alone secure the objects proposed




64              DEMOCRACY:
by such schemes as plural voting, and that plural
voting is directly revolutionary in its tendency,
because it would arm the favoured with artificial
multiples of power, and place them as obstructives
directly in the highway along which the People
must inevitably march to power.
That there are four grades or eras of national
life and progress, indicated by the rule of the one,
the few, the many, and the all; that the governing
qualities are in MANHOOD; that when that is complete but restricted, the restricted sorts of Government are justified, when complete and universal,
Democracy is inevitable.
That the proportion of acres to men may
accelerate or retard certain political changes. To
maintain that it can do more is an abject political
heresy. Statesmanship is not in the soil, but in
the soul. Nothing but manhood ever ruled or
ever will, whether it be the stupendous manhood
of an Alexander, a Csesar, or a Napoleon, the collective manhood of a true aristocracy, the mediocre
administrative mechanism of middle-class Government, or the universal manhood of Democracies.
Always and everywhere a certain manhood
rules, because it is a better manhood than that
other which is ruled.
That FREEDOM is three-fold-Material, Political and  Religious.  Material,-free trade, and
direct taxation; Political,-the franchise; Religious,
that the Church be free from State endowments
or control.
That where a nation has not conquered for its




WHAT IT IS.               65
masses MATERIAL freedom and comforts, it is impossible for it-to attain in any large measure either
political freedom or moral elevation. " They who
have not learnt Humanity, may refrain from
teaching Religion."
That human nature teaches us that Goverment
by, is always and everywhere Government for.
That, consequently, to be best governed, nations
must be SELF-GOVERNED; and that wherever and
whenever national self-government becomes a fact,.the age of" stupendous Individualities " (ruling by
force or fraud and for themselves,) must of necessity pass away, and that of Royal nations become
possible.
That a nation thus constituted in an orderly
manner, of this three-fold Freedom of the Body,
Mind, and Soul, has necessarily, the individual interests and interrelationships of its People so strong
in themselves, so bound up one with the other, and
so homogeneous as regards the outer world, as to
combine all the elements of NATIONALITY in the best
possible proportions, and to the utmost possible
extent, constituting, also, a better and completer
"CONSTITUTIONAL BALANCE" than could be invented by man.
That any nation that does not, slowly perhaps,
but surely, progress towards this completed Freedom, is either stagnant or declining: that if it be
not stirred by agitation, it will be smitten by adversity, or finally, by that destruction which Providence always allows to fall upon the parts, when
they obstruct too long the progress of the whole.
F




66              DEMOCRACY:
But perhaps, after all, the most important and
essential result of Democracy is this,-that it discards " Balancings " for Progress. The old weary
Europe has always "balanced" against progress,
till progress has inevitably scattered the sawdust
to the winds, and carried each political acrobat and
his tumbling-ground away together.
Neither within nor without the State does
Democracy seek to balance artificially. It seeks
not to balance State against State without, nor
within, interest against interest. It seeks to advance with and by the whole.
As to the former species of balance, it may say,
with Wendell Phillips, " If Europe leaves America
to Republicanism,-well. But if she interferes, we
interfere, and the right of our fellowship grasps the
hand of every republican in Europe to upset every
throne on that Continent."
As to the latter it says, " Make yourself into a
majority, and you conquer; if not, remain a minority, and submit. And this is the end of the
logic, whether it be accepted at once, or be prolonged through secession and civil war."
Democracy elects its Executive (though not its
Judiciary) and its Legislative, which of course act
separately without confusion of function, whilst
the real ultimate supreme Unity is the People.
To do less would not be representative Government, but the chaotic action of Individual units and
atoms. To do more, might be called a "balance,"
but would be obstruction. It bids its Legislative




WHAT IT IS.                  67
enact the best ideas of the nation, and it bids
the Executive execute whatever is already the law.
Democracy leaves the tight rope and the long
pole to Diplomats who represent the partial
interests and artificial forces of the One or the Few.
On the one hand, it regards the "Balance " as virtual war which necessitates war taxation in time
of peace, and a bloated expenditure. On the other, it
discards even the speciosities of Mill, who, following
Montesquieu, admits that even in so-called mixed
Governments there is always one preponderating
force which governs, but who seems to advocate
always some "nucleus of opposition" thereto, not
to temper, but to obstruct or defy it.
" I regard it (' Representative Government,' pp. 234-48) as
a fundamental maxim of Government that there should be in
every polity a centre of resistance to the predominant power in
the Constitution."
"A most important principle of good Government in a
popular Constitution is that no executive functionaries should be
appointed by popular election."
Where sections govern, these things are essential;
where power is universal, if there be centres of
resistance, presidents, &c., will be elected by the
People, and if on any great national question they
veto the People, it will end in the People vetoing
them. Democracy studies the past, but is not
chained to it. It is Society mobilised.
The All govern as manhood should,-by influences, not by mechanism.  If you want a cause or
an idea to govern, get first your locus standi in the
intellect and devotion of the solitary great. Let it
leaven, if it can, the lump. Let it be free of everyF2




68               DEMOCRACY:
thing but opinion, and of that, if it can conquer it.
Where the Collective Reason reigns, anything that
is reasonable has in itself the title deeds of Empire,
and is the true legitimate. Where entire freedom
is, minorities that remain minorities are like un-.timely births, that have not the strength to exist,save as infants or imbeciles, and that had better
not exist. They resemble the weak progenitors of
animals who are soon conquered and destroyed,
lest they perpetuate their inferiority, and hand
-down their weakness for ever.
And this disposition against " balancings," Democracy will always assert in the world international
also. It will replace the attempted communism
of Families by the solidarity of Peoples. Demccracy paralyses Intervention for wrong; it could
never descend to non-Intervention for the Right.
Its policy will always be a moral propagandism,and perhaps something more. It steers a middle
course between an aimless intervention which is
a policy of idiotcy, and a policy of non-Intervention, as much without heart as without head,
which is a policy of Cain. A just intervention is
the natural result, amongst Peoples, of the habit,and power of association.
These seem to us the leading positions as to the
connection between DEMocRACY, and GOVERNMENT,
and NATIONALITY, between the Man, the Institution, and the State,-established by the authority of
philosophers, by political science, and by the experience of the foremost nations.




WHAT IT IS.                   69
The political creed  thus taught by History,
Authority, and Facts, may perhaps be set forth
with advantage in a categorical form, as follows:
Q. What is Democratic Government?
A. The equal voting power of the Educated Manhood of a
country.
Q. What is Manhood?
A. Of the Body, Intellect, and Character.
Q. How is this Educated (developed) Manhood to be
tested?
A. In the general it is a question of preparedness and of
consequent power. If the nation be fit for self-rule, it will
be competent also to organise sufficient power to conquer it.
The test of manhood is Victory. In the particular, Tests
must not be inquisitorial, arbitrary, or debateable, but we must
judge by the actual visible result of a man's energies and intellect in promoting his own interests, and in acquiring a stake
in those of the Commonwealth. In other words, the test
should be one of proprietaryship only as it appertains to manhood. It must be such a test as a labourer with the ordinary
qualifications of manhood, namely, an average measure of industry and health, may pass. It must be a mere test of
manhood and residence. In a true Democracy, education being
universal, the average labourer cannot fail to pass such a test.
Q. What withstands this arrangement?
A. Three things: In Economics, indirect taxation, congestion of trade, and a " bloated," nay, a " Demoniac" expenditure
for sectional and anti-national objects; in Religion, an established, that is, a tyrannical Church; and, in Politics, " Rights,"
apart from Duties, and a " Conservatism " which opposes progress, destroys power, divides interests, and makes Unity
impossible..
Q. What is Good Government?
A. Any Government that combines Order with Progress.
Q. What secures Order?
A.' Loyalty of the greater part of the power of the country
to the Executive.
Q. And what secures that Loyalty?
A. Either a good Government and a well-informed Popula.
tion, or a strong Government and a degraded Population.
Q. What is "' Progress"?
A. DEVELOPMENT-of the national manhood.




70                  DEMOCRACY:
-Q. And how is this Manhood-Development to be secured?
A. By Freedom,-Material (or Industrial), Political, and
Religious.
2Q. And what are these?
A. First, Free Trade and Direct Taxation. Second, Free
common Schools, Press, Speech, and Assembly. Third, nonIntervention by the State with Religion.
Q. How are these to be secured?
A. By constitutional action, where the People have a locus
standi in the Constitution; by Revolution, where they have not.
In either case, they secure one another, for neither can be
won without rendering the conquest of the others more
easy.
Q. What then secures the union of Order and Progress?
A. The Union of Power with Development.
Q. And what secures that Union?
A. The use of the first to promote the last.
Q. And what is the result of this?
A. Democratic Government, —again, "National self-Government." In other words, Democratic Equality.
Q. Then all good Government tends to Democracy?
A. Entirely so. When the (majority of the) All possess
Unity and Power (the result of Development and Association),
they will most undoubtedly use them.
Q. But if Power be used against Development?
A. " All History teaches " the result. The nation submits
or resists. If it submit, the nation declines, and progress goes
elsewhere. The alternative for every country that does not
submit to bad Government, and thus commit the unpardonable
sin of nations, is Democracy or Revolution.
Q. And for the world generally?
A. There is no alternative. Providence secures Progress
for the whole. Statesrenemay secure and Peoples may submit
to destruction for the parts.
Q. What, then, is true Conservatism?
A. That which secures national safety by means of national
Development, and considers Equality,-the natural result of
Development,-as the completion of that Balance of parties
and interests which e very true nation represents.
Q. What is Democracy?
A. That which secures Development, knowing that Conservatism is one of its inevitable results.
Q. What, then, is the function of Conservatism commmonly
so called?
A, It secures, during the minority of a nation, and in a




WHAT IT IS.                71
temporary, partial, and provisional manner, a measure of security and Unity, whilst the universal Manhood Development, and
consequent powers of Association, are preparing to achieve Equality,
and to unite Conservatism, Democracy, and Nationality in one.
And if the question be further pressed, —
" Equality-Development —Association-of what?
what do you mean, or rather what do you not
mean by manhood?"  We answer, Truth is always
Catholic and  absolute  in  conception; if not
obstructed it is always gradual and conservative
in action.
By manhood we don't mean the animal man,
aged twenty-one.
That were to crucify Democracy between two
thieves: the thief who destroys his own manhood,
and the thief who would use the pretence of manhood to deprive others of their rights.
That were to base Democracy, not upon manhood, but upon Animalhood, Devilhood, or Beasthood.
"Manhood rights " is a relative term, in the eye
of God and of the State.
It is only some unsafe advocate of Democracy
who would challenge for man absolute rights. As
regards God, man must take his stand, not upon
justice but mercy.
As regards his fellow, man must get his rights
by gradations as he gets fit to use and able to win
them.
Right,-the conquering it for oneself: Duty,the determination to do it to others; these two




72z               DEMOCRACY:
together make up that true "Reason" which constitutes the worth of States.
The first means isolation, the second reciprocity,
The cry for right without the feeling of duty
is destructive and barren.  The cry for right as a
means to duty, is genial, productive, and sympathic. The first without the last is disease. The
two together are Life,-Conservatism'and Progress.   Right represents the unit.   Duty  is
Unity.
The wish to get rights, without the wish to do
right, —it shakes Earth with revolutions and Hell
with laughter!
Manhood in Communities is a relative term.
Before it can force recognition as a political
element it must have attained such a degree of
Development of character and intellect as will
enable it to combine and assert itself. We need
not therefore define the terms of a situation that
can never exist. Individuals not developed to the
average extent as to intellect and morality (or a
sense of others rights), will never be able thus to
combine effectually with others for political purposes. Men do not associate without trust, nor
without a common intelligence of mutual interest,
and if they did, their association would be ineffectual, for the smaller hostile Unities would be the
stronger and the easier held together.
The quantity of the People is more, but to
conquer, their quality must be equal.
" An usurping populace is its own dupe, a mere undertaker,
and a purchaser in trust for some single tyrant, whose state




WHAT IT IS.                 73
and power they advance to their own ruin, with as blind an
instinct as those worms that die with weaving magnificent
habits for Beings of a superior nature to their own."*
And if, again, we are asked at what stage any
given nation is fit for any given step in advance,
and realisation of Democracy, we answer, it isJit for
it when it is able to get it.  This is the sole absolute test that other classes or interests either can
or will accept of the political competency of the
l1, —are they able and willing to conquer it?  By
revolution or by agitation as the case may be.
Vae Victis is the necessary philosophy in Politics.
No Government will ever "generalise Democracy
from the depths of its own moral consciousness."
Governments concede when they must, and deny
when they can.
The only possible proof of the fitness of a
national manhood for self-Government, is general
development and powers of association. When these
exist they are the power and the means and the
right. The national Industries must be developed
to allow of a certain general diffusion of ease and
culture. The national Intellect must be so developed as to comprehend the means and necessity
of organisation. The national Character must be
so developed as to present the conditions of
confidence, and to teach the  necessity of selfrestraint and of mutual trust.
When this is done, or nearly done, middle (or
middling) class government will get its "crick in
the neck." Its adherents will then extol the rights
* State-Tracts, 1688-1702, p. 225.




74              DEMOCRACY:
divine of minorities, and leave off being very
enthusiastic about Democracy. When Democracy
was yet afar off, they would of course glorify the
power of the People, and for two reasons. First,
because they help the middle classes to power, and
second, because the middle classes combining with
the upper against the People, are supposed to be
powerful enough to prevent a further " degradation
of the franchise."
Power is the vindication of Right. The History of political Equality in old nations is usually
thus. Labour accumulates Capital. Commerce
establishes a third power in the nation. It stimulates the intellect and the invention. It opens up a
career for manhood, and offers a premium for talent.
It is the carriere ouverte for the many. The forces
spread  by self-interest.  Labour is gradually
associated in the rewards and in the power of
capital.  It becomes gradually  the owner of
capital. It then unites with it in political ambition. It demands power and will have it.
Such is generally the beginning of the People's
Power. It is indeed essentially so in America,
for there labour oftener invests in land, and
Democracy is territorial, and has the natural
Conservatism and stability of Land ownership
conferred upon about two and a half millions of
farmers, in addition to the natural progressive
qualities of Democracy.
Inasmuch as one complete nation can now be
said to exist, which is also the only Democracy,
(having now completed its freedom and vindicated




WHAT IT IS.               75
its authority) it is necessary to show from its
example, first, to what extent the question of Democracy is no longer empirical-that it is a science;
and, second, that the theory of Democracy is perfect, and its march irresistible and irreversible.
Clearly it behoves us all to study that which is not
American Destiny only, but world-Destiny.
The whole question of Democracy will then be
treated of according to AUTHORITY, ARGUMENT,
AND PRECEDENT.
Authority; the opinions of the Fathers, and of
Political thinkers since.
Argument.
Pre edent, that of America.
We shall also consider the state and prospects
of Democracy in England.
In any given country, that which is virtually
Sovereign, must bear the blame of disaster, or reap
the glory of success.
America is the chief examplar of Popular
Sovereignty.
But inasmuch as any given country may, and
that country does possess, very peculiar political
conditions, it is necessary to examine the theory
as well as the practice of Democracy, —to consider the argument a priori, as well as a
posteriori.
The question, therefore, divides itself into the
universal and the local: the abstract and the
concrete.




76                 DEMOCRACY.:
Whether, then, we investigate the theory of
Democratic Government, or its application in any
given country, it is in respect of these three terms
or qualities-Progress, Stability, and Unity, that
we seek a verdict. And we shall find as we proceed, that they are included in the more precise
expressions, "Manhood Development, and Faculty
of Association."
We contend that the Theory of Democracy is
absolute and unassailable. That its adaptation to
any given Country is a question, not of the worth
of the Principle, but of the nation.
As Hegel tells us, "what constitutes the State
is a question of advanced science."         1,
"Questions of political form," says Carrel, " have
their data in the state of Society, and nowhere
else."
Montesquieu (Esprit des Lois) also lays it down,
that "every  Government is composed  of two
distinct elements, its nature (structural identity),
and its principle (or passions)."
"Whereupon," adds Napoleon III, "it follows
that a Government can be a strong one only as its
principles are in harmony with its nature."
And Aristotle contends that:
" Government is nothing else but the arrangement of individuals in a state, and the propriety of every arrangement or
composition must depend on the number and nature of its materials.
"The best Government is the best arrangement, and the
best arrangement is that in which the materials to be arranged
are the best fitted both to receive and to preserve.
" Of all political errors, the greatest is that of thinking that
the institutions of one people may be safely communicated to




WHAT IT IS.                     77
another, differently endowed and circumstanced." —Gilies'
Aristotle, pp. 234-7-376, v. ii.*
Or, to recur to the profound and quaint simplicity of the earliest authority, we are informed,
in the Republic of Plato, of the truth upon which
the matter stands:
" Do you know now, said 1, that there is somehow a necessity that there be as many species of men as of Republics? Or do
you imagine that Republics are generated somehow of an oak,
or a rock, and not of the manners of those who are in the city. *
* * If, then, there be five species of cities, the species of
souls in Individuals shall be likewise five. Why not?" —The
Republic of Plato, book viii, p. 387.
Republics, then, depend upon men and  their
manners. We are thus admonished of the necessity of forming our opinion of both:
" Whosoever cannot define the good by reason, separating
the idea of the good from all others, and as in a battle, piercing
through all arguments, eagerly striving to confute, not according to opinion, but according to essence, and in all these, marching
forward with undeviating reason; such an one knows nothing
of the good itself, nor of any good whatever, but if he has attained to any image of the good, we must say he has attained to it by opinion, not by science, that in the present life
he is sleeping and conversant with dreams, and that before he is
roused he will descend to Hades, and there be profoundly and
perfectly laid asleep. By Jupiter, said he, I will strongly aver
all these things." —The Republic of Plato, book 7, p. 379 (Taylor's Translation).
* It is important throughout to bear in mind the character
of the translation here used. It has been characterized as
"faultless and faithless," the latter because it was written
with a view to make Aristotle appear to favour monarchy.




:** We insert some passages from Hugo, for the power,
splendour, and truth that is in them, although, as at pp. 61
and 80, it seems doubtful how his philosophy deals with the
mightiest element in man,-the spiritual. " To deprive religions of Hell, and to be brother to the damned," is perfectly
allowable to so illustrious a member of a church that has excommunicated the best of mankind.




DEMOCRACY
NO LONGER EMPIRICAL.
"La Politique c'est la fatalite " (destiny). —Napoleon I.




"The human caravan has, thanks to 1789, arrived on a
high plateau.
" The nineteenth century has an august mother, the French
Revolution. It has that powerful blood in its veins. As for
its source, it is beyond man. The mysterious gestations of
progress succeed each other according to a providential law.
" Revolution will be the name of civilisation, until it can be
replaced by the word Harmony. To deprive religions of hell,
and societies of the galley; to be brothers to the wretched, the
serf, the fellah, the proletaire, the disinherited, the banished,
the betrayed, the conquered, the sold, the enchained, the
sacrificed, the prostitute, the convict, the ignorant, the savage,
the slave, the negro, the condemned, and the damned, —yes,
we are thy sons, Revolution! "-Hugo.
" There is nothing in the world so sound as American society,
with its intimate union of all classes, its general diffusion of
property, its common schools, and its free religion. The
danger of communism, or of anything like a war of classes, is
never felt, and even strikes were almost wholly unknown till
the Legal Tender Act multiplied them by causing a frightful
derangement of prices.
" The local institutions also are perfectly healthy, and
form in themselves, and by their effect in training the political
character of the people, the sheet anchor of the constitution.
" The manhood of the new nation would bring with it no
doubt many new difficulties, but the past will never return.
Feudalism, Primogeniture and State Churches were left behind
for ever.
" That the victory has been won, not by a man, but by the
nation, is your glory, and the pledge of your salvation. The
Cromwell of this age is an intelligent, resolute, and united
People."-Goldwin Smith.
" Every American is in some sense a patriot and a person
of cultivated intelligence. No such wide diffusion of the
ideas, tastes, and sentiments of educated minds, has ever
been seen elsewhere, or even conceived of as attainable." —
J. S. Mill.




81
CHAPTER III.
DEMOCRACY
NO LONGER EMPIRICAL
"The suppression of the aristocratic and Democratic
rebellion of the slaveholders will in itself be the defeat of our
foreign enemies, and our triumph will be shared by ourforeign
friends who are fighting the battle of liberal principles and equal
rights in the Old World. The existence of a strong, rich, prosperous
Republic is a persistent revolutionary fact." —North American
Review.
" There remains, on the one hand, that rupture which the
Catholic principle inevitably occasions, and on the other, the
requirement that the units of the State in their individual
capacity should rule, that all Government should emanate from
their express power. This collision (between Government and
individual will) is the problem with which history is now (A.D. 1830)
occupied."
"' We have now to consider the French Revolution in its
organic connection with-the history of the world.
" Liberalism as an abstraction (the right of individuals to
govern) emanating from France, traversed the Roman world.
It became bankrupt everywhere. Religious slavery held that
world in the fetters of political servitude. For it is a false
principle that there can be a revolution without a reformation.
These countries sank back into their old condition. Napoleon
could not coerce Spain into freedom. Here it must be frankly
stated that with the Catholic religion no rational Constitution
is possible."
"A share in the Government may be obtained by everyone who has a competent knowledge, experience, and a morally
regulated will. Those who know ought to govern.:" These are the principal phases of that form in which the
principle of freedom has realised itself, —for the history of the
world is nothing but the development of the idea of freedom."
-Hegel, pp. 472, 468, 476.
Democracy, as a theory, has always been acknowledged perfect.
Democracy, as a fact, has always been on its
trial,-always until now condemned as incomplete,
G




82               DEMOCRACY
if not left for execution. There are various issues
on which the verdict may be taken.
First. Does it as much, or more than any other
polity, promote the general diffusion of material,
intellectual, and religious advantages?
Second. Does it tend to make an intenser
nationality?
Third. Does it promote Individual greatness,
heroism, culture, and Genius? or is it that the
system which gives a chance to the All, quenches
or mitigates the aspirations of the Few?
Or, to vary the test, does it secure a strong, an
honest, and a stable Government?
Or, again, does it secure Industrial, Political,
and Religious Freedom.
How much, then, of this great question of
Democracy can now be argued from precedents
and upon evidence, and what portion of it, if any,
is empirical?
The past, whether of Greece, Rome, France,
England, or elsewhere in the Old World, tells us,
from different standpoints, that without manhood
Development sufficiently general in diffusion, and
good as to quality, Democracy pure cannot be.
What does America tell us?
It tells us that a mixed manufacturing and
territorial Democracy —chieflythe latter-has stood
through all changes of fortune and numbers, a
veritable and a progressive Democracy; Education
universal; Competency universal; remarkable for




NO LONGER' EMPIRICAL.          83
its love of peace and ability to carry on war; for
its love of the arts, and devotion to the national
ideal.
What America does not tell us is, how Democracy will stand the strain when, ages and ages
hence, her territory will be filled to overflowing,
and the population will be pressed back upon itself
into numerous and crowded cities to such an extent
as to raise the old questions of over population and
over production, and to outvote the population
settled upon the land. This problem has often
been solved before without Democracy.
American Democracy now answers even that in
part, for the great cities have responded to the awful
pressure of the crisis, as well as the wide plains.
Still, in as far as America does not settle the
question by a fact, it is still one of opinion and not
of fact, and we are left to maintain in theory only
what no thinker (not even Mr. Mill) doubts, namely,
thatw if the educated national manhood would not,
by force of numbers, give to the working classes a
preponderance of class interests, Democracy is then
in that, as in all other respects, the best polity.
But further, if Democracy will not answer in a
crowded commercial and manufacturing Community, then no possible system will answer, for all
others have been tried and failed. We must therefore adhere to Democracy-the only system in this
respect untried,-or declare Governmental science
a failure, and that Progress must drift the world
to chaos.
It comes, then, to this, that all other systems
G02




84                 DEMOCRACY
having failed in all circumstances in which they have
been tried, and Democracy having succeeded in all
circumstances but the one in which it has not been
tried, —shall we conclude that there is no system
that can meet the case, or that Democracy will
meet it? —that this contingency in universal
Government is an oversight or a failure; and that
neither Democracy nor any other system can provide for it?
The Territorial Democracy of America partakes
of the advantages of aristocracies, whilst it avoids
the dangers of Democracies. It is not a territorial
aristocracy; it avoids immobility, obstruction, and
servility. It is not a Democracy only of serfs or
manufacturing workmen; it has the responsibility
of ownership and the stability of land.
And the best grounded fears of such as do not
hate, but merely doubt, American institutions, are
thus expressed, but some time since, by Hegel:
" North America will be comparable with Europe only
after the immeasurable space shall have been occupied, and
the members of the political body shall have begun to be
pressed back on each other, and so to form a compact system
of civil society."
But as the space to be filled up is immeasureable, we cannot wait for it; and if Democracy be
thus Jar the only complete system that we contend
it is, and if self-Government be the destiny of all
political communities, we must dismiss such fears
as unworthy of students or believers, and we must
trust the system we cannot in theory impugn, and
which has worked hitherto through infinite troubles
and storms. Hegel says, elsewhere, that "History




NO LONGER EMPIRICAL.          85
ends with Europe." We contend that the History
of the People begins with America.
Unless the nature of Man is without a plan,
and his faculties created for confusion and chaos, we
must trust Manhood, and believe that the educated
national manhood must be better than sectional
manhood to govern nations.
A priori we should have argued that as all
Government is a government of manhood, so the
aggregate manhood may govern, and that the
natural progress of Society must come to this unless
it can be proved that there exists some immutable
and indestructible barrier of race, caste, or capacity.
But now America supplies the argument a
posteriori and of fact.
There can of course be no question that Democracy, pure and simple, of School, of Church, and of
Assembly, conquered nature, solitude, and savages.
That it formed a League, and an association, and
also an organic and fundamental law, under which,
as a national constitution, the Americans lived for
seventy years with ever increasing prosperity, and
but for Slavery-unitedness also. That during
this time it got over the war of revolution, and the
" one-horse war" of 1814. That a Republic has at
last been founded and maintained. That it has
flourished not only on pastures and tillage, and
over a continent of vast spaces and area, but in
cities of dense population.
So much is not empirical, but fact.
For four years, since 1860,'.' empirical " reasoners
contended that the Union,-the Republic, has




86              DEMOCRACY
failed. But they reckoned without their republic.
Some, scarcely to be called reasoners of any sort,
carefully pointed out the natural boundaries of at
least three new empires,-those boundaries being
formed by the Mississippi and the Ohio, the
mightiest agents, almost, in perpetuating the
Union of the whole.
The chief friends of Democracy are Christianity,
Political Economy, and History. Let us ask of
the latter its verdict on the last two hundred and
fifty years.
Can Democracy construct? was demanded in
the year 1600, under other auspices. The attempt
failed in England because society was not prepared for it, and because the Bishops, the Aristocracy, the Church, and the King combined against
it. But America has answered the question by
two centuries and a half of such construction as
the world has not seen elsewhere.
The Edifice has not been assailed by any excesses of Democracy, but by a consolidated Oligarchy, the equal and essential foe of national Unity,
and Individual right and value.
Democracy was at one with the national
Genius, and it created the national Constitution.
But the hour had struck when its principles of
Federal Republicanism, Freedom, and nationality,
must complete their triumph, or go down;-as
the Richmond papers said,-" down, down, down to
perdition."




NO LONGER EMPIRICAL.          87
This Oligarchy found, we say, the ground preoccupied by its adversary; and it found the nation
content, and its principles but too successful.
It found Conservatism and Democracy one.
To redress the Balance, it allied itself with Revolution.
Can Democracy destroy? That, therefore, became the question, and Democracy for its life must
answer it.  Conservatism, Freedom, Progress,
Nationality, were on the one side, and from the
other a Bureaucracy of Felons cast down before
God and the People the gage of battle.
Can Democracy concentrate?  Is it an unit, a
nation?  Can the All become as one as the Few?
Must, for ever, Individual Development and
Right, be sacrificed to "administration?"  Must
the man always renounce some of his rights, that
the nation may be made and kept?
That is the question which America now settles
for the All, there and everywhere,-now, for the
first time in History, and for all the future. The
Peoples, by an instinct, universal and profound,
acknowledge it, and from every stronghold of
Despotism  in the world, tyrants strained their
weary bloodshot eyes, and shuddered for the issue.
Democracy created-progressed —maintained.
Must it now become a Despotism to keep its
Unity, or can it by its Unity destroy Despotism?
" Democracy," in truth, pities the fears of its
friends and derides the hopes of its assailants.
Political science bids the one despair, and the other
believe.




88              DEMOCRACY
Democracy pronounces the issue false and vain.
It says, that " there is not nor can be conflict between Individual Development and national Unity
and strength." That the more of the first the
more of the last. That an educated Democracy
goes from glory to glory, and from strength to
strength. That had its intellect outgrown its
morality, and listened to compromise and Slavery,
there had been danger and death, but that Democracy in arms for its own principles and ideal, for
the completion of Individual freedom, the vindication of a national morality, is a thing upon which
the shadow of Death cannot pass.
Here then is the central Truth of Democracy
and Conservatism,-of the broadest based national
Unity, and the completest national Strength,THAT INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT AND NATIONAL
LIFE ARE ONE.
As to America, the danger is, not when a nation
takes, but when it refuses to take, the next appointed step. When Will does not equal Destiny.
When Fear cripples Justice. When "I dare not"
waits upon "I would." America took the step.
She agonises for the Purple of the People, and will
have it. She is the Royal nation.
Democracy in America had two foes, Oligarchy
and Materialism. Both hindered Development and
both made association an object of conspiracy
against progress. The first had been imposed upon
the past by the necessities of order; the second was
born of the vices and wickednesses of the hour.
The first, the Puritan race quitted Europe to




NO LONGER EMPIRICAL.         89
avoid; the second they will have always with
them.
Materialism and Oligarchy met in the South.
The two brought forth Slavery, as Sin and the
Devil brought forth Death.
Materialism communed with Democracy in the
North. The result was, according to the natural
laws,-a neutralisation, a compromise, and an undoing, and the unmaking of the nation went on for
fifty years. Opposite and equal forces contended,
and have destroyed between them neither less nor
more than fifty years of the nation's life. As
Carlyle once said of some such other scene: —It is
" not comic."
But there were already born within her the
principles of her resurrection and political redemption,-Free Labour and Abolitionism.
Democracy, borrowed from its mother, Christianity, the principles of the higher life and law,
but these rested on the broad natural human forces
and interests of free labour done and free wages
paid, and upon the fact that the good and the bad
cannot dwell together in amity.
The meaning, present and eternal, of this conflict, is that Free Labour, Democracy, and Christianity,-the Body, the Soul, and the Spirit, of the
American nation, are destroying the oligarchy of
the South, and opening up the future for themselves and for all men. The serpent wreathed itself
around the world-Champion of Democracy; its
Head is crushed there, let its folds be disentwined
throughout the world!




90               DEMOCRACY
Now that the North has satisfactorily beaten the
South, many good tall fallacies about the " natural
superiority of oligarchies " are dead and buried.
For in every age have imbeciles of every kind,
imputed their imbecility to systems which they
have failed to understand, or attempted to foist
their idiotcy by turns on nature, necessity, or God.
The capacity, however, of Democracies for progress, is, though not indefinite, as large as the
Human soul, and practically illimitable.
Oligarchy, on the other hand, is always and
everywhere " a company limited." Whatever the
polish or power of the few, they can never supply
to a nation the interests and incentives of selfGovernment, nor can those who are governed by
deputy ever reach the dignities or responsibilities
of those who govern themselves.
At first sight the dilemma urged by De Tocqueville, following, but rather exaggerating Aristotle, is, to a true Democrat, somewhat appalling. It
would seem almost as though a certain quantum of
" love and glory, of culture, genius, faith, honour,
and love of Republic," were allotted to each nation,
of which, if the few have much, the many must
have little; of which, if the many have much, the
few will have less!! As if the founders or revolutionizers of States must ever choose between Institutions which will produce either an ordinary dead
level of Humanity, or a few hot-house giants, at the
expense of a nation of dwarfs.
We are, however, somewhat reassured in
theory, when we find Aristotle teaching that




NO LONGER EMPIRICAL.          91
equality and liberty will increase with improvement in education and manners, and that the
many may become, politically, not only richer, and
wiser, but nobler than the few; when we learn
from De Tocqueville, that the organisation of this
Democracy in Christendom is undoubtedly the
greatest political problem of our age; and from J.
S. Mill, that in great crises the " mediocre " many
always choose the truly great for leaders; till at
last we permit ourselves to conclude with Pascal,
that "mankind is a man that never dies, and that
is ever advancing towards perfection' and that,
after all, man is not really a being to be thus absolutely moulded, to honour or dishonour, by "Institutions." It is not privilege, or political position
that gives, in this dispensation, assurance of political manhood to the Peoples, but Christianity and
Human nature, if only not obstructed by institutions, may breed in every soul the rudiments of
national strength, and the love of Fame, of Beauty,
of Goodness, and of Glory.
Moreover, as far as all these good things may
be wanting in American representative men, let us
remember the frontier life of a vast proportion of
Americans, the rough but grand energies developed in the contest with nature, the strong
infusion of the wild Irish element, the newly free
German element, and such ingredients also as the
Slave-drivers of the R,ed River.
Much is attributed to system which belongs to
manners and circumstances, much to Democracy
which belongs to the woods and the clearings.




92               DEMOCRACY
Energy here comes to the front, not, as yet, polish,
or philosophy, nor traditions. What, moreover, if
it should turn out, as we contend it has, that with
these universally diffused good qualities, Democracy combines also on the whole the best Governing qualities, and as great, if not greater men
than other systems?
As to the ingredients of Congress, many gentlemen are maltreating Democracy who would be
better employed in reading the American Constitution, and in studying the effect of such little enactments as this,-that every representative shall,
" when elected be an inhabitant of that State in
which he shall be chosen." (Art. I, sec. 2.)
But after all, is not Protestantism (the reassertion, in a partial sense, of the Individual rights of
the Soul), as well as Christianity, Democratic?
Were not Napoleon, Cromwell, Gustavus Adolphus, Washington, Jefferson, and the Adams,
democrats? Had Romans no "love of glory,"
and of the Republic?  Have the French (a Democracy of eighty years) none?  For what did the
Ironsides fight, for what did Milton and Cromwell diplomatise? Where did nation ever grow so
mightily in manhood as the Americans, before
cotton and slavery, and a cotton and slavery-born
oligarchy, crossed their path?
And their last crowning victory of Democracy?
The North is the Puritan. He believes in God,
Human nature, and Country, and is not above
working, praying, or fighting for them. The South
believes in oligarchy, and fought for an independence




NO LONGER EMPIRICAL.          93
that would intensify and eternise the rights of the
few and the wrongs of the many, —throughout the
world in theory, and in fact over a vast slave
empire.
The North,-the Republican,-the Puritan,
contend for the completed rights of the Individual,
— against that Materialism and Slavery which ate
together into the heart of the nation for sixty
years. The North so fought that all the "chivalry"
of oligarchic countries cried out against its fighting,
with an exceeding bitter cry.
And the bitterness to theorists is that these
Democrats do by some mistake overcome the Oligarchy, and that, strange- to say, the " love of comforts" has not withheld them from  "the love of
glory and of the Republic!"
This does not exactly agree with the attributes
imputed by De Tocqueville to Democracy, namely,
"the employment of the moral and intellectual
activity chiefly in the production of comforts, and
the acquirement of the necessaries of life, and of
the greatest degree of enjoyment."
Still less accommodating are such facts as the
"Christian" and the " Sanatory Commissions,"societies of colossal dimensions, and which with
lavish expenditure, and a total disregard of "comfort," and an ambition wholly beyond the mere
"love of glory," fought on fields of carnage the
battle of God, against cold, thirst, hunger, want,
irreligion, and despair.
Thus does the first and the only Democracy
answer the words of theorists, and the arms of




94               DEMOCRACY
oligarchs.  Such fallacies as "over-production"
and "over-population" may be safely left to destroy one another in the future.
But now that the Republic is fairly reconquering Unity, empirical reasoners against it will
subside upon the old peradventures of a future
growth of faction or denial of negro rights, or of
some possible or impossible severance, forgetful or
ignorant of the fact that no single factor of material or national Unity is wanting to America, that
slavery (or oligarchy), the only alien element, is
perishing, and that allianceship between the two
halves against outsiders, would precipitate a reunion which every conclusion of political science
guarantees.
So much for nationality. The world must now
acknowledge that Democracy can make a complete
nation.
Nor can it refuse now to make the comparison
it has challenged between the relative values, Individual or Social, of Oligarchies and Democracies.
Let any whose system can boast a wider base, or a
higher or completer Unity, assail the bulwarks of
the latter. Others must watch and wait, and
learn, and follow.
The American experiment settles, amongst
other things:1st. That Democracy has proved its case. That
a royal nation exists and is definitively constituted.
That it exists by virtue of Individual competency,
intelligence, heroism, culture, and religion, which




NO LONGER EMPIRICAL.           95
are not only a basis, but the only safe basis for
national Unity.
2nd. That thatfact involves the verification of
the theories of Aristotle, consciously or unconsciously quoted by Penn and others, as to the Collective Reason, and explodes the delusion that a
whole People can be a mere class interest.
3rd. That inasmuch as Democracy must soon
or late, prevail everywhere, and cause every community either to pass through a revolution or to
fall into complete dissolution, certain duties are
devolved upon all citizens everywhere,-the chief
of them being to prepare the People by education
for Democracy, and to see to it that no traitorous
or foolish schemes for plural or fractional voting
are meanwhile foisted on them to create distrust,
weakness, and revolution hereafter.
Democracy has been tested in battle against
the strongest and subtlest of oligarchies, and it
answers all the purposes of Government;-Security, for having the broadest base, its base cannot
be broadened. Intellectual Power, for the People
always elevate and follow their greatest men.
Honesty, for when Equality governs, payments
will be equal.
That was always the theory of Democracy. It
is now the leading revolutionary and conservative
FACT of the world's politics.








DEMOCRACY
MUST BECOME UNIVERSAL.
"Fortune never interposes in the government of this world;
and we may be convinced of this truth by the Romans, who
enjoyed a continual series of prosperity when they regulated
their conduct by one invariable playn, but suffered an uninterrupted train of calamities when they acted upon different
principles. There are a set of general causes, either moral or
physical, which operate in every monarchy, and either raise
and maintain it, or else involve it in ruin. All accidental conjunctures are subordinate to these causes; and if the hazard of
a battle, which, in other words, is no more than a particular
cause, has been destructive of a state, some general cause
presided, and made a single battle be the inevitable ruin of
that state. Ill a word, the tendency of the main principle draws
after it all the particular incidents."-Montesquieu's Works, v. iii,
page 135.
" Progress may be safely left to the passions and the blindness of those (ruling) classes, even although warned of the
result.
"Since a human race has appeared upon earth, it must
attain all the development which it is possible for it to attain
on earth.
" There is but one world possible,-a thoroughly good
world."-Fichte  "Vocation of Man" pp. 146, 150, 183.
"It is over with us, the multitude are enlightened."Volney, " Vision of Priests and Despots."
"Every combination of ashes returns to ashes. All those
granites, oligarchy, aristocracy, theocracy, are promised to
the four winds." —Hugo.
H




"' True History, henceforth charged with the education of the
royal infant, the People, will study the successive movements
of Humanity.
"HIumanity no longer possessed, but guided. The legions of
light drive backwards the hordes of flame. Planets become
spectres. The flaming pleiad of men of brutal force descends
deeper and deeper into the abyss, and in the deep heaven of
the future, azure, henceforth rises in radiancy the sacred
group of true stars."-Hugo.
" A regard for their own security compels all free states to
transform all around them into free states like themselves; and
thus for the sake of their own welfare, to extend the empire of
culture over barbarism, of freedom over slavery. Soon will the
nations, civilised or enfranchised by them, find themselves in
the same relation towards others; and thus of necessity by
reason of the existence of some few really free states, will the
empire of civilisation, freedom, and with it universal peace,
gradually embrace the whole world."-Fichte.
" When schism and faction abound in a state, it is near its
ruin, and ought to be invaded."-Institutes of Timour.




99
CHAPTER IV.
DEMOCRACY
MUST BECOME UNIVERSAL.
"Woe be to us should their fatal cry of Liberty reach the
ear of the multitude. If all men are equal where is our exclusive right to honours and power? If all men are or ought to
be free, what becomes of our slaves, our vassals, our property?
If all are equal in a civil capacity, where are our privileges of
birth and succession, and what becomes of nobility? If all are
equal before God, what is ito become of the Priesthood? Let
us sound the alarm to Kings. Let us divide the People. Let
us excite their apprehensions respecting the power of this
free nation."- Volney.
" When a nation modifies the electoral qualification, it may
easily be foreseen that sooner or later that qualification will be
entirely abolished. There is no more invariable rule in the
History of Society, for after each concession, the strength of
the Democracy increases, and its demands increase with its
strength."-De Tocqueville, p. 67, v. 1.
"' It is the vocation of our race to unite itself into one single
body, all the parts of which shall be thoroughly known to each
other, and all possessed of similar culture. * * *  And this is
the first point to be attained in the endless path on which
Humanity must advance. Until this shall have been attained,
one nation or continent must pause on the great common path
of progress, and wait for the advance of the others, and each
must bring as an offering to the universal commonwealth, for
the sake of which alone it exists, its ages of apparent immobility or retrogression. When that first point shall have been
attained then, without farther interruption, without halt or
regress, with united strength and equal step, Humanity shall
move onward in a higher culture, of which we can at present
form no conception."-Fichte, " Vocation of Man," pp. 141-2.
"Future History approaches.  Historical effigy will no
longer be the man-King; it will be the man-People.-Hugo.
The first practical successful solution of the
Democratic problem is the one great step towards
its universality.
H 2




100             DEMOCRACY
Let but the first Democratic nation stand, and
it must draw all systems to it.
For,-not land, or peculiar material conditions,
but manhood is the basis of Democracy.
Wherever manhood is, there may be manhood
Development. Wherever manhood Development
is muliplied, there is manhood Association. Whereever developed manhood associates, it wins Equality.
And manhood, developed, associated, and equal, is
Democracy. Inasmuch as Democracy makes the
strongest Unity and intensest concentration of
power, it cannot be successfully opposed by arms.
Inasmuch as it is a question of Development, all
free opinion is deslined to help it.
Tha~t Democracy shall become universal, arises
from the nature and necessities of man, and the
necessary grades and epochs through which individual and national life has to pass.
Without manhood Development there is no
nation.
Where manhood Development exists to a certain extent, and subject to a certain organisation,
there a nation exists.
Manhood Development either ceases or extends.
If it ceases the nation expires.
If it increases, it becomes more generally diffused in quantity, and more elevated in quality.
But with that state of things Individuals
inevitably learn to associate together,-they acquire
unity.
But Unity and Numbers are strength, and a




MUST BECOME UNIVERSAL.         10] 3
strength that constantly increases itself in a greater
ratio.
And strength will always (with or without revolution) win for itself Equality.
And manhood Development and Association
result in Equlality, which is Democracy.
The process may take years, or ages, but the
result is inevitable. If any given nation abandon
the advance, and cease the Development of Democracy, the forces of progress but transmigrate to
other nations more worthy. Labour leaves the
land, and manhood society.
If Humanity is not to progress towards Democracy, it cannot progress at all. If it is not to
progress, it must be stayed by the same hand that
launched it on its career.
The logic of politics is absolute, or it is nothing.
Either the rule of the one is best, or the rule of
the all. Either we must trace our steps backwards to autocracy, or onwards to the People. If
responsibility educates; if Government by, be
always and everywhere Government for; if right
divine, which sometimes by necessity hedges Kings,
goes over, when the necessity is gone, to the side
of the Peoples,-then, as surely as history, progress, God, exist, and as the All are of more
value than the Many or the Few, so surely, soon
or late, in all countries and with all Peoples, will
altered conditions of national Life transfer the rule
accordingly.




102              DEMOCRACY
There is no single atom either of the Theory,
the History, or the Practice of Democracy, that
we need either doubt or evade.
No! The Theory of Democracy is no longer
" empirical." It rests on facts. If not yet an entire and perfect chrysolite, so pure is its water, so
well has battle ground its facets, that other lights
must pale beside it.
The tendency of progress and civilisation is
altogether to throw down barriers and to bring
men and ideas together. The only possible check
to Democracy would be a system of Isolation.
And the very compromises of Democracy,
during "the eria of compromise," from  1777 to
1833, confirm our argument,-for the great rebellion
was directly and inevitably occasioned by the untruthfulness of Democracy to itself, yielding for a
time to the blandishments of materialism and a
mock Democracy, while oligarchy and slavery grew
and strengthened.
Since then the vast resources and intense Individuality of Democracy have done their work.
Democracy found its leaders, and the army its
generals. The administrative organisation of the
Republic has controlled the one and wielded the
other, without weakening or diminishing either.
Centralisation and Unity have worked together,
not in spite of, but by means of, a proper independence of States.
Why, then, should we doubt or hesitate?
Destiny has put to Democracy a series of tests,the last of them searching, exhaustive, and conclu



MUST BECOME UNIVERSAL.          103
sive. " Can Democracy emigrate, colonise, unite;
repel Despotism from without, sooth disunion
within, extend over a vast continent; surrender
materialism and ease, extemporise an army and
fleet, beat down a rebellion localised by climate,
intensified by slave-interests and oligarchy, ramifying through the country by intrigue and party
interests, and seeking in every state alliances on
the plea of State rights. Can Democracy, in the
face of this last and final trial, still crown its
nationality without disowning Freedom, and regenerate and purify itself, while contending with a
third of the empire, led by the ablest of its then
acknowledged Statesmen F"
But one conclusion now is possible. That conclusion this book attempts to work out, through
all its parts. That the collective Reason and the
universal Will are not perfect, but the best possible
Institutions.  That "class Popular Sovereignty "
is as much a chimera and a delusion as is the figment that Democracies do not love glory.  That
the whole of a nation voting equally by its educated
unstained manhood, isformed and specially created
by nature,-necessity, —God, to control its own Destiny, and to lead on the van of the future. That
such a nation makes of its contending forces the
mean,-progress; and becomes, as it were, that new
thing upon the earth, A NATIONAL INDIVIDUALITY,
with functions (as far as possible) perfect, complete,
and reconciled.
So entire should our faith now be in these re



104               DEMOCRACY
suits, that we should be prepared to say of America
or any other nation that thus fairly and fully tries
Democracy, " if Democracy cannot save it, it is not
worth saving,-it cannot be saved;* the time
has come when it ought to be destroyed. Its blood
must be poisoned; its heart rotten; its functions
gone; its whole anatomy an anachronism.  By
what right cumbers it the ground on which other
nations are waiting to grow and multiply?  Let it
go as other false nations have gone, howling and
shrieking to its Gods.' Nationalities' were made
for man, and not men for nationalities."
Dynasties, Feudalities, ancient corporate obstructions in Church or in State, may stand in
the way, but Equality and Manhood will at last
get their feet upon the necks of them. This result
must be as general as the nature of ma.n is uniform.
Plural voting is as much a thing of Feudality
and Privilege as any relic of Barbarism.  It may
be possible in feudal Societies.  It is impossible
elsewhere.
It is a simple, stark, staring, blank truism, that
the Progress of virtue, civilisation, and religion,
leads infallibly, in all ages and countries, towards
or to Democracy, and it is neither logical nor possible for the victorious Demos to consent to fractional voting.
Where the majority are unfit to govern, they
are, nevertheless, in a progressing country, preparing for Democracy. It is a question, not of
principle, but of instalments.
* Of course Democracy involves entire freedom of religion.




MUST BECOME UNIVERSAL.         105
Where the majority is prepared and fit to
govern, the policy that would deny to them their
rights, and refuse to itself the strength of their
adherence, is a policy of Barbarism and Suicide. It
sacrifices the country to party, puts back the whole
for the sake of part, and postpones man to measures.
Such a policy simply forfeits for the Government
the moral and material support of the greatest
number,-the wisdom of their councils, and the
weight of their adherence.
Statesmanship admits everywhere and always
the principle of Democracy, and hastens to reduce
it to practice as fast and as far as Education has
given the People self-restraint, and (with the power
of acquiring property) a sense and habit of responsibility.
In numbers,-cceteris paribus-there is safety
and conservatism. To maintain that the educated
All ought not to govern, is only to proclaim to the
world that the few who may be in possession, have
already rendered their class dangerous to the interests and rights of the nation.
The Monitor came round the corner! -and
already, whatever might be the fleet of the future,
it was sufficiently clear what were the fleets of the
past.
And deeper and deeper to the heart of the
world presses the conviction that Democracy is
coming round the corner! Governrments founded
upon the Few can run no fair race, can fight no




106              DEMOCRACY
equal battle, with Governments founded upon the
All.
To those who worship force, the voice of the
people begins at last to sound like the voice of God.
To those who regard History as an organic whole,
and recognise in the evolutions of centuries the
working of ONE eternal will, —-to such, the conclusions of the French philosopher are but a truism,
and the progressive and irresistible development of
social equality is indeed a "divine decree."
If Europe will not accept Democracy, so much
the worse for Europe. As Barbarians are to Oligarchies, so are Oligarchies to a true Democracy.
Democracy is not now a principle to be investigated.
It converts or destroys. It is an influence which
in peaceful times will carry on the peoples that can
adopt it beyond all attempt at rivalry, and which,
in times of war, will grind its adversaries into
powder.  Democracy, or "the New Zealander,"
will visit in turn every Capitol in Europe.
We say, "the peoples that canadopt Democracy,"
for Democracy overcomes Oligarchy only by appropriating the truths and the forces it represents.
Thus Democracy embraces all the elements of
political science.
Let us have done with dilettanti Democrats.
Power governs. If power be with the One, the
Few, or the Many,-it is where it ought to be. So
much the better for the One, the Few, and the
Many, but so much the worse for the All. They
are not where they ought to be, and the nation is
not where it ought to be.




MUST BECOME UNIVERSAL.          107
Woe! -woe! to the nation that anticipates too
much its manhood. It will find that the first law
of Earth, as of Heaven, is order; that the People
that will not learn, cannot rule; that to the victors,
always and everywhere, are the spoils; and that
Victory involves force, organisation, and selfrestraint,-always sooner possessed, and easier won
and wielded, by the smaller Unity.
But there is, perhaps, a greater Woe to the
nation that prolongs too much its minority,-that
will not, or cannot (Priest-bound, Tradition-bound,
or Devil-bound), take its manhood. It will fall
back into the ruck of nations, and be nothing and
nowhere in the world-race. It will breed families,
and not men, and send the circles of its life-blood
in and in towards extinction. The nation that
forestalls its greatness, will be taught by the sword.
The nation that declines the progressive glories of
Democracy,-will rot.
Before the People can rule themselves, they
must submit themselves to the double victory of
education and religion; —they must have the rule of
others' intellect, or of their own; the law of God,
or else of some sort or other of " Better men." The
result expresses the value of the nation.
Given, the proportion of educated Christian
men to the population, and you have the value
(relative and positive) of that population, and also
its fighting, and its peacefill progressive qualities.
If there be none such, there is no nation. If there




108              DEfMOCRACY
be few, the nation is barbarous. If many; civilised.
If the majority, it is a Democracy. -The UNITY of
the collective Reason and Will is the only complete
and absolute Unity, for that alone is a complete
Unity in which the Units are individually cornplete
and thoroughly equipped. There alone can no
revolution enter, where the reason and the interest
of all do rule. Sectional interests may be general
injuries. The universal or the necessary can alone
be the warrant of the absolute.
Whatsoever cause has availed itself of this
secret of power in developing      ganising all
available intellect, has succeeded as far as success
was possible. The results are certain, as far as the
power can be used.
Christianity, wielding not only the intellect, but
the conscience and imagination, and working not
only with the Few but with the All, is the only
complete instance of an appeal to the whole and to
the All. What were its successes until Constantine,
certainlya murderer-probably a hypocrite, chained
religion like a dead body to the State!
China has used it,, and by her select bureaucracy,
the result of her universal competitive system, has
rraled for twenty centuries a third of the human
race.
Rome papal used it, and from all classes she
enlisted those battalions of intellect that so long
mastered the world.
The Chancellerie Russe has given the world
startling proof of what an aristocracy of talent can
do.




MUST BECOME UNIVERSAL.         109
The French Revolution used it, and it- intensi-,
fled an impulse which will yet complete the circuit
of the globe.
The world knows well the meaning of "the
open career," as the necessities of Society carry the
soldier, the lawyer, the diplomatist, the writer, or
the artist, victoriously to the front.
As long as Democracy had had no actual representative; as long as no People had arisen able to
bear its Cross, and take its Crown; as long as
national manhood seemed a lusus naturce, and
"iRepublics" were Republics of Slaves;-so long
might "Patriots " assassinate order without bringing Liberty to Life; —so long might
" The hive of Roman Liars worship the Emperor-Idiot."
So long, even after age upon age of trial, must
the People subside from their Cromwells to their
Stuarts.
And now, at last, when a nation has arisen
with valid claims to be also a Democracy, nothing
but a gulf wide as the Atlantic,-nothing but such
armies and fleets as the great Republic has created
-could have kept the helots of reaction from intervening to crush a nation that determined at last
to be wholl.y and truly a nation; to vindicate the
honour of its Democracy by arms; and to void out
Slavery, the reductio ad absurdum of Oligarchy,the excrement of fifty years of crime!
It remains tben,-since this rivalry truly international has got to be fairly worked out-to
welcome the FIRST MANHOOD of a NATION,




110              DEMOCRACY.
and to test its future and that of the waiting
world of common men, not by the frantic outcries
of the worsted few, nor by the old blasphemies
about rights divine, but by PRINCIPLES, plain and
simple, of political science, and by the FACTS, as we
see them, in the History and Life of this American
nation.
It is the "system positive," with a vengeance.
For no light half so bright and searching ever beat
upon cause or nation before. Nevertheless, Democracy is justified of her children.




DEMOCRACY:
AUTHORITIES.
c" Any form may be kept together by extreme force, but
that is good which flourishes by its native energy." —Aristotle.
" The People at large may always quash the vain pretensions of the few, by saying, we collectively are richer, wiser,
and nobler than you."-Aristotle.
"~ Consider, if a man should in this manner appoint pilots of
ships according to their valuations (property), what would be the
consequence. They would, said he, make very bad navigation,
and is it not in the same manner with reference to any other
thing or any Government whatever?
" Oligarchy would then seem to have this which is so great
a fault.... But such a city is not one, but of necessity,
two.... Always plotting against one another.' By
Jupiter,' said he,'it is in no respect less.''"-Republic of
Plato.
" The end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable dictates of Reason, is the highest and most
harmonious development.... The individuality of power
and development."-Baron W. von Humboldt.
" The masses which can never be corrupted, should be the
constant source from  which all power should emanate."Napoleon III.
" The all of A, how much less is it in the eye of A than the
all of B in the eye of B."-Bentham.
" When does a People stop, —when it ceases to possess Individuality."-Mill.




'The inevitable might of the thoughts of the million."Wendell Phillips.
" Whatever may be the facts under which, in the different
Countries of Europe, such- an organisation (a lasting political
system) takes place, or the political forms guiding it, the basis
it must rest upon is universal, and if necessary, compulsory
Education. In the more enlightened places the movement has
already nearly reached that point. Already it is an accepted
doctrine that the State has rights in a child as well as its
parents, and that it may insist on Education; conversely also,
that every child has a claim upon the Government for good
instruction. After providing in the most liberal manner for
that, free countries have but one thing more to do for the
accomplishment of the rest."
" That one thing is to secure intellectual freedom as completely as the rights of property and personal liberty have
been already secured.  Philosophical opinions and scientific
discoveries are entitled to be judged of by their truth, not
by their relation to existing interests." —Pp. 386-7, vol. ii.
Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe.




113
CHAPTER V.
DEMOCRACY:
AUTHORITIES.
"To make the People fittest to choose the chosen, and the
chosen fittest to govern, will be to mend our corrupt and faulty
education. Noble Education, in all liberal arts and exercises,
communicating the natural heat of Government and
culture more distributively to all extreme parts." —Milton.
"It is in a Republican Government that the whole power of
Education is required.
" Virtue may be defined the love of the laws and of our
country. This love is peculiar to democracies. In these alone
the Government is intrusted to private citizens."-Vol. i,
p. 43. Montesquieu.
" Peace and moderation is the spirit of a Republic."-Ibid.,
p. 167, vol. i.
"' There is no great share of probity necessary to support
a monarchical or despotic Government: the force of laws in
one, and the Prince's arm, in the other, are sufficient to direct
and maintain the whole; but in a popular state, one spring
more is necessary, namely, Virtue."-Ibid., vol. i, p. 25.
" Is it not almost a self-evident axiom that the State should
require and compel the education, up to a certain standard, of
every human being who is born its citizen. To bring a child
into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only
to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for
its mind, is a moral crime against the offspring and society; and
if the parent does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to
see it fulfilled, at the charge, as far as possible, of the
Parent."-J. S. Mill, on " Liberty," p. 189, &c.
"L To learn is the first step; to live is but the second. It is
beautiful on this sombre earth, during this dark life, short passage to something else, it is beautiful that force should have
right for a master, that progress should have courage as a
chief, that intelligence should have honour as a Sovereign;
that conscience should have duty as a despot; that civilisation
should have Liberty as a queen; that ignorance should have
a servant, Light."-Hugo.
In considering the old authorities, it is well to
remember, as Montesquieu reminds us, that "ArisI




114             DEMOCRACY:
totle wanted to indulge sometimes his jealousy
against Plato, and sometimes his passion for Alexander," and that " Plato was incensed against the
tyranny of the People of Athens."
One of the most striking and instructive facts
is that from epoch to epoch, not only the same lines
of thought, but often the very same words (as
translated), are employed and repeated by those
Hierarchs of thought, - so comparatively few
indeed,-whom it is necessary to consult on this
question.
The Perfection of the Democratic Principle
has not been questioned by theorists until the present time. Save in America and France, its practice is generally relegated to a future, when
Capital and Labour shall, more or less, have adjusted their disputes by combining their advantages in the labourer, but Mr. J. S. Mill, by way of
alternative to Popular Sovereignty, though not
perhaps with a view to an eternal postponement of it in England, recommends a graduated
scale of suffrages according to education and
wealth.
It is, however, believed, that with whatever intention proposed, the People that should once adopt
this sliding scale of Manhood, would have to reach
Democracy through revolution.
Political theorists used to be divided into
believers in the rule of the one, the few, the many,
and the all.
Amongst living nations they are now mostly
divided into two parties.




AUTHORITIES.             Ii15
Those who' trust no class at all, and those who
trust none but the universal People.
1st. Those who believe in no class and would
guard against all. Who object to Democracy
pure, —to Popular Sovereignty, not because it is
Popular Sovereignty, but because it is, they say,
class Sovereignty, and who seek political safety in
any artificial balance of votes and interests.
2nd. Those who trust the People.
Amongst the first class the only great representative advocate is Mr. J. S. Mill.
To the second, really belong all the authorities
from Socrates downwards.
It is almost as impossible to find a great man
who does not trust the People, as it is to find a
great People that does not trust its great men.
Socrates denounced the evils of oligarchy, and
Aristotle, though recommending a compromise
therewith, enunciated principles which lead straight
to Democracy pure, whilst his definitions of De,
mocracy (" to constitute a Democracy, the many
who are masters of the Government must be
poor") would not apply to the state of Society in
America, or to any state where political economy
is understood, or the rights and interests of all are
attended to.
If the theorists of old be compared with those
of to-day, the former appear the more scientific, and consistent, and courageous. They believed
more in the man, and less in his chattels. They
mistrust pure unmixed Democracy, for in Greek
and Roman Democracies, from four-fifths to eleven12




116              DEMOCRACY:
twelfths of the People were Slaves, and they
evidently did not anticipate the time when the
majority would be in circumstances of ease.
Thus, from Aristotle until J. S. Mill, the two
ideas of Popular Sovereignty, and popular disqualification through poverty, pervade, more or less,
all theories of politics.
Socrates derided the idea of " valuation " of a
voter. Aristotle attributes political "prerogative"
to wealth, and  certainly neither foresaw the
(approximate) annihilation of poverty. But Mill
(J. S.) in an age when machinery invented since
1816, does the work of five hundred millions of
men, and when the labourers of all living nations
are being lifted more and more from the earth,
comes forward with mongrel theories of plural
voting, to counteract ignorance and Democratic
class Sovereignty, theories which, if accepted, would
go far to prevent the attributes of manhood from
ever in our day being properly recognised.
We now consider the principle of the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE;1st, as treated of by the fathers of political
science, and therein chiefly as affected by the
elements of Poverty and Ignorance, which are the
only elements in respect of which, until lately, the
principle has been doubted, and we shall show how
even such writers as Mill resolutely maintain the
Principles of Democracy pure, whilst propounding
divers plans for its perpetual denial.
We shall afterwards give the reasons why the
Sovereignty of an educated nation secures the three




AUTH ORITIES.                   117
objects  of Government,-  Progress, Stability  or
Conservatism, and Unity.
The Principle of Popular Sovereignty is directly asserted by Aristotle. Herein he is one in
theory with Penn, although almost all the world's
history rolls between them. Christianity was really
the basis of the principle of Democracy, and the
motive power for its realisation, but it required the
mighty equalising agency of the printing press, it
required English isolation from Europe, before
Popular Sovereignty could be established,-it required the completer isolation of America from
England and Europe, ere Penn could found in
fact the principles which the mighty Grecian thus
propounded:"In what portion of the State the Sovereignty ought to
reside."
"The People at large, how contemptible soever they may
appear when taken individually, are yet, when collectively
considered, not perhaps unworthy of Sovereignty. It is a trite
observation, that those entertainments where each man sends
the dish most agreeable to his own palate, are preferable to
those furnished by the most sumptuous delicacy of individuals.
The People at large are allowed to be the best judges of
music and poetry. The moral and intellectual excellencies of the
multitude thus differ from those of a wise and virtuous man,
as the beauty of a fine picture does from the beauty of individllals, of whom some have features more perfect and beautiful than those of the picture; yet the picture, collecting
only excellencies, and always avoiding deformities, will be
found more beautiful and more perfect than any oraiginal in nature,
with whom it can be compared. The excellencies therefore
of that complex entity, the public, may sometimes surpass those
of the most accomplished Prince or most virtuous council." —
Aristotle, b. 3, pp. 214-15.  (Gillie's Trans.)
" The safety of every free Government requires that the
major part of the citizens should enjoy a certain weight in the




118                  DEMOCRACY:
administration.   the people, collectively considered, are
capable of discharging functions of which, in their individual
characters, they seem  altogether unworthy.... Such
is the absurdity resulting from the supposition that those who are
superior in one particular, ought to be entitled to a superiority in
political society, m which mankind have assembled in order to
cliib their respective advantages, and to direct their various but
united efforts to one salutary end and purpose; and in which
the People at large may always quash the vain pretensions of the
few, by saying, we collectively, are richer, wiser, and nobler than
you.")
" The arguments in favour of the judgment of the many,
we have already had occasion to explain; and in favour of their
justice, the many are less liable to corruption than one manor the
few, in the same manner that a large lake is less corruptible
than a small pool. If we deal therefore impartially with
Kings, Magistrates and People... it must be acknowledged,
that in communities consisting of such members, a republic
is better than an aristocracy, and an aristocracy than a
monarchy."-Ibid, pp. 218, 222, 230.
We  contend  that notwithstanding  Aristotle
condemns Democracy, together with Oligarchy
and Tyranny, and extols the "Republic," as destroying the evils, and retaining the advantages of
both, and as a state in which "the prerogatives of.the few, and the rights and liberties of the many,
are duly respected  and  impartially maintained,"
yet if attempted to be applied to the actual state
of Society in  democratic America, where education and production are free, his own principles
and definitions are inconsistent with these "prerogatives of those wealthy few."
For he says (vol. ii, p. 329): —" To constitute
an oligarchy, the few who are masters of the
Government, must be rich; and to constitute a
Democracy, the many who are masters of the




AUTHORITIES.                   119'Government, must be poor: for it is only when
both circumstances concur in these Governments,
that their respective characters are strongly impressed, and their opposite genius fully displayed."
He also says (v. ii. p. 340) that:"Those mixed Governments which incline most to the
side of oligarchy are commonly called aristocracies, because
morals and education seem to have a natural connection with
wealth." That " when (p. 341) with regard to any one object,
the respective laws of these distinct forms of polity are inconsistent, neither of them is to be employed, but a new law is
to be framed holding a due middle between them." That
(p. 343) " any form may be kept together by external force,
but that is good which flourishes by its native energy." That
(p. 345) "excess of wealth spurns the authority of reason,
and extreme poverty debases the character."  That "a certain
mediocrity is necessary to equality, equality to friendliness,
and friendliness to security. It is plain, therefore, that the
best commonwealth is that in which middling men most abound, and
prove, at least, superior to either of the extremes." That a
republic "' abounding in the middle ranks" is least likely to fall
under the tyranny of one man, and least likely to be subverted.
Again (p. 348), " the political arrangement of every State
must always depend on the prevailing inclinations of that
patty which is predominant; and the preponderancy must
consist in quantity or quality; quantity denoting number, and
quality the distinguishing excellencies of the upper ranks;
birth, wealth, education, the love of glory, and of the Republic. If
the popular party exceed more in quantity, than they are excelled
in quality, Democracy must prevail. The first and best kind of
it, if the majority be husbandmen and shepherds, the last and
worst, if tradesmen and manufacturers."
Aristotle further contends that next to a community of husbandmen, a nation subsisting by
pasturage is the fittest for being formed into a
democracy.
He also teaches that the more Society is improved, and education perfected, the more equality
will prevail, and the further will liberty be extended.
Also that the stability of Government depends




120              DEMOCRACY:
(v. iii, p. 373) chiefly on: —st. Respect to age and
experience.  2nd. Distribution of honours and
offices according to merit. 3rd. Education accurately adapted to the pattern of the commonwealth.
From these quotations we get the following
conclusions respecting the politics of Aristotle:1st. He concedes the principle of Popular
Sovereignty.
2nd. He concedes also its practicability if
Poverty and Ignorance can be put in a minority.
Poverty is the main cause of the deficiencies of
Democracy. Pure morals, education, and public
spirit, are qualities which usually accompany a
competency, and which in his time rendered the
Oligarchic element essential.
3rd. That a preponderating middle class is the
safest and best for the State.
4th. That the main reason why Aristotle attached so great importance to the preponderance of
a middle class, was that ignorance and poverty
were then supposed to attach to the lower many
whom it debased, and who were deprived of a love
of glory, culture, and genius.  Democracy has
changed all that since Aristotle. Moreover, where
Equality really prevails, it tempers the failings of
the "middle classes," as known in England. The
essence of middle class advantages, as claimed by
Aristotle, was " equality," as promoting "friendliness," and therefore "security."
5th. That pursuits connected with the soil are
the best fitted for Democracies. How is this proved
by the "territorial Democracy" of America!




AUTHORITIES.                   121
There is, then, at least one country in the world
qualified, according to Aristotle, for a pure Democracy.
It is the country, namely, where Popular Sovereignty, Loyalty, Education, Love of Country, a
vast middle class, and property, universally diffused,
and illimitable fields for agriculture and pasturage,
all combine to make Democracy natural and inevitable.
That Country-is America.  The latest and completest Development vindicates the most ancient
philosophy.
But to illustrate yet further the connection between universal competency and popular Sovereignty and power, we will quote the political
Economy of James Mill in contrast with the
results  of  the  American   census.   Mr.  Mill
says:
"Universally, then, we may affirm, other things remaining
the same, that if the ratio that Capital and Population bear to
one another remains the same, wages will remain the same;
if the ratio which Capital bears to Population increases, wages
will rise; if the ratio which Population bears to Capital- increases, wages will fall.
" If the condition of the great body of the People is not
easy and comfortable, it can only be made so by one of two
methods; either by quickening the rate at which capital increases, or retarding the rate at which population increases.
"' This general misery of mankind is a fact which can be
accounted for upon one only of two suppositions; either that
there is a natural tendency in population to increase faster
than capital, or that capital has by some means been prevented
from increasing so fast as it has a tendency to increase.'" This, therefore, is an enquiry of the highest importance."
-James Mill. "Political Economy," pp. 28-30.




122               DEMOCRACY:
It will suffice here, without examining the
causes which have " prevented the natural increase
of Capital and wages," to state the result established
by the American census,-that although Population
increased rapidly, and there is a vast immigration,
capital there increases more than three times as
fast as Population, and that this is due as much to
the freedom of man and of his labour and invention,
as to cheapness of land.
Thus let Freedom  of Land, Labour, Schools,
Press, and Religion; let also Direct Taxation prevail,-and wages and savings (Capital) increase at
an unheard-of ratio. Let the average wages of a
free nation be raised, and the average education
rises with them.
Hence we are led to this conclusion, —that
wherever labour is really free, there Democracy
will soon prevail; that wherever labour and land
are not free, whether by unwise laws of parochial
settlement, unjust tariffs, taxes on invention, unjust
patent laws, corn laws, unjust and complicated land
laws, laws of primogeniture, or otherwise howsoever,
there Oligarchy and Oligarchic interests are the
criminal cause of the social and political incompetency of the People.
The fact of the Progress and Unity, and consequent strength of Democracies, and the counterpart
weakness and divisions of Oligarchy, is indeed
maintained by Socrates:"And do they not then make laws, marking out the
boundary of the Oligarchic constitution, and regulating the
quantity of Oligarchic power according to the quantity of
wealth, more to the wealthy, and less to the less, intimating




AUTHORITIES.                   123
that he who' has not the valuation (property) settled by law is to
have no share in the Government?
"Consider, if a man should. in this manner appoint pilots of
ships, according to their valuations (property), but never intrust one with a poor man, though better skilled in piloting,
what would be the consequence? They would, said he, make
very bad navigation. And is it not in the same manner with
reference to any other thing, or any Government whatever?
" Oligarchy would then seem to have this, which is so great
a fault.... That such a city is not one, but of necessity two;
one consisting of the poor, and the other of the rich, dwelling
in one place, and always plotting against one another.'By
Jupiter,' said he,'it is in no respect less.' "-The Republic of
Plato, Book viii, p. 397. (Taylor's Translation.)
Guizot, (on Civilisation) insists on Individual
Development as the great Factor of States, and on
increased production and more equal distribution.
The following are condensed extracts:" On the one hand, an increasing production of means of
power and prosperity in Society; on the other, a more equal
distribution among individuals of the power and prosperity
provided.
" Is this all? Have we exhausted the natural and common
meaning of the word civilisation?
" Another Development of Individual life, of man himself,
of his faculties, sentiments, ideas.
"Two facts then are comprised in this great fact.
the progress of Society and of Humanity.
"' If we examine the nature of the grand crises of civilisation... it has always been of individual or social development; always facts that have changed the internal man,
his faith, his manners, or his external condition, his situation
in relation with his fellows."-Guizot on "' Civilisation."
Baron W. von Humboldt gives us the following
as to ancient and modern Individuality, Freedom,
and Diversity of conditions:" Antiquity captivates us above all by that inherent greatness which is comprised in the life of the Individual, and
perishes with him,-the bloom of fancy, the depth of thought,
the strength of will, the perfect oneness of the entire being,
which alone confer true worth on human nature."




124                  DEMOCRACY:'
" The grand point to be kept in view by the State is the
development of the powers of all its single citizens in their
perfect individuality."     I
" The true end of man or that which is prescribed by the
eternal and immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested
by vague and transient desires, in the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole: freedom is the grand and indispensable condition
which the possibility of such a development presupposes; but
there is besides another essential,-intimately connected with
freedom, it is true,-a variety of situations."
" Their individual vigour, then, and manifold diversity, combine themselves in originality; and hence, that on which the
consummate grandeur of our nature ultimately depends,-that
towards which every human being must ceaselessly direct his
efforts, and that on which especially those who design to influerce their fellow men must ever keep their eyes, is the
Individuality of power and development.
*   "Just as this individuality springs naturally from the
perfect freedom of action, and the greatest diversity in the agents,
it tends immediately to produce them in turn.
" The grand leading principle, towards which every argument hitherto unfolded in these pages directly conveys, is the
absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest
diversity."
Milton, upon the advantages of a free commonwealth, and on the necessity of a high class
education to the maintenance of the Commonwealth, maintains that".      A free commonwealth is not only held by wisest
men in all oges, the noblest, the manliest, the equallest, the justest
Government, the most agreeable to all due liberty and proportioned equality, both human, civil, and Christian, most cherishing to virtue and true religion, but also plainly commended, or
rather enjoined by our Saviour himself." —iilton, " Ready and
easy way to establish a free Commonwealth," p. 645.
"Good education and accurate wisdom ought to correct
the fluxible fault, if airy such be, of our watry situation. To
make the People fittest to choose the chosen, and the chosen
fittest to govern will be to mend our corrupt and faulty education." —Milton, ibid., p. 650.
"And if the people, laying aside prejudice and impatience,
will seriously and calmly now consider their own good, both
religious and civil, their own libeity and the only means




AUTHORITIES.                    125
thereof, as shall be here laid down before them, and will elect
their knights and burgesses able men, and according to the
just and necessary qualifications (which, for aught I hear,
remain yet in force unrepealed, as they were formerly decreed
in parliament), men not addicted to a single person or House
of Lords, the work is done; at least the foundation firmly laid
of a free commonwealth, and good part also erected of the
main structures."
" The whole Freedom of man consists either in spiritual or
civil liberty... The other part of our freedom consists in
the civil rights and advancements of every person according to his
merit: the enjoyment of those never more certain, and the
access to these never more open, than ifi a free commonwealth.
Both which, in my opinion, may be best and soonest obtained, if
every county in the land were made a kind of subordinate commonalty or commonwealth.*
"They should have here also schools and academies at
their own choice, wherein their children may be bred up in
their own sight, to all leariing and noble education; not in
grammar only, but in all liberal arts and exercises. This would
soon spread much more knowledge and civility, yea, religion,
through all parts of the land, by communicating the natural
heat of government and culture more distributively to all extreme
parts, which now lie numb and neglected, would soon make
the whole nation more industrious, more ingenious at home;
more potent, more honorable abroad.  To this a free commonwealth will easily assent; (nay, the parliament hath had
already some such thing in design) for of all governments a
commonwealth aims most to make the people flourishing,
virtuous, noble, and high spirited."`-Milton, ibid., pp. 648,
654, and 655.
"I doubt not but all ingenuous and knowing men will
easily agree with me that a free commonwealth without single
person or House of Lords is by far the best Government if it
can be had." —Milton, ibid., p. 647.
And Montesquieu, whose writings on the Spirit
of Laws, and on the causes of the corruption of
the Roman IRepublic, are of the profoundest, thus
descants, in his first volume, on the true principles
and characteristics of Republics:" The principle of democracy is corrupted, not only when the
spirit of equality is extinct, but likewise when they fall into a
* A forecast of the United States!




126                  DEMOCRACY:
spirit of extreme equality, and when each citizen would fain be
upon a level with those whom he has chosen to command him,
-to debate for the senate, execute for the magistrates, and
decide for the judges."-P. 143.
"Democracy hath, therefore, two excesses to avoid; the
spirit of inequality, which leads to aristocracy or monarchy;
and the spirit of extreme equality, which leads to despotic
power.
" As distant as heaven is from the earth, so is the true
spirit of equality from that of extreme equality; in the former
men are equal only as citizens, but in the latter they are equal
also as magistrates, senators, judges, or masters.
" The natural place of virtue is near to liberty; but it is not
nearer to excessive liberty than to servitude."-P. 146.
"As those who govern (in a free State) have a power
which in some measure, has need of fresh vigour every day,
they have a greater regard for such as are useful to them than
for those who contribute to their amusement.
" They have not that politeness which is founded on indolence. An absolute Government produces indolence, and this
gives birth to politeness."-P. 417.
" Their laws not being made for one more than for another,
each considers himself a monarch.
"In a free nation, it is very often a matter of indifference
whether individuals reason well or ill; it is sufficient that they
do reason: from hence springs that liberty iwhich is a security
from the efects of these reasonings.
" But in a despotic Government, it is equally pernicious
whether they reason well or ill; their reasoning is alone sufficient to reach the principle of that Government."-P. 418.
" The character of the (free) nation is more particularly
discovered in their literary performances, in which we find the
men of thought and deep meditation."-P. 419.
And Napoleon, with  more  detail and  equal
emphasis, explaining his entire approval of Republican Principles, declares that it is essential to them
that the whole People without distinction should
take part in the elections.
In this opinion almost the entire French and
American nations have now for seventy years concurred.
These Principles are, as Napoleon says, en



AUTHORITIES.                    127
tirely Republican. That they are not, in their
pure and simple shape, entirely suited to the
French, is the fault, not of Napoleon, but of the
French.
It is only a consistency of formality and narrow-mindness, that blames him for securing fixity
of tenure where tenure has always been fixed, and
where the Rhine and not the sea, is boundary. In
France, if Napoleon does not rule, Rome will. But
that the People are with Napoleon, and that he is
as democratic a leader as France is prepared for,
cannot be doubted.
" The first wants of a nation are Independence, Liberty,
Stability, the supremacy of Merit, and the'enjoyments of life equally
diflused. The best form of Government w6uld be that under which
every abuse of power might in any case be corrected; under
which, without social disturbance, without effusion of blood,
not only the laws, but the head of the State might be susceptible of
change; for one generation has no right to subject to its laws
generations to come.
" In order that the Independence of a nation be secure, it is
necessary that the Government be strong; and that the Govern,
ment be strong, it behoves that it should enjoy the confidence of
the people, that it should be in a condition to maintain a numerous and well disciplined army without exciting outcries against
tyranny, and that it should be able to arm the whole nation withoutfear of being overthrown by it.
"' To be Free, freedom being only a consequence of inde.
pendence, it is necessarythat the whole people, without distinction,
should take a part in the election of the representatives of the
nation; that the masses, which can never be corrupted, and which
never flatter or dissemble, should be the constant source from which
all power should emanate.
"In order that the enjoyments of life be equally spread
amongst all classes, it is necessary not only that taxation
should be diminished, but also that the Government should
wear an aspect of stability which shall tranquillise the minds
of men, and warrant a dependence upon the future. The
Government will be stable when institutions are not exclusive; that
is to say, when, without favoring any class, they are tolerant
of all, and, above all, are in harmony with the requirements and




12 8 -DEMOCRACYY:
the desires of the majority of the nation.  Then will merit be the
only passport to success, and services rendered to the country the
only ground for rewards."-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. "Life
and Works." Political Reveries. Vol. i, pp. 169-170.
Mill, the last, and perhaps the most resolute, as
well as most careful of all writers on the nature of
Government, so emphatically asserts, and so clearly
explains, the advantages of Popular Government,
that it may be assumed that the theory of popular
Government is so far sufficiently vindicated. Yet
he maintains as strenuously the principle of a graduated suffrage, and insists upon the dangers of
an alleged popular class sovereignty as incident
to pure democracy.  Unless then these arguments
can be set aside or overruled, the cause of pure
Democracy will not have been established, but on
the contrary, will have suffered in his hands.
Let us first show shortly the gist of his reasoning  on  the  advantages  of Government by the
many:" Freedom and Variety of Situations.      Europe is in
my judgment wholly indebted to this plurality of paths for its
progress and many-sided Development... Individuality is
the same thing as Development.... When does a People
stop? When it ceases to possess Individuality.... The
only unfailing and permanent source of its improvement is
Liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent
centres of improvement, as there are Individuals." -Mill on
Liberty, pp. 130, 114, 126, 127.
" We have now, therefore, obtained a foundation for a twofold division of the merit which any set of political institutions
can possess. It consists partly of the degree in which they
promote the general mental advancement of the community in
intellect, virtue, and practical activity; and partly of the
degree of perfection in which they organise the moral, intellectual, and active worth already existing.




AUTHORITIES.                   129
" And the one indispensable merit of a Government is that
its operation on the people is favorable or not unfavorable
to the next step which it is necessary for them to take in order
to raise themselves to a higher level.
"It is then impossible to understand the question of the
adaptation of forms of Government to states of society, without taking into account not only the next step, but all the steps
which society has yet to make.
"The ideally best form of Government is that in which the
sovereignty or supreme controlling power in the last resort is vested
in the entire aggregate of the community..   It is both more
favorable to present good Government, and promotes a better
and higher form of national character than any other polity
whatsoever.
" Its superiority in reference to PRESENT WELL-BEING rests
upon principles of as universal truth and applicability as
any general principles which can be laid down respecting
human affairs. Human beings are only secure from the hands
of others in proportion as they are self-protecting; and they
only achieve a high degree of success in their struggle with
nature, in proportion as they are self-dependent....Whenever it ceases to be true that mankind as a rule
prefer themselves to others, from that moment Communism is
the only defensible form of society.
"If we now pass to the influence of the form of Government upon character, we shall find the superiority of popular
Government over every other to be, if possible, still more decided.
This question really depends upon a still more fundamental
one, viz., which of two common types of character is it most
desirable should predominate-the active or the passive type?
" There can be no kind of doubt that the passive type is
favored by the Government of one or a few, and the active selfhelping type by that of the MANY.
"The striving, go-ahead character of England -and the
United States is in itself the foundation of the best hopes for
the general improvement of mankind." —J. S. Mill, on "Representative Government," pp. 33, 37, 43, 55, 59, 64.
Thus much, then, is clear from authority.  All
the writers we have quoted, from Socrates downwards as far as Mill, either represent the advantages
of Democracy as unquestionable, or its evils as
depending on some removeable cause, such as
ignorance or poverty. Mill, however, will have it
that when these  are dispelled  and replaced  by
K




130                DEMOCRACY: 
education and competence, there still exists the
fatal objection to that equal voting of the All
which is Democracy; namely, that however good
may be the class, it is still a class, and that excelling in votes and in numbers, it must of necessity
swamp all other classes.
We contend that this cannot be, because in a
true Democracy there are no longer "classes," but
the nation.
We believe in HIIurnan  Nature, as intended
for social, political life, and that the generallyeducated manhood of a nation is likely to do less
wrong than any other attainable form of Government.
And it seems to us that all authority and argument, except Mills', main'ta-in that Manhood may
and ought to rule, if it be educat-ed,-that is, if it
is a symmetrical manhood, fitted by development
for association in political action.
It is true that De Tocqueville thus exposes
what he considers to be the weak point of Democracy:
"We must first understand what the purport of Society
and the aim of Government is held to be.
"'....If, in short, you are of opinion that the principal
object of a Government is not to confer the greatest possible share of power and of glory upon the body of the nation,
but to ensure the greatest amount of enjoyment, and the least
degree of misery to each of the individuals who compose it,-.
if such be your desires, you can have no surer means of
satisfying them than by equalising the conditions of men and
establishing democratic institutions." —De Tocqueville, 140-1-2,V. ii.
Apart from this "power and glory" of which
the great Repulic haa now shown the world enough,




ATJTHORITIES.              131
it is indeed difficult to say what advantages M. de
Tocqueville does not attribute to Democracy.
He says it seeks the greatest possible happiness
of the greatest number-that its officials cannot
easily combine against the People-that it excels
in public spirit, in notions of right, in respect of the
law, and in the universal activity it promotes,that it is endangered rather by its strength than
its weakness, and that it has a secret tendency to
promote public prosperity notwithstanding private
vices and mistakes, and to produce advantages
never thought of, whilst in aristocratic institutions
there is a secret propensity which, notwithstanding
the talents and virtues of rulers, leads them  to
contribute to the evils which oppress, and does injuries even when not intended. —Ibid., v. ii, p. 120,
&c.
But elsewhere he rebukes the idea that nations
cannot be masters of their own Destiny, and declares that it tends only to make "feeble men and
pusillanimous nations."
We leave this part of the subject, quoting
a bit from Bentham on the sort of mechanical
nonsense talked about the advantages of a constitutional Balance, of a mixed Government, and about
the danger of manhood rule to property, as though
property could suffer from  an increase of proprietors: —
" Talk of balance, never will it do. What mean ye by this
your balance? Know ye not that when forces balance each
other, the machine is at a stand? Well, and in the machine
K 2




132                 DEMOCRACY:
of Government, immobility, the perpetual absence of all motion,
is that the thing which is wanted? Know ye not, that since an
emblem you must have,-since you can neither talk nor
attempt to think, but in hieroglyphics,-know ye not that, as
in the case of the body natural, so in the case of the body
politic, when motion ceases, the body dies?
" So much for the balance,-now for the mixture. Good;this notion about mixture, so long as the respective natures of
the several interests are kept out of sight. A form of Government in which the interest of the whole is the only interest provided for, in this form behold the simple substance. To this
add a power employed in the interest of one single person, and
a power employed in the interest of a small knot of persons;in either of these cases you have a mixture; —well, compared
then with the simple substance, when and where can be the
advantage of this mixture?
" The all of A, how much less is it in the eye of A than
the. all of B in the eye of B? When you have solved this
problem,-then and not before, say that universal confusion
and destruction of property would be the result of universal
suffrage.-Bentham, " Plan of Reform," pp. 51-3, 118.
The great representative fact of the existence and
stability of Democracy in America, is a guarantee to
Democracies everywhere, that there may be a future
for them, but it is also a warning, that to rule they
must first obey; that education, loyalty, and selfrestraint, are the conditions of their existence,in fact, that if the All are to govern the State,
they must (in'-the- -general), first be qualified to
govern,-each of them,-himself.
Granted, then, the principle of human progress,
all other forms of Government than this Government for and by the all, are but compromises
between order and progress, whereby the People
submit for a while to the one, the few, or the many,
for the sake of the necessities of the present, or
the fears of the past.
Naturally, therefore,-inevitably, the  oligar



AUTHORITIES.              133
chies and the people of all countries are at issue
about the American " experiment."
All ideas tend,-as representatives of all races
are emigrating,-towards the continent of the
People.
Association of ideas, or of forces, will necessarily decide the matter for Europe. If oligarchies
cannot prevail upon Democracies to commit suicide
by warring against the Great Republic, a conservative progress will gradually lead them after it on
the inevitable road. If oligarchies can succeed in
launching People against People, the principle of
ASSOCIATION will still prevail. But it will then
become a revolutionary propagandism, and present
the leverage which will upheave every throne, and
unsettle every Government in Christendom.








DEMOCRACY:
ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.' It is said we shall have safeguards, and Mr. Stuart Mill,
a political philosopher, has busied himself in discovering what
those safeguards are to be. I can conceive no employment
less worthy of a philosopher or statesman than to advise this
House to give away political power in order to devise means
of getting it back again."-The Hon. Robt. Lowe, May 3rd,
1865.' Their laws not being made for one more than for another,
each considers himself a monarch."
" In a free nation it is very often a matter of indifference
whether individuals reason well or ill; it is sufficient that they
do reason: from hence springs that liberty which is a security
from the effects of their reasonings." —Montesquieu.
" The form of Government usually termed mixed, has
always appeared to me a mere chimera. In all communities
some one principle of action may be discovered which preponderates over the others. When a community really has a mixed
Government, that is to say, when it is equally divided between
two adverse principles, it must either pass through a revolution
or fall into complete dissolution."-De Tocqueville.
" The political arrangement of every state must always
depend on the prevailing inclination of that party which is predominant."-Aristotle.
" The form of Government assigned to a particular stage
of Development must present itself."- gLegel.




"The superiority of popular Government in reference to
present well-being rests upon two principles of as universal
truth and applicability as any general propositions which can
be laid down respecting human affairs. The first is, that the
rights and interests of every or any person are only secure
from being disregarded when the person interested is himself able,
and habitually disposed, to stand up for them. The second is,
that the general prosperity attains a greater height, and is more
widely diffused, in proportion to the amount and variety of the
personal energies in promoting it."-J. S. Mill, on "Representative Government," p. 54.




137
CHAPTER VI.
DEMOCRACY:
ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES,
CHIEFLY IN REFERENCE TO THE HERES1ES OF MILL.
" Every distinct development of character is capable of its
peculiar excess, and to this it constantly tends to degenerate.
If, then, an entire nation has adhered to some certain variety of
development, it comes in time to lose all power of resisting the
preponderant bias to this one peculiarity, and along with it all
power of regaining its equilibrium. Perhaps it is in this that
we discover the reason of such frequent changes in the constitution of ancient states. Every fresh constitution exercised anr
undue influence on the national character, and this, definitely
developed, degenerated in turn and necessitated a new one."
-Baron W. von Humboldt.
"The estate goes before the steward, the foundation
before the house, people before their representatives, and the
Creator before the creature. The steward lives by preserving
the estate; the house stands by reason of its foundation; the
representative depends upon the people, as the creature subsists by the power of the Creator."-Penn.
" Responsibility educates, and politics is but another name
for God's way of teaching the masses ethics, under the responsibility of great present interest."- Wendell Phillips.
"Not that depositaries of power will not, but that they
cannot, misemploy it. Democracy is not the ideally best form
of Government unless this weak side of it can be strengthened."
J. S. Mill.
We quote Baron Humboldt here, because he
fears a " preponderant bias, or undue influence" on




138             DEMOCRACY:
national types, conveyed through the sameness of
Government education,-the very thing which Mill
most insists upon, and because Humboldt himself
insists that " absolute freedom," which is something
very like equality, is the great promoter of variety
of conditions. He seems to contemplate either
State education of an elaborate kind, or education
in a despotic state of society under control of a
Despotism.
The difference is curious. Mill says, "Let the
State educate, but avoid a majority class preponderance by plural voting." Humboldt says, "Do not
educate by the State, or you will create a special
bias which will degenerate into extremes."
We now leave the domain of authority and
proceed in the first place to combat Mr. Mill's new
objections to Democracy pure, and the precautions
he proposes against ignorance and the class interests of a numerical majority. In some respects he
herein follows Aristotle, although in a state of
society entirely different. He also fears that a
general mediocrity is incident to Progress; but a
mediocrity that means a general diffusion of comforts and knowledge, that discovers and promotes
its truly great men, that is compatible with an
intense nationality, and that can combine a revolution with a reformation, in such an apocalypse as
America has just shown the world,-such a " mediocrity," we say, is an argument not against, but
for Democracies.
Mr. Mill must be tired of being always stupidly and mechanically praised. It appears to us




ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.        139
that he has pursued one line of argument which
begins with universal means of development, and
ends with the. universal vote-power, and that other
line of argument anent conservatism, till the greatness of the interests at stake and the untried conclusions it then involved, startled him into compromise and "graduation."
Surely he should have been at home in this
greatness. He should have trusted nature and
God. He should have seen that a true national
manhood is the mean of progress and conservatism.
That if so many good and amiable and educated
men do shrink from public life, perhaps, after all,
they are best in the bosom of their families. That
in the revolutionary energies of the " All," the
conservative instincts of the many, the God-given
leadership of the few, the oneness of the Presidential executive, and the universality and power of
his constituency,-we shall find the necessary virtues of all systems, whether Democracy, middleclass rule, oligarchy, or autocracy, and that in a
true People thus expressed, led, and organised,
there is a function that has yet to be explained to
the politicians of this generation.
The remedies he would apply are certain simple education tests, to keep out the most ignorant,
a general right to cast votes for individuals who
are not candidates for any particular place; and a
system of plural voting as the right of those, who
by academical tests, or a; rough money test, may




140             DEMOCRACY:
be supposed to be more learned and politically
competent.
To the first there is perhaps no objection if it
can be rendered practicable.
The second is admirable, if possible.
To the latter there are objections both as to
Principle and as to Practice.
Amongst them are:ist. That Society in England is prepared to
wait or to advance by degrees, until education
shall beyond all doubt have qualified the all as
citizens. There is no need for experimentalising
upon the English constitution with a measure of
such new and'tremendous power as one for plural
voting.
2nd. Education will undoubtedly prepare the
all for power quite as fast as they will demand it.
Mr. Mill himself insists upon it that the citizens of
the only democratic country are all in some sense
both "Patriots and cultivated."  He als admits
the connection between " these qualities and democratic institutions."
3rd. To establish a plurality of voting power
would be to create-a more scientific and dangerous
instrument of Despotism and obstruction than has
hitherto been invented for the enemies of mankind.
4th. England is already the country of corporate and feudal obstructions of all sorts against the
popular advance. These have to be attacked and
carried in detail, and the storming of them will be
ample "graduation." It seems now as though they




ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.        141
could never be carried without the impetus of revolutionary energies. To implant fresh obstructions
in the constitution itself, would arouse not the mere
revolutionary energies of the People fresh from
contact with the soil and with reality, but revolution itself.
5th. The working [classes cannot form a preponderating class unless, 1st, their power exceeds
the power of the other classes, and 2ndly, unless
they combine as a class for class objects, instead of
as citizens with citizens.
In reference to the first postulate, numbers
never have constituted, and never will constitute
power in any permanent sense, until they deserve
to do so. Numbers are not power without organisation, and there can be no organisation without a
common platform, and in a country like this, that
platform must be one of intellect and morality.
In reference to the second postulate, there are
no democratic class objects of an unfair, unjust, and
improper sort, which education and intercourse
will not demonstrate to be injurious as sectional,
and unattainable as injurious. The Few have attained class objects throughout history, but it has
been under cover of the general ignorance.
To put one man at nothing and another at one
may for the time be necessary. To admit the
education, and yet to put one man at three and
another at one is illogical. It both denies and
affirms manhood. It blasphemes and drivels in a
strophe.
We refuse to believe that any man who admits




142             DEMOCRAY:
the conservative effect of education, —that the
popular power can only become efficient as it is
organised by education,-and that to judge of political capacity and honesty is no affair of recondite
science, but of mere common sense, will also deliberately affirm that the educated citizen is not
competent to use his manhood, so fearfully and
wonderfully made, for the rudimentary rights and
equal functions of political life.
But our categorical answer to this "preponderating," and "swamping," and " plurality" business is:6th. That in all Government whatsoever, some
one principle and power must preponderate and
swamp. That to try to avoid it by handicapping the
national manhood, is to mistake the principles and
the possibilities of Government, and the needs as
well as the patience of nations; is to organise revolutions and call that a balance, and to guarantee
the deluge by contriving dams against it.
7th. Democracy, or the equal voting power of
the all, is that towards which the whole world
gravitates.
That which. gives unity to Government is a
single preponderating power, and there can be no
true Government without it.
And we have seen what has been the warrant
of the various powers that have preponderated.
The power of the one is justified by the necessity of order:-of the few and the many by the same
necessity, tempered more and more by right, as
gradations of the all have been admitted. Through



ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.        143
out history, other classes have preponderated from
necessity, —the people alone can preponderate by
fitness and right.
8th. But this preponderance of the People is only
a preponderance of the all against privileges and
abuse. It is in reality a Balance, and the only
righteous balance possible,-the balance of the
multiple of numbers against all the other multiples,
as hereafter explained,-the God-created balance
of a great and true nation!
Alas, in mistrusting the People, Mill misses and
would mar the last sublime and only true and complete unity.
The all would indeed "swamp" and "neutralise," and " preponderate,"-over the abuses, vis
inertiae, and corruption of the sections, but they
would create the People one and indivisible.
WVe denounce then Mr. Mill's plan as a plan
for the eternal subordination of the masses. Unless
it secure that, it must secure revolution or destroy
the country.
Though wide as the poles asunder in moral
intent, he works in one line with the cause lately
called "The South," for he works for that which is
in its nature and essence, oligarchic.
And a nation he would never have, but an
artificial balance of classes, waiting the furnace of
revolution to purge and fuse them.
Let the wheat and the tares grow awhile
together, till the People are graduated into fitness.
That may make a nation. Mill would only make
a judgment.




144                 DEMOCRACY:
And all because, forsooth, the common people
are not fit to say whether A. or B. is fittest to
represent them!
We say, on the contrary, that ten thousand
sober common Englishmen, listening in public
assembly to A. and B., are better fitted than the same
number of M.A.'s, B.A.'s, or LL.D.'s, millionaires,
bankers, esquires, or tailors, to pronounce on the
qualifications of the said A. and B. as public men.
But if education is wanted yet further to prepare
them, they can better afford to wait than to have
battalions of political enemies, with multiples of
political power, marshalled across their path. Those
who impute class antagonism to the people, must
not admit it against them.
Prepare the People for the vote: universalise
it; and then protect them in it.
Nothing tends so much to remove this disqualification of ignorance as the incentives supplied by
a sense of freedom and responsibility conferred by
a share in the Government. As Wendell Phillips
teaches,-" responsibility educates;" and Mr. Mill
himself insists that" Among the foremost benefits of free Government is that
education of the intelligence and sentiments which is carried down
to the very lowest when they are called upon to take a part in
acts which directly affect the great interests of their country.
Unless substantial mental cultivation in the mass of mankind
is to be a mere vision, this is the road by which it must come.
"Almost all travellers are struck by the fact that every
American is in some sense both a patriot and a person of cultivated
intelligence; and M. de Tocqueville has shown how close the
connection is between these qualities and their democratic




ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.          145
institutions. No such wide diffusion of the ideas, tastes, and
sentiments of educated minds, has ever been seen elsewhere, or even
conceived of as attainable."-Representative Government, pp. 156-7.
But Mr. Mill proceeds to say that "this is
nothing to what we might look for in a Government
equally democratic in its unexclusiveness, but better
organised in other important points." Further,
that "no one but a fool, and only a fool of a
peculiar description, feels offended by the acknowledgment that there are others whose opinion, and
even whose wish, is entitled to a greater amount of
consideration than his."
In other words, Mr. Mill considers that a
Government "equally democratic in unexclusiveness" as the American, where the scholar, for
instance, or the banker, shall have two or more
votes for one of the laborer's votes!
This, again, involves two questions: 1st, what
the laborer would feel; and, 2nd, what the State
has to decide as to this supposed overwhelming
class power of an equal-voting Demos.
At present the laborer looks upon the suffrage
as a right to be won by economy and industry for
the individual, and by agitation and political
progress for his class; and he knows that those
next above him have but lately won their vote,
after a national struggle. But to be openly and
scientifically appraised as but half or three-quarters
of a man; to be told that another who knows Latin
and Greek, and has got over the ass's bridge, is
three times as able as himself to decide whether
Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones would be the best M.P., or
L




14 6             DEMOCRACY:
whether we should go to war for Poland, or be
imprisoned for Church Rates,-this would lead to
deep-seated class hostility, would evoke class agitation, and make the workmen declare that they
indeed would not be such "fools" (they might
quote Mr. Mill, and say, such fools "of a peculiar
description ") as to submit to the valuation.
With regard to "ignorance," in the sense in
which the argument relating thereto was used by
Aristotle, we need not further refer to it. Modern
Democracy completely cuts away that ground, and
Mr. Mill is one of the foremost in insisting on its
extirpation.
Democracy says that a nation cannot be democratic till it is educated. The nation must prepare
and wait. Mr. Mill says, let us take the nation as
it is, and graduate votes to education, &c.
Democracy says that the whole equal voting
educated manhood of a nation can alone fulfil its
destiny, and can alone secure (amongst other
things) the objects proposed by such schemes as
plural voting; and further, as has been already
stated, that plural voting is directly revolutionary,
for it arms those who already possess natural
multiples of power, with artificial ones also, and
places them as necessary antagonists directly in
the march of the People.
The ancient objection of "ignorance," then, has
been transformed into a question of "graduation."
It is now asserted that "quality" must balance
" numbers,"-that " preponderance of classes" must
for the first time be. avoided, or that, as the stock




ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.        147
phrase now is, the People must not be allowed to
"swamp " their betters.
We prefer Aristotle to Mill and to the Tories.
We repeat with Aristotle, that when "quantity"
joins "quality," "Democracy must prevail," and
with De Tocqueville,-that if the natural preponderating power is withstood successfully, the result
is "revolution or dissolution,"-that the obstruction is overthrown, or the country destroyed.
~
But as pointed out before, this is not so much
a question of argument as of power. The men with
multiples of influence and power are always sure
to prevent the access of the People to it, until the
latter are prepared to conquer these smaller and
compacter hostile unities. Power is only conquered
by power, and by a power greater or better organised. When the People can conquer it by public
opinion, it will always be safest to give it them.
Nor can we forbear remarking on the inconsistency of urging plural voting as the "only
alternative to universal suffrage."
Mr. Mill wants to see all men prepared for
citizenship. He urges on the State to allow no
man to grow up without education. A universal
education is a universal citizenship. Universal
citizenship and suffrage is the goal of political
progress: it unites interest and right, conservatism
and progress;-and yet this universal competency
of citizenship is to be rewarded by a comparative
disenfranchisement!
L 2




148              DEMOCRACY:
The heresy of Mill resolves itself into a disbelief in equality,-that it is not possible without
producing tyranny, in other words, that it is not
possible, To meet this theory of danger, he would
make equality impossible. He would make inequality an institution, and expect the all to accept
their degradation. He would bind over the People
in sureties to wage eternal electoral war, for he
would urge on development, and promote association, and when these have brought forth their
inevitable offspring-Equality, he would say to
the People, "now you are getting dangerous, come
on to my patent graduated sliding scale, and let
us see how many parts of a man you are entitled
to be considered."
This is to inaugurate revolution with a vengeance, for it creates the power and then denies
its use.
The answer to all this is clear.
In the inevitable course of human nature
there are no contradictions. You cannot execute a
strategic movement upon necessity, nor outflank
Destiny.
Up to a certain point those classes which possess the multiples of power-high class education,
oratory, learning, culture, wealth, birth, &c., will
by excelling in quality neutralise mere numbers.
After a certain point the quality of the Demos
will improve,-better developed, he will the more
closely associate, and as ILis " quality" comes up to
the standard of the more favored classes, and as,
exceeding in quantity, he equals also in quality,




ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.        149
then at the same time that his preponderance is
secured, the evils attending it are removed.
Therefore the all cannot attain a class preponderance till classes, in the bad sense, have ceased,
and there remains instead of them a completed
nation.
The attempt to institute plural voting, this only
alternative with universal equal suffrage, must begin
and end in exasperation, distrust, and suspicion.
Mr. Mill's own theory of moral and mental
"development," contradicts the scheme. If the
man valued the vote, passion, and a sense of injury,
would ensue from this graduated scale of manhood.
If he did not value and use it, so given, where
would be the " Development'?"
If it is an obvious fact, that " Free Government
educates the intelligence and sentiments of the
very lowest, —makes him a patriot, and widely diffuses the ideas, tastes, and sentiments of educated
minds to an extent neither seen nor conceived of
elsewhere," it is neither conceivable nor right, that
individuals so qualified should submit to be constituted politically the third or the ninth part of a
man. Such qualities, forced into opposition, would
become dangerous precisely in proportion as they
would otherwise be conservative and valuable.
With such admissions neither the ignorance
nor the numbers of the Demos can serve as a plea
for plural voting.
~
Plural voting is also a scheme which would unite
a most diverse and powerful opposition..




15.0             DEMOCRACY:If the scholar is to have twice the voting
power of the workman, would the wealthy man
have twice that of the scholar, or would the B.A.
in the garret or the shop outvote his landlord or
his master I In the first case, the class power
would be overweighted as against the artisan
class. In the second, property would oppose the
scheme.
Moreover the educated and wealthy classes
have already a " plurality" of influence upon the
franchise.  The money power, the social power,
the writing power, the speaking power, the preach-:
ing power, the newspaper press. The forum, thepulpit, the exchange.
Never before was a system so well contrived
as that of English representation, to represent
minorities.
A majority of a section has ruled England since
Cromwell.
What is the result?
Five-sixths of our People are declared unfit to
vote.
Large, religious, and powerful majorities are
not only unrepresented, but they are outraged.
It is only when the People are grasping power,
that the value of minorities is discovered.
Again as far as Conservatism consists of prejudice, of mere likes and dislikes, sentiment or passion,
it depends not upon knowledge or ignorance, but
obviously and notoriously on whether one is in or
out of the pale of the Constitution. Outside, one
rages against the barriers; inside, one pities,




ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.        151
despises, or neglects the disqualified. To make
men conservative, qualify them.
Nor would this feeling stop here. It intensifies as the outside recedes, and the innermost
penetralia is reached.  TJhey who  " simper in
gilded saloons" have generally not been used to
them.  In his progress from  the outer world
to the political holy of holies, the Demagogue
naturally becomes a parasite. It is high intelligence or stern principle alone, that comprehends
what is true Conservatism  and true Democracy,
and thus combines and adheres to both.
Moreover, to a great extent, poverty is itself a
qualification.  It is more a qualification than a
disqualification. If the question be " the right men
in the right places,-merit and not influence," the
masses would vote for merit, the families would
vote for " influence." In other words, each would
vote for its own interest. With regard to war,
the masses would incline against it, it means
taxation, the few for it, it means employment,
and also lavish expenditure, and a continuation of
class monopolies of all sorts. On the other hand,
the national honor is safe with the People, who
would vote, fight, and pay in a just cause. We
have had more than a century of frequent fighting
for Bourbons, Legitimists, and Popes, for Austria
and Turkey, and against Nations, Republics, and
Progress generally. We should have had another
war now for slavery, and against another Republic
and Nation, if the million had not kept the peace
which the oligarchy attempted to break. Further,




152              DEMOCRACY:
war draws the working man for the militia, and
trenches on his necessities, to promote extravagance
in naval, military, and civil services.
The working man would vote for free trade,
peace, and economy.
The candidates of the few vote for imposts
on trade,-have sons, brothers, and relations in
the services and the embassies, discharge their
Hudsons for their Elliots, and give their sympathies and influence to despotism and laissez
faire.
Manhood always recognises manhood. That is
the sum of the whole matter. It is the intelligence,
disinterestedness, and determination of the whole
People, one and indivisible, that the tyrannous few,
now and always, fear. The more plenary and
complete the manhood of a leader, the nearer does
he come to a certainty of popular favour. For the
universal and the all are in natural and inevitable
unity.
We have said that poverty is a qualification,
and wealth the contrary. Man has five objects of
attention and carefulness,-his person, his family,
his property, his country, his God. As property
increases, thought and care for it increases, and
must increase, till respectability hangs like a millstone upon manhood. The rich man's family are
often provided for by the State. His country
requires expensive services, and the church rewards
a timely zeal with a place for his sons in a costly
religious establishment.- It were as easy for this
average rich man, with his riches, to regard the




ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.            153
interests of the all, as for a camel and his hump to
pass through the eye of a needle.
The position of the rich man tends to lead him
against the State, save as to the promotion of a
certain irresolute security,-that of the poor man
identifies his and its interests. In a word, the
rule of the all cannot be a monopoly.
On the other hand, when the working man sees
that he has a property in the Government, the
imperial powers of governing within him tend to
become developed and exalted into a passion. The
idea of the State fills his political horizon. He is
the Government.
After all, political influence always has been,
and always will be, rather weighed than counted.
Concentrated voting would be undue influence,
and bribery made easy.
Nor is it to be forgotten that the pleas of
majority-tyranny are good only as affecting questions of rights of property.  But rights of the
person are as varied and important.  Everybody
possesses and understands them. They belong to
no class. Everybody, therefore, should vote upon
them equally.
And different localities involve a variety of
counterbalancing  interests.  As  an  old writer
says:" Because this must be said in behalf of human kind, that
common sense and plain reason, while men are disengaged
from acquired opinions, will ever have some general influence
upon their minds; whereas the species of folly and vice are
infinite, and so different in every individual, that they could never
procure a majority, if other corruptions did not enter to pervert
men's understandings, and misguide their wills."-"A Dis



154              DEMOCRACY:
course ion the Contests between the Nobles and Commons
in Athens and Rome, &c." State Tracts, 1688-1702, v. iii,
p. 227.
Nor is any depth of intellect or variety of
learning necessary for the suffrage. The requisite
is not statesmanship, but to appreciate statesmen;
often, only to decide which of two candidates is the
more honest and capable.
It was the opinion of Cavour (" Dicey," p. 81)
that the right to the suffrage depends on. three
moral qualifications,-independence from bribery,
intelligence to judge of fitness of candidate, and
the possession of a stake in the preservation of
social order. For appreciation of statesmanship,
we contend not only that the People are not incompetent, but that they have a special political
instinct and competency. As for independence, we
know that the all cannot be bribed. And every
average educated workman would have stake
enough in the country if only unjust laws did not
prevent his acquiring it.
All the authorities go to this.
When Socrates contends against the expediency
of "valuation," it is because it would produce very
" bad navigation" of the State, and he swears that
it would make the city not one but two. When
Aristotle objects to Democracy only because ignorance and poverty characterised it, the inevitable
inference is, that with competency comes greater
concern for the public weal, and that with education
comes a better understanding of the mutual interest




ARGUMENT ON AUTHORITIES.      155
of citizens. When Fichte, and Mill, and Guizot,
and Humboldt declare that individual development
is the great object of Government; when Napoleon
says that to be stable, institutions must be free and
men equal; and when Milton insists on an educated
Democracy and on Liberty and apportioned Equality,
-then we say, from each and all we gather that
development and equality, which produce one
another, are the factors of national and individual
advancement, and the objects of all enlightened
Government.
Ideas of Government and development seem
to the thoughtless only to clash. The one means
a universal free and intelligent action, the best
guarantee of the other,-of the unity of the whole,
and subordination and adjustment of the parts.
"The whole" is a great word, and but little
understood yet. "The parts" was the cry of the
old dead world,-old and dead because, not having
unity, it could not perpetuate life. The parts of a
man, —his intellect without his character, his body
and work without his soul. The parts of a State,the one instead of the nation, or the few or the
many without the all. Political equality is another
name for unity, and without unity "nation" is but
a "geographical expression."
So much for fears respecting equality felt by
men possessing multiples of power. So much for
right relationship to the State of those who, as
individuals, can never be equally powerful with
their betters, and who, by association, can never
become too powerful for the public good.




156                 DEMOCRACY,
To our mind, to doubt equality as a principle,
as it would prevail in a true Democracy, is to doubt
manhood.
Without development a State dies. With
equality denied to development the State is destroyed.
The simple and decisive question is, "Are men
prepared to trust or to distrust the People and
manhood 2"  This is the great divider of parties.
Thus said Jefferson:
"Call them  Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras,
Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats
and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are
the same parties still, and pursue the same object. The last
appellation of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one,
expressing the essence of all,"




DEMOCRACY 
EQUALITY THE ESSENCE.
"But for Equality in Democratic communities the passion
is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for
Equality in Freedom, and if they cannot obtain that, they
call for Equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism,-but they will not endure aristocracy."
" This is true at all times and especially true in our own.
All men and all powers seeking to cope with this irresistible
passion will be overthrown and destroyed by it. In our age.
Freedom cannot be established without it, and despotism
itself cannot reign without its support, "-De Tocqueville.
" A  love of Democracy is a love of Equality." —Montesquieu.
" The equality of citizens which commonly produces an
equality in their fortunes, brings plenty and life into every part
of the body politic, and extends them throughout the whole."Ibid.
" The most favorable position which man can occupy as
member of a political community has appeared to me to be
that in which the most manifold individuality and the most
original independence subsisted, with the most various and intimate union of a number of men,-a problem which nothing but
THE MOST ABSOLUTE LIBERTY can ever hope to solve."-Baron
W. von Humboldt,




"Their deliberations, in which every man shall decide whatever he decides for himself, and not for one subject to him whose
sufferings will never affect him;-deliberations, according to
which no one can hope that it shall be he who is to practise a permnitted injustice, but every one must fear that he may have to sufer
/t; deliberations which alone deserve the name of legislation, which
is something wholly different from the ordinances of combined
Lords to the countless herds of their slaves;-these deliberations will necessarily be guided by justice, and will lay the foundation of a true State.
" By the establishment of this only true State (where equality and justice prevail) the possibility of FOREIGN WAR, at
least with other true States, is cut off. This law concerning
the security of neighbours is necessarily a law in every State
that is not a robber-State. That a whole nation should determine, for the sake of plunder, to make war on a neighbouring
country is impossible; for in a State where all are equal, the
plunder could not become the booty of a few, but must be
equally divided amongst all, and the share of no one individual
could ever recompense him for the trouble of war.  Only where
the advantage falls to a few oppressors, only from savages or
barbarians, or from  enslaved nations."-Fichte, " Vocation of
Man," p. 143-5.




159
CHAPTER VII.
EQUALITY THE ESSENCE OF
DEMOCRACY.
"The very essence of Democratic Government consists in
the absolute sovereignty of the majority." —De Tocqueville.
" A love of the republic in a Democracy, is a love of the
Democracy; as the latter is that of Equality.
" Though real Equality is the very soul of a Democracy, it is
so difficult to establish, that an extreme exactness in this
respect would not be always convenient.
" The love of Equality in a Democracy limits ambition to
the sole desire of doing greater services to our country.
Hence distinctions here arise from the principle of Equality.
All inequality in Democracies ought to be derived from the
nature of the Government, and even from the principle of
equality."-Montesquieu, v. i. pp. 52-3-7.
" The moral authority of the majority is partly based upon
the notion that there is more intelligence and wisdom in a
great number of men collected together than in a single individual.
" The Theory of Equality is in fact applied to the intellect of
man, and human pride is thus assailed in its last retreat."De Tocqueville.
"The People collectively considered are capable of discharging functions of which in their individual character they
seem altogether unworthy.
" The People at large are yet, when collectively considered,
not perhaps unworthy of Sovereignty. The excellencies of
that complex entity, the public, may sometimes surpass those
of the most accomplished prince or most virtuous council."Aristotle, b. iii, p. 222.
" They will no longer endure any among them who cannot be
satisfied to be on an equality with others, and so to remain. In
order to protect themselves against internal violence or new
oppression, all will take the same obligations."-Fichte.
We now proceed to carry the argument a step
further, and to show that Equality is of the essence




160             DEMOCRACY:
of Democracy. This principle means, from the point
of view of the Individual,-the completest state
of Freedom. From the general point of view it
means that the best possible balance of the State
is that arrived at by the political equality of the
All, together with those intellectual, social, and
moral inequalities, gradations, and influences
which will always remain.
Democracy  involves  Manhood-Development
and Association, but one cannot fail to perceive
that as these together constitute unity and strength,
-the power to combine for common objects,national self-interest must soon or late accomplish
the next step —Equality.
This is the theory; and also the fact in the only
Democracy that yet exists.
That which other forms of Government attain
by force, and by the suppression, more or less, of
the universal will and intelligence, Democracy
seeks to attain by directly opposite measures, —by
stimulating the one and organising the other. The
formula is the "universal intelligence fully developed, and the universal will fairly and fully
organised." In a word, the rights and values of
the individual mnake the nation.
And if the hopes of Democracy be not for ever
a chimera, these positions respecting it will be
established in argument, as they have been by the
life of the American nation.
Democracy is that kind of Government which




EQUALITY THE ESSENCE.         161
most completely combines the spirit or motive
power, with the organisation or machinery.
It has been pointed out that this is the excellence of Democracy, that it unites manhood and
organisation.
And we here repeat that the excellence of this
union chiefly depends upon:1st. Political Equality,-the absence of sectional
or class jealousies and weaknesses, the formation
of a mighty uniform preponderating power, consisting of the aggregate manhood, with no lawmade causes of contention. Equality is essential
to this uniform power, because otherwise classes
must preponderate, and can never be balanced, nor
can manhood be at one with manhood, or identical
with Government.
2nd. That this equalily is in reality a balance,
and the true natural balance. The all having a
voice,-the many and the few, natural or artificial
multiples of power.
3rd. That this equality is the mightiest agent
in manhood-development,-that it promotes the
greatest and completest variety of conditions of life.
4th. That it is the only completion of freedom
as between individuals. It unites man with man.
5th. That it is the only guarantee of freedom
as against the State. It is the sword and shield
of the People.
6th. That inequality therefore divides into
classes, destroys the natural national balance,
obstructs development, and arrests the march of
freedom and union. That plural voting would pre



162             DEMOCRACY:
sent to prerogative, privilege, and abuse, a new and
inveterate Swiss guard, which, paying itself in
kind, must destroy or be destroyed by the People.
Inequality is the cause and the result of barbarism, contention, tyranny, disunion, and weakness.
Equality is the crown of political achievement: it
can only result from an aggregate educated national
manhood, —it alone can make a complete nation.
The natural working of development and of
associative powers must bring equality, unless there
be an arrest in the national progress.
Without equality there must be inequality,
and inequality is oligarchy, and oligarchy without
the warrant of necessity, is tyranny and confusion.
Equality alone can protect a nation from a
return to this barbarism.
Government organised upon a basis of a graduated inequality, intended to be permanent, would
be a conspiracy against manhood, and, amongst
systems, a new, and scientific, and most infernal
machine of tyranny.
It is at once the test and triumph of Democracy, that development and unity assist and complement one another. The best units make the
completest unity; and that is not the best unity,
or the completest system of Government, which is
incompatible with the completest development of
individuals.
It is admitted, without argument, that individual development is promoted by freedom,
education, and variety of forms and conditions,




EQUALITY THE ESSENCE.         163
and that association depends upon development.
Equality is also admitted to be the essential principle of Democracy, but the new controversy is
about its meaning; whether it means an equality
of classes or of individuals, a balance of power to
protect class interests which the majority would
assail, or absolute political equality. And if the
former, then of two things one, —either those
interests are against manhood, and ought to be
destroyed, or manhood is not sufficiently educated
to value them. The remedy is, not to deny manhood, but to educate it.
Any other interpretation of equality sins
against national unity, as well as individual right.
It sins against national unity because it divides
into classes instead of promoting homogeneity, and
against individual right because, when the average
citizen is sufficiently educated to choose a representative well, it is a wrong to give another citizen,
who need do no more, twice his electoral power.'It
is to maintain the rights of parts and sections
against the whole, and is in principle the same
denial of the rights of the all, which has just
received an eternal quietus in America.
We have already seen that the education required by the two interests which have to be
consulted, namely, the individual and the nation,
must be an education which does not clash with
freeedom, and which consists of Free SchooT, Press,
Church, and Assembly.
~
Individual development thus generally prom 2




16 4             DEMOCRACY:
moted amounts, in fact, to Statesmanship.  It
possesses self-restraint. It comprehends and discusses the history of its country, and the tendencies
of its principles. It calculates causes and results.
It knows how to combine, and anticipate, and
organise, and associate. It confers that universal
consentaneity of thought and sentiment which,
especially in national crises, thrills through the
mind and heart of the million, and makes it as one
man.
But to arrange for so complete a development
of the national manhood is of necessity to arrange
for equality or revolution.  To arrange for permanent inequality is to arrange for the permanent
debasement, not of the franchise, but of man.
Rather it is to guarantee and legitimate revolution.
Equality requires that there be no clashing
minor sovereignties, whether of sections, minorities,
or States, —that the People be sovereign. A People
thus constituted will be taught by intelligence to
combine for truly national objects, and will be
enabled by the franchise to root out those laws
which interfere with the laws of production and of
economics.
And this three-fold panoply of universal votepower, universal interest, and universal intelligence,
tends to render faction itself an advantage, causing
it to stir without commanding the whole, whilst it
converts to the commonweal those "stupendous
individualities " which are apt, in other dispensations, to supersede the general will.
Until the present epoch, the basis of a true




EQUALITY THE ESSENCE.        165
Republic was wanting, and Aristotle, whilst pronouncing that " the best commonwealth is that in
which middling men most abound," laments that
"a Republic founded on the salutary principle of
mediocrity and a just equality had been in his
time indeed a rare phenomenon."
Further, "promotion of means and conditions
favorable to the next step in national progress, and
to all future steps," depends chiefly upon leaving
human nature unhampered with the forms, interests,
and castes of corporate and privileged bodies descended from the past. But an organised inequality
of votes would be the most formidable corporate
obstruction that could be created.
The essence of all proposals for a permanent
ineqaality is distrust of human nature. Equality,
on the other hand, declares that human nature is
to be trusted; that the best and completest
"balance" is the virtual and national one of numbers against influence, wealth, genius, and organisation,-of localities against localisation, —of the
universal and profound sef-consciousness of an
educated and self-governing People, -and that the
average action of such a nation is better, wiser, and
more virtuous than that of any part of it.
It is evident that manhood is the one harmonious, conservative, progressive governing power of
the world, and that manhood-development is the
only statesmanship that is not a compromise or an
expedient. Where the Collective Reason reigns, it
points out infallibly the Collective Interest.
The problem of which Democracy demands the




.1 6 6           DEMOCRACY:
solution is, how to promote (individual development,
and dliffuse anzd stimulate it to a certain point, and
how to organise and consolidate individual forces.
For it is obvious that beyond a certain point,
individual development and character guarantee
national progress and unity, because they guarantee
iidividual progress and co-operation. And the
point -in question is reached and passed when a
certain quality of education and  morality has
reached a certain amount of general diffut.ion.
The right to define "what is a State," and in
mrhom shall reside its sovereignty, must be either
a right divine of kings and of privileged classes, or
a right which may reside in the whole community.
If the latter, then the only remaining question
is one of instalment.
Right divine of personages and classes once
abandoned as barbarous, there can be naught of
jr'inciple in the matter of exceptional qualification.
It is rather a question of time, place, and preparedness.
This granted, all exceptions, on principle, are
arbitrary, and therefore the onus probandi lies upon
those who suggest them. This is the gravamen
of Mr. Gladstone's Democracy.
But "right divine " wrested first from the one
by the few, and then from the few by the many, is
now led forth to do its last duty.
Through each stage, as manhood has spread
and rights have broadened downwards, necessity
and fear have checked the advance and the extension.




EQUALITY THE ESSENCE.          167
Necessity,-the unrepresented were not "qualified;" fear,-lest they should become so. And
thus the right divine has widened with the qualifications, till necessity again asserts that the million
are not qualified, and fear suggests that, when
qualified, they will act as a class. A higher -wisdom
would reply, —" Injustice and  ignorance make'classes;' justice and education make nations."
In England, the Family Governments have
restricted the qualifications by restricting education.
As a class, world without end, have they always
acted, and now, according to Mill, by a "valuation"
of the poor man as a fraction of the rich man, and
according to Grey by admitting him as a class or
guild, each element that is possible, of mistrust,
alienation, and class feeling, would be imported into
the question,-to make of every concession a defeat,
and to suggest to the conquerors the question, by
what natural or constitutional right, the power to
dispose of the destinies of the whole, is thus deposited in the hands of the parts.
Necessity is warrant enough for the practice of
anything; but for the theory of oligarchy, or permanent inequality, there is in the universe but
one logical stand-point,-a natural and permanent
inequality of class and race: the incapacity of the
multitude to judge ordinary political problems:
the natural, and necessary, and permanent inferiority of the serving races: the natural and essential
superiority of the ruling races.




168             DEMOCRACY.
That stand-point the South reached, and Democracy met it at the bayonet's point.
The South had the courage to assert with the
distinctness of a theorem, and the aplomb of a
courage entirely immoral, that only principle which
can vindicate oligarchy;-that God has not made
all nations of one blood; that the Black is essentially an inferior race, that the rule of the few
there is unavoidable. But all oligarchies mean
that or a mere temporary compromise; or nothing.
Said Stephens, of the Rebellion, " Let the North
maintain that all men are equal, we maintain
directly the opposite doctrine." We maintain that
negroes were born to be slaves to us. That we
shall be always superior to them. That man in
politics is essentially and eternally unequal.
"Even as one star differeth from another star in
glory."
This doctrine of course impugns the truth of
the Scriptures, and the justice and therefore the
existence of God. It shakes the whole system of
morals and philosophy. It challenged the ultima
ratio. This issue the world waited for a long
time, and it is well that the South raised it. The
fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.
And we know that the fool is the only absolutely
fatal personage, —to his own side of the question
or the strife.
Glory be to God that the representative South
did at last reach the ultima ratio of infidelity and
oligarchy, that it might be worthily met by the
ultima ratio of freedom.




EQUALITY THE ESSENCE.         169
All other contests between the rights of the
few and the all have been but preparations for this
final test. And the question about an educated
Democracy if not treated as a mere question of
time, is but a compromise, a quibble, and an evasion,-if it be not a confession and admission of
the principle of Democracy.  ARE THE SOULS
EQUAL? Are the educated multitude competent
in morals and in judgment? If they are, then soon
or late, the Governments and representations will
be equal.  If not, then all efforts of Democracy
are vain and vicious struggles in an impossible
cause.
If the mental and moral capacity of the average
individual be competent to political problems, then
one soul is as good as another in political theory,there is an end of argument, and it is a question
only of preparation, of education, and of how many
of the future rulers of the world, are at any given
epoch ready for their inheritance.
If on the other hand, inequality and natural
incompetence are the law and the bond of
strength and unity, the South should have proved it,
for never again will oligarchy be bound together by
equal inducements. What says Burke? —" In such
a People the haughtiness of domination combines
itself with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and
renders it invincible. Such will be all masters of
all slaves who are not slaves themselves." And
such doubtless they are, but there were not
200,000 of them when the war began. How has
Destiny burlesqued this war for inequality!




170              DEMOCRACY:
~
Such are the opposing principles, and the one
party or the other, holds a right, —imprescriptible,
indefeasible, eternal,-to reign. A right from God,
— from nature, necessity, destiny, law, or by whatsoever other name, man, whether in reverence
or imbecility, images to, or conceals from himself, the essential forces of the Unseen.
We say then that here is an end of argument.
On the one side is a party whom nothing but
defeat and destruction will convince. On the other
a party that begins with the fundamental rights of
Human nature,-That traces the tap-root of Democracy back through time and change to creation.
We take, therefore, the Individual MAN, and
say to him, " Education, Freedom, Religion, these
"are thy wants. The first to develop thy faculties,
"the second to prove and exercise thy powers, the
"third to give thee motives of self-restraint and
" elevation, ideas of charity and duty, stronger and
"higher than the present life. With these thou
"art, if needs be, King, Emperor, Statesman, Pre"sident, for thou art indeed a man governing thy"self, —fit to govern others. Fit to be the auto"crat, because fit to be of a true Democracy."
We add to this man, a few others, with the like
equipment, and find, for like reasons, a fit and proper oligarchy.
We add to these few the MANY, and again,
the ALL, again with the like equipment, and
behold a middle-class rule or a Democracy. If
we do not find that, the fault is with the




EQUALITY THE ESSENCE.         171
men or with their training,-with God or the
system.  Either the proper natural men are
not there, or the education, the freedom, or
the religion, are not there.  In the latter case,
the Government, or the previous Governments are
to blame, in the former,-but there we stop, and let
Atheists alike to God and to Adam,-go on
to anarchy.or extinction - meanwhile groping
through earth and nature for a warrant they will
ever find, for any permanent rule of the one or the
few, or any permanent incapacity of the equal
governing all.
Well, we carry this process out till we are met,
-not by a principle, but by the limitations of necessity itself. Unity is a necessity. Democracy is
(soon or late) a necessity. The all cannot speak,
the all cannot vote at once, or Democracy would
destroy unity. The "One" must not long rule
alone, for he would absorb the nation in himself.
Hence the All must speak and act by degrees, and
by delegates or representation, and so progress and
order, theory and right, are in the way to be reconciled.
And what is all this, but the very actual history of the making of the American nation and
Democracy?-two hundred years, compressed in
about as many words and seconds. Americans are
a nation and have searched out unity. Americans
are a Democracy,-they will have their representation complete. All nations willfollow them.
In "man" are the forces, and they will out.
Men who cannot see the necessity of a gradually




172                DEMOCRACY:
completed representation, may feel the ultima ratio
of revolution, destroying them and their phantasies
together. In politics there is no finality but with
the all.  Democracy is the goal of progress.  The
fate of selfish and perverse oligarchies, if not their
blood, willbe upon themselves or upon their children.
What then is the difficulty?
It is not the unwieldyness of numbers, for the
principle of representation disposes of that.
It is not the difficulty of organisation, for the
only Democracy that has tried it, has developed
powers of association never yet equalled even in
small communities.
" Let Americans," says Mill (on Liberty), " be left without
a Government, every body of Americans is able to improvise one, and
to carry on that or any other public business with a sufficient
amount of intelligence, order, and decision. This is what
every free people ought to be; and a people capable of this is
certain to be free."
So much for Democratic Organisation.
Nor is it want of ability and penetration in the
advocates of oligarchy. It is simply the old solution, —prejudice, or fancied interest.
If the many cannot profit as do the few, by freedom, education, and religion, how manay are the few
that can profit by them?  At what point is it that
the addition of one educated, religious, and free
soul, makes order, anarchy?-makes that which
was proved true before, seem false again?
" What makes this doctrine plain and clear?"
Why it is just the two hundred pounds a-year
supposed to go or come by the change, or else it is




EQUALITY THE ESSENCE.         173
mere prejudice,-the sheer imbecility of men without manhood, or of logicians without faith.
Meanwhile the world will not be persuaded
that there is truer philosophy in dividing a nation
into "valuations," classes, and interests, and in
seeking to balance and adjust their ever shifting
forces, than in trusting the natural balance and
compensations of a free and true nation.
Permanent " Graduation" is oligarchy, and
"oligarchy without the warrant of necessity is
tyranny and confusion." "To make the People fit
to choose" is the problem, in representative countries, as put by Milton. To choose between two or
more would-be representatives is a feat not beyond
a common intelligence. There is then no warrant
for this graduation,-for this permanent inequality
of classes.
Once admit on philosophic grounds this unhappy contrivance, and there would be a free fight
over every step of graduation, and whenever it
might be proposed to alter it for the benefit of
the all, it would be a nucleus around which a specious conservatism would rally against them the
abettors of every infamy, and the interested iir
every abuse.
" By Jupiter," say we, with Plato, let our city
or republic become not t]us permanently twoeach part " always plotting against the other,"but gradually and then for ever one,
Democracy is a power and a system, a life and
an organisation of life. Manhood-equality represents
both, without contradiction and without alloy.








DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL UNITY.
" The grand point is the development of the powers of all
its single citizens in their perfect individuality; it must therefore pursue no other object than that which they cannot
procure of themselves, viz., security, and that this is the only
true and infallible means to Connect by a strong and enduring
bond things which appear at first sight contradictory,-the
aims of the State as a whole, and the collective aims of all, its
individual citizens.-Baron W. von Humboldt, "' Sphere and
Duties of Government," p. 184.
" Each individual national genius is to be treated as only
one individual, in theprocess of Universal History, which is the
exhibition of the divine absolute development of spirit in its
highest forms. The forms which these grades of progress
assume are the characteristic national spirits of history; the
peculiar tenor of their moral life, of their Government, their
art, religion, and science.  To realise these grades is the boundless
impulse of the world-spirit, -the goal of its irresistible urging;
for this division into organic members, and the full development
of each is its idea.         Universal History exhibits the
gradation in the development of that principle, whose substantial purport is the consciousness of Freedom."
"' The State is here a living universal Spirit, but which is at
the same time the self-conscious spirit of the individuals composing the community."
" The essential condition and -distinction in regard to
various phases of Democracy is, what is the character of the
individual members?"-Hegel, pp. 258, 260-2.
" Individuality will be a term  of greater comprehension,
and nations free and enlightened, will hereafter become one complex indavidual, as single men now are.  The whole species
will become one grand society, one individual family... A
new age will make its appearance, an age of. astonishment to
vulgar minds, of surprise and dread to tyrants, of emancipation to a great people, and of hope to the whole world,"Volney/.
"True union is such a harmony as makes all the particular
parts, opposite as they may seem to us, concur in the general
welfare of the country in the same manner as discords in music
contribute to the general melody of sound... Prosperity
which alone is true peace.-Montesquieu, v. iii, p. 65.




"' A People cannot rise but by a principle or by a man."
ZAazzini.
" The People in combination with men of genius, this will
be the Voltaic pile of civilization. The mysterious dynasty of
men ot genius." —Hugo.
" In the reality, in the highest power of the People, they
are solely in the man of genius; in him resides the great soul.
All the world is surprised to see the inert masses vibrate at
his slightest word. Why wonder? That voice is the People's;
they speak in that man, and God with him. Then it is we
may truly say,'Vox populi, vox Dei.' " —Aichelet.
" The mighty genius of Athens has made as much of an
imperceptible city, in two or three centuries, as twelve nations
of the middle ages in a thousand years."-Ibid.
"'Germany, who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was groping about to find herself, has at length discovered herself in Goethe, Schiller, and Beethoven; it is only
since that period that she has been able to aspire earnestly
after unity."-Ibid.
"' One of my grandest ideas was the agglomeration or concentration of the same geographical nations which had been
divided and portioned by revolution and politics. Thus there
were in Europe though scattered, more than thirty millions
French, fifteen millions Spaniards, fifteen millions Italians,
thirty millions Germans. I wished to make of each of these
peoples one simple body of a nation. It is with such a cortege
that it would have been grand to advance to prosperity and
the benediction of ages. I felt myself worthy of that glory."
— Napoleon L.




177
CHAPTER VIII.
DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL UNITY.
INDIVIDUALITY  AND NATIONALITY.
POWERS OF ASSOCIATION AND NATIONALITY.
THE PEOPLE AND GREAT MEN.
"When a Prince puts his confidence in the People,-a man
of courage, &c., himself,-he will never be deserted by them."
-Machiavel.
"The People are extremely well qualified for choosing those
whom they are to intrust with part of their authority. They
have only to be determined by things to which they cannot
be strangers, and by facts that are obvious to sense. They
can tell when a person has fought many battles, and been
crowned with success; they are therefore very capable of
electing a general. They can tell when a judge is assiduous
in his office, gives general satisfaction, and has never been
charged with bribery: this is sufficient for choosing a prmtor.
They are struck with the magnificence or riches of a fellowcitizen: no more is requisite for electing an Aedile. These are
facts of which they can have better information in a public forum
than a monarch in his palace. But are they capable of conducting an intricate affair, of seizing and improving the opportunity
and critical moment of action? No; this surpasses their
abilities.
" Should we doubt of the People's natural capacity in respect
to the discernment of merit, we need only cast an eye on the
series of surprising elections made by the Athenians and Romans,
which no one surely will attribute to hazard.
"We know that, though the people of Rome assumed to
themselves the right of raising plebeians to public offices, yet they
never would exert this power; and though at Athens the magistrates were allowed, by the law of Aristides, to be elected
from all the different classes of inhabitants, there never was a
case, says Xenophon, that the common people petitioned for
employments which could endanger either their security or
their glory."-Montesquieu, v. i, pp. 11 and 12.
Three axiomatic truths express and define the
effect of Democracy on nationality.
The first is, that the more of freedom and
N




178                 DEMOCRACY
equality there is in a nation, the more numerous,
complex, intimate, and harmonious the inter-relations of individuals, and the greater their development.
The second is that indicated by De Tocqueville,
that wherever freedom increases, "the faculty of
association must increase in the same ratio."
The third is, that the People in crises always
know and appreciate their great men.
Here, then, is the creation and increment of
-power by freedom: its combination; and its
effective unity.
Nothing can resist a force thus always new
created, thus combined, and thus wielded, but such
a compact, unyielding, impregnable phalanx  of
prerogative,  privilege,  and  ignorance,  as  in
resisting  Democracy,  must  also  destroy  the
nation.
Life and freedom, —motion and power, must be
taken together for better or for worse;"Those," said Montesquieu, "' who expect in a free State
to see the People undaunted in war and pusillanimous in peace,
are certainly desirous of impossibilities; and it may be advanced
as a general rule that whenever a perfect calm is visible, in a State
that calls itself a Republic, the spirit of liberty no longer subsists."
That the aggregate national manhood constitutes the universal national spirit, and also assumes
naturally and necessarily a certain outward form
and  organisation, is a truism, but a truism  illunderstood.  It follows from  it, that until the
universal manhood is prepared by education, and




AND NATIONAL UNITY.          179
admitted to power,-there can be no complete
national Unity.
That Democracy, or the rule of the equal voting
entire national manhood, conduces to the intensest
and completest national unity, is also a truism,
but until lately no such nation existed, and
its existence involves a new world of fact and
theory.'
National unity is threefold,-material, intellectual, and moral. It corresponds to the three
elements of manhood,-of the body, mind, and
character.
National manhood bears the same relation to
national unity, that manhood does to individual
life.
If this requires demonstration, we have only to
consider what are the complete national unities,the formal and essential conditions of a complete
national life.
A complete nation has complete and sound its
material bases (unity of race, language, boundary,
and climate), its individuality (or unity of ideas
and character, and institution), and its organic
functions, or its Legislative and Executive.
In respect of individuality, Democracy guarantees to the nation its natural symmetrical growth
and character, preparing for it the most favorable
conditions of development in Free School, Press,
Church, and Assembly. "Individuality is development."
In respect of the organic functions of a democratic State, the People, by an equal and universal
N2




180                  DEMOCRACY
act, create the Legislature, and the Executive is an
absolute impersonation of their will.
The People,-the whole national manhoodcreate the institutions.  There is therefore the
greatest attainable certainty (apart from the ques-tion of the excellence of the creation) that the
creature and the creator will be at one.
In all other systems the institutions are made,
not by the all, but for and by the one, the few, or
the many. The inference is obvious.
In reference to the intense Executive unity
necessary to Democracies, and secured by the
American Government, the Emperor Napoleon III.
has the following profound remarks:"Whatever Government a nation gives itself, whether
monarchical, constitutional, or republican, one of its first and
fundamental wants is the spirit of combination.
" In a monarchical and aristocratic country, the spirit of
combination results from the existence even of those great
traditional bodies which receive and perpetuate the idea of
former administrations.
" But to enable a chief of the democratic Government to
give unity and consistency to public affairs, he must have.a
system, and be armed with the necessary means of adopting
it. The national representation, possessed of its immense
rights, and holding the budget in its hands, is always in a
situation to moderate and to restrain the system, and to put
a boundary to its encroachments, if they become contrary to
the real or apparent interests of the country.
" In electing a President for four years, the United States
are aware, in the first place, what system they are raising to
power, and they are afterwards certain that this system will
be frankly carried out and tried for four years, without any
impediments arising from the ministers empowered to apply
it, whatever this system may be, whether peace or war,
banking, liberation, or slavery, protection, or the annexing a
new State.




AND NATIONAL UNITY.                  181
" If after having rendered the President responsible for
the acts of his Government, the American constitution had
imposed on him the necessity of receiving his ministers from the
hands of a parliamentary majority, although these ministers
differed from,him on many subjects, or even had totally
different ideas, the constitution would sullenly, and as it were,
regretting that she granted them, rob him of the means of
fulfilling duties imposed. It is a manifest truth which will
not admit of argument, that to be responsible you must be free,
so that the ministers of the President of the United States are the
objects of his direct and free choice, the depositaries and organs
of his ideas, which they know, they accept, and they obey,are disengaged from all political responsibility towards the
chambers, and entirely covered by the responsibility of the President, whose views they only record and carry out.
" Such ideas and such facts are, as we have said, an
elementary and fundamental necessity in democratic countries,
where the chief of the Government who is empowered to
direct public affairs upon his own responsibility, should be
armed with the necessary authority for effecting his projects.
"' It is surprising that Monsieur de Tocqueville, who has
studied the Government of the United States, should not have
perceived as the result of his meditations the spirit of so simple
and so wise an arrangement."-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.
"Life and Works," vol. ii, pp. 392, 393.
~
The result of the ideal best Government would
be, industrial, political, and religious freedom, securing universal distribution of comforts and
universal mental activity, and crowning all this
with an intense and invincible feeling of nationality, and aspirations after glory, greatness, purity,
and God.
Does Democracy, which does everything fox
the individual, do as much as any other system oJ
polity for the State d
Securing freedom, and competency, and pro
gress, does it also inspire loyalty to order, t(
greatness, to genius, to the ideal, and to God?




182              DEMOCRACY
If so, there is in addition to, individual success
and culture, —national unity, and national greatness, and the problem of Democracy is completely
solved.
We have shown that Democracy transcends all
other polities as far in regard to the higher qualities of national life, as it transcends them in providing comforts and competence, and a political
sphere for the greatest number.
Democracy and nationality mutually support
each other. It is the most, assured conclusion of
political science. The most complete performance
of vital individual functions must produce the most
perfect aggregate unity, and the highest kind of
life. The greater the proportion of individuals
amply developed and equipped, free and trained to
every variety of interest and aptitude of exertion,
-the greater the number of such individuals in a
State, the more complete their inter-relations,-the
stronger, the truer, the intenser, the resulting
national individuality or unity.
The American nation has thus become "one
complex individual, as single men" were formerly,
and the consequences are proportioned to such a
state of things. The American nation is the completest vital organic unity in existence, and the
idea of American nationality is the greatest secular
power of any age or country.
A complete nation is necessarily a complete Democracy. For it is a nation of completely equipped
men, who have known and conquered their rights.
And Democracy in its turn is a chief factor and




AND NATIONAL UNITY.           183
guarantee of nationality, for it binds up the whole
in unity of interest, sentiment, and action.
In Democracies individual intercourse is more
equal, thorough, and universal, and therefore the
nationality is more homogeneous,- more completely an Individuality.
A true Democracy is- the rule of the All, and is
therefore a Popular Unity.
Democracy makes its own laws, and tends
therefore to Loyalty,-again a unity.
Democracies possess extraordinary powers of
association, and thus tend to unity.
In Democracies the Church is free. It teaches
mankind the virtues of conservatism and selfrestraint, and gives them the motive power of
progress, whilst itself shares none of the perils of
party and unites with no faction.
In true Democracies the will of the People
tends to express itself through one man, the elect
of the People-in crises always elected to do a
certain work, —responsible to the People alone, and
therefore with authority one and indivisible. This
direct concurrence and universal-fiat of the All, expressed upon each great national question, as in the
order of Providence and of a People's History it
arises, and enacted by one man, elected for the
purpose, and upon whom all responsibility centres,
appears to be the very highest position, Jbrm, and
expression of unity, intelligence, and power.
It is in these respects that we are driven again
and again to consult the only working model of
Democracy, 4s seen in America.




184              DEMOCRACY
Of the two processes which constitute the history of the American nation, the first, the tendency
of States to a national conglomerate, is no new
thing in politics, and but marks an era in the life
of that nation. The second, the tendency of progressive civilisation, education, and freedom, to
Democracy, and of such Democracy to unequalled
national unity, is a phenomenon of direct, unique,
and universal interest.
The principle of this tendency is indeed but a
truism, yet it has in America reached so advanced
a stage, and wrought on so vast an area, as to
strike the world as a new principle and power.
The science of Politics is the science of Human
Nature-and something more. There are material
elements in politics, and there is also the Infinite
-- God's will, developing.
"The One, the Few, the Many, and the All.
Freedom and order. The universal People's will,
and the universal will of God. How to reconcile
Liberty with Necessity, or orderly Development
with Destiny which represents the final consummation?"  The one and the all are, as ruling
powers, the only fixed quantities. The few, and
the many, are either instalments and compromises,:
or quackeries, delusions, and names.
The theory of Democracy is catholic and unassailable. The practice exists only in the United
States of America. The possible failure therefore
of Democracy there, would only subject the world




AND NATIONAL UNITY.           185
to new cycles of revolutions, and to other circles of
vicissitudes, of which the only certain things would
be the torment and desolation of the process, and
the ultimate triumph of the principle.
The true conservatism of the world was therefore concerned to see this fight fought out fairly
and to the end.
The wondering and enquiring world saw, in
America, certain forces contending on the widest
scale, and urged on by intensest passions, with the
most inexorable resolve, and on questions of universal interest.
That the strength of an EDUCATED and prosperous DEMOCRACY, which is also a nation, was till
lately, amongst political equations, an unknown
quantity, added to the interest of the question by
adding to its uncertainty.
Democracy must be justified of her children.
Each theory of Government has its own raison
d'6tre in the conditions of the age and the peculiarities of race. Democracy is good when the all
(or the majority) are good. Oligarchy is good
when only the few are good. Autocracy is good
when the one is good. We need not point out
which theory is narrow, local, temporary, partial in
ideal, and perilous in practice, nor which is glorious
in principle and grand in universality and strength.
We contend that to this " universality," Democracy
combines also the intensity of Autocracy. Necessity may justify the rule of the one or the few, but
fatuity itself could not insist on the perfectibility of
a class, and deny that of the race.




186              DEMOCRACY
In the one case the guarantee of the commonweal is the intelligence and virttue of the few-; in
the other, it is that of the many or the all. In Democracies public virtue is intelligent self-interest.
Inasmuch as men are apt to be the most intelligent
about their own interests, an educated Democracy
is a better guarantee than an educated Oligarchy,
and inasmuch as it is an universal one it is the
strongest also.
~
But the question of individuality as well as of
unity, depends much upon the relations between
the People and their natural leaders. Because the
latter are not only the advanced guard of truth in
science and of morals, but they alone can master
the will, and command the faith of a nation in
crises.
The experimentum  crusis, therefore, of Democracy is this,-Can the many submit themselves
on occasion to the guidance of the ONE or of the
few, who, in supreme moments of national existence can alone work out the national salvation?
In other words, can freedom'confer on a nationi
that intense unity, without which a nation cannot
weather certain crises?
The great law of intellect and genius is inequality.  The great law  of national -right is
equality. We contend that nature makes the
equation, in a Democracy where the all possess the
equal voice and right to distinguish those whom
nature has crowned their masters.




AND NATIONAL UNITY.                187
Equality develops Individual forces and selfreliance.  Can it also with all'its learning learn'in
stress of battle this one great lesson of strategy and
statescraft, namely, unity? The all in the one,
and the one for the all?  Can it choose its leaders
well, and follow them?
So far from  doubting this, we believe that a
true  Democracy  develops a  special faculty  of
selection. The natural leaders of our race will
always be few. They are the natural aristocracy.
To recognise them requires intelligence and
disinterestedness, and the universality of Democracy guarantees the one, whilst education would
guarantee the other. The masses have a natural
power of recognising their great men.  What says
Mill hereon?" No Government by a Democracy or a numerous aristocracy, never did, or could rise above mediocrity, except in
so far as the sovereign many, have let themselves be guided
(which in their best times they always have done) by the counsels
and influence of a more highly gifted and instructed one or
few... The honor and glory of the average man is that
he is capable of following that initiative."-Mill on " Liberty,"
p. 119.
And from the opposite extreme of mental
character (Hugo), but with perhaps more intuitive
profundity, we meet with the following exposition,
and indeed glorification, of men of genius as related
to the People, and of the intimate relations and
loyalty of the People to them.
" No one can foresee the quantity of light which will be
brought forth by letting the People be in communication with
men of genius. This combination of hearts will be the Voltaic
pile of civilisation. We know of nothing too lofty for the People.
The People are a great soul. They throw themselves passionately




188                  DEMOCRACY'
into the beautiful...  The transfiguration of enthusiasm
operates... The multitude, and in this lies their grandeur,
are profoundly open to the ideal."
" Contact with the beautiful agitates ecstatically the surface of multitudes, sure sign that the depth is sounded. All
the teachings are due to the People. The more divine the light,
the more is it made for this simple soul."
"People! the author, God, dedicates geniuses to thee."
- "True History explains how Francis II. succeeds to HIenry
II., &c., but not how Watt succeeds to Popin, and Fulton to
Watt.' The lamp which smokes on the opaque frontage of
royal accessions hides the starry reflection that the creators
of civilisation throw over ages. Not an historian of that series
points out the divine affiliation of human prodigies, that practical logic of Providence." —Huqo.
The problem is two-fold: to discover the ideas,
and to obey them; to discover the men who, being
greatest, serve most and best the age. Men there
are in every age, sent by God to lead it. If they
lead it not, it is unled. This is the root andjustiJication of the autocratic principle: necessity, —the
necessity  of leadership.   But there  is another
necessity,-that of the followers; the aspirations
and the wants of the million-headed and millionhearted  people.   Age  after  age, —nation  after
nation, have the People been put back to school to
misfortune, because they were not prepared, as an
entire People, to learn the lessons, or to deserve
and accept the progress and the glory set them or
won for them by their leaders.
And until one true nation had done this, the
best influence of nation upon nation was unemployed, and the world yet waited for its first great
step.
Therefore if a People cannot or will not recog



AND NATIONAL UNITY.         189
nise the men meant to connect epoch with epoch,
and each stage with the next, other nations are promoted over them to urge on the universal result.
"The People and the Men," unless they act
together, the form of Government is failure, or
revolt, or a despotism. If the men are not the
natural leaders, there is despotism and miscarriage.
-Neither -a true oligarchy nor a true People, but
anarchy instead of Democracy, and Devil's unction
for the Lord's anointing.  The People comprehend, but must act through their leaders, and we
claim that an instructed Democracy is the only
means possible whereby these two can be united
for the greatest commonweal.
If there be an overwhelming physical force and
weight of institutions against the People, then
the nation halts, until false systems are overthrown
or destroyed. What an instance of this, in 1776,
when the great commoner stood alone for the
People of both hemispheres, against a dastard
Oligarchy scrambling for privilege, and an imbecile
king, holding desperately on with all the soul he
had, to Prerogative! What an instance, again, the
era of dead lock and compromise, before the late
war in America!
No Oligarchy ever did, or ever can, either maintain itself or lead the people, unless it lead the
People towards Democracy. And we know of no
Oligarchy in history that was not more intent on
remaining an Oligarchy than on leading the People
from itself.
The natural kings of the earth lead its common




190              DEMOCRACY
people. The relations between them are eternal.
There is no other progress.
Let, then, the People acquire the power to
choose the men, and the men will conquer for them
the path into the future. Let education also be
universal. Then will the best thoughts of the
best men of the past, and the energies and will of
the great men of the present, become the common
property of the People. And where the universal
progress is not overshadowed by sectional or exclusive interests, this is the natural, the necessary,
and the inevitable.
There are three passions or vital creative forces
in the Universe; the first is the passion of God for
Souls.  The second the passion of the sexes
The third the passion of the People for Genius.
First, Creation. Next, the family Unity.
Lastly, the Unity of parties, communities, and
nations.
The People can only unite and advance under
a principle or a man.
God loved and created man. From the one
sprang the All. Love replenishes and perpetuates
creation, and prepares from an union of souls
the minor family unities that prepare for nations.
Genius presides over the making of nations and
the propaganda of truth, and prepares by the arts
and sciences the material media of international
and world-wide Union.
The universal reason of a People,, and the intuitions of genius, bear somewhat the same relation




AND NATIONAL UNITY.           191
to the ideal and the, infinite.  The relationship
between genius and the People is a sacred and
intuitive passion. Between them  they procreate
nations.
The universal reason corresponds, as far as mere
reason can, with the absolute in right and in truth,
and the absolute is the warrant of all our aspirations and of all our advances,-whether for this
world or that which is to come. This correspondence
is the basis of Democracy and of Belief.
The universal interest, also, is the absolute right.
"God and the People" is the ultimate expression
of this fact, for God rules the People by his lieutenants,-the Prophets, the Priests, the Lawgivers,
the Warriors, and the Martyrs, through the ages.
Common sense tells us that the foregoing must
be the conditions of the highest national unity.
America,-the only country of "equality of conditions," tells us that they are so.
So much for this momentous four-fold truism,
that development qualifies for, and inevitably leads
to association, that the two necessitate equality;
that equality tends to level all pretensions, save
those of intellect and character, and that thus
Democracy tends to national unity and life.
"The vocation of man " and the vocation of men
are subjects that cannot be separated. When these
political and personal vocations are fulfilled, then,
indeed, do progress and unity combine in the result
attributed by Fichte to a complete humanity; —
" The dead heavy mass, which did but stop up space, has




192                  DEMOCRACY
vanished; and in its place there flows onward, with the'rushing music of mighty waves, an eternal stream of life and power
and action, which issues from the original source of all life.
" Through that which to others seems a dead mass my eye
beholds this eternal life and movement rising in ever-increasing
growth, and ever purifying itself to a more spiritual expression.  The universe is to me no longer that eternally-repeated
play; it has become transfigured before me, and now bears
the one stamp of spiritual life, a constant progress towards higher
perfection in a line that runs out into the infinite.
"The sun rises and sets, the stars sink and reappear, and
all the spheres hold their circle dance; but they never return
again as they disappeared. Every hour which they lead on,
every morning and every evening sinks with new increase upon
the world; new life and new love descend from the spheres
like dew-drops from the clouds, and encircle nature as cool
night the earth."
"The individual," says Hegel, "traverses as a
unity various grades of Development, and remains
the same individual; in like manner also does a
People, till the spirit which it embodies reaches the
grade of universality." The impulse of the worldspirit to realise these grades is indeed boundless,the urging to its goal, irresistible.
Such is the natural course where the nationlife is not called to halt by sectional combinations
against it,-where Democracy can run its career.
In   the   last analysis,  UNIVERSALITY   and
UNITY are the two-fold object of Governments,
and how can either be secured without the all?
The interests of the universal People, by the will
of the universal People, free to learn of and to
follow their natural leaders;-this is the formulum
of efficiency and right. Governments are good in
proportion as they approach it.




AND NATIONAL UNITY.                  193
" If," said Michelet, " God has placed anywhere the type
of the political city, it was according to every appearance, in
the choral city,-in the soul of man. Well! what does this
soul do first? It takes up a fixed position, meditates there,
forms for itself a body, a dwelling place, a train of ideas. And
then it can act. In the same manner, the soul of a people
ought to make for itself a central point of organism.
"Nationality is ever the life of the world: if dead, all
would be dead.
" Let us sum up this history (of mere mechanical progress).
The State, without the country; industry and literature, without art; philosophy, without research; humanity, without
man."
" The spirit of nationality " (said Burke) " is at
once the bond and the safeguard of kingdoms; it
is something above laws and beyond thrones, —the
impalpable element, the inner life of States; bat
anti-nationality is the confusion and the downfall
of kingdoms,-it is a blight and a mildew to the
heritage of the People."
0








DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
THE PRECEDENT.
"The contest began in America. Considered in its unity,
as interesting mankind, the question was, shall the reformation
developed to the fulness of free enquiry, succeed in its protest
against the middle ages."-Bancroft.
" Soon after the reformation, a few People came over into
their new world for conscience sake. This apparently trivial
incident may transfer the great seat of empire into America."
-John Adams.
"' It may prove the advantage of all oppressed Christendom." —Gustavus Adolphus.
" The consequences of this design will be favorable to all
Christendom, to Europe, to the whole world."-Oxenstiern.
" America is therefore the land of the future, where in the
ages that lie before us, the burden of the world's history shall
reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are
weary of the historical lumber-room of old Europe. It is for
America to abandon the ground on which hitherto the history
of the world has developed itself. As regards history our
concern must be with that which has been and that which is.
In regard to philosophy we have to do with that which is
neither past nor future, but with that which has an eternal
existence, —with Reason."-Hegel's Philosophy of History.
" America has left behind it, in its passage over the ocean,
the cerements of the feudal system, hereditary aristocracy, primogeniture, entails, and the Established Church.
"Their fundamental institutions,-the principle of social and
political equality, the absence of hereditary rank, of primogeniture and entails, their free Churches and common schools, are
essentially those of the new, not those of the old world."
-Goldwin Smith.
"I regret to say that I only see at the present time two
Governments which well fulfil their providential mission; these
are the two colossi at either end of the world. Whilst our old
European centre is like a volcano consuming itself in its own
crater, the two nations, Oriental and Occidental, proceed unhesitatingly towards perfection, the one at the will of one man,
and the other by liberty."-Napoleon II1.
02




" This general misery of mankind is a fact which can be accounted for upon one only of two suppositions; either that
there is a natural tendency in population to increase faster
than capital, or that capital has by some means been prevented
from increasing so fast as it has a tendency to increase."James Mill, Political Economy.
" 126-45 increase of Wealth per cent. in ten years.
35-59    ditto    Population  ditto      ditto."American Census, 1860.
"We are draining,-we shall drain from  the old world its
most precious, its most important possession,-its intelligent laboring classes. Thus emigration will change our relation to the
European nations Men and money make a nation powerful.
Our true policy is peace."-North American Review.
" 50,000,000 acres of Public land appropriated to educational purposes."-Census, 1860.
"H Ilere more and more care is given to provide Education
for every one born on our soil. Here religion, released from
political connection, refuses to subserve the craft of Statesmen, and becomes the spiritual life of the People. Here the
national domain is offered, and held in millions of separate
freeholds, so that our fellow citizens, beyond the occupants of
any other part of the earth, constitute in reality a People."
" Under the provisions of the Homestead Act, 1,160,533
acres of the public lands were entered during the last fiscal
year." " The Homestead Policy was established after long and
earnest resistance; experience proves its wisdom. The lands
in the hands of industrious settlers, whose labor creates
wealth, and contributes to the public resources, are worth
more to the United States than if they had been reserved as a
solitude for future purchasers."-Johnson, Message, 1865.
" Compare the slow progress of those European countries
of which the wealth depends very much upon their commerce
and manufactures, with the rapid advance of our North
American colonies, of which the wealth is founded altogether
in agriculture. Through the greater part of Europe the number of inhabitants is not (A.D. 1784) supposed to double in less
than five hundred years. In several of our North American
colonies it is found to double in twenty or five and twenty
years. In Europe, the law of primogeniture and perpetuities
of different kinds prevent the division of great estates, and
thereby hinders the multiplication of small proprietors." —
Smith's Wealth of Nations, v. ii, p. 131.




197
CHAPTER IX.
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
THE PRECEDENT.
"The American Democracy is a territorial Democracy."D'Israeli.
"The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or
civil liberty... and advancements of every person according to his merit: the enjoyment of those never more certain,
and the access to these never more open, than in a free
commonwealth. Both which, in my opinion, may be best and
soonest obtained, if every county in the land were made a kind of
subordinate commonalty or commonwealth." —Milton.
" Now my idea of American civilisation is that it is a
second part, a repetition of that same sublime confidence in the
public conscience and the public thought that made the groundwork of Grecian Democracy."
" Not only the inevitable, but the best power this side of
the ocean, is the unfettered common sense of the masses.
1" We are launched on the ocean of an unchained Democracy, with no safety but in those laws that bind the ocean to
its bed,-the instinctive love of right in the popular heart."
-- Wendell Phillips.
"Not Democracy in America, but free Christianity in
America, is the real key to the study of the People and their
institutions. Christianity the great reality of history. In
Europe Christianity was paralysed by divisions into national
Churches. So that until State and Church were separated, a
higher spirit was hopeless.
" The Church in the old world was therefore unable to do
what the men of two centuries ago proposed, when England
was in her noblest mood, for never had she been so noble as
in the days of Hampden, Falkland, Milton, and Cromwell, and
when she sent forth a religious band, who founded a colony in
the new world. By this exodus, which brought Christianity
out of the State Churches, men escaped from feudalism to the
system founded upon equality and justice."- Goldwin Smith.
Three mighty problems, in which all Peoples
and systems are concerned, are now, in the fullness of time, nearly worked out upon the American
Continent.




198        DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN NATION, FEDERATION, AND DEMOCRACY.
That making means the ascendency of the
nationality over its two deadly foes,-materialism
and oligarchy. It means the definitive victory of
national unity, not only over law-made classes
(the vice of the old world), but over sectional and
sinister interests supported by " State" power.
It is the NEXT STEP, in the world logic of
history, to the English and French Revolutions,
which settled, on the carcases of Kings, the principle of the right divine of Peoples.
The English revolution failed of its direct purpose. The people could not continue in power, but
they had broken the spell of prerogative, and made
possible a successful contest between the few and
the one, the families and the sovereign. It took
England from Cromwell to the Reform Bill to get
from the power of the few to that of the many.
The sea saved the English from an intervention
of Catholics and Legitimists, or perhaps from an
European war.
The French, without the sea, had their European war. Since then, the revolution has energised
the empire and the empire has organised the revolution, both have been a propagandism for Europe,
and French emperors have been its hierarchs or
victims.
What the sea did for the English, the ocean
has done for America and the world.
Three thousand miles of water, which first
saved the infant Republic, have now saved the oli



THE PRECEDENT.            199
garchs and men-stealers of the South from extermination. They have also saved America a thirty
years' war, which European Statesmen might have
made into a universal war, had the Peoples of
Europe allowed them.
The next step to the assertion of the representative or the national sovereignty is now
taken.
The Royal nation is at last definitively constituted. The People sit at last in their own Purple,
-with no equal yet in the world, and with no
master save their conscience, their reason, and their
God.
It is proved not only that slavery is not necessary to Republics, but that it cannot exist in a true
Republic. And as for oligarchy (a form of barbarism), the voiding of it out, is an act, so to speak, of
mere Republican nature.
And we need not explain here, how that nature,
the temperate zone, and Republicanism, being all
against slavery, the South had always to choose
between secession and defeat, or concession and
the gradual destruction of Slavery, and with it, of
the material basis of oligarchy.
Free labour was everywhere invading, and " demoralising" the border States, and the waiting
game of the North, working with the exactness of
economics, and the remorselessness of Destiny, left
no one chance for slaveholders, save a move further
South, a re-opening on a gigantic scale of the Slave
Trade, and the erection in the real South of a veritable Slave Empire.




200          DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
This chance, the "Statesmanship" of Davis,
and the armies of Lee, have lost to the Devil and
to the South, for ever and a day.
The principle of national unity has triumphed
over the licence of individuals, and even the licence
of States. Secession is the reductio ad absurdum
of State rights, as anarchy in that of freedom.
America now presents the completest example yet
of what a State should be. In complete contrast
to German Federalism, it secures the full liberty of
the individual, and reconciles it to the strongest
expression of nationality.
"The political constitution of Germany (says Hegel, p. 455,'Philosophy of History') involves no thought, no conception of
the proper aim of a State..... The establishment of a constituted anarchy, such as the world had never before seen;
i. e., the position that an empire is properly a unity, a totality,
a state, while yet all the relations are determined so exclusively on the principle of private right, that the privilege of
all the constituent parts of that empire to act for themselves,
contrarily to the interest of the whole, or to neglect that which
its interest demands, is guaranteed and secured by the most
inviolable sanctions."
This mighty danger is passed for America. Instead of straining the principle of State rights to
the denial of national and individual rights, and
to the formation of a "'constituted anarchy," it
has gone naturally and necessarily on, upon its
natural unities of race, language, religion, boundary, and (now of) institutions, to a Democratic
empire.
The great Montesquieu thus unconsciously pro



THE PRECEDENT.                  201
nounces upon the advantages of this Republican
Federation:"It is therefore very probable that mankind would have
been, at length, obliged to live constantly under the Government of a single person, had they not contrived a kind of constitution that has all the internal advantages of a republican, together with the external force of a monarchical Government. I
mean, a confederate republic.
"This form  of Government is a convention, by which
several petty estates agree to become members of a larger
one, which they intend to establish. It is a kind of assemblage of societies, that constitute a new one, capable of increasing by means of farther associations, till they arrive to such a
degree of power, as to be able to provide for the security of
the whole body.
"' It was these associations that so long contributed to the
prosperity of Greece. By these the Romans attacked the whole
globe; and by these alone the whole globe withstood them.
For, when Rome was arriving to her highest pitch of grandeur, it was the associations beyond the Danube and the
Rhine, associations formed by the terror of her arms, that
enabled the barbarians to resist her.
" A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external
force, may support itself without any internal corruption; the
form of this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.
~" If a single member should attempt to usurp the supreme
power, he could not be supposed to have an equal authority
and credit in all the confederate States. Were he to have too
great an influence over one, this would alarm the rest; were
he to subdue a part, that which would still remain free might
oppose him with forces independent of those which he had
usurped, and overpower him before he could be settled in his
usurpation.
"' Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the confederate
States, the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into
one part they are reformed by those that remain sound. The
State may be destroyed on one side and not on the other; the
confederacy may be dissolved, and the confederates preserve
their sovereignty.
" As this Government is composed of petty republics, it
enjoys the internal happiness of each; and, with regard to its
external situation, by means of the association, it possesseth
all the advantages of large monarchies."-Montesquieu, vol. i.
pp. 165-167.
The American nation and Democracy are made.




202        DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
The spirit of Republicanism will recommence its
moral propagandism under all the thrones of the
world, and it needs no base of operations, for its
base is in every soul of man.
The loss and despair of the Oligarchic Empire is
the hope and the gain of every human creature.
The question to be put to any given nation respecting the system of Government that claims to
rule it, is, as we have seen, always this:-" Has it
also promoted the Individual Manhood-Development of that nation, —diffused it to a reasonable
extent, and raised it to a certain quality 2"
If it have not, the thing is hardly to be called
" Government." If it have, one need scarcely ask
about the inevitable results, national unity, progress, and conservatism. Still less need we fear
that proximity, or increasing compactness of the
social state can alter the problem or the result.
The first question, then, wherewith to test this
great democratic precedent, is the individual; it
is the problem of the effect of an universal education and enfranchisement upon individual wellbeing.
The second is of intermediate powers (called,
in America, States).
The third is of national unity.
The fourth is of the balance and adjustment of
the rights and properties of Individual, State, and
Nation.
The fifth is the problem of the safe increase of




THE PRECEDENT.             203
States, in the formation and maintenance of vaster
conglomerates of empire than have hitherto been
practicable.
Many other questions there are which are
American only, but the grand all-involving problem,
both American and universal, is the effect of the
universality and equality of the basis upon the
Development of individuals, the Adjustment of
subordinate parts, and the Unity of the whole.
"Universality,"-of vote power, interest, and
intelligence.
"Equality," —nothing against manhood or nationality. No law-made classes and castes against
the first; no corporate obstructions or sub-sovereignties as against the second.
Religion being free, it will be purer and stronger.
Intelligence, being free in school, press, church,
and assembly, the motive power developed will be
greater.
Greater Stability, greater Loyalty, Material,
Political, and Religious Development. The motive
power and the organisation as nearly coinciding as
possible. A true "Democracy," —for its rule is of,
by, andfor the Peo2ple.
These problems America has now more completely solved than any other nation. FEDERAL
REPUBLICANISM is the term that best expresses
the fact. It combines the three principles (so constantly alleged to be contradictory) of Equality,
Adjustment, and Unity.




204         DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
Respecting these principles, it may be alleged
in detail that the "Freedom" of the American
citizen is not at present equalled;* that the activity and self -reliance of his intellect is a proverb;
that their provisions for education and religious
teaching are unrivalled; that their powers of association were one of the special themes of De Tocqueville, and are unique; that the public life of
the People is equally energetic, the highest offices
rewarding personal ambition; and that the road of
civilisation is always open to the People, and the
next step in national progress always agitated, and
often settled beforehand, and decided by the entire
nation for itself in the presidential and other contests.
Further, not only is this war an unequalled
test and triumph of moral principle, but it is in one
aspect a struggle of national against sectional sovereignty, the result of a widening and intensifying
of the sentiment of patriotism during the last
epoch. Its nationality is thus " completer." It is
also " stronger," inasmuch as individual freedom is
now also completer. Americans know and elevate
their best men.  They unanimously reject all
theories of Church endowment that would make
religion an accomplice with class jealousies, despotism, or reaction. Their dependence on the Collective Reason has become more entire and direct.
* " The'tyranny of opinion' in America in the midst of a
dangerous civil war, appeared to him very like the freedom of
opinion which other countries enjoy in time of perfect peace."
— Goldwin Smith, Jan. 22nd, 1866.




THE PRECEDENT.             205
Their battle was and is against treason to the will
of a constitutional majority. Their national unity
has proved itself equal to the greatest strain that
was ever applied to an administration. The temporary submission to mediocre Presidents in the
era of compromise which the desperation of Slavery
enforced, and the treason of factions permitted, is
an exception that proves the rule.
These considerations are indeed amplified elsewhere, but it suffices here to say that that which
had been a priori a truism, is, a posteriori, a
fact; that Democracy, of all systems, develops the
qualities of manhood most freely and amply, that
where nature is left unshackled, she works best;
that the freest Government calls forth the best
qualities, that the best qualities make the best
men,-the best men the best citizens,-the best
citizens the best community; that, in fine, the
triumph of Individuality, with its interconnections
free and infinite, is also the triumph of Nationality,
-" that the most complete Democracy is also the
completest, intensest, and strongest of nations."
But leaving these positions, most of which are
now admitted, and all of which are getting more
undeniable every day, we address ourselves to that
which may be considered the crux as regards this
working model of Democracy, namely, the question
of the conservative effect of republican principles
and institutions.
The bases of DEMOCRATIC CONSERVATISM in




206       DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
America are two-fold,-natural and artificial,
arising from harmony of the institutions with the
national life, and from the free conditions of that
life.
According to Montesquieu and common sense,
there is in every nation "a general spirit upon
which power itself is founded," and where constitutional forms agree with the national principle
and passion, and allow of ready modification by an
orderly expression of the national will, there
Government can be strong, and the nation conservative, and yet progressive.
American conservatism is both natural and
artificial, essential and formal. The first depends
of course -upon a continued right direction of
public opinion.  The second upon a continued
coincidence between the executive and public
opinion.
We shall see, and this is the great lesson, that
as power and opportunity recede from the nation
to its representatives, and from them to the
representatives of States, they lose true conservatism and true Democracy together, and
tend more to weakness, conservatism and
anarchy.
The American People, whose passion is equality,
have conquered it and deserve it. With it alone
is the mean of conservatism and progress.
It is the pretence of the old politics where
the People and the Government are never identified,
that good Government depends upon an elaborately
arranged and accurately adjusted system of check




THE PRECEDENT.            207
and counter-check, to keep in balance or mutually
to destroy or neutralise the opposing selfishness
and follies of the People. In other words, that
national unity cannot rest upon the nation. The
American constitution adopts the principle of a
balance, but applies it, not as against the People,
but as against officials.
The history of the American Government and
People shews throughout, that the People have
been the true Conservatives, that the checks have
been useless or worse, and that where they have
been dispensed with, they have been dispensed
with by conservatives for evil, and by the People
for good.
The American system will not entertain the
possibility of standing armies of soldiers or of
priests to cajole or coerce the People.  That
system endeavours, not even to oppose the national
will by official machinery, but simply to make
sure of an adequate unanimity. It seeks and bows
to the collective wisdom equally and adequately
expressed.
And here again simplicity and nature bear
away the palm. The executive is but the arm of
opinion, lengthened through four years, and the
People are the constitution. Both are destroying
the treason of a minority, aimed alike against
Democracy, public opinion, conservatism, and themselves. Public opinion and the executive can only
quarrel when the President or Vice attempts,
during his four years term, to cast off his opinions
and his party, and to repudiate the platform for




208        DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
which he has worked and conquered, or when some
new and startling question arises in dispute. In
either case public opinion could instantly combine
against its instrument, and secure his extinction
at the earliest constitutional period, if not before.
In the latter case public opinion would express
itself as it has often done, through its representatives and by convention, but in completer fashion
than in other constitutional countries, where the
representation is on a narrower base.
It may be objected;-" This is indeed an
unchained Democracy." We answer, such is the
boast of Americans. The nation depends on ITSELF.
It can neither be pulled down nor kept up by its
servants. And as cosmopolitans we may rejoin
-" If it should deserve destruction, let it be destroyed; if it is worthy of life, let us appropriate
the elements of its immortality."
And the tendency of this Democracy, is to
become more Democratic.
How then, it is asked, does this natural conservatism of the American nation show itself?
We answer this question by asking and answering
another.
What is the actual American Government?
It has its supreme Legislative, Executive, and
Judiciary. It has also its Balances, simple, natural,
and inevitable, between the Individual, the " States,"
and the Nation. But the actual supreme Legislative has been the People's Convention, "tempered"
with the electoral college. The sovereign People




THE PRECEDENT.             2'09
declare by Press, Platform, and Convention their
will. They instruct their candidate, and his political existence, as well as honour, binds him to them,
although in theory they elect not him, but his
electors. And what is this "balance of the Constitution," this system of check and counter-check
by a supposed indirect election? —nothing! The
electors are mere " conduit pipes,"-trustees with
the trust dictated from hour to hour. The electoral
college neither "tempers" nor even "hampers'
popular action. The election of President is virtually direct. And mark! It is the People-the
nation-that began and carried on this war against
Slavery.
And how about the Senate, which is supposed
to be a mainstay of "conservatism," and another
item in the check system? Why the two-fold.
answer is this, —The People fought for this Senate
power, by fighting for free institutions in new
States (two senators for each State). The People
conquered. They got the majority. But until they
got it the senators were, in almost all divisions, the
chief supports of a slave-system, at once immoral,
anarchical, and destructive.
As for the House of Representatives, their term
is shorter, they depend more upon the People. The
northern section was more outspoken than that in
the Senate, and truer to the right.
Thus we see that the People, the true Democracy, adhere to the Constitution, and "Conserva-i
tism" was so excessive as to identify itself with
destruction, anarchy, and rebellion. The ConserP




210        DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
vatives would have retained Slavery and embraced
destruction, because " Slavery is in the Constitution." They rent the Constitution, and declared
war against the nation, because they despaired of
identifying Slavery (oligarchy and barbarism) with
either. They overrode all the Slave States' Constitutions, because to wait for constitutional action
would have been fatal to their plans.
And the supreme Judiciary    It left the
People, and declared that negroes are not men. It
was sufficiently "tempered," to parody the mot
of the Revolution, to declare that "robbery is
property," and to identify the judgment seat with
a felony which deprived of their dearest rights
four millions of souls! The Chief Justice was the
arch-thief of the Republic. The People appealed
to the ultizna ratio of nations against his decision.
For schemes of partial interest, or of difficult
comprehension, no doubt, Oligarchy is best adapted.
But such schemes are not to the interest of the
universal People, and therefore cannot be really
conservative. The universal reason of the universally instructed People is, and must be, the least
defective expression of the will of God. A People
that only endorses a policy already transacted is
not free, and is conservative only as imbecility or
nonentity is conservative. A People that has its
affairs done for it in secret conclave, can have but
little volition and less character, and is scarcely yet
a nation.




THE PRECEDENT.            211
The English people could not feed on the strong
meat of Cromwell, and were put back to the offal
of the second Charles. They did not support
Chatham in his thoughts of peace for America, and
reform for England,-they were pat back through
two wars against the American Republic, and one
long war, of near a generation, against the French
People. When their training is complete, they will
follow their leaders to power,-know what is, and
what is not, their foreign policy, and leaving it to
others to reign by whatsoever forms, will see to it
that they themselves govern.
As pointed out before, it is the very universality
of power, and will, and education upon which Democracy is based, that makes its executive at once the
intensest unity, and the safest of all systems.
There is no grander moral spectacle than the
appeal of their future rulers to the American People,
The universal conscience and intellect are stirred
to the depths. Parties are matched against parties
on definite platforms and projects. Leaders descend
into the arena and canvass the States, discussing,
not what has been a policy already secretly enacted,
and then for the first time revealed, but what
ought to be the work of the next four years of the
People's servants.
The general and excessive tendencies of
American statesmen, during the Slavery era, to
Conservatism are powerfully illustrated by the
proceedings of the famous Committee of Thirtythree, in 1860. It consisted of one from each State,
and was to consider the perilous condition of the
P2




212        DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
country. It met again and again; resolved and
re-resolved; rescinded, confirmed, and abandoned;
proposed an immense number of resolutions, and
rejected all that tended to settle anything or present distinct issues, and affirmed about half a dozen
propositions, such as-that it is improper for
Congress to abolish slavery,-that certain things
should not be interfered with, —the most emphatic
conclusion being that "no amendment against
Slavery shall originate with non-slaveholding
States, or shall be valid without the assent of
every one of the States!" (See p. 25, Report No. 31.)
Thus the delegates of every State but five
would have "conserved" even Slavery.
Let us, then, not be deceived by vain words.
There is a point where "conservatism" becomes
corruption, just as there is another point where
progress becomes mania.
To conserve forms that are not adapted to the
spirit is to ensure their violent destruction.
To conserve evil principles of Government is to
appeal to the ultima ratio of revolution, or to drive
progress from our shores that other nations may
use it to pass us in peaceful competition or to
destroy us by war.
The function of Conservatism is to reject what
is premature in opportunity or bad in principle.
To postpone unjustly or too long ensures perpetual
barrenness or premature decrepitude, and puts to
the nation the alternative of the destruction of its
politicians or of itself
The Americans tolerated an excessive Conser



THE PRECEDENT.-            2,13
vatism till the land stank with it, and the spawn of
its putrescence went up over all their institutions.
These politicians would have destroyed the nation
with their conservatism, and so by war the nation
destroyed them.
Nations that go back, perish. A policy of
retrogression is a policy of despair. A policy of
stagnation is a policy of suicide. The essence of
Conservatism is progress, but in the right direction.
And thus deeper down and more elementary
than any written proviso whatsoever, is the conservatism of religion, intelligence, prosperity, and
political equality, guaranteed by human nature to
all those nations that shall, like America,> have the
sense and the daring to trust her.
There is one kind of Conservatism which partakes both of the natural and artificial, namely,
the spirit of reluctance with which any project
would be entertained for the alteration of the
form of the Constitution,-a natural reluctance to
meddle with the artificial formulum  of their
liberties agreed on by their Fathers. Thus, as
Mr. Everett said, it was at the time of the Reform
Bill admitted in England, " that the United States
possessed in their written Constitution, and in the
difficulty of procuring amendments to it, a conservative principle unknown to the English Government."
American Democracy is Conservative by reason
of the following artificial or constitutional arrange



214         DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
ments. We repeat, the advantage and the aim is,
not to limit the People, but to check one branch of
Government by another, and to correct the views
of extreme sections of the People by the general
mIass:1st. There is the great constitutional check in
the limitation of the granted powers of Congress,
and in the exactness of the written Constitution.
2nd. The constitutional law of change and
amendment of the Constitution. Thus Draper
says:" For the permanency of any such system, it is essentially
necessary that it should include within its own organisation
a law of change, and not of change only, but change in the
right direction, —the direction in which the Society interested
is about to pass."
Reservation of rights to States require a majority of States for alterations in the Constitution.
3rd. The organisation of the Senate as their
representative, two for each State, whatever its
size or population.
4th. THE SUPREME COURT is a check on unconstitutional Legislation, whether by acts of Congress or by Sovereign States. It sits in judgment
on both.
In seventy-one years preceding 1860, there had
been but four Chief Justices of the United States,
and the fourth was then on the bench. They are
not, as such, members of the Cabinet, nor displaced
with political changes, nor have they any such
office as the Speakership of the Upper House in
England, with vast official influence and patronage.
5th. Owing to the peculiar state of Society,




THE PRECEDENT.                   215
members of the LEGAL PROFESSION, there so active,
numerous, and powerful, constitute, says De Tocqueville,  "the  most powerful existing  security
against the excesses of Democracy, whilst Democratic Government is favorable to the political power
of lawyers, who constitute the only enlightened
class the People does not mistrust. Their habits of
order, taste for formalities, and instinctive regard
for the regular connection of ideas, render them
hostile to the revolutionary spirit. They oppose
their aristocratic propensities to the democratic
instincts of the people, their attachment to what is
antique to its love of novelty, their narrow views
to its immense designs, and their habitual procrastination to  its ardent impatience.  The American
aristocracy is not composed of the rich, who are
united by no common tie. It occupies the judicial
bench and the bar.  This party extends over the
whole community, and penetrates into all classes of
society; it acts upon the country imperceptibly,
but it finally fashions it to suit its purposes."
6th. Moreover, one conspicuous element in the
Democratic conservatism  of America is the FREEDOM OF WORSHIP.
De Tocqueville says of this (p. 266, v. ii):"The American legislators had succeeded to a certain extent in opposing the permanence of the religious world to the continual shifting of politics, and Churchmen mainly attributed the
peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the separation of
Church and State. As long as religion is sustained by those
feelings, propensities, and passions, which are found to occur
under the same forms at all the different periods of history, it
may defy the efforts of time; or, at least, it can only be destroyed by another religion. As a nation assumes a democratic
condition, it becomes more and more dangerous to connect religion




216           DEMOCRACY IN  AMERICA.
withpolitical institutions. Political powers often depend on the
opinion of a generation, the interests of the time, or the life of
an individual. If the Americans had not placed religion beyond
the reach of innovators, where could it abide in the ebb and flow
of human opinions? Where would that respect which belongs
to it be paid amidst the struggles of faction, what would become of its immortality in the midst of perpetual decay? In
America religion is perhaps less powerful than at certain
periods, but its influence is more lasting.- The two great
dangers which threaten the existence of religion are schism and
indifference. In Europe the living body of religion has been
bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity."
7th. The increased centralisation wrought in
the habits and manners of the People by war, railways, canals, telegraphs, banks, &c.
8th. And the responsibility of the President,
the head of the Executive, to the People alone,
whilst yet they check one another, has an element
of conservatism  in it.  Thus Mill confesses:1" There is unquestionably some advantage in a country like
A:merica, where no apprehension need be entertained of a
coup d'Etat, in making the chief minister constitutionally independent of the legislative body, and rendering the two great branches
of the Government, while equally popular both in their origin
and in their responsibility, an effective check on the other.  The
plan is in accordance with that sedulous avoidance of the concentration of great masses of power in the same hands, which is a
marked characteristic of the American Federal constitution."-J.
S. Mill, on " Representative Government," p. 250.
The London  Times, of January 11th, 1865, adverted to the plan then proposed of having thenceforth talking ministers, heads of the executive
departments, in the House of Representatives, and
argued that that would raise the standard and the
value of public talent, and tend to divide the responsibility, and limit the power of the President.
We have already  quoted  Napoleon  III on this
point (see "-Democracy and National Unity "). The




THE. PRECEDENT.            217
change would involve many other changes, and is
not now entertained.  It is, however, essentially
only a question of who shall be called President,
and as long as the universal People are the fons et
origo ofpower, and the constant dispensers of it, they
will not be baulked by their creatures.
Public opinion will always be president of
America.
9th. There are certain principles which attenda federated nationality, and, which constitute a fundamental difference between the effect of great set
currents of opinion in America and those which pervade the politics of all other nations. Here is a
veritable nation, and also a federation of States.
Elsewhere, there is not the nation, or there is not
the federation, or other conditions are essentially
different.. Here there are the People, the State,
and the States.
The Democratic and Conservative tendencies,
-the eternal flux and reflux, and conflict, between
the past and the future,-between the things that
are and the things that have to come, —how are
these tendencies and forces affected or controlled
by the forms of the American Constitution? What
is the natural vice of Democracy?  It is to exaggerate the rights of the Individual, without
reference to the necessities of order. What is the
natural vice of Conservatism? It is to exaggerate
the necessities of order, as against ideal and actual
right.
But the American system introduces a strange
third element.




218        DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA,
Is there any movement really wild, furious, or
uncertain? It encounters, naturally and necessarily, not only the forms and the interests of
national, but of State organization (always excepting the anomaly of the Slave interest). Is there
any danger of a too great or despairing tenacity of
central conservatism? Then the thirty-four nuclei
also of vested interests and of minor sovereignties,
would combine to oppose it, for they have natural
instincts, so to speak, equally averse to be absorbed
by the great centre, or to be swept away by a too
" sovereign People."
As Mr. Everett put it:-" Each of these States
is a representative commonwealth, composed of two
branches, with the ordinary divisions of Executive,
Legislative, and Judicial power."
Their representation by Senators is the least
objectionable "representation of minorities" that
could be devised.
America avoids the "constituted anarchy" of
German federal politics, whilst it maintains State
life and local action.
This system seems to explain many so-called
" anomalies" in American politics, and to go further than human political science has gone elsewhere, towards the accomplishment of that feat
which will crown some future political millennium,
-the perfect reconcilement of order and progress,
of indispensable forms and of abstract right.
10th. The absolute executive unity of the
President is all powerful under the constitution.
Also his election by the People.




THE PRECEDEN T.            219
11th. Representation according to population.
We have shown how in the mighty struggle
and strain against Slavery, the natural conservatism
of the nation asserted itself against official opponents, excessive conservatism, and anarchy.
We have also just seen what are some of the
artificial conservative arrangements.
We propose now to show certain extraordinary
instances of that only true conservatism,-of life,
morals, and character.
For before all things there has been an intense,
agonising realisation of the supreme value of the
human life and soul, and a conservatism of morality,
humanity, and religion, irrepressibly developed,
and  incessantly, and  aggressively  manifested
by this Democracy during the conduct of the war.
We say that for economy of and respect for
life, for humanity, and religion, American organisations have surpassed all others. Witness the
following, from the Sanitary, and Christian Commissions, which complemented the Commissariat and
the Chaplaincy in a way never before suggested.
A pair of shoes are often as good as a
recruit, and to dispense with red tape, when
ice, brandy, or blankets are wanted, is often to
save life.
The groans of the wounded rise usually from
battle fields like the roar of a distant cataract,
till slowly, silence and death prevail. The rate of
mortality, in January, 1 855, would have annihilated




220'       DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
our army, in the Crimea by hunger, cold, and
untended wounds, in ten months.
In America, the standing army was 12,000.
Suddenly an immense number of wholly unskilled
men rushed to arms. Large numbers of Church
members were amongst them, for they believed in
Government and in God. The worst and the best
enlisted.  Congregations have given whole companies. Young Men's Christian Associations have
given regiments. The Churches sent about oneseventh of their male communicants. The Western
Churches more. The Bible Classes an immense
number. An Illinois regiment was officered almost
wholly by clergymen. And a higher class than
ordinary was the staple, and not for any war, but
for special national service.
A great central Women's Association, with
town and village sub-associations, "Soldiers Aid
Societies," and "Village Sewing Circles," also upheld the cause.
The objects of the Commission were,-to choose
sites of camps on scientific sanitary principles —to
avoid malaria,-to drain, to water, to cook, to
clothe, to regard the health, comfort, and morale,to control and stop unnecessary waste of life,-to
study and act upon vital statistics, —to remove
official obstructions, — to supply surgeons with
professional reading and short treatises on army
diseases,-to  study European  military invalid
systems, —establish experimental sanatoria, &c.
In the first two years the Sanitary Commission
received gifts valued at nearly eight millions of




THE PRECEDENT.'221
"dollars. Its " flying dep6t " carried underclothing,
bedding, towels, handkerchiefs, vegetables, condensed milk, pickles, crutches, ice, dressing gowns,
fans, pads, sponges, eau-de-Cologne, mosquito netting, potatoes and onions, refrigerating cars lined
with zinc and ice, needles, thread, buttons, cutlery,
papers and envelopes, currant wine, &c., &c. The
waggons and huge wheeled caldrons were always
in reach. It established vast gardens, and also
frequently swept the Western markets, to hunt the
demon scurvy from the camp. It is believed that
a million of men have passed through the hospitals,
In the autumn of 1862, seventy thousand beds
were arranged in a short time. A "railway ambulance" was devised with perfect appointments for
sleep, rest, and food. It established an Hospital
Directory and scheme of death records, of relations
wounds, and sickness, and of dying requests, place
of burial, and memorial tablets.  Sickness was
reduced to the ordinary civil-life ratio. The Commnission has modified history.
California has given 600,000 dollars, placing
money boxes beside the electoral urns. Insurance
Companies, Banks, Railway Companies, have given
princely donations. The Chicago and New York
fairs each yielded about a million. The farmers and
mechanics moved with their gifts and produce, en
masse, and offered them with tears and prayers.
A convention of delegates from Young Men's
Christian Associations, started the Christian Commission.
Railways, telegraphs, hotels, offices, clerks, pub



222        DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
lication societies, tracts, and Bibles were offered and
used by it free of charge.
Three thousand devoted men, - clergymen,
lawyers, doctors, merchants, laboured for it even to
the borders of the grave, each man received his
commission and free railway pass, a blanket and
strap (to be sure of a bed), a bucket and cup, a
lantern, small comforts, books or tracts. A depot
Was always at the nearest convenient place, and
stores for the next battle are always labelled and
ready. They hurried to every field. They washed,
clothed, fed, wrote for, prayed with, and advised
the living, and closed the eyes of the dead.
From  all corners of the Union was an unceasing influx of comforts,-to every point of the
vast wmar horizon an unceasing efflux.
After the march, the huge cooking waggons
were ready with coffee or soup. With the march
went the supply waggons, and hot coffee has been
served during the fight to wearied soldiers.
Scarcely a man has served without receiving
Bibles and tracts, or died without the voice of promise and of prayer. Vast military prayer-meetings
were held, Churches were founded, and communion
dispensed.
In 1863 were distributed half a million Bibles,
nearly the same number of hymn and psalm-books,
one million and a quarter of small books, three
millions religious newspapers, and twelve millions
pages of tracts.
The revenue of Christian Commission rose the
last year to nearly two millions.




THlE PRECEDENT.           223
Religion was thus powerfully aggressive. The
song of praise has been heard to spread far and
wide over the field after battle, and probably the
Bible was more generally read than by any other
half million of men.
At the various head-quarters there was always
a soldier's reading-room, with this conspicuous
notice:-" The newspapers on the files are dailies
and weeklies, from your State and country. Sit
down and read. The writing-table and stationery
are for your use. They want to hear from you at
home. If out of stamps, drop your letter in the
box,-we will stamp and mail it. Those Testaments, hymn-books, and religious papers were sent
to you-take one. The library has many interesting
books; find the one you like, have it recorded, and
return it in five days. If you are in trouble, speak
to any agent in the room; you are the one he
wants to see."
In September, 1864, Mr. E. C. Fisher, of New
York, addressed the Social Science Congress at
York (England), on "Military Discipline and
Volunteer Philanthropy," ending with the following affirmations:" This Volunteer Sanitary Commission has furnished to the different armies of the Republic,
since the commencement of the war, nearly four
millions of pounds sterling of army necessaries,
comforts, and luxuries. Its establishment, orgamisation, magnitude, and achievements prove three
things:
"Firstly. The armies of the North could be ren



224        DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
dered incomparably more efficient by the volunteer
aid and assistance of the people, without the slight-est infringement of military discipline, or interference with the constituted medical authorities of
armies.
"Secondly. The American civil war affords
the brightest example of spontaneous, and yet organised, benevolence, and furnishes an example
which other nations will do well to emulate.
"Thirdly. The whole of the American peoplemen, women, and children alike —in thus rendering their armies efficient, proved conclusively that
the war was not carried on, as many in Europe suppose, by the Government of a minority; but was
waged by the great mass of the citizens. In no
other way can you explain the colossal achievements of this volunteer commission."- (London
Correspondent of New York Tribune, see " Sanitary
Reporter," Nov. 1, 1864.)
The Freedmen's Aid Societies constitute another
gigantic organisation too well known to require
explanation. Patriotism, Religion, and Humanity
are equally represented in them, —and to save a
nation of bondsmen.
The spectacle of the American nation and Democracy ought to reassure the most cautious, of
the final success of the Principle of Democracy, and
of that particular example of it.
Without an army, with scarcely a fleet; during
the Presidency of a traitor or an imbecile; divided




THE PRECEDENT.            225
within by a false "Democracy" uniting all who
feared universal suffrage, who hated immigrant
preponderance, or who would surrender principle
for peace,-and divided without by a schism of
thirteen States bound together in as intense and
enthralling a union as interest, fear, prejudice,
and Oligarchy could make. Yet over all these the
nation and the Democracy triumph.
What is the secret?-for the "educated" opinion
of the world pronounced a priori against the actual
result.
The secret of course is that American Democracy answers near enough to the ideal Democracy.
That it is a real Democracy. That it is Democracy
enough to do what it ought to do,-assimilate or
destroy its foes.
There is the three-fold bond, universal intelligence, interest, and will, —the knowledge, the responsibility, and the power.
There are the States with local energies, ambitions, and rewards, minding their local matters,
and balancing with wholesome jealousies any
tendencies of any other States to exceed their
powers.
There are the individuals who compose each
State, constituting also the nation, and with passion for nationality naturally overruling (save
when selfish and purely local abuses interfere)
those for neighbourhood and locality.
There is the Church minding her own business,
"its ministers not (see New York State Constitution) diverted from the great duties of their func



226        DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
tions by holding any civil or military offices."
Thus the Church keeps her influence for that
which is essentially expansive, universal, conservative, and progressive.
It concerns itself with the individual American,
the individual sectarian, and if it favored the
South or Slavery, it did it not in any national
capacity.
There is the Territory one as Adam, with
Mississippi for back bone, Ohio and Upper Mississippi for arms, grasping east and west the land;
with its confluent rivers for ribs and muscles; with
cities for ganglions, and the universal Democracy for
nerve-essence, and brain, and soul.
It has improvised the vastest armies, and shown
that the interests of rebels are sectional, vicious,
and irreconcileable; it survived four months of
traitorous administration, it has conciliated the
Border States, is liberating the negro nation, conducted a general election with calmness amidst a
political tempest, re-elected its peasant emperor,
giving him the necessary powers of dictatorship
whilst it remains a Republic, and has turned the
greatest struggle the world has seen into its greatest blessing.
It has transcended the hopes and rebuked the
fears of the great philosopher of Democracy, and
has shown a life, a tenacity, a statesmanship, a
conservatism, a morality, a culture, a power, and a
love of glory,-a caution to Despotisms of the
present, and a beacon light to Democracies of the
future.




THE PRECEDENT.             227
It has not created a new science, but it has
shown to the trembling and to the waiting world
a developed and united People,-a working model
of Democracy.
Naturally, the world of the few is full of fears,
blasphemies, unbelief, and despair,-the world of
the many, of hopes, faith, and exultation.
The flag of the People stands. It waves at
last over a ROYAL NATION.
American Democracy sprung from the best
part of the best age of England. It has flourished
in spite of and by means of every foe, especially of
its last and greatest, —Slavery. It contains two
elements never before united, for long, in Democracies,-FREEDOM   and  EQUALITY. The first
secures it from oppression in the present; the last
retains to it self-Government, and secures it from
those forms of Oligarchy which may at last degenerate into the fact of Despotism. Equality can
alone so completely prepare the individual as to
make him a fitting material for the vastest international combinations.
The qualities and proportions of the great
American nation are, in fact, at present, the one
essential question for the future of Democracy
and Nationality everywhere. And, strange to say,
they are still to the politicians of this generation
almost an unknown quantity.
The constitutional balance between the Man,
2




228          DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
the Institution, and the Government;-the completion  of freedom, municipal organisation  and
nationality;-the boundless area, the Federal bond,
the exhaustless resources, the equal conditions of
life and competition, the "Black Yankees," who
may populate and work that portion, comparatively
small, of territory below the temperate zone;-the
unity of ideas (not forgetting the bond of a common
Anglo-American literature), interests, principles,
and territory; of institution, language, race, and
religion;-all these conditions (working together,
also, for the destruction of the oligarchic or slave
element, with which they cannot coexist) combine to make, —have made-such a NATION as the
world has not seen before, and therefore is not, as
yet, quite prepared to recognise, even in the great
Anglo-American Continent,-the home, we say, of
that royal nation which beckons on all other nations
towards the future.
Thus did Bentham comment, even in his time,
on the disturbing influences of this American
precedent:" But now, suppose the same or a similar accursed Government, with the accursed prosperity, transplanted from that
blessed distance,-planted under our very noses, with no more
than one and twenty miles of sea to dilute the stench of it,
without so much as a single useless place, needless place,
overpaid place, unmerited pension-not to speak of sinecures,
-no, not so much as a peerage, to settle a borough or buy
off a country gentleman-suppose these miscreants..
and not more than half a guinea or a crown, not more than a
three hours' row, necessary to enable a man to see it!
" In this case, by what possibility could the eye, the head,
or the heart be shut against the spectacle of the united nuisances
-prosperity and good government?




THE PRECEDENT.                229
"There they are-but happily with the Atlantic between
us and them-the never sufficiently accursed United States,
living, and, oh! horror, flourishing — and so flourishing!
flourishing under a Government so essentially illegitimate.
" There they are-but happily with two thousand leagues
of sea between us and them-the millions of two-legged swine,
with the illegitimacy and the unencumbered and undisturbed
prosperity in which they wallow."-Bentham's Plan of Reform,
p. 8.
This is about the English of all talk about
Democracy not being conservative.  That the disturbing cause in the late tremendous conflict was
Oligarchy, and that the Atlantic may now be said
to be bridged by steam, if not joined by the cable,
takes nothing from the force of the above, or from
its appositeness to the subject of this work.
Oligarchy, we have said, was the disturbing
cause. In a, deeper sense it has been the irresistible,
ceaseless march of Democracy that has disturbed
and uprooted all things contrary to it since the
world began.
And before and after all other considerations
is this one,-supreme in politics. Only as the organisation and the forms express the spirit and
essence of power, can there beformal conservatism.
Only as a four-fold freedom of School, Press,
Church, and Assembly complete the development
of an ever-increasing proportion of the all, is the
final preponderance of universal national manhood
approached, and the right national spirit attained.
Till then, destruction may be conservative, and
conservatism destructive. Manhood is Democracy,
and that must include conservatism, which tends
to the completion of manhood.




230       DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
The history of America is the history of
manhood.
It began when a perfect manhood was first
shown forth to the world.
When Rome failed to develope manhood, manhood passed from Rome, and prepared to associate
against it for freedom in German woods.
England continued its story, but to mature
freedom into equality it wanted a new world, and
it found it yonder.
Equality must be the crown of all nations that
are to continue. How this is to be accomplished is
a comparatively trifling question.




BOOK II.
DEMOCRACY IN ENGLAND.
"Mr. Carlyle's judgment on this point (his inferences from
the fact that Roman Democracy could not get on without
Dictators) is like that of a man who had only known the steam
engine before the invention of governor balls, and was ready
to declare that its mechanism would be shattered if a boy
were not at hand to regulate the pressure of the steam."The Times, April 4th, 1866.
" They had institutions partly derived from Imperial Rome,
partly from Papal Rome, partly from the old Germany. Our
laws and customs have never been lost in general and irreparable ruin. With us the precedents of the middle ages are
still valid."-Macaulay.'"In perusing the admirable treatise of Tacitus on the
manners of the Germans, we find it is from that nation the
English have borrowed the idea of their political government.
This beautiful system was invented first in the woods,-' De
minoribus rebus principes consultant, de majoribus omnes;
ita tamen ut ea quoque, quorum penes plebem arbitrium est,
apud principes pertractentur.' "-Bancroft, 212, v. i.
" The great constitutional theory of jurisdiction in AngloSaxon times was not feudal, but primitive Teutonic." —Hallam.




" Accurately speaking there is no such thing as a mixed
Government." —De Tocqueville.
" After ages will moralise on the hallucination under which
an exceptional and transitional state of things, marking the last
phase in the existence of an old feudal monarchy, has been regarded, ~and confidentially propagated, as the normal and final
state of man.
" The Liberal party represents the modern and Protestant
element of the nation in its protracted and wavering effort to
throw off the remains of the feudal system, and place society and
religion on a rational foundation."-Goldwin Smith.
"In point of private right and freedom of possession, the
English present an incredible deficiency; sufficient proof of
which is afforded in the rights of primogeniture, involving military or ecclesiastical appointments for younger sons." —Hegel,
"Philosophy of History."
"The descent of LANDS before the conquest was according
to the custom of gavelkind, or equal partition; in the age of
H. I, the eldest son took the principal fief."
"In that of Glanvil he inherited all the lands held by
knight service.
" One most prominent and characteristic distinction between
the constitution of England and that of every other country in
Europe is its refusal of civil privileges to the lower nobility.
No restraint seems to have lain upon marriage. There was a
virtual equality of rights among all the commoners of England.
The peerage imparts no privilege except to its actual possessor.
There is no part of our constitution so admirable. It is to this
peculiarly democratical character of the English monarchy,
that we are indebted to its long permanence, its regular improvement, and its present vigor."-Hallam's " Middle Ages,"
v. ii, pp. 336-342-3-4,




CONTENTS OF BOOK II.
CHAPTER 1. —Tacitus to the Reform Bill; Sketch of Forms
and Powers.
CHAPTER II.-The Problem; Can Democracy organise?
CHAPTER III.-The Preponderating Power of the Past, and
its Organisation; or Democracy and Local SelfGovernment.
CHAPTER IV.-Usurpations and Innovations; How they
came and what they will lead to; The Families'
Dynasty.
CHAPTER V.-The Preponderating Power of the Future; Its
Requirements.
CHAPTER VI. —Democracy and Centralisation; or The Old
Power and the Modern Organisation.




" The cities became so considerable that the Sovereign
could impose no tax upon them besides the stated farm rent
of the town, without their own consent. They were therefore
called upon to send deputies to the General Assembly of the
States of the kingdom. Hence the origin of burghs in the
States General of all the great monarchies in Europe.
" These laws and customs so favourable to the yeomanry,
have perhaps contributed more to the present grandeur of
England than all their boasted regulations of commerce taken
together." —Adam Smith.
"Tenure in villanage gradually wore out through the
greater part of Europe. The time and manner, however, in
which so important a revolution was brought about, is one of
the most obscure points in modern history. Slavery was
gradually abolished by the joint operation of the two interests
of the proprietor on the one hand, and of the sovereign on the
other."-lbid., " Wealth of Nations," v. ii. pp. 91-94.
"' In the monarchy of the Franks, military service was soon
substituted for taxation."-ZMontesquieu.
" The old English monarchy was one of a class of limited
monarchies which sprang up in Western Europe during the
middle ages. All had municipal corporations enjoying large
franchises, and senates whose consent was necessary to the
validity of some public acts; of these, the English was, from
an early period, justly reputed the best. If the King dared to
oppress great masses, his subjects promptly appealed to the
laws, and that appeal failing, appealed as promptly to the God
of battles. In the middle ages resistance was an ordinary
remedy."-Macaulay.
" The relation established between a lord and his vassal,
by the feudal tenure, far from containing principles of any
servile and implicit obedience, permitted the compact to be
dissolved in case of its violation by either party.  This
extended as much to the sovereign as to inferior lords.
If a vassal was aggrieved, and if justice was denied him, he
sent a defiance, that is, a renunciation of fealty to the king,
and was entitled to enforce redress at the point of his sword.
It then became a contest of strength as between two independent potentates."-JHallam's " Middle Ages," v. iii, p. 162.




235
CHAPTER 1.
TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.
AN OUTLINE OF FORMS AND POWERS.
"It was not so much firom Slavery as through Slavery that
humanity was emancipated."-I-egel, "Philosophy of History."
" The principle of Feudal Sovereignty is the outward force
of individuals,-princes, liege lords; it is a force destitute of
intrinsic right. Whether the subjects of such a constitution
perform their stipulated duties or not depends upon the
Seigneurs being able to induce them so to do by force of character or favours.
" The supremacy implied. in monarchy is essentially a
power emanating from a political body, and is pledged to the
furtherance of that equitable purpose on which the constitution of a State is based.
"Feudal sovereignty is a polyarchy; we see nothing
but lords and serfs; in monarchy, on the contrary, there is one
lord and no serf, for servitude is abrogated by it, and in it right
and law are recognised. The barons compelled King John to
swear to the Magna Charta, the basis of English liberty, i. e.,
more particularly of the privileges of the nobility." —Ibid., pp.
416-422.
" The great spiritual facts which lie at the basis of human
freedom are the dignity, immortality, responsibility, and redemption of manhood. This is the Magna Charta. It is God's
Charter."-The Bible and the People.
" Let the idea take hold of the more generous and cultivated minds, that the most serious danger to the future prospects of mankind is in the unbalanced influence of the
commercial spirit."- Edinburgh Review.
" The mischief is when excessive wealth destroys the spirit
of commerce."-Montesquieu.
"To cure the middle class and found the People."-H-ugo.
"The fashion of the day, and perhaps I might almost venture to say, the vice of the day, is a disposition almost to
idolise the middle classes."-Gladstone.
The Development and organisation of the whole
as to qualities, and of the all as to numbers, is the
sum of civilisation, religion, and Government.




236             DEMOCRACY:
The proportions in which the whole and the all
are thus developed and organised, represent the
civilisation of any given epoch, and knowing that,
we know also the sort of freedom therein possible,
and we know absolutely into what form of slavery
the deficiencies of the period must shape themselves.
Throughout all the era when feudal chivalry
was the preponderating power, those who possessed
neither physical energies, nor courage, nor military
genius, became of necessity Slaves. Slaves they
must have been a priori, and slaves they were in fact.
This simplifies much the question of "franchises." Every system has its refuse; and the
refuse are the disfranchised. The Slaves of one
epoch are the paupers of another. Ascertain what
is the main drift and object of an age, and the
qualities necessary to a certain success in it, and
those who want them most are the pariahs and
failures.
In every age and country, except the advanced
Democratic era, where the universal manhood is
educated, and power and organisation are one,
there are and must be those who have their own
failures, or those of their fathers, visited upon
them in political incompetence.
The millennium never having come yet, there
has never yet been universal suffrage; when
the millennium comes, universal suffrage will
come with it, and, we hope, a good many other
things.




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.         237
Besides the aboriginal British, the elements of
the making of this English nation, are the aboriginal German or Teutonic, the Roman, the Scandinavian, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman. All
had their forms or organisations adapted to the
necessities that created them, or to the ruling ideas
that moulded them. All these types of ideas and
nationality united to form our own.
In the present chapter, which only aims at
such a general outline of the development and
organisation of our national manhood, from AngloSaxon times, as is essential to an adequate view of
the traditions and prospects of "Democracy in
England," we endeavour to trace the successive
relations of labour, land, justice, and representation.
Respecting the general scheme of the AngloSaxon and Scandinavian commonwealths, and of
Gothic monarchies, it appears that the AngloSaxon differed from the feudal scheme in giving
more to the freeman and to the King, and it differed from the Scandinavian in giving more to the
King.  In both it seemed adapted to secure an
earlier and compacter national unity. The adjustment between the units of the State, the freemen,
and the intermediate powers, and the Sovereign,
seems to have been more complete.  On this
Hallam says:"The scheme of the Anglo-Saxon commonwealth was
better than the feudal; it preserved more of the Teutonic character, it gave more to the common freeman as well as to the
King. The love of utopian romance, and the bias in favour of
a democratic origin for our constitution, have led many to
overstate the freedom of the Saxon Commonwealth; or rather,
perhaps, to look less for that freedom where it is really to be




238                 DEMOCRACY:
found, in the administration of justice, than in representative
councils, which authentic records do not confirm."
"The analogies between the Scandinavian and AngloSaxon institutions are too striking to be disregarded, though
some conclusions may have been drawn from them, to which
we cannot thoroughly agree. If it is alleged that we do not
find, in the ancient customs of Germany, that peculiar scale of
society which ascends from the hundred, as a monad of selfGovernment, to the collective unity of a royal commonwealth,
it may be replied that we trace the essential principle in the
pagus or gau of Tacitus, though perhaps there might be nothing numerical in that territorial direction; that we have, in
fact, the centenary distribution under peculiar magistrates in
the old continental laws and other documents; and that a
large proportion of the inhabitants of England, ultimately
coalescing with the rest, so far at least as to acknowledge a
common Sovereign, came from the very birthplace of Scandinavian institutions."
"A theory has been developed in a very brilliant and
learned article of the Edinburgh Review for 1822 (xxxvi, 287),
justly ascribed to Sir F. Palgrave, which deduces the hundred
from the hcerad of Scandinavian commonwealths. " The Gothic
commonwealth is not an unit of which the smaller bodies politic are fractions. They are the units, and the commonwealth
is the multiple. Every Gothic monarchy is in the nature of a
confederation. It is composed of towns, townships, shires,
bailiwicks, burghs, earldoms, dukedoms, all in a certain degree
strangers to each other, and separated in jurisdiction. Their
magistrates, therefore, in theory, at least, ought not to emanate from the sovereign..... The strength of the state
ascends from region to region. The representative form of
Government, adopted by no nation but the Gothic tribes, and
originally common to them all, necessarily resulted from this
federative system in which the Sovereign was compelled to
treat the component members as possessing a several authority.'"
"The hundred was as much, according to Palgrave, the
organic germ of the Anglo-Saxon commonwealth, as the hmrad
was of the Scandinavian." —1Middle Ages, vol ii, p. 381, 377-8.
As regards national unity, the Anglo-Saxon
scheme had, from the beginning, two defects: one of
organisation, the other of power. First, the alderman of the borough appears not to have sat in
the national council; second, the suffrage was not




TACITUS TO THE REFORM  BILL.           239
universal. The first defect has widened into the
gulf which separates the People from the House of
Lords. The second has enabled the Lords to
govern the People, and can never be remedied till
development and the suffrage become universal.
" Very few," says Hallam (" Middle Ages," v. ii,
pp. 2 76-7-9, 3 6 7) "at present imagine that there
was any representative system in that age, much
less that the ceorls or inferior freemen had the
smallest share in the deliberations of the national
assembly. In simple life, judicial power is always
of more consequence than  the legislative.   The
liberties of these Anglo-Saxon Thanes were chiefly
secured, next to their swords and their free spirits,
by the inestimable right of deciding civil and criminal suits in their own county courts, held twice in
the year. The theory that the Anglo-Saxon constitution was built on universal suffrage, could not
stand the first glimmerings of historical knowledge
in a mind tolerably sound."
Respecting the position of the borough alderman, and as to the Saxon witenagemot, Hallam
(p. 376, v. ii, and 230, v. iii) continues:"Sir F. Palgrave contends for aldermen elected by the
People in boroughs, sitting and assenting among the King's
witan (Edinb. Rev., xxvi, 26).' Their seats in the witenagemot
were connected as inseparably with their office as their duties
in the folkmote. Nor is there any reason for denying to the
aldermen of the boroughs the rights and rank possessed by
the aldermen of the hundreds; and they in all cases were
equally elected by the commons.' The passage is worthy of
consideration, but not satisfactory to my judgment. My position is, that inferior freemen had no share in that assembly.
Later, Sir F. Palgrave adopts the notion that forty hydes of
land were a necessary qualification."




240                DEMOCRACY:
"According to Sir F. Palgrave, we are not to look to
feudal principles for our great councils of advice and consent.
They were the aggregate of representatives from the courts
leet of each shire and each borough, and elected by the juries
to present the grievances of the People, and to suggest their
remedies. The great council of the Norman Kings was, I
believe, little else than a continuation of the witenagemot, the
immemorial organ of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy in their
relation to the King. Of the representation of the courts leet,
we may require better evidence. It is remarkable that aldermen, in the municipal sense, are never enumerated among the
constituents of a witenagemot or a council."
The wants and virtues of manhood are of the
body, mind, and character.
" The Church" may be so organised as that much
of manhood will be outside of it. Then priestcraft
will make broad and deep its hells, it will thunder
excommunications, and  burn  heretics.   Whilst
" religion " is of force, or fraud, the manhood of the
age will be organised without or against it, and so
the manhood will be a failure, because the religion
is a farce.
Education may be restricted to the few, and
education being the multiple of mental power and
material production, many will be the paupers and
demagogues.
Material comforts may be rendered impossible
to the multitude by bad legislation and indirect
taxation, and there is a complicated evil result
accordingly, of physical degeneration and discontent.
As the One only is developed in body, mind, and
character, there is at once autocracy  and good
Government.




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.    241
As the few only are so developed and organised,
there is oligarchy a necessity and an advantage.
So also, in proportion, with the many and the
all.
Material, political, and religious freedom is the
crown of progress, and its proportions are the
guage of nationality.
Feudality, Priestcraft, Despotism, Oligarchy,
Villeinage, and Freedom, —all these jostle one
another in our history, but from the time when the
absoluteness of the Feudal system held in definite
and positive relationship the whole of such manhood as then existed, there has not been, nor can
be again, anything like finality, until the whole
manhood of the all is developed and organised in
a free and equal voting Democracy.
From the time when associated numbers forced
a choice between despotism and representation, and
when fixity of tenure replaced feudal oppression by
industry,-to the time when representation shall
be equal, and when opinions and religion shall be
free,-is essentially but one epoch.
The more defined epochal divisions of English
history are:ist. The Epoch of Force. The period of primitive Teutonic Associations, of Anglo-Saxon conflicts,
and of German, Frank, and English Feudality,
until services became fixed, and tenure, in the
nature of rent.
2nd. The Epoch of chattel and corporate rule.
The era of transition, and conflict of industrial manhood with the rough rudimentary Feudal manhood.
R




242             DEMOCRACY:
The gradual fixing and settlement of property,
prior to the development of the complex and
accomplished manhood of modern times, and its
extrication from the influences of mere property.
3rd. The Epoch of Manhood. Its completion
in equality. The triumph of industrial, mental,
and moral manhood-development over chattel
qualifications. Of Individuality over Corporations.
In each epoch the individual possesses just
as much freedom as he can command, and no
more.
The first epoch commences with the story of
Tacitus, and can hardly be said to close until Charles
II turned the tenure of chivalry into freehold.
The second and middle epoch is that which now
draws towards a conclusion. The first was the era
when force transgressed the rights of property;
the second is that in which property assails the
rights of manhood.
The third, upon which we hope soon to enter,
is that in which manhood itself will hold the balance
of power against both property and force. We have
to develop such a national manhood as shall complete freedom in equality, and discard for ever the
idea of force or property as applied to the religion
or the franchise of others.
It was the necessary condition of this transition
period, that the rough aggressive individuality of
the middle ages should yield to the conservative
influences of property. For ages the conflict raged
between the idea of right as attached to fixed
ownership, and the ideas of force and military ser



TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.    243
vice. The. higher industrial manhood gradually
overcame the lower and more elementary manhood,
but that done, it had to extricate itself from the
forces and influences concentred upon fixed property, and there the powers and traditions of Feudality linger to this day.
The history and the Acts of Parliament of these
eras of germinating manhood represent:1st. The struggle of the primitive institutions
of England against Feudality.
2nd. The struggle of the Feudal head for command of the purse and the sword.
3rd. The struggle between King and Church
for command of the religious element, and for the
creation of a factitious religious unity.
4th. The general contest of King, Church,
Barons, Urban Oligarchies and Free Burghs,
Families, and People, in different combinations.
5th. The gradual growth of the national manhood and its gradual appropriation of all those
elements of power. A multiplication of material
comforts elevating the man. Equality, or political
manhood, governing itself at home and abroad in
finance and intervention. A religious manhood
superseding the Church. It is "the whole and the
all" advancing.
Much learning has been expended in the attempt to fortify right with tradition. The fact is
that no more "freedom" ever exists, than, from
the actual state and elements of Society, must
R2




244             DEMOCRACY:
exist, and there is never a revolution without a
reformation. Each state of Society has its constitution, written or unwritten. The organisation
always follows the power. Feudality only became
evil when its simple relationships existed no longer,
and when a more complex civilisation required not
so much an intenser, as a completer Individuality.
The utmost that can be truthfully conceded to
the idea of universal suffrage appears to have taken
place at the period of transition from the feudal, to
whatwewill call the modern industrial system, when
the severity of the feudal system had become relaxed,
and the advantage of a true representation had
commended itself to the Sovereign by subsidies
much exceeding the ancient tallages. The theory
of military service had declined, men easily became freeholders, and entitled as such to the
suffrage. The new system was not organised; wealth,
luxury, and centralisation had not discovered the
advantages which distance, numbers, and influence
would confer on a Government. The machinery
of corruption had to be created. Parliaments were
annual, and if members were willing to be sold,
they could not be bought. Representation based
upon local and minor associations had united with
barons and clergy to conquer freedom. But those
bodies not being constituted of, or based upon, an
adequate individual manhood, "representative
Government" became at last a vast centralised
corporation, touching the People but once in seven
years, and often overpowering the minor corporate
and individual influences.




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.      245
The very necessity of " representation," arises
from the fact that numbers render impossible
the direct participation of the Individual in the
Executive or Legislative. From that period history
tends to the action of corporate bodies on corporate bodies, of feudal and sub-feudal heads, of
oligarchies against oligarchies, privilege against
prerogative. Standing armies, standing Churches,
and indirect taxation gradually become normal, and
organised bodies act on the defenceless inorganic
remnant of the People. Notwithstanding many
brilliant rallies, Individuality is always liable to
be overpowered by Centralisation, until Development has guaranteed Individuality by Equality,
that completer and intenser freedom, without
which civilisations cannot be healthy, and centralisation itself must be incomplete or unbalanced
and despotic.
The student who looks at life instead of being
bewildered by systems, knows that in a wandering
warlike life, courage, energy, and loyalty must be
ordinary individual qualifications. He who has
these must be free; he who has them not must
become a slave or villein.
When property becomes fixed, nomads are a
nuisance. Property is the object of legislation.
Land tends to become fixed as numbers increase.
Numbers associated compel representation. Industry is then the basis of the new manhood, and
the prolonged struggle of Industry, aided by its
first-born, capital, against surviving forms of feudality, and against corporate and privileged power,




246              DEMOCRACY:
-that is the political history..of every State, from
the hour when fixity of tenure supersedes the
wandering " companion "-ship of war and the chase.
As Industry is manifolded by steam power, capital,
and education, we reach all the sooner that Manhood-Development and Equality, which will be
inevitable, universal, and final.
That is of necessity the epitome of the history
of all franchises, representations, and progress.
Marshalling thus the facts of the organisation
of each age, according to the essential spirit and
power that created it, we find, in the beginning,
that the primitive Teutonic era of association for
armed assault or colonisation possessed unrivalled
excellencies.
When, as Caesar discourses, the princes of our
German ancestors " each had a multitude of men,
and allotted what portion of land they pleased to
individuals, and obliged them the year following to
remove to some other part;" when, as Tacitus relates, " in battle it is infamy in the Prince to be
surpassed in courage, it is infamy in the companions
not to follow the brave example of their prince,it is an eternal disgrace to survive him;" and when
in council, those who approved the leader and the
enterprise, stood up and offered their assistance;there, we say, the organisation expressed the power
because it must. Between that simple and direct
relationship of Prince and companion, there could
get no hostile corporate influence or interest.




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.    247
Fixed property did not exist. Representation had
no raison d'4tre, and manhood was itself a franchise and a Parliament.
From Feudality to Equality is a long span,
but the best organisation can never again express the individual power of the commonalty,
till Individuality is developed and organised
equally and universally, and the evils necessary
to the old world are swept from the path of the
new.
Religion enforced or favored by the State,
and manhood disenfranchised, are the shapes
which aggression now takes, and the Barbarism
which the age permits. The latter is a barbarism
which barbarism could not perpetrate, and which
civilisation cannot afford to continue.
Completeness of nations must come from completeness of individuals, and complete individual
manhood therefore includes and necessitates political manhood. We find the rudiments of Democracy in Christianity, and its earliest history in the
Bible.
Caesar and Tacitus who come next, deal not
with the universal rudiments of manhood, but with
the particular working of a certain barbarous type.
They show how in German woods were formed
those associations which destroyed Rome, and laid
the foundations of such freedom as Europe since
enjoyed in the military feudal system.
That freedom, however, must pass away with
the system. Of all freedoms, the German had only
that ot "assembly." The Individual was not com



248             DEMOCRACY:
plete. The organisation could be neither complete,
final, nor universal.
The freedom  of the Germans was that of the
fraternity and enthusiasm of a common enterprise.
Tacitus says that, "the men, attached to the service of a prince, followed him wherever he went."
They were called comites, or companions, Leudes,
faithful and loyal.  " The dignity and power of
the princes consists in being constantly surrounded
with a multitude of young and chosen people. The
companions refuse to acquire by sweat what they
can purchase with blood. The Germans knew only
two capita] crimes; they hanged traitors, and
drowned cowards. These were the only public
crimes among them."
Caesar says " when any of the princes declared
to the assembly that he intended to set out upon
an expedition, and asked them to follow him, those
who did not fulfil their engagements to assist, lost
the public esteem, and were looked upon as
traitors."
This, says Montesquieu, "is the substance
of the history of the Gallic princes of the first
race.
When the German nations invaded Gaul, the
Visigoths subdued almost all the South, the Burgundians the East, and the Franks nearly all the
rest. Of the Germans Tacitus says, they chose
their king for noble extraction, and their leader for
valour. "Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute
sumunt." Montesquieu says that the fefs of the
Franks were not derived from that institution of




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.       249
the Romans (p. 375, v. ii), that villeinage was not
generally established in all parts of the monarchy
of the Franks, and that military service was soon
substituted for taxation. A capitulary of the year
864 says that it was the ancient custom for freemen
to perform military service. It was a fundamental
principle of the monarchy that whosoever was subject to the military power of another, was subject
also to his civil jurisdiction. Thus the capitulary
of Lewis the Debonnaire, of 815, makes the military
power of the count, and his civil jurisdiction over
the freemen, keep always an equal pace. Thus we
see (from glossary of English laws, &c.), that at
all times the duty of a vassal towards his lord, was
to bear arms, and to try his peers in his court
(p. 392, ibid.). The king did not long raise taxes
on the lands belonging to the Franks.
Thus was constituted the free military system
(at first of vassalage without fiefs) that had resisted
Rome, and was to conquer England.
The County Court was not Anglo-Saxon, but
old Teutonic. It subsisted, says Hallam, in this
and other countries before feudal institutions had
taken root. Also that great safeguard, "judgment
by Peers," is aboriginal Teutonic.
In the next stage when property in land has
become fixed, it must be protected against predatories and common thieves, and against desertion
by its vassal cultivators. And we find (Montesquieu, v. ii, p. 378-9), that according to a capitu



,250                DEMOCRACY:
lary of A.D. 864, freemen were required to do military service, and to find horses and carriages for
the King's commissaries and ambassadors, and that
the Franks soon changed the imposts of the Emperors into defence of frontiers, and marching
against the enemy. We also find (" Middle Ages,"
v. ii, p. 292) all the freehold lands of England,
except some of the Church, subject to three great
public burthens of military service, and repairs of
bridges, and royal fortresses. With regard to cultivation of land and to protection from thieves,
Hallam  (v. ii, p. 368) remarks:" Perhaps we are a little too much struck by the obligation of ceorls to reside on the lands they cultivated. We are
to remember that he who deserted his land, and consequently,
his lord, did so to become a thief. Hlafordles men, of whom
we read so much, were invariably of this character. What
else indeed could he become? Children have an idle play to
count buttons and say: Gentleman, apothecary, ploughman,
thief. Now this, if we consider the second as burgesses in
towns, is actually a distributive enumeration, setting aside the
clergy, of the Anglo-Saxon population; a thane, a burgess, a
ceorl, a hlafordles man; that is a man without land, lord, or
law. For the sake of protecting the ceorl from such men, and
the lord in his rights to services, it was necessary to restrain
the cultivator from quitting his land."
This period includes two great processes. The
reduction of the free Ceorls into villeinage by the
Normans, and their re-enfranchisement by the operation of mutual interest and natural causes. Also
the narrowing of the representative basis from the
Conqueror to H. II, and then the broadening of it
by means of the money necessities of the Kings,
and the general spirit of freedom.
"The Anglo-Saxon peasantry of England," says
Hallam, " were not villeins, but the original Britons




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.    2 51
were extirpated, absorbed, or enslaved. The Thanes
were very numerous.
"It is an improbable and even extravagant
supposition, that all these hereditary estates of the
Anglo-Saxon freeholders were originally parcels of
the royal demesne. Whatever partitions were
made upon the conquest of a British province, we
may be sure that the shares of the army were coeval with those of the general. English Lords had
their courts and suitors, with much of the intrinsic
character of the feudal relation, though in a less
mature and systematic shape than after the Norman Conquest. Even the Ceorls were considered
lawworthy for a century after, and their lives were
valued at 200 shillings. Thanes were valued at
1200 or 600 shillings. The Editor of King Alfred's
Will, says'all Ceorls by the Saxon constitution
might choose such man for their landlord as they
would.' Up to H. II, their -lot was not one of mere
servitude. At the time of H. II, and after, the
Ceorl was absolutely dependent, but not to any but
his Lord, who was, however, indictable only for
murder, rape, or mutilation of the Ceorl.'A
genuine Saxon could only become a slave in not
paying a weregild, or by some legal offence."'
Gradually, domains became reduced by sales,
demises, and sub-infeudations. Land, the cheapest
of articles, was often the price of labour. The lord
wanted less labour, and there was more of it.
Services became less onerous and uncertain. After
unmolested residence for a year and a day within
a walled town or borough the villein became free.




252             DEMOCRACY:
"The greater part," says Hallam, "enfranchised
themselves by running away, and by the middle of
the fourteenth century a large proportion were free."
Chancellor Fortescue (temp. H. VI and E. IV)
remarked: "There is scarce a small village in which
you may not find a knight, an esquire, or some
substantial householder, commonly called a frankleyn, possessed of considerable estate; besides
others who are called freeholders, and many yeomen
of estates, sufficient to make a substantial jury."
"' Two subjects," says Hallam, "tend in a very
material degree to illustrate the progress of society,
with which civil liberty and regular Government
are closely connected,-first, the servitude or villeinage of the peasantry, and their gradual
emancipation; secondly, the continual increase of
commercial intercourse with foreign countries."
The narrowing, and then the broadening of the
representative basis, we recur to in a subsequent
chapter. Hallam tells us that " the rule and intention of our old constitution was that each county,
city, or borough should elect deputies out of its
own body, resident among themselves, and consequently acquainted with their grievances and
necessities. The representation of towns in Parliament was founded upon two principles,-of consent
to public burthens, and of advice in public measures.
To grant money was the main object of their
meeting; and if the exigencies of the administration could have been relieved without subsidies,




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.           253
the citizens and burgesses might still have sat at
home and obeyed the laws which a council of prelates and barons enacted.  The lord  sat for his
vassals, the abbot for the monks. Spiritual peers
sat by general custom of Europe and the common
law  of England."   "This land  standeth," said
Chancellor Stillington, "by three states, and above
that, one principal; that is to wit, lords spiritual,
lords temporal, and commons, and over that, state
royal."
Macaulay traces our institutions back to three
fountains.  Imperial Rome, Papal Rome, and
Feudal Germany, and shows us the character of
those limited monarchies of the middle ages, of
which the English became the freest and best.
But German feudality, the conqueror of Rome
and of England, presents in its barbarous and
powerful individuality and simple organisation,
such a contrast, and such a lesson, when compared
with the colossal centralisation and weak individuality  of Rome, that we must pause for a
moment, and see the stand point of Imperial
degradation from which the historian of our fathers
wrote.
"In  this respect (says Mr. Torrens M'Cullagh, in his
Lectures on History) I am inclined to look upon this work of
Tacitus as one of the most stupendous efforts of truly moral
greatness that we know of.  I allude especially to the
triumph of self-sustaining energy it manifests.  In most
other biographies of nations, there are magnificent materials
to work upon; Tacitus had worse than none. In all of them
there is likewise the great ingredient of antagonistic powers
in action to be depicted; but resistance was dead in his time.
ileredotus is the chronicler of Grecian chivalry-the narrative
of the most brilliant struggle that the world has seen, of




254                 DEMOCRACY:
moral discipline and daring, with gigantic brutal force.
Thucydides is an antithesis from end to end. Livy tells us
how the bloodhound cub was born and how it grew, amid
every sort of danger, from its suckling time in the wolf's den
till its matured ferocity, when every leaf in the forests of Asia
and of Gaul had learned to tremble at its imperial howl.
Polybius, too, had the same canvas to tint, though his
colouring is more uniform.
"' But Tacitus had a civilized desert for his landscape-a
moral grave-yard for his scene. The conflict of political principles and powers was over and past. The cataract had worn
itself down. No man dreamed any more of a Democracy;
no man imagined the restoration of an aristocratic commonwealth was possible. The provinces had ceased to revolt;
Numidia was become a domestic cornfield; and the Greeks
had learned to dance gracefully in their chains.
"' As far as the circumspective eye could reach, there was
nothing to be seen but the rotting superincumbent weight of
Rome. In the Babel chatter of the thronging of the forum,
or in the dim silence of the night watch, no man any longer
whispered-change. Had it been otherwise-had the sodden
sense of helpless unresistance to imperial despotism, been less
thoroughly felt as universal and inevitable,-Tacitus dared
not have publicly let fall those scalding tears which form the
current of his history."
Imperial Rome and Papal Rome, the inevitable
embodiment of order and religion in an era when
ignorance disabled, and force controlled the individual, disappear as inevitably as they came.
Feudality conquered Rome by means of the best
leadership, and the best and freest vassalage of
that age. It was individuality conquering organisation. But as a new civilisation multiplied wants,
and required more Government, and as religion
forced its claims upon the nation, these more complex arrangements demanded a completer individual competency, and that being wanting, the
interests and selfishness of Church, King, and
Family prevailed for centuries in England.




TACITUS TOi THE REFORM  BILL.           255
Papal Rome remains upon us as a State-paid
priesthood, and in a prayer book that is an album
of fine old masses bound together by Act of Parliament.
Macaulay (vol. i, p. 2, "History of England "),
complains that Ireland is " cursed by the domination of religion over religion," and (p. 181), dilates
on " the most instructive fact that the years during
which the political power of the Anglican hierarchy
was in its zenith, were precisely the years during
which national virtue was at the lowest point."
And the judicial Hallam (vcl. ii, p. 600, " History of England") concurs:
" That the severe remark of Clarendon, that of all mankind
none form so bad an estimate of human affairs as Churchmen,
is abundantly confirmed by experience; that the clergy have
an influence which no other corporation enjoy over the bulk of
a nation, and are apt to abuse it for undue ascendancy, unjust
restraint, or factious ambition; that the hope of any real good in
reformation of the Church by its own assemblies, to whatever sort of
reform we may look, is utterly chimerical."
Adam Smith thus deduces the power of freedom
of towns, and explains the cessation of villenage:-" In countries such as France or England, where the authority of the Sovereign, though frequently very low, never was
destroyed altogether, the cities had no opportunity of becoming entirely independent. They became, however, so considerable that the Sovereign could impose no tax upon them,
besides the stated farm-rent of the town, without their own
consent. They were, therefore, called upon to send deputies to
the General Assembly of the States of the kingdom, where
they might join with the clergy and the barons in granting,
upon urgent occasions, some extraordinary aid to the King.
Being generally, too, more favourable to his power, their
deputies seem, sometimes, to have been employed by him
as a counterbalance in those assemblies to the authority
of the great lords. Hence the origin of the representation of
burghs in the States General of all the great monarchies in
Europe.




256                  DEMOCRACY:
" At first, the farm of the town was probably let to the
burghers, in the same manner as it had been to other farmers,
for a term of years only. In process of time, however, it
seems to have become the general practice to grant it to them
in fee, that is, for ever, reserving a rent certain never afterwards to be augmented. The payment having thus become
perpetual, the exemptions, in return for which it was made,
naturally became perpetual too. Those exemptions, therefore,
ceased to be personal, and could not afterwards be considered
as belonging to individuals as individuals, but as burghers of a
particular burgh, which, upon this account, was called a Freeburgh, for the same reason that they had been called Freeburghers or Free-traders.
1" The principal attributes of villenage and slavery being
thus taken away from them, they now, at least, became
really free in our present sense of the word Freedom.
"Nor was this all. They were generally at the same time
erected into a commonality or corporation, with the privilege of
having magistrates and a town-council of their own, of making
bye-laws for their own Government, of building walls for their
own defence, and of reducing all their inhabitants under a sort
of military discipline by obliging them to watch and ward;
that is, as antiently understood, to guard and defend those
walls against all attacks and surprises by night as well as by
day. In England they were generally exempted from suit to
the hundred and county courts; and all such pleas as should
arise among them, the pleas of the Crown excepted, were left
to the decision of their own magistrates."-Smith's "Wealth
of Nations," pp. 103-4-8, v. ii.
Macaulay thus speaks (History of England,
v. i, pp. 19, 22, 25, 27, 29, 31, 35, 40) of our
liberties and their consolidation:
"For the century and a half which followed the Conquest
these is, to speak strictly, no English history. The subject
race still made its sting felt. Assassination was of daily
occurrence. The whole nation was in a conspiracy to screen
the murderers.
" The first pledge of their (Normans and English) reconciliation was the great charter won by their united exertions.
Here commences the history of the English nation. The history
of the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and
sustained by various tribes.
"Then first appeared with distinctness that Constitution,
&c., and the House of Commons held its first sittings.
" The greatest victories of the middle ages were gained at




TACITUS TO THE REFORM  BILL.             257
this time against great odds by the English armies. They are
to be attributed to the moral superiority of the victors, a
superiority which was most striking in the lowest ranks. The
French had no infantry that dared to face the English bows
and bills. Every yeoman, from Kent to Northumberland, valued
himself as of a race born to victory.
" The great lords, unable to gratify their tastes by plundering the French, were eager to plunder each other.'The
realm would not,' in the phrase of Comines, the most judicious
observer of that time,'suffice for them all.' Two factions
engaged in a long and fierce struggle for supremacy. The
adherents of Lancaster rallied round him a line of bastards,
and the adherents of York set up a succession of impostors.
" Meanwhile a change was proceeding, infinitely more
momentous. Slavery was fast disappearing. Some faint traces
of the institution of villenage were detected by the curious so
late as the days of the Stuarts.
" When these two great revolutions (mixture of races and
elevation of peasantry) had been effected, our forefathers were
by far the best governed people in Europe. Between the aristocracy and the working people had sprung up a middle
class, agricultural and commercial.
He then goes on to trace the character of the
Old English monarchy: —
"' It was one of a class of limited monarchies which sprang
up in Western Europe during the middle ages, and which, notwithstanding many diversities, bore to one another a strong
family likeness. They had institutions partly derived from
imperial Rome, partly from papal Rome, partly from the old
Germany. In all the King's office became by degrees strictly
hereditary. All had municipal corporations enjoying large franchises, and senates, whose consent was necessary to the
validity of some public acts. Of these kindred constitutions the
English was, from an early period, justly reputed the best. The
King alone was entitled to convoke the estates of the realm,
and dismiss them. His assent was necessary to all legislative
acts. His hereditary revenues, economically administered,
sufficed to meet the ordinary charges of Government. He was
also feudal lord paramount of the whole soil.
" But his power was limited by three great constitutional
principles, so ancient that none can say when they begun to exist,
so potent that their natural development has produced the
order of things under which we live.
" First, the King could not legislate without the consent of his
Parliament. Second, he could impose no taxes without their
consent. Third, he was bound to conduct the executive administraS




258                 DEMOCRACY:
tion according to the laws of the land, and if he broke those
laws, his advisers and agents were responsible.
" No English King has ever claimed the general legislative
power.
"That the King could not impose taxes without the
consent of Parliament is admitted to have been from time
immemorial a fundamental law of England.
" That he was bound to conduct the administration according to law was established at a very early period.
" No candid Tory will deny that these principles had, five
hundred years ago, acquired the authority of fundamental
rules."
Also the instant physical force guarantees
which maintained the freedom of those days: -
"If, not content with occasionally oppressing individuals,
he dared to oppress great masses, his subjects promptly
appealed to the laws, and that appeal failing, appealed as
promptly to the God of battles. They had in reserve a check
which soon brought the fiercest and proudest King to reason.
"' The effect of wealth has been to make insurrection far
more terrible than maladministration.
" In the middle ages, resistance was an ordinary remedy. If a
popular chief raised his standard in a popular cause, an irregular army could be assembled in a day. Regular army
there was none.
" Any comparison between our ancient and modern polity
must lead to most erroneous conclusions, unless large allowance be made for the effect of that restraint which resistance
and the fear of resistance constantly imposed on the Plantagenets. As we cannot employ physical force, it is our
wisdom to keep all the constitutional checks in the highest
state of efficiency. A nation of hardy archers and spearmen
might, with small risks, connive at some illegal acts.
"Comines pronounced our Constitution a just and holy
thing.
"After the wars of York and Lancaster the links which
connected the nobility and commonalty became closer and
more numerous than ever. The knight of the shire was the
connecting link between the baron and the shopkeeper.
"Our democracy was from  an early period the most
aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the
world.
"The palace was guarded by a few domestics whom the
array of a single shire, or of a single ward of London, could
with ease have overpowered."




TACITUS TO THE REFORM  BILL.            259
And  Montesquieu's argument (p. 364, v. ii)
against the existence of a general state of villainage
in Gaul applies to England also:" That there was a general regulation for establishing in
all parts the state of villainage is as false as the principle
from which it is derived. If at a time when the fiefs were precarious, all the lands of the kingdom had been fiefs or dependencies of fiefs, and all the men in the kingdom vassals or
bondmen, subordinate to vassals; as the person that has property is ever possessed of power, the king who continually
disposed of the fiefs, that is of the only property then existing,
would have been as arbitrary a monarch as the Grand Seignior;
which is absolutely contradictory to all history."
And here is the rationale of this formally absolute power:"As Duke of the Duchy of France and Count of Paris,
ilugues Capet assumed the title of king. He had received, by
the acclamations of his army, a crown in which the other
feudatories saw, or thought they saw, the keystone of the
arch of their own baronial power. For their dominion over
their vassals resting on a theory of tenures and dependencies
which supposed the existence of some ultimate suzerain, from
whom their own fiefs were holden, and in whom the whole
feudal hierarchy had their common head, and stay, and centre.
They were not aware of the mighty force of names and titles,
of fictions and of forms, and especially of their force when
shadowing out any of the real substrata of the peace, and
order, and social prosperity of mankind. They knelt down
with closed hands, and reciting solemn vows before a titular
sovereign, and did not perceive, or foresee, that they were
thus gradually elevating that empty pageant of royalty into
an effective sovereign, destined at no remote period to attain
prerogatives by which their own states would be subjugated
and their own prosperity reduced to insignificance and
want."-Sir J. Stephens' "' Lectures on the History of France,"
vol. i, p. 142, 143.
These remarks must suffice to establish the
sort of Freedom that existed, and that could not
but exist, under the Feudal system. And these
authorities prepare the mind to believe and to
s2




260             DEMOCRACY:
understand the more exact details of our ancient
local freedom and self-Government.
How this sort of freedom, founded upon force
and necessity, differs, and must differ from that
equality which comes to a nation prepared for it
by Free School, Press, Church, and Assembly, is
the problem of a later, and of the present age.
Industry involves, doubtless, a higher manhood
than war.
During the reign of Ed. III, three great principles were established.  The illegality of the
King's raising money without consent. That the
two houses must concur to alter laws. The right
of the Commons to enquire into abuses, and to
impeach ministers.
From Ed. III to the civil wars of York and
Lancaster, Parliament established the following
concessions. Its exclusive right to tax, and to
direct and check expenditure. That supply depends upon redress.  Security against illegal
ordinances. Control of the royal administration.
The punishment of bad ministers. The establishment of their own privileges.
In the 9th Hen. IV is the earliest authority for
two eminent maxims of Parliamentary law; the
Commons' exclusive right to originate money bills,
and that the King shall not take notice of matters
pending before Parliament.
" Prerogative," says Hallam, "with the Norman
Government, rather resembled a scramble of wild
beasts when the strongest takes the best share."
At first this Norman prerogative modified the




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.    2 61
principles of resistance inherent in feudality, but
want of money, continental ambition, feudal insubordination, emancipation of villeins, and the
opening up of commerce, prepared the nation for
the new era.
~
The national intellect and soul of England first
began to organise itself somewhat " for the whole
and for the all," in the era of Cromwell, and a consideration of the Acts of Parliament made and
repealed within thirty years of that epoch, is a
most instructive admonition for our own age.
English history here divides into two branches.
The one part of the nation emigrated and established in the West a complete Democracy, which,
after the struggles and reactions of eighty years,
has conquered the oligarchic sections, and is assimilating the American nation; the other remained,
and, after a struggle of one hundred and seventy
years with prerogative and privilege throughout
the country, is now following its brethren fast on
the road to political equality.
Of America, it was said by Jefferson, "The
Republicans are the nation."
Of England, the same may be said of Puritans;
they always definitively gain the last victory, and
Republicans and Puritans are one breed.
The forces that repudiated the despotism of
Charles the First, constituted the entire material,
political, and religious freedom of the country. The
first acts of Charles the Second were devoted with




262             DEMOCRACY:
much skill and entire unscrupulousness to their
destruction, and their reinstatement has been the
progressive work of the English nation since. That
work is not even yet accomplished.
The powers that overthrew the Stuart were
the Puritans, the Press, and the Republican army.
The powers that restored his son were the
Church, and a great portion. of the landed gentry,
aided by the multitude unprepared for a Republic.
Charles the Second undertook to turn the
whole force of the law and of the State against the
first. He undertook to reinstate and to recompense the second against and at the expense of the
People.
Let us take first the Army.
The 12 Car. II, c. 20, was an Act for completely
disbanding the whole of it.
The 13 Car. II, stat. 1, c. 26, was an Act for
declaring the sole right of disposing of the militia
in the King, reciting that the contrary had almost
ruined and destroyed the kingdom, and that evil
and  rebellious  principles  had  been  thereby
instilled.
Take now the Press.
The 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 33, recites, "the
general licentiousness, and many schismatical,
heretical, and seditious books, for prevention
whereof no surer means can be advised than reducing the number of printingpresses, and ordering
and settling the art and mystery of printing, by
Act of Parliament."
Then the Quakers.




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.      263
13 Car. II, c. 1. "Quakers refuse oaths, and
assemble under pretence of worship endangering public safety to the terror of the People,
maintaining secret correspondence, &c." It was
enacted, that for printing against the taking of
oaths, or refusing to take them, or assembling
more than five persons over sixteen years of age,
they should forfeit to the King, —first offence, ~5;
second, ~10; third, transportation.
Next against Puritans generally.
The "Act for uniformity of prayers and sacraments," 13 Car. II, c. 4.  Whereas a "great
number of People were following their own
sensuality, and without fear of God, to the hazard
of souls;" the King had approved certain alterations for allaying present distempers and settling
the peace of the nation. Then follows form of
assent to book of prayer, and declaration that it
is not in any case lawful to take arms against the
King.
Nonconfornzists were next attacked by the
17 Car. II, c. 2 (A.D. 1664), " restraining Nonconformists from inhabiting corporations." " Whereas
divers persons, &c., have not assented to the prayer
book, and some of them have preached and distilled poisonous principles of schism and rebellion."
Then follows form of oath against taking
arms against the King, or attempting alterations in Church or State.  Penalty for preaching or coming within five miles of town without
having taken the oath, ~40 or six months imprisonment without bail.




264              DEMOCRACY:
See now how the King recompensed his friends
at the expense of the People.
And first the Church.
An Act, 1 Eliz., cap. i, had restored to the
crown the ancient jurisdiction over the state ecclesiastical and spiritual, and given the crown power
to appoint commissioners to reform, amend, &c.,
all errors which could be, &c., by ecclesiastical
power. This power had been abused by the King,
and was abolished by the 16 Car. I, c. 11.  Also
the powers next mentioned were taken from archbishops, &c.
The 13 Car. II, c. 12, "explained" the last
Act.  It enacted, that "archbishops, &c., may
exercise all manner of ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
censures, and coercions, &c."
So much for reinstating his ecclesiastical allies
in power ecclesiastical.  He  also clothed them
with secular jurisdiction by the 13 Car. II, c. 2,
" an Act to repeal an Act for disenabling all persons in Holy Orders to exercise any temporal jurisdiction or authority as Justices of the Peace or
Members of Parliament."
The Act thus repealed, the 16 Car. I, c. 27,
recited that "whereas bishops, &c., ought not to
be entangled with secular jurisdiction (the office of
the ministry being of such great importance that
it will take up the whole man), and it is found by
long experience that their intermeddling hath
occasioned great mischiefs and scandal both in




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.    265
Church and State, out of care of the Church and
Souls, &c."
Next we see the landed interest rewarded at
the expense of the nation for ever.
The 12 Car. II, c. 24, in "an Act for taking
away tenures in capite and by knight's service and
purveyance, and for settling a revenue upon his
Majesty in  lieu thereof."  From the 24th February, 1645, all tenures are to be turned into free
and common socage.
As " a full and ample recompense to the King,
rates of excise on beer, ale, cider, perry, mead,
strong waters, coffee, chocolate, sherbet, and
tea were granted to the King, his heirs and
successors.))
Well might this King's Parliament join in
reciting (12 Car. II, c. 14) the "power miraculously
demonstrated in this wonderful and glorious restoration to kingdoms new born and raised from the
dead, on this the day which the Lord hath made,
&c.," and enact that " every subject shall annually
resort to Church " to give thanks!
During this momentous epoch, from the great
settlement and fixing of the rights of person and
property of Englishmen, by the two Charters of
the 9 H. III, A.D. 1224, down to the approaching
recognition of the rights of opinion and of equality,
various great landmarks stand out from the mass
of legislation, and there is also a strange mosaic of
passion, brutality, and fierce extremes. Thus we




2{6$             DEMOCRACY:
have the declaration that "no man shall henceforth lose life or member for our venison," and
the Act 2 H. IV, c. 15, and others, for the burning
of heretics.
We have Acts against Quakers, preaching, and
the printing press; and Acts of excommunication
against breakers of the Charter, and for compelling
bishops to pronounce it. And the Archbishop of
Canterbury (4 H. IV, c. 3) "promises that benefit
of clergy shall not be extended to any clerk, secular
or religious, convicted of treason or being a notorious thief."
Acts for preventing clergymen from being
justices and members of Parliament, and Acts reinstating them; Acts for restraining,-and for
enabling ecclesiastical tyranny.
Till the Reform Bill the great national landmarks of Parliamentary history were only seven.
1st. The Magna Carta and De Foresta won
freedom for Church, Barons, and Freemen, by the
combined forces of those three estates.
The necessity for the latter Act may be seen
from the clause that " a freeman may make in his
own wood a mill, fish pond, pool, &c., and may have
hawks, herons, &c., and also the honey which may
be found there, &c."
2nd. The Act 25 Ed. IJ* (A.D. 1297). The " Confirmation of Charters" as the common law. It
declares judgments against the charters void, and
* The statute 34 Ed. I, st. 4, commonly called "de
Tallagio non concedendo," is mutilated, and questionable
history.




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.       267
undertakes that "we will never draw such aids,
tasks, and prises into a custom for any thing that
hath been done or that may be founden by roll, or
in any other manner; and we have granted for us
and our heirs, and to all the communalty, that
never for any business will we take aids, tasks,
nor prises of our realm, but by the common assent of
the realm, and for the common profit of the said
realm, saving the ancient aids and prises due and
accustomed."
3rd. The Act 26 H. VIII, c. 1 (1534), whereby
the King became the supreme head of the English
Church, and freeing us from Papal supremacy,
chained religion like a dead body to the State.
4th. The Act 16 Car. II, already detailed, which
turned feudal tenure into freehold to repay the
chivalry for restoring Charles II, and mulcted the
nation for ever by shifting the charges from the
chivalry upon the excise.
5th. The Act 1 W. and M., s. 2, c. 2 (A.D. 1688),
commonly called the Bill of Rights, "declaring the
rights and liberties of the subject, and settling the
succession," declares:-1st. That dispensing power
in the King is illegal. 2nd. That the dispensing
power lately exercised was illegal. 3rd. That Ecclesiastical Courts are illegal.  4th. That levying
money for the Crown without grant of Parliament
is illegal. 5th. Confirms right of petition. 6th.
That raising or keeping a standing army in state of
peace, unless with consent of Parliament, is illegal.
7th. That Protestant subjects may have arms for
defence. 8th. That elections shall be free. 9th.




268             DEMOCRACY:
Confirms freedom of speech and of debates in Parliament. 10th. That excessive bail shall not be
demanded. 11th. That jurors shall be duly returned. 12th. That grants of fines of persons before they are convicted, is illegal. 13th. That
Parliaments ought to be held frequently. 14th.
That these are the true, ancient, and indubitable
rights of Englishmen.
6th. The Act 1 G. I, c. 38, which made Parliaments septennial.
7th. The accepting of the value of 1692 (see
Macaulay, v. iv, p. 315), little more than onefiftieth of the present value, as the basis of the
land-tax. This was the second great land swindle
at the expense of the nation. Nevertheless, the
38 G. III, cap. 60, declares that it "conduces to
strengthening the public credit, and augmenting the
national resources, that the duty now payable for
one year on land shall be made perpetual, and that
the sums be raised yearly."
~
These acts represent the ebb and flow of legislation, and through them all the general advance of
the nation.
Nevertheless, it was well nigh said in history of
England that she died in childbirth,-that she
brought forth the man-child America, and perished
of the strain upon her system.
The revolution and the reformation that came
at once upon us kindled in our manhood at that
epoch a quality such as the world has seldom known,




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.    269
but it was not broadly based enough on an universality of Freedom in School, Press, Church, and
Assembly, —its quantity was not enough to maintain freedom, much less to carry it on to Equality,
and so, as Democracy could not prevail to conduct
the future of England, it went forth to create and
to inspire another nation.
What has England done since? She has done
a great deal of shopkeeping and shoplifting the
world over. She has tried to murder or maim her
progeny in the West. She assailed the Republic
of France, and when it brought forth Napoleon,
who hewed in pieces the feudal system, she mortgaged her industries and passed her children
through the fire to uphold it, and took on tick all
the infamies of Europe for twenty years.
She has founded Colonies, that have immediately reversed her system of Government. She has
founded empires, but has denied and misunderstood the main elements of their administration,justice, land tenure, and religion. She is the
greatest Mahommedan and Christian power, and is
mighty in opium sales and in missionaries.
And what is it that England wants? Is it
enough of manhood and its rudiments at our
base, —in our political foundations, that, as Milton
said, " those who choose shall be fittest to choose
the best, and England shall at last be organised
not only for and by'the  all,' but for the
whole of the all,-the  educated manhood of
England? "
Surely nothing but this can secure for us the




270             DEMOCRACY:
rule of the true nation and make us free within
and honorable without.
Having nearly neutralised if not mastered the
party amongst us, whether in Church or in State,
who would oppose this, we are at last getting over
our parenthesis in history, —this abyss of two
hundred years, and are going on to that Equality
which Stuarts and Legitimists, Priestcraft and
Ignorance have so long looked for and feared, as
coming beforehand to torment them.
We must cease to believe that, in affairs international, the converse of wrong is right,-that
because we erred in intervening, therefore nonintervention is always policy and Christianity.
That we must either keep or slay our brethren,
and that the protest of Cain is the teaching of
Christ.
Doubtless this completion of our manhood,
wholly and thoroughly, in quantity and quality, is
the process which re-commenced in 1830, and
which has yet to be urged on, through, or over all
opponents.
For the science of politics, which but manifests
the laws of God, is absolute.
We must have the revolutionary energies of
our common men to match and neutralise in permanence the conservative instincts of wealth, prerogative, privileges, and caste.  This we must
have, lest revolution itself should rise from the
abyss.
From education to association, from association
to equality, is the law, based in nature and necessity.




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.'271
Stop education and you stop the rest, but it
must be stopped at the beginning or not at all.
Give to man education, and he will, he must
associate, and take the rest that is his right.
Therefore of three things one:Oppose Education, and go back to Barbarism;
grant Education, and deny manhood, and necessitate revolution; or go on freely, fairly, and fully,
to complete recognition of the national manhood.
The first course is murder. The second suicide.
The third is Life, Conservatism, Democracy, and
Statesmanship.
The Puritans were, are, and will be the nation;
and we have been but little indeed of a nation till
we began to return to Puritanism."
To confess manhood and deny it not, is the only
course for those who intend to rule in England.
Labour and capital will go on to unite their energies and interests, and to subdue their opponents.
The true aristocrats of trade, birth, and intellect,
will help on the work. Wealth will not subdue
the spirit of commerce, for manhood will rise with
it. We shall continue and enlarge the age of
Cromwell and the Puritans, and shall never be
above praying, thinking, and fighting for the
right.
Thus England is not of those nations, over
* Is it too much to say that it was the principle of Puritanism (and chiefly, if not only, that part of it which is a
strong religious life, independent of endowed systems), which,
under the teaching and leadership of such men as Bunyan,
Wesley, Whitfield, &c., kept the better part of the English
nation alive until the great outward and visible reaction of
1832.




272               DEMOCRACY:
whose carcasses the chariot wheels of history and
civilisation jolt as they pass on in their career.
For this world is organised. Order rules, and not
disorder. Human nature has certain requirements
which must be met, if not in a perfect way, in the
best way possible, if not by one nation, then by
another which will sweep over it to empire.
Where there are not enough complete men in
a State to understand their material, mental, and
spiritual interests, and to organise for material, mental, and spiritual freedom, those interests will be
arranged for them according to the general worth
or worthlessness of the actual manhood.
The Church will be farmed. The State will be
farmed,-for the profit of the farmers. The national manhood will fare somewhat as an Irish
estate with an absentee landlord and a rapacious
middle-man. The words of Volney will perhaps
better fit the situation:
" They sold the favour of the Prince to the Visier, and the
Visier sold the Empire. They sold the law to the Cadi, and
the Cadi sold justice. They sold the altar to the Priest, and
the Priest sold Heaven. Men will never cease to be tormented
till they shall become intelligent and wise, —till they shall
practise the art of justice, founded on a knowledge of the
various relations in which they stand, and the laws of their
own organisation."
When a State possesses an adequate number of
men completely enough developed, the man will
govern himself, and these creatures of chaos and
old night will be scattered, as chased the legions of
light the hordes of the abyss.
Till " the whole of the all" are prepared and




TACITUS TO THE REFORM BILL.       273
organised for equality, the State and the Individual must suffer, for that is the sum of political
questions, their only final and universal solution.
Up to 1832, the national manhood was transfixed and petrified by oligarchic influences. The
Reform Bill was the guarantee of its mobilisation,
and the recommencement of its life.
Macaulay says, that the revolution of 1688
"finally decided the great question, whether the
popular element should be suffered to develop itself
freely, and to become dominant." This were surely
said with greater propriety of the Reform Bill of
1832. That transferred the "right divine," from
the families who farmed the revolution of 1688, to
the middle classes. The coming Bill will establish
the principle of the political competency of the
People, if it does not enfranchise them. The most
profound researches into the past can only show
that those possessed the franchise who were free,
and that those who were free possessed the franchise or its accepted equivalent of power.
The suffrage must evermore advance or recede
with the power of the developed associated manhood of the age and nation. The all will be enfranchised when the all (or a great majority of the
all) possess in their own souls the elements of freedom, and can combine and assert the everlasting
twofold truth of conservatism and progress.
T








THE PROBLEM.
CAN DEMOCRACY ORGANISE?
"' The British Government is one of the wisest in Europe,
because there is a body which examines it perpetually, and is
perpetually examining itself."-Montesquieu, v. iii, p. 60.
" If the constitution of England and America were compared with regard to their forms and substance, that of
America would be found to approach the more nearly to a
popular elective monarchy, and that of England to an aristocratic republic."-Goldwin Smith, 22nd January, 1866.
"'Laws ought to be no less relative to the principle or
passion, than to the nature or organisation of each Government; this is the key to an infinite number of laws.
"It is the nature of a republican Government that either
the collective body of the People, or particular families,
should be possessed of the supreme power."-Montesquieu.
T2




"The question now is, whether, and how, shall England
pass from an aristocratic to a Democratic Republic."
" Every conceivable law must properly originate in one of
these three points of view; but none should be made and enacted
without regard to all three; and the one-sided view in which
they have originated is an essential defect in too many laws.
Now from this threefold aspect we have three preliminary
essentials for every system of legislation: 1. A complete
general theory of right; 2. A perfect exposition of the end which
the State should propose itself, or what is, in fact, the same
thing, an accurate definition of the limits within which it is to
restrict its activity, or a representation of the especial ends
which are actually pursued by this or that State union; 3. A
theory of the means necessary for the existence of a State; and as
these means are necessary partly for the sake of internal
cohesion, and partly in order to assure the possibility of action,
-a theory of political and financial science. The first-mentioned alone is eternal and immutable as human nature, while
the others allow of modifications."-Baron W. von Humboldt,
p. 183, " Sphere and Duties of Government."




277
CHAPTER II.
THE PROBLEM.
"The whole art of the legislator is correctly to discern
beforehand the natural inclinations of communities of men, in
order to know whether they should be assisted, or whether it
may not be necessary to check them." —De Tocqueville.
"We must vindicate,-what? new things?  No! Our
ancient legal and vital liberties, reinforcing the laws enacted
by our ancestors, by setting such a stamp upon them that no
licentious spirit shall dare henceforth to violate them."-Sir
Thomas Wentworth, " Parl. Hist.," 11.
"Bitter jest, that the most civilised portion of the
globe should be considered incapable of self-Government."D'Israeli.
"h I-ow long shall principals continue bound by chains of
iron, trustees by nothing but cobwebs.'" —Benthanm.
" I say that it is demonstrated that genuine representation
alone can give solid power, and that in order to make the
Government strong, the People must make the Governmentt.
According to the original principles of your system... you
do no more than restore the genuine edifice designed and
framed by our ancestors."-Charles Fox, 1797.
" Not laws, but tyrannous ordinances, if imposed on him
without his suffrage given in person or by deputation."-Sir
William Jones, 1782.
"Some doubts might be cast on the penetration of men
who, whilst they complain of the pressure of taxation, send
to Parliament hordes of military and naval officers, who have
an interest in making that taxation still greater." —Herbert
Spencer.
We have seen that good  Government exists
where power is rightly distributed and completely
organised.
Also that it is an axiom that all Governments
consist of a Principle, a Passion, or a motive power,




2178            DEMOCRACY:
and of an Organisation, and that every Government that has not a single preponderating power
tends either towards its establishment, or to
anarchy.
It is therefore essential to enquire respecting
any given nation, whether the actual preponderating power is in harmony with the actual Constitution; or whether it has warped or is warping
the original or actual Constitution; or whether it
tends to reconstruction and return, or to some new
principle and organisation.
Because if the preponderating power be enough
a power to gradually overcome resistance, then
progress can be conservative; if not, it must be
revolutionary.
And to judge of the progress or decline of a
nation, this enquiry must be conducted by the
light of the fact, so oft repeated, that all real
progress is from the rule of the one, to that of the
few, the many, and the all. In Democratic Governments the preponderating power is the power of
the whole,-the all rule the all, and therefore there
is the minimum chance of corruption, displacement,
or decline.
There are therefore two necessary phases of
enquiry,-relative and positive.  Relative,-" Is
the organisation in harmony with the power; and
are either of these changed or changing? " Positive,
— " Is the nation advancing towards the rule
of the all, halting with the rule of the few
or the many, or going back to the rule of the
one? "




THE PROBLEM.              27 9
Obviously the only case in which there can be
at the same time a single; preponderating power,
a power rightly and definitively distributed, is the
case where that power is in the People, and where
a universal political equality levels all sectional
and sinister ascendencies. In fact, Democracy is
the highest degree of organisation springing from
the highest degree of freedom.
These principles of enquiry suggest three
questions which the practical politicians of England
should be prepared to, answer..
First. What are the principles of our politics?
and what is the- preponderating power in the
State?
Second. What is the ruling tendency of our
politics?
Third. What are the results? Is our progress
in the right direction, and at the right pace?
Does it lead away from our ancient Constitution, or back to it? Does it lead to the rule of
the all, or to the rule of the few,-to Democracy,
stagnation, or destruction?
But to get the right political perspective of
events, to estimate their relative importance, and
to realise our progress or decline, it is necessary to
observe where we were in the former times-say a.
thousand years ago,-what then was our Constitut.
tion, and what the preponderating power.
And as it will appear that the tendency of ournational organisation has been from local selJ



280             DEMOCRACY:
Government to centralisation, and that the tendency of our national principles now is from family
rule to national rule, or Democracy, the great
question is, whether the spirit and power of
Democracy is strong enough to organise the forms
of centralisation, or whether the two have got to
fight it out.
In answer to the question what are now the
principles and preponderating power of our politics?. we say,-the British Government is an
oligarchy tempered by monarchy, middle-class promotions, capital, strikes, trades' unions, a half free
Church, free assembly, and the fourth estate.
In other words we have got as far on the political road as the rule of the few, with the many
helped, thirty years ago, to a foothold on power by
the all, and the all kicked down as a ladder no
longer useful.
The preponderating power of the families has
broken the balances of the constitution, and thQ
most that monarchy is allowed to do, is to choose
for us and for itself, the reigning oligarchy.
Our theory is that of mixed Government. Our
preponderating power is oligarchy. The fact is,
that we are ruled by a Premier-President, chosen
about (on an average) every four years, and by a
Democracy gradually encroaching on the oligarchic
usurpation, and already able, in crises, to assert its
sovereignty.
The Politics of England are not moulded either




THE PROBLEM.             281
on the principle of Manhood, of Property (or Thinghood), or, entirely, of Feudality. We are ruled
neither by labor, capital, nor land, but by a compromise of the last two. Labor cannot be said to
be represented by the ten pound franchise, and we
have amongst us a depopulated Ireland and a million of paupers.
Our Politics in Foreign affairs are neither Intervention or non-Intervention. But we have just
left off murdering our brethren by the first, and
are now intent on the "great principle" of only
seeing them murdered, which is safer, cheaper, and
just as moral. This is clearly not a policy of
"M/lanhood," it is the safe and timorous policy of
capitalists, who have got a certain victory over the
policy of tradition and of the families, which has
always sought to maintain the vermin of legitimacy
in Europe at the charges of the British nation.
Now, the shopkeepers and the chivalry rule, and of
the two, the former are rather the more jealous of
the People.
As to the shopkeepers, the Chancellor, on April
7th, 1864, informed us that the total import and
export trade of England, had grown in 1863, to
nearly ~444,000,000, about three times the amount
of 1845. We were further told that whereas
"from  1842 to 1852, the taxable income of the
country increased by 6 per cent.; in the eight
years from 1853 to 186;1 it has increased from the
basis taken in 1853, 20 per cent. This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power is entirely
confined to classes of property."




282             DEMOCRACY:
Three thousand persons, according to the Income and Property tax returns of July 20th, 1-864,
possess an income of about ~25,000,000, rather
more than the total revenue of the whole mass of
agricultural laborers in England and Wales.
As to the landowners, the census of 1861 shows
that the number of male landed proprietors of
England and Wales decreased from 16,934 in 1851,
to 15,066 in 1861, so that the concentration of land
had grown 11 per cent. in ten years. At this rate
we should soon repeat the state of things under
Nero, when half the province of Africa was owned
by six gentlemen.
Thus (as it would be quoted on change), manhood, already five hundred per cent. below par,
decreases relatively to property, year by year; and,
in another view; it is the one "unknown quantity,"
that increases day by day in power.
To the second question we answer, The ruling
tendency of English politics is nevertheless undoubtedly to Democracy,-the Power and Rule of
the All. This tendency is vouched since 1832, by
a series of Popular Victories. All things tend to
the preponderance of numbers and intelligence. It
is a running fight. Democracy is let loose upon
privilege, and notwithstanding the concentration
of property and land power, flanks every political
position to which privilege successively retires.
To the third question,-" What are the results




THE PROBLEM.              283
of the principles that rule in English politics; is our
progress in the right direction and at the right
pace?"-we answer, there are two tests of those
results.
The ideal best Government produces, as we
have seen, a general diffusion of advantages amongst
individuals. It encourages the growth of individual genius and of the highest class of excellence;
and it contributes to an intense and invincible feeling of nationality. We have seen that this ideal
best Government is Democracy.
And the ideal best Government also gives Material, Political, and Religious Freedom.
How near, then, is the British nation to these
results and this ideal?
The British nation has certainly not got material, political, or religious freedom. There is consequently not a proper diffusion of advantages
amongst individuals. And whilst there is much
free development of individual genius and excellence, and an intense feeling of nationality, greater
freedom would develop more numerous instances
of the first, and would certainly elevate as well as
intensify the last.  The chief freedom of Englishmen may be described,-and it is a great deal, —as
the freedom to try to get freedom by any means
short of rebellion.
The "results," then, point wholly to the necessity of increasing and complementing our freedom.
The fact of thirty years unequalled advance
under a modified Democracy is an argument for an
increased Democracy.




284              DEMOCRACY:
1832 not only gave us a new start in political
freedom, followed by conquests since of material
freedom, and of intellectual freedom, and by efforts
after religious freedom.
It turned back the reaction of one hundred and
eighty years. It was the second great victory in our
historical development of Feudality to Democracy.
It gave the signal for that advance which will be the
destruction of our mixed Government, and which
will ultimately secure to us a peaceful instead of a
violent revolution, and save us from the horrors of
national dissolution and decay.
This follows from the principle or the truism
proclaimed by De Tocqueville, and before alluded
to, "that a Government equally divided between
two adverse principles must either pass through a
revolution or fall into complete dissolution."
In discussing, therefore, the results of the ruling
forces of our Government, we find them as varied
as the mixture of forces and principles. They are
good as far as public opinion, the final court of
appeal, inclines towards a virtuous Democracy, and
the future will be well, as the incline, whilst irresistible, is sufficiently gradual and peaceable.
It is this mixture and conflict of principles and
social forces that makes an analysis of the situation
so difficult.
As a question of finality as to the political sovereignty, we shall probably go on with three processes.
We shall probably go on to make public opinion
more and more absolute by making its constituent




THE PROBLEM.             285
forces more and more equal and homogeneous. A
true Democratic equality will reign in all but form.
The People's instruments, their Representatives,
will become more and more delegates, but delegation will become more and more honorable, for
there will be a completer unity of opinion and a
greater equality of information.
The People's instruments, the Executive, will
become, by shortened Parliaments, and by greater
freedom and equality every way, more dependent
on the People, while the Premier's power becomes,
possibly, even more concentrated and complete.
What is the nominal head of the republic is
not a matter of essence, but of form. Kinghood,
as now, will reign, whilst the People, instead of
the families, govern; and if triennial Parliaments
are adopted, our Premier-President will be assimilated to the American,-he will be more powerful
and more dependent.
As the national manhood approaches maturity
and universality, we shall, and of course must,
become more self Governing, Equal, or Democratic.
Meanwhile, the nature or organisation of our
Government is the "mixture," —of King, Lords,
and Commons. The Principle of our Government,
or the animating and directing passion, tends now
to be evermore more Democratic.
Hence, our necessary policy.
"Laws," says Montesquieu (in that celebrated
passage so often quoted, in which he expounds'the very important distinction from  which he
draws many consequences, for it is the key of ain




286              DEMOCRACY:
infinite number of laws'), "laws ought to be no
less relative to the principle or passion, than to the
nature or organisation of each Government."
Hence, as Disraeli once said profoundly, but
in another connection, " our true policy is to carry
out the new principles by means of existing
forms." Hence, again, to accept Democracy is
conservative, to oppose it is revolutionary.
Having ascertained in "Principle, Tendency,
and Results," how far England is a Democracy,
the great question remains, what are the next
steps which England is prepared to take in that
direction?
Democracy, the rule of the all, is Society
mobilised. Oligarchy is Society petrified. England
is half petrified, and half mobilised.
A Democratic nation may exist whenever the
national manhood is sufficiently developed to associate for self-Government, Democracy being the
measure of the admitted rights and values of
manhood.
We therefore put aside for the next score of ages
all theories of plural voting and protection of minorities, for were they right in theory anywhere, they
would be superfluous here.
The theory of all progress is that of an advance
towards Democracy, and the theory of conservatism
is that that advance be graduated.
If the advance be barred,- there is revolution.
Progress in England cannot be barred. Free




THE PROBLEM.             287
Press, Speech, and Assembly, Commerce, Education,
Labour, Capital, PoliticalEconomy, and Christianity,
forbid that. They guarantee industrial, political,
and religious freedom, —with revolution, or without
it.
Monopolies, Caste, and Priestcraft have got,
here  as  everywhere, to surrender or to be
destroyed.
The question for conservative England is, "How
best to graduate the next realisation of Democracy?" The question for Democratic England is,
"How large a measure of privilege can be next
attacked and destroyed, and how soon 2 "
The question presses. England, politically, is
not yet where she was officially in Cromwell's
time, though in average education and productiveness much better. The Lords absorb all three
estates. The Executive absorbs the Legislative.
Scottish and Irish Parliaments are destroyed.
Centralisation is intense. To give new organic
advantages to minorities were to increase that
which is already in excess, —-to do that which must
speedily be undone, —to do that which, till undone,
would perpetuate a war of interests, classes, and
sections.
Conventionally phrased, the question now is, not
shall England pass from an hereditary Monarchy
to a Republic. She really elects her ruler already
by a species of double or treble election, for a
constituency returns him, the House of Commons
and public opinion accept him as chief, and then
the Sovereign sends for him. The question now




288             DEMOCRACY.
is, "Whether and how shall England pass from an
aristocratic to a democratic Republic? "
"It is (says Montesquieu) the nature of a
Republican Government, that either the collective
body of the People, or particular families, should
be possessed of the supreme power."




THE PREPONDERATING POWER OF THE
PAST, AND ITS ORGANISATION;
OR,
DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
"After this manner, oh mighty prince, are none other
realms of the world disposed and inhabited. For though there
be in them men of great power, of great riches and possessions, yet they dwell not nigh to another, neither so many inheritors and possessors of land are elsewhere as in England."Chancellor Fortescue, in 15th Century.
"' It is not only evident that small freeholders were always
numerous, but we are perhaps greatly deceived in fancying,
that the occupiers of villein tenements were usually villeins."
-Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. iii, p. 262.
" Estates for a term of years were not uncommon in
Ed. I, yet far outnumbered, as I should conceive, by those of
a freehold nature."-Hallam's England, vol. iii, p. 42.
" The great council of the Norman Kings was, I believe,
little less than a continuation of the witenagemot, the immemorial organ of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy in their relation
to the King."-Hallam's Middle Ages, v. ii, p. 230.
"' The real presumption as to the municipal Government of
Anglo-Saxon boroughs, has been acutely indicated by Sir F.
Palgrave, arising from the universal institution of the courtleet, which gave to an alderman chosen by the suitors a jurisdiction in conjunction with themselves, as a jury over the
greater part of civil disputes and criminal accusations, as well
as general police, that might arise within the hundred."Ibid. v. iii, p. 219.
"' Until a comparatively late period no authoritative local
representative bodies existed for legislative purposes. The
inhabitants themselves were summoned in primaryfolk-motes."
-Toulmin Smith.
U




"Magna Carta.'To all archbishops, &c., and to all bailiffs
and faithful subjects' are granted, &c., and to all our realm
these liberties for evermore."
"2 Ed. III, cap. 8:' Also it is accorded that it shall not be
commanded by the great seal or the little seal to disturb or
delay common right, that though such commandments come,
the justices shall not therefore leave to do right in any point."'
"34 Ed. I, s. 4, c. 4:' All clerks and laymen shall have all
their liberties and free customs as freely as at any time they
had them best and most fully, and any statutes contrary to
them shall be void for evermore.'?
"It is common to assert that our liberties were bought
with blood. It is far more generally accurate to say, that
they (even Magna Carta) were purchased by money."-Hallam's Middle Ages, v. 3, p. 161.
"The distribution of landed property in England by the
Anglo-Saxons, appears to have been regulated on the same
principles that directed their brethren on the continent. Part
was converted into estates of inheritance for individuals; part
remained the property of the public, at the disposal of the
State. The former was called Bocland; the latter Folcland.
"Folcland was the land of the folk, and might be occupied
in common, or in severalty. In the latter case, it was probably parcelled out in the folcgemot, or court of the district, and
the grant attested by the freemen present, but could not be
alienated, and on expiration of the term, reverted to the community. It must have been apportioned by the nation in its
solemn meeting; earlier by the shire or other collection of
freemen.
"Bocland was held by book or charter, and had been
severed by an Act of Government from the Folkland, and converted into an estate of perpetual inheritance. Folkland was
subject to many burthens from which Bocland was exempt.
Bockland was subject only to the trinoda necessitas, contribution to military expeditions, and repairs of castles and
bridges. The natural origin of Folcland is the superabundance
of good land above that at once appropriated by the tribes,
families, or gentes, and on it depends the definition of the
march and the'gau,' with their boundaries. Over the Folcland at first, the king alone had no control." —Iallam, pp.
404-5-6-7, v. ii, "Middle Ages."- Quoting Allen's "Inquiry,"
Sir F. Palgrave, and Kemble's "Codex Diplomaticus."




291
CHAPTER III.
THE PREPONDERATING POWER OF THE
PAST, AND ITS ORGANISATION;
OR,
DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
" From Tacitus to 1688 there is no real break in the chain.
The English Constitution has been the result of the maintenance through ages, —by men free when roaming the forests
of Germany, and no less free when landing on the shores of
England,-of the active sympathies and aspirations of free
men." -Toulmin Smith.
"When the German and Scythian nations overran the
Western provinces of the Roman Empire, the confusion which
followed lasted for several centuries. The chiefs usurped the
greater part of the lands of those countries.
"The law of primogeniture hindered them  from being
divided by succession: the introduction of entails prevented
their being broke into small parcels by alienation.
"The natural law of succession took place among the
Romans, who made no more distinction in the inheritance of
lands than we do in moveables. But primogeniture came to
take place not immediately, but in process of time, that the
power might not be weakened by division.  Entails are
founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions, —the supposition that every successive generation have not an equal
right to the earth, and to all that it possesses."-Adam Smith,
"Wealth of Nations," v. ii, pp. 81-2-3-4-5.
" The personal expense of the great proprietors having
gradually increased, their retainers and unnecessary tenants
were dismissed. Tenants could agree to rise of rents only
upon condition of a term of years; and having in this manner
become independent, the great proprietors were no longer
capable of interrupting justice or disturbing peace." —Ibid.,
pp. 127-8-9.
We believe that our spirit and our forms can
be reconciled, and that that fact demonstrates our
vigorous life, and constitutes our safety. And
u2




292               DEMOCRIACY
following the simple and profound distinction
already alluded to, we shall now shortly consider,
both what was of old the " Principle, or Passion,"
or motive power of affairs in England, and also
the Organisation that expressed that principle and
power, that in fact grew out of it.
It is obvious that the real guarantee of popular
freedom, and of motive power and organisation,
then existed and was generally present throughout the country.  Nay, that in circumstances
where the People were a set of independent
centres of action, instead of one united homogeneous whole, the very preservation of the principle of freedom depended upon the constant use
and assertion of local self-Government.
For as organisation can only exist by living
agents, and as the natural and inevitable tendency
of officials is to magnify their offices, enlarge their
sphere, and strengthen their position, so, everywhere and always, when organisation is removed
from the constant living pressure of the People, it
tends to mere bureaucracy, centralisation, and despotism.*
And, in times when religion was farmed by
Church or King, and there was for the People
neither press nor general intercommunication of
any kind, the only means whereby they could
control the organisation, was the representative
system, based upon local self-Government.
* Thus " statute law, which is made by a body existing and
acting by virtue of a derived authority only, will be always
tending to encroach on common law, which springs immediately
from the folk and people."




AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.       293
Centralisation, then, meant despotism, or at
least the power to be despotic.  Centralisation,
now, means the perfect administration of the
governing will, whether of the one, the few, the
many, or the all.
The question now is, how universality of
suffrage and power can use centralisation for the
People, " the People," —that grand modern phase"the People, one and indivisible," that never
existed until now, whose soul is public opinion,
and whose will creates or crushes cabinets.
Thus the problem changes with the hour.
Local self-Government was stolen from the People.
Centralisation was substituted against the People,
but may become their perfect weapon. Public
opinion anticipates the franchise, and commands
votes, voters, representatives, and Governments.
This being the case, universal suffrage is not
the question. That, or practically that is sure to
follow, although universal education must precede
it. The question is, whether centralisation and
universal sutffrage,-an intense concentration of
means, and an intenser development of the universal will, are not the fated characteristics of the
politics of the future, —De Tocqueville has said it,
— " the organisation of Democracy."
The Germans, England, America, France, and
the Napoleons begun it. America is completing
it, and the rest follow.
"Centralisation (said Landor) is the grasp of
despotism; municipalities are the commons and
promenades of a free People. By the contraction




294              DEMOCRACY
of the one, and the enclosure of the other, we are
losing our strength and freshness every day."
Landor had not read the latest lesson of statesman
ship,-that intensest unity and universal will are
not contradictory phrases, but postulates of the
same conclusion.
Thus, organisation, which ought to be the mere
creature and vehicle of the sacred passion and will
of a true People, has, in all ages and countries, save
one, magnified itself against it, and in many has
overbalanced and crushed it. The machine, Government, destroys its proprietor the People. We
must advance yet another step before we shall have
learnt of our foes to conquer them.
Twice already in our history has the democratic
element preponderated (over the spirit of clanship);
in the wandering warring companionship of primitive Germany; and when freeholders were very
numerous in England, and all freeholders, if not all
men present at "the county," had the suffrage.
Twice has centralisation got the better of
Democracy. At first feudality conquered it, but
had in its turn to yield to Norman prerogative
and popular power. Then came the union of the
families, the Tudors, opulence and administrative
centralisation, and increased foreign intercourse.
But numbers increased at a greater ratio than
capital, and the people went down once more, to
rally twice in four hundred years,-under Cromwell and for the Reform Bill, —against that family
and oligarchic influence which has mainly ruled this
country since the end of the fifteenth century.




AND LOCAL SELF.-GOVERNMENT.          295
One of the chief elements, and perhaps the
preponderating motive power of the later AngloNorman times, was embodied, during one of the
best known and freest portions of our history, in the
general mass of the freeholders, a situation, perhaps,
best according with Aristotle's definition of the
excellence of middle-class Government, and combining the conservative influences of a stake in the
land, with the progressive instincts of a Democracy.
We have seen what was the great council of
the Anglo-Saxon, and then of the Norman Kings.
Shires were divided into tithings or hundreds;
the cities and boroughs into wards. All the wards
and hundreds formerly met together in full shire
and borough folk-mote at certain times. Individuals were often chosen to act for the whole in
common counciL
As town councils represent, as to local affairs,
the wants and wishes of the majority of the burgesses, ascertained by means of the several wardmotes,-so Parliament is composed of the assembled
representatives of all the several local associated
groups (shires, cities, and boroughs) throughout
the land, and when local self-Government is healthy,
represents the wants and wishes of the majority of
the realm in national affairs.
" It may be here remarked (says Toulmin Smith) that
the House of Peers is, constitutionally speaking, a remarkable
and very interesting illustration of the ancient combined folkmote and representative assembly. It has been already stated
that, on certain mutual relations being entered into, of a recip



296                  DEMOCRACY
rocal and not servile nature, one person attended the folkmotes of freemen on behalf of several others;-responsible
for them and their deeds there, as well as for himself; and
watchful of their interests. The Lords appeared thus,-just as
a jury does, —in a double capacity, as freemen in their own
behalf, and also, but expressly and importantly, as representing
a body of others.
" As this point of the representative quality of the House
of Lords will be new to many, it may be useful to give a
single illustration, out of many that might be quoted. In the
14th Edward III, an aid was very importunately asked by
the Crown. But the Lords and Commons were not easily
made to forget their duties and true functions. So "the
Prelates, Counts, and Barons,"' says the record, "for themselves
and for all their tenants, and the Knights of Shires, for themselves and for the Commons of the land," answered, &c. The
Lords represented themselves, and those who stood in the
voluntary relation of homage to them: the Knights of Shires,
&c., represented, also, themselves (this is not unimportant),
and those fireemen, who being in homage with no man, would
otherwise have no voice in the Common Council of the realm.
This is a subject very pregnant with matter for the reflection
of every thoughtful man.
"In another respect the House of Lords reminds us of the
ancient composition of the Common Council. Every title in
that House is one which was anciently elective and represented
special local communities and interests."*-Toulmin Smith's
" Local Self-Government," p. 84.5
The Ministerial functions were those of the
tything-man, hundred-man,  mayor,  sheriff, and
king. The same idea and character of functions
belong to each, varying according to extent. In
* " The title of' marquis' was conferred upon those who
held the command of the Marches, as the boundaries between
England and Wales, and England and Scotland, were called
when those countries were hostile to this nation.
"The title of'earl,' is derived from the Saxon word eorl,
noble.  The earl formerly had the government of a shire.
After the Conquest, earls were called counts, and from them
their shires have taken the names of counties.
" The viscount, vice-comes, was the deputy of the earl."




AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.              297
each the functions are, constitutionally speaking,
and apart from usurpation and encroachment,
strictly and simply ministerial.
Hallam concurs with the other authorities as
to the very large and democratical foundation of
the county and borough franchise, and as to the
"material guarantees" the People  had for their
freedom:"' Whoever may have been the original voters for county
representatives, the first statute that regulates their election,
so far from limiting the privilege to tenants in capite, appears
to place it upon a very large and democratical foundation.
For (as I rather conceive, though not without much hesitation), not only all freeholders, but all persons whatever present
at the county-court, were declared, or rendered, capable of
voting for the knight of their shire. Such at least seems to be
the inference from the expressions of 7 H. IV, c. 15,'all who
are there present, as well suitors duly summoned for that
cause as others.' And this acquires some degree of confirmation from the later statute, 8 H. VI, c. 7, which, reciting that'elections of knights of shires have now of late been made by
very great, outrageous, and excessive number of people dwelling within the same counties, of the which most part was
people of small substance and of no value,' confines the elective franchise to freeholders of lands or tenements to the value
of forty shillings.
" The representation of towns in Parliament was founded
upon two principles; of consent to public burthens, and of
advice in public measures, especially such as related to trade
and shipping. Upon both these accounts it was natural for
the kings who first summoned them to Parliament, little foreseeing that such half-emancipated burghers would ever clip
the loftiest plumes of their prerogative, to make these assemblies numerous, and summon members from every town of
consideration in the kingdom. Thus the writ of 23 E. 1,
directs the sheriffs to cause deputies to be elected to a general
council from every city, borough, and trading town.'
" The Great Charter of John was secured by the election of
twenty-five barons, as conservators of the compact. If the
king, or the justiciary in his absence, should transgress any




298                 DEMOCRACY
article, any four might demand reparation, and on denial carry
their complaint to the rest of their body.' And those barons,
with all the commons of the land, shall distrain and annoy us
by every means in their power; that is, by seizing our castles,
lands, and possessions, and every other mode, till the wrong
shall be repaired to their satisfaction; saving our person, and
our queen and children. And when it shall be repaired they
shall obey us as before.' It is amusing to see the common law
of distress introduced upon this gigantic scale; and the capture
of the king's castles treated as analogous to impounding a
neighbour's horse for breaking fences." —Halam's "Middle
Ages," v. iii, pp. 111, 163.
As to the details of the ancient origin and
nature  of Parliament;  the right of suffrage;
conference of members with constituents before
voting the taxes; penalties for absence from Parliament; the prompt answering of all petitions,
and other safeguards of the Constitution, the work
of J. Toulmin Smith, on "Local Self-Government
and Centralisation (John Chapman, 1851)" is a
valuable treatise.
Take the following as to the origin and antiquity of our Constitution: —
1" The student of our Constitution must take up the records
of his race from the earliest times, even from the page of Tacitus, and follow them down, unbroken, till the Revolution of
1688, if he would faithfully fulfil his task. There is no real
break in the chain. The same great principles will be found to
run through the whole, and to assert and re-assert themselves
vigorously, from time to time, as encroachments and attempts
at oppression made it necessary. The Historian, dazzled by
externals, may dwell chiefly on the troubles and deeds of
those in high places, but these external marks do not reach
so far below the surface as the space and manner of their telling would seem to import. The inner political and social life
of the nation has remained, through all these centuries, extraordinarily little changed in character and spirit.
" It suffices, as to the latter (our constitutional system), to
say, that it must not be implied that, at any one past period of
our history, any one man arose, so farseeing and so gifted




AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.              299
that he was able to map out a system of Institutions which has
endured through ages, and embodied perfection. The English
Constitution has a truer origin than that. It has been the result
of the maintenance, through ages, by men free when roaming the
forests of Germany, and no less free when landing on the shores of
England, of the active sympathies and aspirations of free men;
which they succeeded, through their strong practical good
sense, in preserving in full activity, when in a more settled
state, by falling, probably almost insensibly, into courses of
habitual action and intercourse among each other, which, as
we look back upon them now, it is impossible not to feel to
surpass, in practical wisdom and efficiency, what the highest
human presight could have chalked out as a system."Pp. 17-18.
With respect to the democratic basis:
" It is demonstrable that the principles of the English Constitution are, that the will of the folk and the people is the
only foundation for the authority of any in whose hands any
public functions may, for any time being, be lodged; that
some definite means must always be had recourse to of truly
ascertaining that will; that all in authority are to be at all
times, directly responsible, for every act, to that will; that no
new step can be taken, new law made, nor new office created,
but after express appeal to that will; that all Local affairs
shall be managed and controlled by the Local bodies only,general affairs, affecting the common good of the community,
being those only the management of which it is proper for the
general Government to control."-Pp. 17, 18, 19.
This is indeed the same principle of local
sovereignty, which has lately been contended for
in America, under an exaggerated form as " State
rights."
That Representative Assemblies frequently met and were alone
able to make general Laws, in the time of the Anglo-Saxon Kings,
is clear from the express letter, as well as internal evidence, of
many of those bodies of Laws still extant. A learned writer
on that subject has given a list, which he declares to be an
imperfect one, of more than 120 English Parliaments under
Anglo-Saxon Kings. Others have reckoned a much greater
number.
When William summoned Harold to abide by the oath he
had made to support the former in his claim to the crown of




300                  DEMOCRACY
England, the answer he received was, that " it would have
been the height of presumption on his (Harold's) part to have
entered into any compact concerning the kingdom without the
general consent and statute of the Common Council and People." The Historian who records these remarkable words
lived himself in the reign of William I's son, Henry I.
" The reign of William I not only furnishes instances of
the meeting of the national assembly, but highly interesting
information as to the composition of that assembly.
" The forms of the writs issued by John, in the 15th year
of his reign, to all cities and boroughs of the realm, as well as
to the Peers, in reference to a Parliament, are still extant.
"Magna Charta is demonstrable to have been made and
assented to, in and by a Common Council of the whole realm.
The edition of it of the 9th Henry III, expressly states that an
aid was granted to the King by the earls, barons, knights, free
tenants, and all others of the kingdom.
" To add but one more to authorities which may be accumulated to almost any extent, the express and most significant words of the ancient and constitutional Coronation Oath
(at least as old as Edward I's time), which the Kings of England had to swear, were, that the King should " keep and
guard the Laws and Customs which the folk and people shall
have chosen (quas vulgus elegerit)."-P. 76.
As to Parliamentary representation and various
modern attempts to narrow its basis from that of
the whole body of the freemen, Mr. Toulmin Smith
proceeds:" As to counties, it is clear from Stat. 8 Henry VI, c. 7,the first open successful attempt to narrow, for oligarchic purposes, the parliamentary franchise, —as well as from  earlier
statutes and records, that every man, of whatever "substance
and value," had, before the passing of that Act, a voice in the
election. But, as to towns, the same narrowing of the franchise
was never accomplished until thepassing of the (so-called) Reform
Act. Whatever some individual places were pusillanimous
enough to submit to, the rule of the Common Law was, and
is, clear and unmistakeable. A celebrated election committee
of the 23rd James I, —a committee composed of the ablest
body of lawyers that England ever produced,-after the fullest
consideration, declared what was "the common law, that is
the common right," on this subject. It affirmed that "of
common right, all the inhabitants,-householders,-and resi



AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.         301
dents within the borough,-ought to have voice in the election, and not the freeholders there only."
The Magna Carta, 9 H. III (A.D. 1224), and
the Carta de Foresta, secure the rights of the
Peasants, the Barons, and the Church. " First, that
the Church of England shall be free, and shall have
her whole rights and her liberties inviolable. And
to all the freemen of our realm all the liberties
underwritten." And the Magna Carta is directed
"To all archbishops, &c., and to all bailiffs and
faithful subjects," are granted, &c., "and to all our
realm these liberties for evermore."
The Statute 52 H. III, cap. 1 and 2 (A.D. 1267)
says, "whereas many great men refused to be
justified by the King and his Court like as they
were wont in the time of the King's noble progenitors, the more discreet men of the said realm being
called together as well of the higher as of the
lower estate, the said King hath made, &c., which
he willeth to be observed for ever of all his subjects,
as well high as low. All persons as well of high
as of low estate shall have and receive justice in
the King's Court. Moreover, none shall distrain
any to his Court who is not of his fee, or upon
whom he hath no jurisdiction by reason of hundred
or bailiwick."
This Act is important as showing that the
question of franchise was one of habitation, not of
property.
The 2 Ed. III, c. 8, A.D. 1328, says, "also it is
accorded and established that it shall not be comrn



302              DEMOCRACY
manded by the great seal or the little seal to
disturb or delay common right; that though such
commandments come, the justices shall not therefore
leave to do right in any point."
25 Ed. I, c. 3 and 4 (A.D. 1297). The Charter
to be sent to Cathedral Churches and read before
the People twice a year. Excommunication against
breakers of the Charter to be pronounced twice a
year. If Bishops neglect this,-to be compelled.
28 Ed. I, c. 1 (x.D. 1300). Charter had not
been observed, because no punishment had been
enacted against offenders.
"Be it known that the great Charter of the
liberties of England granted to all the commonalty
of the realm shall be kept in every point, and shall
be read four times in the year before the People in
full county. Three good men shall be chosen in
every shire court by the commonalty of the same
shire to enforce penalty,-imprisonment or fine.
And cap. 8 enacts that the People shall have
election of their sheriff in every shire, where the
shrievalty is not of fee, if they list.
And 34 Ed. I, s. 4, c. 4, even enacts that all
clerks and laymen of our realm shall have all their
liberties and free customs as freely as at any time
they had them best and most fully, and any
statutes contrary to them shall be void for evermore.
1 H. V, c. 1, mentions that representatives shall
be "citizens and burgesses of the cities and
boroughs," and shall be chosen by men, "citizens
and burgesses resiant dwelling andfree in the same."




AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.           303
In the year 1297, five hundred and sixty-nine
years ago, in the statute by which Edward the
First confirmed the Magna Charta, he bound himself and his heirs not only to the dignitaries of the
State, but to "all the commonalty," not to take
"aids, mises, or prises," but by the common assent
of "all the realm."
In 1306, in the same reign, it was further
enacted by the "Statutum de Tallagio non concedendo," 34 Ed. 1, stat. 4, c. 1, that no tallage or
aid,-that is, no tax-should be imposed or levied
without the assent of the archbishops, bishops,
earls, barons, knights, burgesses, and "other the
freemen of the commonalty."
Moreover, the limiting Act of H. VI, 1429, was
passed in the infancy of the King (literally so,-he
was seven years old), and at a very disturbed
period.
It is also notable that elections have been, and
now are, decided in the first instance, and according to the writ, by the "view," or persons present,
without distinction or enquiry, and that that is
final unless a poll be demanded.
Bentham elaborates very forcibly the point
that the franchise was possessed even by so-called
Villeins:
" Behold now the words of the statute, 7 1. IV, c. 15.
After reciting the grievous complaint of the Commons (in the
French original Communalte) of the undue election of the
Knights of Counties... sometime made of affection of
the Sheriffs, and otherwise against the form of the writs, to
the great slander of the counties, and hindrance (retardation)




304                  DEMOCRACY
of the business of the Commonalty in (of) the said county,it enacts that, at the County Court, after proclamation,' all
they that be there present, as well suitors duly summoned, AS
OTHERS, shall attend to the election of the Knights for the
Parliament, and then in the full county' (court) they shall
proceed to the election, freely and indifferently, notwithstanding any request or commandment to the contrary."
" EVEN AS TO VILLEINS,-were they, after all, really
excluded?  Look to the words, clearly not: who were the
persons by whom the elections were to be made?  Suitors
summoned as such, and they alone? No: but'all they that
be there present.' Well, but (says somebody) in the state of
villeinage, no will of his own could any person be said to have.
So much for surmise; and, but for particular inquiry, not an
unnatural one. Well now as to the fact. Eight and twenty
years before the time in question, viz., anno 1377, was passed
the statute 1 R. II, of which c. 6,-a chapter of considerable
length-is in the old French, and in the vulgate edition, not
translated. From this statute it appears that already, even
at that time, villeinage was a condition very different from
slavery. Rent did they pay; and though, instead of money,
it was in the shape of services, yet these services were certain.
In this statute what is assumed as a general fact, is-that
they were able to pay a fine to the King, besides making
satisfaction to their Lords. The main offence imputed to them
is-obtaining liberation from those services by forged deeds.
"The existing copyholders are the posterity of the ancient
villeins. Tenants-the villeins were-the copyholders areso were they and are they styled-by copy of Court Roll.
Deriving from the Records of the Court the title to the lands
they occupied, what can be more natural than that to that
same Court they should be under an obligation,-under which
is included the liberty,-of access and resort to it. But supposing any of them present at any such Court, how is it
possible that they should not have been included in the
assemblage designated as above by the word' others'? "Bentham, " Plan of Reform," pp. 82-3-4.
And, continues Bentham, on the pretences
which led to a narrowing of the suffrage:" So much for the strong and prosperous reign of II. IV,
in which virtually universal suffrage was then established.
Comes now the weak and disastrous reign of his idiot grandson, under which, under the sort of pretences that will be seen,
it was curtailed."




AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.                305
"Statute 8, IH. VI, c. 7:'What sort of men shall be
chosen, and who shall be chosen knights of the Parliament."
" Item: Whereas the election of knights to come to the
Parliaments of our Lord the King, in many counties of the
realm of England, have now of late been made by very great,
outrageous, and excessive numbers of people, dwelling withinz the
same counties of the realm of England, of the which, most part
was of people of small substance, and'(or)' of no value (i. e.,
worth), whereof every one (of them) pretending a voice equivalent, as to such elections to be made, with the most worthy
knights and esquires dwelling within the same counties,
whereby manslaughters, riots, batteries, and divisions among
the gentlemen and other people of the same counties, shall
very likely rise and be, unless convenient and due remedy be
provided in this behalf. (2). Our Lord the King, considering
the premises, hath provided, ordained, and established, by
authority of this present Parliament, that the knights of the
shires, to be chosen within the said realm of England, by
people dwelling and resident in the same counties, whereof every
one of them shall have free land or tenement to the value of
forty shillings by the year at least, above all charges."P. 85, "Bentham's Plan."
As to the complete and literal character of our
self-Government of old, Mr. Toulmin Smith contends that:
"It is quite clear, from the ancient records, that until a
comparatively late period, the size of all towns and cities being
much smaller than at present, and the population of counties
much less, no authoritative local representative bodies existed for
legislative purposes. The inhabitants themselves were summoned in primary folk-motes, to decide every question. The
general folk-lnotes were thus very different things from a
modern town's-meeting, where the question in hand has not
been sifted by the many sections separately."
"The election must always be in full folk-mote. This is a
most important point, and special attention will have to be
called to it hereafter. As in all other proceedings of institutions of local self-Government, this affair is to be done openly
and in sight of all. A statute relating to the election of
members of Parliament was passed in the 7th Henry IV, c. 15,
which, being precisely declaratory, on all its points, of the common law of the land, may be usefully quoted.
X




306                  DEMOCRACY
" At the next shire-mote to be holden after the delivery of
the writ of Parliament, proclamation shall be made in the full
shire-mote, of the day and place of the Parliament, and that
ALL THEY that be there present (as already quoted), and this also'without any commandment of the King, by writ or otherwise, or of any others."'
" There was no delayed polling. The entire election had to
be got over between the hours of eight and eleven in the forenoon."
"The importance of frequent meetings of the Common
Council of the realm was always felt. The universal term of
election TO ALL OFFICES except the Crown itself was, and is, constitutionally speaking, annual at the utmost. The choice of representatives to Parliament followed the rule. A new Parliament
met at least once a year."-Pp. 79, 80, 81.
The revolutionary energies and ideas of feudality, the broad basis of our national self-Government, and the preponderance of custom over king,
are well shown by Hallam in the following:" At length (10th year of Rich. 2) the Duke of Gloucester,
and Arundel, Bishop of Ely, were commissioned to speak the
sense of Parliament; and they delivered it, if we may still believe
what we read, in very extraordinary language, asserting that
there was an ancient statute, according to which, if the King
absented himself from Parliament without just cause during
forty days, which he had now exceeded, every man might
return without permission to his own country; and moreover,
there was another statute, and (as they might more truly say)
a precedent of no remote date, that if a King, by bad counsel,
or his own folly and obstinacy, alienate himself from his
People, and would not govern according to the laws of the
land and the advice of the peers, but madly and wantonly
followed his own single will, it should be lawful for them,
with the common assent of the People, to expel him from his
throne, and elevate to it some near kinsman of the royal
blood. By this discourse the King was induced to meet his
Parliament, when Suffolk was removed from his office, and
the impeachment against him commenced."
" If the King newly incorporate an ancient borough which
before sent burgesses to Parliament, and granteth that certain
selected burgesses shall make election where all the burgesses
elected before, this charter taketh not away the election of
the other burgesses.  By original grant or by custom a




AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.            307
selected number of burgesses may elect or bind the residue."Coke, Fourth Institute.
"There seems on the whole great reason to be of opinion
that where a borough is so ancient as to have sent members
to Parliament before any charter of incorporation proved or
reasonably presumed to have been granted, or where the
word burgesses is used without anything to restrict its
meaning in an ancient charter, the right of election ought to
have been acknowledged either in the resident householders
paying general and local taxes, or in such of them as possessed an estate of freehold within the borough."-Hallam's
England, pp. 68, 45, vol. iii.
It has been well urged that "local self-Government puts an end to Demagogism. When men
have the constant consciousness of their own rights
and responsibilities, and discuss and control for
themselves, specious pretexts can no longer be
artfully used."
We  believe, however, that  this  complete
Government from local centres is incompatible with
a complete nationality; and that as centralisation
gains upon a country, it can only be met and
matched by a universality of vote-power and education.
The combinations will be vaster, the unity more
intense, and the individual units more completely
equipped.-Local self-Government will be supplemented or complemented by an intense centralisation founded upon a universal individual selfGovernment-by a universally based and organised
public opinion, which in truly democratic countries,
will course like lightning through the body
politic.
There are individual interests, municipal
interests, and  national interests.   Where  the
x2




308              DEMOCRACY
relations of the individual are stronger, to the
intermediate corporations or institutions, than to
the nation (as they will be at a certain stage),
there nationality suffers.  National affairs can
safely be left to local decisions, only where the
spirit of nationality is strong enough to override
local sovereignty. There can be no complete adjustment of the three interests, save in an advanced
Democracy. " Nation " becomes a living organism
only by a union of individuality with centralisation.
Multiplicity has altered the form of primitive
arrangements, and organisations are national and
international. We have gone from Local Republics,
or Oligarchies, to the People one and indivisible.
Local work is done by municipalities. General
work by the Senate. The two departments cannot now come together before rudimentary assemblies of the People.
And yet the People is in theory rightly sovereign.
What is the remedy?
The enabling, and restraining, and levelling, and
elevating, and unifying power of a fourfold manhood-development, by free school, press, church, and
assembly. The People must avail themselves of
this new necessity and principle of organisation, to
carry into effect the true meaning of the representative system.
Nationality is now too intense and infinite to
be mated otherwise. Unity can alone return to
Governments and People, by securing thus the




AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.       309
guarantees of a universal knowledge, interest, and
power.
The material factors of national unity, —railways,
canals, telegraphs, banks, postal services, &c., did
not then exist. As to the People, intelligence lay
in patches throughout the country, unable to communicate. And we know that without education,
and consequent powers of association, official centralisation must always get the better of the
People. That appears to be the inevitable history
of nations from the era of feudality to the era of
equality. Individuals are not completely enough
prepared by education to associate for political and
social purposes, and so corporate interests and
sectional organisations subvert their freedom.
From the organisation of feudality to the
organisation of Democracy, there neither has been,
nor could have been, anything definitive in politics.
All other forms and powers, —like those which
conferred such intense Individuality upon the few
under the feudal system, —have to yield to that
universal individual development which can alone
make centralisations at once permanent and complete. And De Tocqueville tells us that the principal security of American freedom is not so much
popular suffrage, as the administration of nearly
all the business of society by the People themselves.








USURPATIONS AND INNOVATIONS.
HOW THEY CAME AND WHAT THEY WILL LEAD TO.
THE DYNASTY OF THE FAMILIES.
"From the accession of the house of Tudor (and union of
the Families, IH. VII, A.D. 1485) a new period is to be dated
in our history,-far more prosperous in the diffusion of opulence and the preservation of general order than the preceding,
but less distinguished by the spirit of freedom and jealousy of
tyrannical power."-.Hallam.
" Any comparison between our ancient and modern polity
must lead to most erroneous conclusions, unless large allowance be made for the effect of that restraint, which resistance
and the fear of resistance constantly imposed on the Plantagenets. As we cannot employ physical force, it is our wisdom
to keep all the constitutional checks in the highest state of
efficiency. A nation of hardy archers and spearmen might,
with small risks, connive at some illegal acts. The effect of
wealth has been to make insurrection far more terrible than
maladministration."-Macaulay.
"For who sees not that while such assemblies are permitted to have a longer duration (than annual), there grows up
a commerce of corruption between the ministry and the deputies." —Swift, A.D. 1720.
" The (septennial) Act 1 Geo. I, c. 38, poisoned the Constitution."-Bentham.
" In eighty-six years, nine families alone obtained eightythree consulships."-Napoleon's Caesar.
" The aristocracies of modern Europe are aristocracies
neither of arms nor of law, but of social and political privilege
alone." —Goldwin Smith.
" The most natural intermediate and subordinate power in a
monarchy is the nobility."-Montesquieu.
" The debates in the English Commons serve to point out
to the aristocracy those men that should be chosen for its
agents."-Napoleon III.




"'~The reduction of the free ceorls into villenage is one of
the most remarkable innovations of the Anglo-Norman period.
Observations have been made on it by Mr. Wright in the
Archoeologia, he says,' these feelings of hatred and contempt
for the peasantry were brought into our island by the Norman
barons in the latter half of the eleventh century. The Saxon
laws and customs continued, but the Normans acted as the
Franks had done to the Roman Coloni; they enforced with
harshness the laws which were in their own favor, and gradually threw  aside, or broke through, those which were in
favor of the serf." —iallam's " England," v. iii, p. 261.
" The introduction of the feudal regime occasioned one
such change, of which the importance cannot be overlooked.
Social preponderance and political power passed from the
towns to the country; private property and private life assumed pre-eminence over public. This first effect of the
triumph of the feudal principle, appears more fruitful in consequences, the longer we consider it." —Guizot.
" The advantage which the landlord has derived from the
invariable constancy of the valuation of the Land Tax, has
been principally owing to some circumstances altogether extraneous to the nature of the tax. In the state of things which
has taken place since the revolution, the constancy of the
valuation has been advantageous to the landlord, and hurtful to
the Sovereign."-AdamSmith, "Wealth of Nations,"v. iii. p. 261.
"' That aristocratic law of inheritance which is fast accumulating the land of England in a few hands, and disinheriting
the English People of the English soil." —Goldwin Smith.
"If you are a standing menace to aristocracies, you are
equally a standing menace to State Churches.  A State Church
rests upon the assumption that religion would fall if it were
not supported by the State. On this ground it is that the
European nations endure the startling anomalies of their State
Churches, the interference of irreligious politicians with religion,
the worldliness of ambitious ecclesiastics, the denial of liberty
of conscience, the denial of truth. Shall I believe that Christianity, deprived of State support, must fall, when I see it
without State support not only standing, but advancing with the
settler into the remotest West? Will the laity of Europe long
remain under their illusion in face of this great fact?"-Ibid.




313
CHaAPTER IV.
USURPATIONS AND INNOVATIONS:
HOW THEY CAME, AND WHAT THEY WILL LEAD TO.
"A very droll spectacle it was, in the last century, to behold the impotent efforts of the English towards the establishment of democracy. As they who had a share in the direction
of public affairs were void of virtue; as their ambition was
inflamed by the success of the most daring of their members,
&c., the people annoyed at so many revolutions, in vain attempted to erect a commonwealth."-Miontesquieu, v. i, p. 26.
" The offices and emoluments of Government are not sufficient for the whole aristocratic party at the same time. They
have therefore divided themselves into two sections, in order
to enjoy power turn about."-James Aytoun.
"The influence of Roman notions never prevailed very
much here, and though, after the close alliance between the
Church and State established by the reformation, the whole
weight of the former was thrown into the scale of the crown,
the mediaeval clergy were anything rather than upholders of
despotic power."-Hallam.
" When the ministers of religion, who of all men should be
men of an independent character of mind, are the salaried servants of the State, they generally become the useful instruments of the State, and they are of high value to corrupt and
tyrannical Governments,"-Disraeli, 14th July, 1865.
" The time may come when the working classes may clamour with earnestness and some approach to unanimity for a
share of electoral power. If their demand takes the form
which is given to it now by those who assume to speak in
their name, there is no choice but to resist. No evils of resistance can outweigh the evils of concession. Discontent,
insurrection, civil war itself, will in the long run produce no
worse dangers than absolute and unrestrained Democracy.
Resistance, therefore, even to the uttermost, to such claims as
these, may be contemplated without misgiving as to the result."-Pp. 570, 571, Quarterly Review.
When the preponderating power is an aristocracy chiefly of privilege, although not, as Napoleon
phrased it, "an aristocracy without nobility," when




314             DEMOCRACY:
the influence of property, superseding that of force
and feudality, has not yet yielded to ManhoodDevelopment and Equality,-there is then a period
of usurpation and transition, when the shadows
and names of the past rule, because the power of
the future is unprepared.
Throughout all history, especially from the time
when "voluntaryism" yielded to Feudality, and
the Individual arm ceased to be a power in the
State, to that other time when the individual will
regain equality in a higher form and more complex
civilisation,-during our own history, from Teutonic associations on the one hand, until we shall
reach the era of equality on the other, we see
through all action and re-action, two simple processes-First the immaturity of the national manhood, and the organisation of sectional interests;
and second, the gradual development and organisation of the national manhood to supersede those
interests.
The necessity of order develops the organising
power of our race. As our whole manhood is
not prepared by material, political, and religious
freedom for power, the various interests of man
organise themselves outwardly in sections and corporations. Whilst man prepares himself for the
completer individuality required by a higher civilisation, the forces of superstition, monopoly, privelege, and prerogative, perfect the machinery of
tyranny. Then is the progress of manhood more
real than apparent: the progress of corporate and
sectional interests more apparent than secure.




USURPATIONS AND INNOVATIONS.   315
Whilst the outward show of the one boasts itself,
the real motive power is being developed and
organised against it. Where a State does not
possess a sufficient number of men prepared to
conquer industrial, political, and religious freedom,
parasitical growths will gather upon the industries,
the institutions, and the religion of that State. The
first act of Manhood-Development is to cleanse itself
from these parasites.
Man cannot command religious freedom, and
the Church organises herself as a separate corporate
interest outside the man, contending with the
King, the State, and the Families for supremacy.
Man cannot command political freedom, and
there is organised a kind of family dynasty, which
contends with King and Church for the chattel,
the People.
Man cannot command material freedom, and
interests of primogeniture and direct taxation, of
military, naval, and class monopolies, are organised
to profit by his weakness.
And all these factious sectional organisations,
are in fact, but tenants by sufferance to that organisation of the whole as to manhood, and the all as
to numbers, which surely advances.
Centralisation has been organised against and
without the People, and Democracy now proceeds
to take possession of it in the name of the People.
The period of great organic changes in the
development of modera. English tyranny can




316             DEMOCRACY:
hardly be divided into distinct epochs, though
broadly speaking, the year 1429, when the suffrage
was limited; the year 1534, when Henry prepared to repeat the policy of Constantine, and to
assume the headship of the Church; the year 1660,
when the Families struck their land-bargain for
themselves and against the People with the Stuart,
were signs of the preponderance of various partial
and sinister powers. The suppression of the Scotch
and Irish nationalities and Parliaments, the tampering by the landlords (suspiciously near the
revolution of 1688,) with national sources of
revenue, fixing the land-tax at the valuation of
1692, and the unconstitutional extension of annual
into septennial Parliaments, make up the list of
attempts at enforced concentration; and between
Church and State of an unhealthy Unity.
During the period now in question, centralisation was the necessary consequence of events.
Education, which is the universalising principle,
being neglected, centralisation went on alone without the People.
But all such attempts at preparing the organisation for the use of one power, whilst it ought to
be and will have to be adjusted to and harmonised
with another, can but end in collapse or destruction,
or in tedious and doubtful recovery.
And so this great and splendid palace, built up
by infinite pains, for the use of the one or the few,
will at last be claimed and inhabited by the
People.




USURPATIONS AND  INNOVATIONS.    317
The relative position of Democracy and its opposites,-prerogative and privilege, is in every age
and country the real position of the nation.' Here then," says Montesquieu, v. ii, p. 209-v. i, p. 212,' is the fundamental constitution of the Government (the English,) we are treating of. The Legislative Body, being composed of two parts, they check one another by the mutual
privilege of rejecting. They are both restrained by the executive as the executive by the legislative."
" England will perish when the legislative power shall be
more corrupt than the executive."
WNe are thus furnished with a test of agreement with the fundamental constitution of our
Government. " The Lords and Commons check one
another, they constitute the legislature, and check,
and are checked by the Executive."
And we shall find as the chief characteristics of
Government during the last two hundred years:ist. That certain families generally, and a certain class always, supply the Premiers.
2nd. That certain families, or a certain class,
farm the Executive.
3rd. That certain families unite and control
Lords and Commons,-the Legislature.
4th. That such checks as exist are due to the
jealousies of rival families, to the press, and public
opinion, to the few real representatives of the
People, to the Crown and constitution.
5th. That such results have followed, as might
have been expected in State and in Church, —as to
Land-laws, Poor-laws, lengthening of Parliaments,
corruption, waste, standing armies, &c., &c.
6th. That a certain example of absorption of
power has been set which the People will follow




318              DEMOCRACY:
without confusion of function as to Executive and
Legislative, and in such a way as to constitute the
latter a fountain of life, health, and unity.
Democracy in England, after a conservative
reaction of ages, has, since 1832, rapidly seized
upon certain elemental powers, of the press, of
economics, and of the franchise, which enable it to
fight the fight of the People with ever increasing
advantage.
Yet Democracy and Privilege are still so nearly
balanced, that though the People's tribunes (and the
People's elect, as Gladstone) carry their measures,
they are liable to be enacted by opponents, not by
those who have fought the fight and who wear the
laurels. This is one of the guages of Democracy.
A man is more a man where he who wins the
battle wears the crown, not only of opinion, but of
official recognition and power.
The principle of delegation is, however, so far
accepted, that if mere party chiefs obstruct till
their party is dissolving, they often then become
delegates of the People, as before they were delegates of faction, and take the places belonging of
right to the true representatives.
Thus, on the one hand, our People sometimes
govern without reigning. On the other, the families always reign, whether they govern or no.
The Premiership was not very long since as
was the Consulship in the worst ages of Rome.
The analogy is startling:"' We see how far are carried the jealousy and animosity




USURPATIONS AND  INNOVATIONS.    319
which the virtue and activity of the new men light up in the
heart of certain nobles. The nobility transmitted from hand
to hand this supreme dignity (the consulship), of which they
were in exclusive possession. Every new man, whatever his
renown and the glory of his deeds, appeared unworthy of this
honour. The consulship would have been considered profaned, if,
even with superior merit, a new man had obtained it. This
eminent post in which the nobility were in a manner entrenched,
and to which they had closed all the avenues." (Napoleon's
Caesar, v. i, pp. 324-64.)
Thus have our own prime ministers,-however
hostile to the preponderating tendency of politics,
-often remained fixed upon the country they
held back for the term of their natural lives. And if
individual premiers cannot always come back to
power, the class remains.
Dante met, in the Inferno, a soul whose body
was at the same period of time pretending to be
alive and active in Italy, and so have we met in
England, disastrously active, and apparently in
their natural state, certain Statesmen whose reputations have long since expired, but who continue
to prove their existence on the solvitur ambulando
principle, and to defy the will of the People in the
People's House!
Thus the most tremendous political lampoon
ever penned, aptly describes what has been our
own situation.
At present the English People rule by
paroxysms of public opinion, and their power is
shown by turning the representatives of the few
into the delegates of the all.
Public opinion, well led, wins the day, but as
for the man who won the People's victory, he may
be congratulated on the fact by some one else who




320                 DEMOCRACY.
has ratted rather than be shelved, or he may, after
a desperate and life-long battle, become, or refuse
to become, in his turn, one of the privileged.
The extent to which our unprivileged Statesmanship is rewarded with official recognition, is a
measure of our advance, and this advance, far
enough from the right and the ideal, seems almost
infinite since the epoch when Pitt and the People
were mastered by a lunatic and his keepers, whose
policy was made national only by making ignorance
national, or by involving the nation in war.
And what an abyss of class abuses has not the
last century bridged over! We see it in perusing
such passages as the following, from one of the
most distinguished of Americans:" I have often," wrote the great Jefferson, " amused myself with contemplating the characters of the reigning sovereigns of Europe.
" Louis XVI was a fool. The King of Spain was a fool,
and of Naples the same. The King of Sardinia was a fool.
All these were Bourbons. The Queen of Portugal was an
idiot by nature, and so was the King of Denmark. The King
of Prussia was a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gustavus of Sweden, and Joseph of Austria were really crazy, and
George of England was in a strait waistcoat. There remained,
then, none but old Catherine of Russia, who had been too
lately picked up to have lost her common sense. And so
endeth the book of kings, from all of whom the Lord deliver
us, and have you, my friend, and all such good men and true,
in his holy keeping."
~
Mixed blood, public arenas, the realised advance
towards Democracy, and the position of England,
replenish our aristocracy, and produce some of the
foremost of the world's Statesmen. Yet the position




USURPATIONS AND  INNOVATIONS.              321
of Rome, sketched by a master hand, in relation
to the questions of equality, offices, land, rural
depopulation, a money aristocracy, and want of
general high political culture, is, whether in contrast or warning, most instructive and suggestive: —
" From A.D. 535 to 621, —eighty-six years,-nine families
alone obtained eighty-three consulships.
" Cineas, sent by Pyrrhus to Rome in 474, finds nobody
open to corruption, and compares the Senate to an assembly
of kings. Jugurtha, in 643, finds his resources quickly exhausted in buying everybody's conscience, and exclaims,'Venal town, which would soon perish if it could find a purchaser.'
"' Society was placed in new conditions, for the populace of
the towns had increased, while the agricultural population had
diminished.
"The great landed properties had absorbed the little, slaves
had taken the place of free labour, &c. And, lastly, the allies
were weary of contributing to the greatness of the empire
without participating in the rights of Roman citizens. It was
natural that they should aspire to be treated as equals.
"' The richest citizens, in sharing among them the public
domain, had finished by getting nearly the whole into their own
hands, either by purchase from small proprietors, or by forcibly
expelling them. Not only did the vast domains,-latifundia,appertain to a small number, but the knights had monopolised
all the elements of riches of the country. Formed over the
whole face of the empire into financial companies, they worked
the provinces and formed a veritable money aristocracy.
" Thus not only was the wealth of the country in the hands
of the patrician and plebeian nobility, but the free men diminished incessantly in numbers in the rural districts.
" The principal families in possession of the soil and of the
power desired to preserve this double advantage, without being
obliged to show themselves worthy of it; they seemed to
disdain the severe education which had made them capable of
filling all offices, so that it might be said that there existed
then at Rome an aristocracy without nobility, and a democracy without the People." —aapoleon's "Life of Caesar," pp.
238-43.
The absorption of land by the few, the denial
of equality, the powerful plutocracy distrusting the
y




322                 DEMOCRTACY:
People, the increase of rural population without
increase of rural dwellings, the monopoly of soil and
power, the disabilities of large and powerful minorities, secular and religious, are all reproduced in
English politics, with the added infamy of the Irish
Church, and of subscriptions which the clergy
writhe under, but which the Church will not or
cannot remove.
Professor Goldwin  Smith  also thus refers to
the innovations of privileges and aristocracy:" The Roman aristocracy was an aristocracy of arms and
law. The feudal aristocracy of the middle ages was an aristocracy of arms, and, in some measure, of law; it served the
cause of political progress in its hour and after its kind; it
confronted tyrannical kings when the People were as yet too
weak; it conquered at Runnymede as well as at Hastings.
" But the aristocracies of modern Europe are aristocracies
neither of arms nor of law, but of social and political privilege
alone. They owe, and are half conscious that they owe, their
present existence only to factitious weaknesses of human
nature and to the antiquated terrors of communities long kept
in leading strings and afraid to walk alone.
" If there were nothing but reason to dispel them, these
fears might long retain their sway over European society.
But the example of a great commonwealth flourishing without a
privileged class, and of a popular sovereignty, combining order
with progress, tends, however remotely, to break the spell."
From autocracy to middle-class Government is
an advance. From the one to the many is an advance. From intervention for Bourbons to nonintervention for Freedom is an advance, —just as it
is better to see your brother killed than to kill him
yourself. From a twenty years' fight against republics to four years of falsehood against a republic
is an advance. We are advanced in education in
a cheap and able press, and in the possession of
vast appliances, wrung from the despotism of the




USURPATIONS AND INNOVATIONS.   323
past, with which to attach at a greater vantage
the despotism of the present.
~
It is a period of wonderful transition. Land is
absorbed, but there are land societies. Equality
is denied, but by those who contend for plural
voting, which will never be allowed, as its only
alternative.  Plutocracy is powerful, but capital
may unite with labour, and labour will acquire and
wield capital.  The Church transmits her formularies, but nobody knows what they mean.
The Church (endowed) survives with other relics,
but the People demand free patronage and
choice.
On every side we see the weakness and the
strength peculiar to the middle and oligarchic class
reign, and we look for the advent of the entire
educated national manhood upon the scene.
Without the all, the many cannot complete the
victory of opinion over caste and privilege.
Self-Government is not only a means, but an
end, and one of the greatest recommendations and
best tests of good Government is that it educates
the all for empire. For all manhood is imperial.
Every man with a soul and a conscience in him is
of the blood royal of the Universe. To withhold
power from true manhood is not only treason against
manhood, but treachery to the State.
That bad or indifferent statesmanship can be
soon exploded, and bad or indifferent Statesmen
speedily, politically destroyed, is one of the most
v a




324             DEMOCRACY:
conspicuous signs of a healthy political life and a
competent national manhood. The contrary signifies a community where thinghood, property, and
tradition has overcome manhood, and rules over it.
Englishmen are Free.  Man here is not a chattel.
He is only ruled by chattels.
Whatever may be thought of America, where
"old men" lie on political death-beds while yet in
early youth and vigorous bodily health, and where
"Families" do not overshadow the nation,-it is
surely a sign of a state in no wise commendable,
that in England the national opinion has supported
names against Principles and Truths, and does
allow, to the most venerable political sinners, not
only a space meet for repentance, but an opportunity-nay, an incentive to sin on without hope for
-the nation or fear for themselves. It might lately
have been said that the more a " Statesman" has
sinned, and the longer he has been about it, the
better the English like him.
In a word, we have " the Ins and the Outs, and
the Outs and the Ins," and it is, as yet, not in the
power or the will of the nation to cast both off and
away together, and entrust the destinies to any
outside a certain magic circle.  We approach,
however, a time when manhood will assert itself,
explode this English fetish, the "Families," and
rule in concert with them or against them.
It is characteristic of Democracy,-the fact
affects all the postulates of good Government, that
a man must remain worthy, to remain in power.
On Sunday, he may be President presumptive, on




USURPATIONS AND  INNOVATIONS.    325
Monday, as the phrase goes, "a dead cock in the
pit."
Throughout American history there have been,
except in the era of oligarchic ascendency, no
governors who did not govern, or rulers who did
not rule on behalf of the People. The only period
when tainted men could rule, was the era of conservatism and oligarchy.
But the first crisis has miserably destroyed
those men, and the nation has destroyed the very
institutions for which they compromised republicanism and enfeebled the nation.
England, too, is following on the inevitable
road, and industrial progress, the American stimulus, and the state of the labour market, will help
on the political and social change from family or
oligarchic rule.
It is not our intention here to attempt to
depict the England of this period with its minority
class sovereignty; its class land-laws favoring the
rich, and its unwise settlement laws for the
poor.  Let the Times and the author of "the
Scarlet Letter," describe the old  familiar face,
and tell from opposite standpoints the same
story:" The English (says the Times of 19th October, 1864), live
under squires, territorial potentates, extensive employers, and
local oligarchs, and under this regime, they endure an amount
of positive tyranny or negative neglect, that they would not
find surpassed under the most despotic system of the continent."
If this had not been the Times, it would have
been Mr. Bright.




326                 DEMOCRACY:
And Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing of a specimen village in Warwickshire, observes:" Life is there fossilised in its greenest leaf. The man
who died yesterday, or ever so long ago, walks the village
street to-day, and chooses the same wife that he married a
hundred years since, and must be buried again to-morrow
under the same kindred dust that has already covered him
half-a-score of times. The stone threshold of his cottage is
worn away with his hob-nailed foot-steps, shuffling over it
from the reign of the first Plantagenet to that of Victoria.
Better than this is the lot of our restless countrymen, whose
modern instinct bids them tend always towards " fresh
woods and pastures new." Rather than such monotony of
sluggish ages, loitering on a village-green, toiling in hereditaryfields, listening to the parson's drone, lengthened through
centuries in the grey Norman church, let us welcome whatever change may come-change of place, social customs,
political institutions, modes of worship-trusting that, if all
present things shall vanish, they will but make room for
better systems, and for a higher type of man, to clothe his
life in them, and to fling them off in turn."
~
Other enabling causes of this general monopoly
of office and power, are innovations affecting the
representative system in its various branches of the
franchise, the distribution of seats, and the parliamentary term. The first, depriving the People of
power; the last, removing representatives from the
influence of their principals, the People, and submitting them to the influences of those who ought
to be the People's servants.
The Reform Act partly gave to feudality in the
counties, what it took from it in the boroughs, but
it also unconstitutionally swept away various rights
of voting for towns and boroughs,- of householders,
without regard to the amount of rent, rates, or
taxes paid by them (as Aylesbury, Cirencester, &c.);




USURPATIONS AND  INNOVATIONS.    327
of householders, paying scot and lot, that is assessed
to the poor rate (as Bridport, Westminster, &c.);
of burgage tenants at a very low rent (as in
Clithero, is. 4d., Westbury, 4d. or 2d., Berealston,
3d.); inhabitants paying scot and lot (as Abingdon, Great Marlow, Southwark, &c.); inhabitants
generally (as Hertford, Preston, &c.); and Potwallers, or persons furnishing their own diet (as
Honiton, Taunton, &c.).
These various rights of voting were recognized
in 1786 by the 26 Geo. III, c. 100, an Act passed
to prevent occasional inhabitants from voting:" To the great prejudice of the real inhabitants, who bear
the burthens of such cities and boroughs, and to whom the
right of sending members to Parliament belongs, and that no
person shall be admitted to vote, as an inhabitant paying scot
and lot, or as an inhabitant householder, housekeeper, and
potwaller, or as an inhabitant householder resiant, or as an
inhabitant of such city or borough, unless he has been actually
and bona fide such, six calendar months previous to the day of
election."
As to Parliaments, the 1st Ed. II (A.D.
1311), shows that they were annual. The 4
Ed. III, c. 14  (A.D. 1330), is simply this:"Ensement est accorde qe parlement soit tenu
chescun an une foitz ou plus si mestier soit."
Before this the 3rd Edward I, c. 5, declares (A.D.
1275), " and because elections ought to be free, the
King commandeth upon great forfeiture, that no
great man or other by force of arms nor by malice
or menacing shall disturb any to make free election:"
The statute of Rich. II, c. 12, is concerning
"levying expenses of Knights of Parliament," and




328                DEMOCRACY:
the 23 H. VI, c. 10, is "the order for levying their wages."  Cap. 14 in the same year mentions the writ " quod in pleno comitatu."
The 16 Car. I, c. 1, "whereas by the laws
and statutes of this realm, Parliaments ought
to be holden at least once every year, said laws,
&c., shall from henceforth be duly kept and observed," and if Parliament be not summoned under
the great seal then in all times hereafter it shall
be assembled as declared therein. 16 Car. II,
repealed such part of this as was in derogation of
prerogative. The 1 W. and M. puts it as a
matter of true, ancient, and indubitable right that
Parliaments be held frequently.
The 6 W. and M., c. 1, enacts that Parliament shall be held every three years, and not to
last more.
The 1 G. I, st. 2, c. 38, makes Parliament seven
times the length it was in the days of English
freedom.
Swift, writing to Pope (A.D. 1720-1), thus denounces long Parliaments:~" I adored the wisdom of that Gothic institution which
makes them annual; and I was confident, our Liberty could
never be placed upon a firm foundation until that ancient Law
were restored among us. For, who sees not, that, while such
assemblies are permitted to have a longer duration, there grows
up a commerce of corruption between the Ministry and the Deputies,
wherein they both find their accounts, to the manifest danger
of Liberty, which traffic would neither answer the design nor
expense if Parliaments met once a-year."
And the Hon. T. Brand confessed that through
not enforcing the calls of the House by taking
members into custody who did not attend, the con



'USURPATIONS AND INNOVATIONS.    329
trol which the independent members ought to have
over the conduct of the ministers is entirely lost.
And he further stated (May 21, 1810, Cobbett's
Debates), that:"He found the question one of enormous difficulty and of
extreme importance. Septennial Parliaments had a tendency
from the length of their term to weaken the relation between
the elector and the representative.... The one term was
too long to please the People, and the other (annual), too short
to satisfy the members."
Bentham thus refers to the shortening of the
Parliamentary term:" Towards the close of the reign of Charles the
First (16 C. I, c. 1), at the opening of the Long
Parliament-the annual holding of fresh Parliaments having been so long violated (none from
1627 to 1640), triennality was for the first time
established instead. Why? Because Parliament
did not feel itself strong enough to exact more.
"In Charles the Second's time (16 C. II, c. 1),
the provisions extorted from the father, and found
too efficient, were repealed, and inefficient ones
substituted.
" In William's time (6 W. and M., cap. 1), their
inefficiency having been proved, others were substituted. The duration was made triennial. Why?
Because by this time the value of a seat to the
occupant was pretty fully understood.
"The Act 1 G. I, c. 38 poisoned the constitution.
Most probably the scheme was that of his advisers,
the benefit to them being manifest; as to the
monarch it was problematical. Their constituents
had seated them for three years; they seated them



330             DEMOCRACY:
selves for four more. The monarch was no usurper, he was fairly seated. Not so Honorable Gentlemen." -Plan, pp. 296-7-8.
We have said that the concentration of power
will continue, that the Legislative and Executive,
though separate in function, will only represent one
preponderating power, and that power the equal
voting People.
The reasons for a separation of the Legislative
and Executive are, that they thus secure a division
of function, and prevent tyranny.
The first reason always remains, and will prevail.
The second is always subject to invalidation by
the actual preponderating power.
But with this broad and grand distinction,that when this separation of functions and powers is
assailed by the One, the Few, or the Many, it is
assailed by partial, sectional, or sinister interests.
That when it is assailed by the All, it is assailed
by that interest which is universal, and by that
power which tends to equality of interest and
right.
When the educated equal voting All achieve
a union of power, they do it for concentration, not
for tyranny, and the only question about it is,
whether the People are truly prepared wisely to
wield so powerful a weapon.
Thus the question started by the Lords has
been taken up by the People —(whether the former




USURPATIONS AND INNOVATIONS.   331
will not regret the starting of it, time will show).
The question-" Is this separation of estates a good
thing? Is it not, on the whole, better for one
estate, ourselves, to swamp Commons and King,
and to reign alone?"
That a similar question is always being worked
out by living nations, is a matter of fact, as shown
by De Tocqueville, respecting "mixed Government." Elizabeth was the last of the Kings. " The
Families" came in definitively with the second
Charles, and their "Dynasty" has ruled us since.
The first year of his return was occupied by Parliament in voting his expenses, in looking after regicides, and in loosing land from burdens, and fixing
the loyal landlords in power. The People had
come in and gone out with Cromwell. The King
neither could nor would appeal to the People
against the families, and so the real power transferred by Cromwell from the hands of the One into
those of the Many, went back again, not to the
One or to the Many, but to the Few.
The Knights, says Earl Russell, gave great
stability and dignity to the popular House, even
from the olden time with us. Nevertheless, for
centuries until 1832, the mixture of the "Commons" with King and Lords, was the "chimera"
and pretence of our Constitution.
No doubt it was the operation of a great natural law,-the gradual spread of intelligence and
self-restraint, and consequent powers of organisation, that enabled the Few to check the power of
the One, but it is the operation of that self-same




332             DEMOCRAC.
law of progress that now has carried power from
the Few to the Many, and that threatens to carry
it from the Many to the All, till the whole educated manhood of the nation will be the one homogeneous ruling power.
It is now feared, lest a new league between
Capital and Labour should answer the old one
between Prerogative and Privilege; lest the lower
middle classes and labouring classes-the many
and the all, should combine against the one and
the few, and a new and strange class despotism
should arise to trouble "the balances of the Constitution."
This is the phantasm that softens the brain of
politicians, and appals the heart of autocracy everywhere. THE PEOPLE CAN NO LONGER BE " BALANCED,"-neither by their crimes, nor their credulity, nor their gratitude, nor their ignorance, nor
their fear.  They are getting knowledge, selfrestrainzt (a large proportion of their most active
politicians are total abstainers), and consequently
power of organisation, or unity. "The State, it
is the People," and what if manhood can balance
itself!
"Too late!  Too late!" is the cry. And as
Mill declares that plural voting for the few is the
sauve qui peut, and will soon be the only alternative to universal suffrage and popular class legislation, behold the People organise,-again, Gladstone
and Bright uprear the standard which fell from
the hands of Chatham, virtual representation is
again declared a farce, and the "Bedford Protest "




USURPATIONS AND INNOVATIONS.   333
is repeated,-not this time, declaring that because
American principles might logically be extended to
England, therefore they cannot be right, but
that because they are logical they are right, and
that because they are right they shall become
law.
" Minorities must be represented."-Good, Mr.
Mill, and they always will be. But let us now first
see to it that majorities shall be represented, and
let the one, the few, and the many give the all a
turn.
Nevertheless, it is not without much misgiving
that many will see the true national royalty going
to the national manhood. The division of functions
must always be maintained, although the power
will become one and indivisible. All we can
reply is, "if the balance of constitutional power is
gone, thank the Lords for it, for they have been
the sappers and miners of the constitution."
Mixed Government exists only where change
or dissolution impends.
The one, the King, ruled, and he pretended to
take "the mixture" into partnership when he
wanted supplies. Presently, the Families got possession of "the mixture," and kept it till 1832. At
each change there has been a revolution, the first
with war, the second peacefully.
Thus "functions " have been kept "separate,"
but not with the result of a " balance." There has
been a "mixture," but it has been intelligently




334              DEMOCRACY:
extolled only by the one ingredient that has been
the strongest, and has ruled.
Be it, however, ever remembered, that up to
quite recent times, no nation had ever been ruled
but by its sections. "The man, the assembly, or
the class," had ruled, but a national self-governing
entity, never. Nor will it ever be contended by
sane men that legislation and executive should be
confounded; the only question is, whether it be
not right, as well as inevitable, that as the People
advance, "individualities," both of persons and
classes, should recede, and that as the all become
more and more accomplished, and individually
completed, their representatives should not, nay,
must not, become rather delegations than powers.
When the majority are Statesmen, can the minority
monopolise Statesmanship?
As the all become educated, the difference
between delegates and representatives lessens, for
both People and representatives draw nearer to a
common standard of truth and right. There are
three kinds of representation, corresponding with
three stages of national character. In an evil
State, there is no representation strictly so called,
but men are ruled by force, fraud, or corruption.
In the middling stage, there is representation
proper; intelligence chooses, and the representatives are too much above their constituents to be
delegates, and not enough above them to tyrannise. In the advanced stage, advanced minds
can only lead by expressing,-perhaps by eliciting,
-the will of the People.




USURPATIONS AND  INNOVATIONS.    335
It is, in fact, obvious, that as national manhood
advances, —acquires the real governing qualities,the national will becomes more uniform, pressing,
and absolute. As Statesmanship becomes universal,
artificial precautions, and forms of all sorts, yield
to the substance of universal Statesmanship.
"It was," says that great master of men and
ideas, Louis Napoleon (p. 309, v. ii,'Life and
Works'), "it was the division and independence of
powers which Montesquieu designates as the vital
principle of liberty. And that if in any Society
whatever, the man, the assembly, or the class
which makes the law, has also the power of executing it, there must be disorder and anarchy."
The Constitution also of 1848 declared: "The
separation of Powers is the first condition of free
Government." It is a necessity arising out of the
very necessity and nature of aggregate action.
"When," says Montesquieu, "the legislative and executive powers are united, in the same person, or in the same
body of magistrates, there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate should
enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
"Again, there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not
separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined
with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would
be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then
the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the
judge might behave with violence and oppression.
" There would be an end of everything, were the same
man, or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the
People, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws,
that of executing the public res;olutions, and of trying the
causes of individuals."-Montesquieu, vol. i, p. 199.
"Perfect Government," speaking relatively, is




336             DEMOCRACY:
that which combines unity or order with as much
freedom as the character of the given People can
admit. Perfect Government, absolutely speaking,
is Democracy, where alone freedom and order can
meet in full proportions and in indissoluble unity.
Where the all govern, there can be no separation
of power, though there may be of functions. By
" powers " understand " functions."
Separation of Powers is the first maxim of free
Government;" separation of Power is rather the
necessary maxim of a People not yet ripe for freedom, and therefore jealous, and, in fact, incapable
of a perfect unity.
Executive and Legislative, as functions, must
not clash, but as powers, the outcome of a
living nation, and as wielded by men who partake
of, or oppose the general national tendency, they
must agree or disagree with that tendency. If
they disagree, then one must rule, or the other
impede. In the last case there is obstruction or
anarchy, in the first there is that " one preponderating power " which all living countries possess, or
to which they tend.
Wherever there is life there will be Sovereignty
one and indivisible, whether it be the muddled
Sovereignty and abject organism of so-called
" mixed Governments;" the more highly developed
Sovereignty, where one man rules by the public
opinion of a half educated race, or where he has
first to develop the public opinion he rules by;
or where the public opinion of an instructed People
rules both in form and in substance.




USURPATIONS AND INNOVATIONS.   337
In all cases as the organism is high, not the
functions, but the power will be practically one.
Where it is low, the confusion of the many, or the
tyranny of the one have to be provided against,
and weakness, divisions, "balances," "mixtures,"
and neutralisations, ensue.
In France, true Democracy is not yet possible;
there, says Napoleon truly, "the legislative power
should examine, discuss, control, and moderate, but
never rule." Nor in England, where, according to
the same authority, "the debates in the Commons
serve to point out to the aristocracy those mren that
should be chosen for its agents."
In America, the People virtually legislate and
rule; they have swallowed up " debates, debaters,
and oligarchy " together, and the eyes of all nations
are turned towards the example.
We may regret the change, but can it be
avoided?  Give a share of power to the People,
and they will, they must, take it to fight you for
the rest. It is Destiny, not Constitutions, that
acts here, and that controls events.  Deny the
People power,-there is revolution. Grant it, and
responsibility elevates and educates, education
multiplies labour, labour becomes capital, and
capital, labour, and education universalised, are
Democracy, " tempered" only by itself
If the middle class regret the threatened concentration of power they must blame the Families,
and the Families must blame the Kings, for both
thought that the Constitution should be balanced
without the People.
z




338                DEMOCRACY:
Rather conclude with De Tocqueville, that only
evil or pusillanimous men or nations need fear the
People, that the balance of social and political
interests, and the natural conservation of the
whole educated manhood of a nation, will in due
time replace with advantage artificial makeweights and compromises, and that "to attempt to
check Democracy is to withstand the will of God!"
In free countries powers will always be separated in function, but the sovereignty of the all tends
always more completely to develop and assert itself.
Hallam defines the modern situation, —its
strength and weakness, and shows more than ever
the need of constant parliamentary contact with,
and dependence upon the People "who can never
be corrupted."
" The reign of Charles II, though displaying some stretches
of arbitrary power, and threatening a great deal more, was,
in fact, the transitional state between the ancient and modern
schemes of the English constitution; between that course of
government where the executive power, so far as executive,
was very little bounded except by the laws, and that where it
can only be carried on, even within its own province, by the
consent and co-operation, in a general measure, of the Parliament." —Hallam's " England," p. 355, v. ii.
" The real vice of this Parliament was not intemperance,
but corruption. Clifford, and still more Danby, were masters
in an art practised by ministers from the time of James I (and
which indeed can never be unknown where there exists a
court and a popular assembly), that of turning to their use the
weapons of mercenary eloquence by office, or blunting their
edge by bribery."-Ibid., p. 395.
De Lolme shows in the strongest light the
advantages of the British Constitution in the
following  respects: —The  advantage  of having
fixed the executive in the crown as in a sacred and
inexpugnable depositary, constituting a check on




USURPATIONS AND  INNOVATIONS.    339
those inordinate ambitions which in all Republics
ever brought on the ruin of liberty. The unity of
the executive also gives greaterfacilityin restraining
it. Its indivisibility has constantly kept the views
and efforts of the People to one and the same
object. Tyranny often mocks the efforts of the
People, not because it is invincible, but because it
is unknown. Executive unity induces the greatest
men in the State to unite in common cause with
the People in restraining it. The propounding of
the business of legislation by the representatives,
prevents the undermining of laws by precedents
and artful practices of the Executive. Pp. 196,
215-16-18, 431, 478.
De Lolme clearly explains the  necessity of
restraining both Executive and Legislative, the
former by keeping it undivided, the latter by
dividing it, and thus tempering and giving time,
caution, and prudence to its decisions. He says:" In order, therefore, to ensure stability to the constitution
of a State, it is indispensably necessary to restrain the legislative authority. But here we must observe a difference
between the legislative and the executive powers. The latter
may be confined, and even is the more easily so when undivided: the legislative, on the contrary, in order to its being
restrained, should absolutely be divided.
"In a word, the result of a division of the executive
power is either a more or less speedy establishment of the
right of the strongest, or a continued state of war:-that of a
division of the legislative power, is either truth, or general
tranquillity."-De Lolme on the Constitution, pp. 219, 222.
What becomes of all these carefully planned
and balanced results of the Constitution, if the
families absorb the executive, and propound and
settle the business of legislation for the representatives?  We answer that by giving to the House
z2




340              DEMOCRACY.
of Commons, the peer's house, so preponderating a
power, the peers have really put it in the power of
the People to absorb the power by altering the
representation.
This will be the use and the end of the " usurpations and innovations " of the family dynasty.
Oligarchy has overpowered the influence of King
and Commons, but Equality has got to destroy
Oligarchy in the name of a completer nationality.
In overshadowing the power of the Sovereign,
the Families have pronounced their own approaching neutralisation.
Montesquieu tells us (" Spirit of Laws," p. 20,
v. i) that "the most natural intermediate and subordinate power in a monarchy is the nobility, which
in some measure seems to be essential to a monarchy, whose fundamental maxim is, no monarchy,
no nobility; no nobility, no monarch."
Mill throws them a crumb of comfort, when he
says (" Representative Government "), "' An aristocratic House is only powerful in an aristocratic state
of Society. The really moderating power in a
democratic constitution must act in and through
the democratic House."
But Mill elsewhere confesses that the only
alternative to universal suffrage, which must elect
this people's House, is plural voting.
According to him, therefore, the families must
go for plural voting, or must devote themselves to
that general preparation and education of the
People for power, which will "moderate" and
energise all things.




THE PREPONDERATING POWER OF
THE FUTURE,
AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.
INDUSTRITAL FREEDOM;
POLITICAL FREEDOM;
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.
"Every tax must finally be paid from rent, profit, or wages,
or from all of them. Every tax which falls finally upon one
only of these three sorts of revenue is unequal; every tax
ought to be equal, certain, and not arbitrary, convenient in
time and manner, and as little burthensome as possible in
expense of levying, in obstruction of industry, in forfeitures,
or in visits, &c., of tax gatherers.
" Land and capital stock are the two original sources of
all revenue. When by taxes upon the necessaries and conveniences of life, the owners of capital stock find that it will not
purchase the same as it would in another country, they will be
disposed to remove to some other.  The industry of the
country must fall with the removal of capital."-Adam Smith,
vol. iii, pp. 255-6-7-8, 429-30.
" I should be sorry to see the dangers of universal suffrage
and of unlimited Democracy averted, or sought to be averted,
by such invidious schemes as granting to the rich, a plurality
of votes, or by contrivances altogether unknown to our habits,
such as the plan of Mr. Hare, although sanctioned by the high
authority of so profound a thinker as Mr. Mill. The subject
is full of unknown pitfalls."-Earl Russell on the English Constitution.
"I am bound to express my opinion that the doctrine
to which the hon. gentleman appears to incline, that the
Protestants of Ireland or the members of the State Church
in any one of the three kingdoms are a sort of privileged people,
for whose wants the State is to make provision, caring little
what may become of the wants of others — do not believe that
it isfounded on reason, on the constitution, or on history."Gladstone, 28th March,1865.




"W' hen the sacredness of property is talked of, it should
always be remembered that any such sacredness does not
belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made
the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species.
Its appropriation is wholly a matter of general expediency.
When private property in land is not expedient, it is unjust."
— Mill, " Political Economy."
" The influence of religion proceeds from its being believed;
that of human laws from their being feared." —lontesquieu.;
"None of the brethren shall suffer so much barbarism in
their families as not to teach their children and apprentices so
much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the
English tongue."- Bancroft's " Colonisation of the United
States."
"All which concerns religion lies beyond the sphere of
the State's activity."-Baron Alexander Von Humboldt, p. 96,
"Sphere and Duties of Government."
" Yet of persons whose interest in the foundation is entirely subsidiary and subordinate, the whole of whose rights
exist solely as the necessary means to enable them to perform
certain duties —it is currently asserted, and in the tone in
which men affirm a self-evident moral truth, that the endowments of the Church and of the Universities are their property.
"' Their property! In what system of legislative ethics, or
even of positive law, is an estate in the hands of trustees the
property of the trustees? It is the property of the cestui que
trust: for whose benefit the trust is created. This, in the case
of a national endowment, is the entire People.
"' Qui tronape-t-on ici?' asks Figaro —' Qui vole-t-on ici?'
may well be asked. What man, woman, or child, is the victim
of this robbery? Who suffers by the robbery when everybody robs nobody? But though no man, woman, or child is
robbed, the Church it seems is robbed. What follows? That
the Church may be robbed, and no man, woman, or child be
the worse for it. If so, why not, in Heaven's name?
"The laws of property were made for the protection of
human beings, and not of phrases. As long as the bread is
not taken from any of our fellow creatures, we care not,
though the whole dictionary had to beg in the streets.
" Let those who think it a robbery for the nation to resume
what we say is its own, tell us whose it is; let them inform us,
what human creatures it belongs to; not what letters and syllables."-Pp. 12-17-18, v. i, Mill's "Dissertations," "Jurist,"
February, 1833.




343
CHAPTER V.
THE PREPONDERATING POWER OF
THE FUTURE,
AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.
"I warn the aristocracy not to force the People to look
into the subject of taxation,-not to force them to see how
they have been robbed, plundered, and bamboozled for ages
by them."-Cobden, A.D. 1846.
" The practice of funding has gradually enfeebled every
State which has adopted it. Is it likely that in Great Britain
alone, a practice, which has brought either weakness or desolation into every other country, should prove altogether innocent?"-Adam Smith, v. iii, p. 432.
" The one thing necessary is that the power of the purse
should be actually and effectively in the hands of the real
representatives."-Bentham.
" The thirty tyrants of Athens ordered the suffrages of the
Areopagites to be public, in order to manage them." —Montesquieu.
"The Ballot is a moral engine, which, once established
in any constituency, will spread like wildfire throughout the
country." — Cobden.
"The right of primogeniture was established, and the
reason of the feudal law was superior to that of the political and
civil institution. It is an excellent law in a trading republic to
make an equal division of the paternal estate."-fflontesquieu.
" An ecclesiastical organisation allying itself with political
power, can never now be the source of any good."-Draper.
" The ecclesiastical power is extremelyproper in a monarchy,
especially of the absolute kind, a barrier (against tyranny)
ever useful where there is no other."
"' The ancient Romans fortified their empire by indulging
all sorts of religious worship, but their posterity destroyed it
by rooting out the various sects. An unacquaintedness with
the true limits of ecclesiastical and secular power, was the
most pernicious source of all the calamities that befel the
Greeks." —Montesquieu.
We have shown that manhood, not only the
preponderating, but also the only power of the
future, has to be developed upon a fourfold basis, of




344              DEMOCRACY
freedom in School, Press, Church, and Assembly,
and in its three forms, material, political, and
religious. It has to inaugurate the true reign of
opinion, and vindicate its supremacy against the
rule of brute force, and of mere chattel proprietorship.
In England, however, two of the bases of Manhood-Development, Free School, and Free Church,
are wanting, and all of its forms are incomplete.
Past conflicts between the many, and the few,
or the one, between rival endowed Churches,
beween the Families and the Sovereign, and
between Families and Families, had resulted in
one short victory of Popular Sovereignty; in a
formal assertion of constitutional right by the
Families; in a virtual coalition between King,
Families, and Church against People; in a centralisation of Power in the Families; and finally,
in " Constitutional" Government by an Executive
Committee called the Cabinet Council, uniting
Executive and Legislative, and concentrating all
power (subject to popular outbursts in lieu of the
old self-Government) in the hands of a PremierPresident, who rules for an average four years,
is usually chosen by the Sovereign out of a small
circle of Families, and who, as popular election and
the approval of the Commons are also necessary, is
the subject of the principle of treble election.
The decimation of the Families by the wars of




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.        345
the Roses was a work of necessity and mercy.
The vices of Henry VIII were doubtful national
blessings, for although they led to the loosening of
the despotism of Rome, they identified the State
with formalism. The victory of Nobles over Kingship was a victory for the People over both, for it
was an advance towards Democracy. The battles
of Cromwell vindicated the principle of national
Sovereignty.
All other causes, however, were comparatively
of slight effect, until, in the fulness of time, the
steam engine lifted the labourer from the earth,
and re-created commerce.
The effect of this was threefold.
1st. Capital has increased faster than population, and the great problem which Mr. James Mill
and others seemed to consider insoluble, has been
solved in the interests of the People.
2nd. Commerce unites in interest and action
two of the most powerful forces of States.
Labour created capital, capital is recognised as
power, and power produces equality or revolution.
3rd. This union of labour and capital, of the
many and the all, is destined to match and overcome that other alliance between the new aristocracy of wealth and the old aristocracy of birth,
which has been the mainstay of oligarchy in
England. This new union draws nearer and
closer year by year. It must promote a more
equal distribution of material advantages and of
power, and will avoid on the one hand poverty,




346              DEMOCRACY
and on the other that spirit of extreme luxury,
the antagonist of the real spirit of commerce.
This new power must really favour Democracy
not only in politics but in religion. For a true
Protestantism (endowed or enforced Protestantism
is a contradiction in terms) is the religion of individual freedom and responsibility, as opposed to a
religion of form, force, favour or proxy.
The Power thus created has closed the era of
reaction, which began with the return of the
Stuart and ended with the Reform Bill. It has
gained two great victories,-free press and free
assembly. It has partly gained four others,Parliamentary Reform, Free Trade, Free Schools,
and Direct Taxation.
Thus the Power that was held by the One, the
Few, and then by the Many, is now passing to the
All. The franchise is justly recognised as an end
as well as a means. The chimera of "mixed
Government" is visibly dissolving, the hydra head
of Popular Sovereignty glares into the sanctum of
Mill, affrights the respectable soul of the "Spectator," and shakes the dilettanti radicalism. of Grey.
"The actual predominating force" is already, in
crises, in the People, and yet there is no national
"dissolution," but instead  thereof a  peaceful
revolution, which immensely strengthens the
national unity, and assures international peace,
by multiplying ad infinitum the independence
and interrelations of the People,-and- of the
Peoples.
In fact, our "inevitable (white) nigger" has




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.        347
come to the fore, and all parties will compete for
him.
The mutual wants and interests of mankind are
the fulcrum. Labour (or Capital) the lever. Between
them they have moved the world.
This is the new spirit and power. What, in
England, are the old forms which it has got to use
or to burst?
"The Feudal system bastardised,"-its spirit
and power gone, its former perversions and obstructions remaining,-this is the situation. Commerce has got to win Liberty for itself, and to
confer it upon land, or Land will stifle and expatriate commerce, and with commerce, labour and
capital.
This situation is met, on the one hand, by a
proposal to create a new and unheard-of Feudality by a "protection" or multiplication of the
beaten minorities. It is met, on the other, by a
plain and frank acknowledgment that the People
now must reign, and that the occupation of Conservatism is not to obstruct right, but to graduate
progress.
The Material, Political, and Religious aspects of
Democracy in England, claim each their place and
notice. They combine to create the coming preponderating power and royalty of the nation's
manhood.
Commerce, we say, has got to win complete
freedom, and to convert and to save the Exchequer.




348               DEMOCRACY
Politics have got to win it and enfranchise the
People.  Religion must win it and free the
Church.
And the spirit of Freedom is the motive power
in all. In commerce it springs from the love of
material good. In politics, from the love of power
and of freedom, and a sense of responsibility in every
human breast. In religion, it scorns compulsion,
it defies tradition, it bows to no earthly master,
and will seek no mastery save over the willing
souls of men.
Ten per cent. is appreciated, even by celestial
minds, and limited liability tempts to unlimited
operations. Commerce is no respecter of persons.
Credit associations ransack Europe for money, and
the universe for investments.  There is no noble
in the land who has not a share in a shop; and
material development will help moral development
and political propagandism.
Socially, two processes are going on. Labour
and capital threaten to unite their forces against
privilege, and the Peerage, as it assimilates capital,
would make of it another " bulwark of the Constitution." The result is inevitable. The middle
classes will buy privilege of the upper, but the
lower classes will buy power of both.
And as the result of the whole is to extend
the operations of labour, and to cause wealth to increase in a greater ratio than population, the inevitable end will be that labour rises in the market and
in the social scale, it will have a larger share in the
results of capital, and in social life there will be




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.        349
greater homogeneity, equality, and unity, and in
political life an advancing Democracy.
Thus steam power has been the great agent in
multiplying labour, in creating capital, and in preparing the conditions of their co-operation.
It is steam power and Democracy that will
have done it all. Royalty will descend to the
People, and we also shall count our kings by the
million.
INDUSTRIAL FREEDOM.
The principle of industrial or material freedom
has to do with the three great desiderata in Governments, —Safety, Power, and Honesty. For it has
to do with individual and national Development;
with Economy of Power; with Honesty in the
raising, and in the application of taxes.
The main test and chief factor of the material
well-being of the all, is the increase of the proportion between labour or capital, and population.
Material freedom  means also equality. It
meansfreedom to get, to spend, and to save wealth.
In other words:Freedom of trade,
Direct taxation, and
Economical and honest Government.
All three are inextricably bound up together as
a free system.
It is unnecessary to dilate on the meaning or
merits of free trade, or on the desirability of giving
it full and consistent effect.




350              DEMOCRACY
Direct taxation involves the knowledge of and
the control of national expenditure. It means
equality of payments, or rather, proportional payments.
Where the majority have attained political
manhood, they will both know and control. Where
the majority are political minors, they do not want
to know and they cannot control. It is eminently
just that in a Democracy a slight capitation tax
should pay for personal protection, and a graduated
property tax for protection to property.
Economical Government means simply that the
nation shall neither be cheated nor used by its servants. That what it does it shall do with the
best economy of power. That it shall not be committed to projects it disapproves. It means that
what it does it shall do with the will, the power,
the splendour, and the persistence of a great and
free People, but that it be just to itself while it is
generous to the world.
In fact, "that those who pay shall be also
those who govern," is of the essence of the rights
of the People, and of all true freedom, national
honour, and just economy.
Oligarchy not only pits families against the
nation, but it divides the nation into hostile classes
and interests, and gives to one class the power to
govern and to tax all the others, while exempting
itself. The history of the great reactionary period
from Cromwell to the Reform Bill were sufficient
proof of this. The great fighting and family interest involved the nation in a series of bloody




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.         351
wars with which the nation had no concern whatsoever, and that same interest all the while industriously lightened its own burdens and heaped
them up upon the People.
The wars "to maintain the Balance of power
in Europe," and against the American and French
Republics, were wars of the " families " against the
Peoples,-paid for by the People of England, and
which postponed their political enfranchisement,
and pledged and pawned their industry and lives.
Contrary to all common sense and right, these
wars by our oligarchy against Peoples now weigh,
not upon the hereditary property of these hereditary rulers, but chiefly upon labourers' and trade
incomes. The few undertook them. The all fought
them and pay for them, and the national debt rose
from  100,000,000 under Geo. III, in 1760, to
830,000,000 under Geo. IV, in 1820; in 1863, the
interest of that debt was twenty-six millions, and
the revenue from Customs and Excise forty-one
millions.
Who chiefly pays this is but too obvious. The
professional, mercantile, farming, and every other
class is burdened to relieve land.
And the Act 12 Carol. II, was in fact the corrupt consideration passing by the King to his
supporters. It relieved land from the conditions
of feudal tenure, and in fact made ownership absolute, and "in recompense and compensation," (for
what?) it enacted duties on all "beer, ale, cider,




352                 DEMOCRACY
perry, and strong waters for ever." It robbed the
poor man of his beer, and relieved rich men of taxation whilst it made them the more able to pay.
Macaulay thus notices the concessions of
Charles II to the landed interest:"Every landed proprietor, who held by knight service,
had to pay a large fine on coming into his property, and could not
alienate one acre without purchasing a licence. The Sovereign
was guardian to infants, and not only entitled to a great part
of the rents during minority, but could require a ward under
heavypenalties to marry any person of suitable rank. A royal
letter to an heiress was the chief bait to needy sycophants.
That these abuses should not revive was the wish of every
landed gentleman in the kingdom. They were therefore
solemnly abolished by statute. This concession was easily
obtained from the restored king." —V. i, p. 153.
So much for this part of the bargain between
Feudalityand the King. Feudal tenure was changed
into fee simple. The King got his crown. The
nation paid for it by excise duties then granted.
Macaulay further says, that in 1798, the landtax was made permanent at four shillings in the
pound. In peace, before Geo. III, sometimes only
two and three shillings were needed. After the
American war never less than four shillings. " The
lords claimed no right to alter the amount, but
demanded  special  commissioners."-V. iv, pp.
315-16.
During 106 years, including the time of the
Stuarts, the Commonwealth, and William III,
Parliament annually passed a land-tax Bill, during
war of four shillings, during peace of two or three.
" At one shilling in the pound it brought in half a
million," in 1692. Land rental was therefore about
ten millions, and was the most productive of all




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.        353
State resources. The rental now cannot be less than
170 millions, on which a reasonable rate would relieve industry and minimise the pauperism, vice
and crime now created by law.
Almost immediately after the revolution of
1688, came another land-jugglery, but for which
the land-tax would now produce more than all the
burdens that oppress trade. This of course was
the era of the next "act of settlement" at the
restoration. As Macaulay mildly says, "the value
of 1692 has remained unaltered down to our time."
Landowners have been wise in their generation.
~
It appears that landowners pay not eight and
a half millions out of seventy millions taxation,
although their income must be more than a fourth
of the ~600,000,000, of which Mr. Gladstone says
the working classes earn under ~250,000,000, and
those above them ~350,000,000.
The following is an approximate calculation
lately published, and founded upon the revenue
for the year ending March 31st, 1864:1st. Taxes from which landed property is entirely exempt; Fire Insurance, Probate duty, Carthorse duty, ~3,367,380.
2nd. Taxes so arranged that land shall escape
its due proportion; Legacy and Succession duties,
~2,251,580, Income tax ~9,101,994. Of the latter,
landowners under schedule A probably pay about
one-third, or say ~2,730,000. Of the former, also
one-third, or ~750,000.
3rd. Taxes falling chiefly upon the wealthy
2A




354               DEMOCRACY
upper, and wealthy middle classes, ~4,928,741, of
which land probably pays half, or ~2,500,000.
These taxes are such as stamps, wine duty, game
certificates, &c.
4th and 5th. Taxes injuring trade and falling
upon the smallest middle classes and the working classes,-tea, sugar, malt, tobacco, licences, &c.,
~29,480,036.  Spirits, ~12,685,401.  Supposing
there to be six millions of families in the country,
it may be assumed that the landowning class would
not contribute more than the average rate of corn,
malt, tobacco, licences, and spirits.-or ~4 10s. per
family. On tea, sugar, and all the other items of
this class, the average is ~2 10s. The landowner's
family may consume five times the average, or
~12 10s. each. Multiply ~17 by thirty thousand
landowning families, the result is ~510,000.
6th, 7th, and 8th. Post-office, ~3,937,308, of
which landowners pay but a fraction, say ~300,000.
Hereditary revenue, —land-tax, crown lands, &c.,
~1,660,416.  Miscellaneous, ~3,309,035, such as
contributions from Indian revenue, old stores, &c.
Hence it appears that of a total revenue
of ~70,721,891, landowners  contribute  about
~8,450,416.
In connection with this subject, various points
are admirably put in the " Financial Reformer" of
July, 1865. It says that indirect taxation realises
annually to the State the forty millions, " at a cost
vastly exceeding that amount, in actual payments
connected with the collection, and in the expenses
attendant upon fiscally created pauperism, disease,




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.               355
and  criminality.   If Government officers were
stationed at the doors of every shop to demand the
duties, and the extra charges of the collectors upon
the duties, not all the regular troops in England,
backed by pensioners, militia, yeomanry, and volunteers, would suffice to enforce this system for a
month."
Farmers exemption from fire insurance, probate,
and cart-horse duty; their payment on half the
rental only, as income tax; the valuation of real
estate by the Succession Act of 1853, as a life
annuity only, other property paying on the full
value, and paying at once; the present corn law
protection to the extent of four millions per annum
(on eighty millions of quarters)-all these are but
slight immunities accorded to land, in comparison
with the main national grievance. The "Financial
Reformer" puts the state of facts with truth and
force.
"After the Conquest, William's chief leaders and their
retainers, held their grants of land subject to onerous feudal
obligations, personal and pecuniary, all strictly in the nature
of RENT; and they were liable to forfeiture for non-fulfilment
of those obligations. Lands were so held down to the time
of the Restoration. Whatever else beyond this Rent was
required for State purposes was levied by direct taxation-a
fifteenth, a tenth, sometimes even a seventh of all property
or income being taken for the occasion.
"During this period of 594 years, the countrywas governed
and defended at home, and carried on great wars abroad,
without incurring a farthing of debt; but, on the 21st of
November, 1660, all this was changed, and a complete fiscal
revolution effected. On that day the Convention Parliament
of Charles II —probably by previous compact with the profligate Sovereign, who afterwards gave away an unexplored
continent, sold a city, and became a pensioner of France —by
a bare majority of 151 votes to 149, and in defiance of indignant
protests from many of its most eminent members against this
2A2




356                  DEMOCRACY
infamous spoliation of Crown, State, and People, abolished all
these feudal obligations-converted themselves and their landholdilg brethren from tenants of the State into owners in fee; and,
in lieu of their own rents, granted to the Crown excise duties
for ever, in' full compensation,' as they had the impudence to
allege, for the repudiation of their own just debts to the
State! Whilst they thus threw their own proper burdens upon
those who had no land, and no property but their labour, they
were careful to preserve intact exactly similar obligations incumbent upon sub-tenants to themselves, as lords of manors, asserting
with matchless effrontery, that to abolish them also,' might
be very prejudicial,' as it undoubtedly would have been, but
only to these robbers of the State.
"That this tax was originally intended to be assessed,
year by year, on the full actual value, and to increase in produce as the value increased, is abundantly manifest from the
fact that the Act of Parliament imposing it provided for the
appointment of commissioners to assess the value annually;
but, by another trick of landholding legislation, perpetrated
in 1697, and quite in keeping with its predecessor of Charles
the Second's time, it was enacted that, for the purposes of
this tax, the value should be taken only as it stood in 1692, and
should ever afterwards so remain. Hence it is that, whilst
in some stagnant parts of the country the tax is now really
four shillings in the pound of the present value, in places
which have thriven greatly since 1692, it is only the fraction
of a farthing."
Adam Smith also explains that "by the landtax it was intended that stock should be taxed in
the same proportion as land. When the tax upon
the land was four shillings in the pound, or at onefifth of the supposed rent, it was intended that
stock should be taxed at one-fifth the supposed
interest (per cent. of money value).
Of the entire expenditure during the fourteen
years of William III (seventy-two millions), fortynine millions were raised by taxes, and more than
a third of this was paid by land tax, whilst to
the expenditure of 1863-4, it contributed a sixtyfourth part, and is assessed in many instances not




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.        357
on land but on dwelling houses. According to
the original intent, it would now produce fifty
millions annually.
Naturally, this system of legislating in person,
and paying by proxy,-this " feudal system modernised," which retains power to the land, and casts
the responsibilities and conditions of its tenure
on the People who don't hold it, created the
"national debt" and raised it in one hundred
and sixty years, to eight hundred millions in 1815,
whereas five hundred and ninety-four years of real
feudality, kept the burdens in the land, and paid
expenditure out of income.
The extent to which the British Constitution
is violated,-the People misrepresented, and those
class interests favored, is shown by an analysis
of the two Houses, prepared from the description
in Dod. The Lords are mainly in the fighting and
aristocratic interest. The Commons have about
215 members for the fighting interest; 218 peers,
or connections of peers; 106 in the legal interest;
11 for railways; whilst for the whole mercantile,
manufacturing, and shipowning interests, there are
only about 84 representatives. And all this is
in addition to the vast power of courtly and parasitical influences.
Thus true is it that Government by is always
and everywhere Governmentfor.
The present system of taxation is as void of
true conservatism as of justice.
Wages are wealth. Wages are nearly half the income of the country. They are more in ured by bad




35'8                 DEMOCRACY
Government or revolution than any other incomes,
and consequently those who earn them have a
greater stake in the country, although the property
of each individual be so small.
Also it is certain that the contributors to one
half of our revenue, exercise no influence on its
imposition, incidence, or distribution.  The largest
aggregate contributors of the other half, who do
share the right of deciding these things, are altogether overpowered by the influence of the smaller
aggregate contributors.
~
The incidence of taxation, its amount, and the
connection between it and liberty, is thus put by
Montesquieu:"The public revenues are a portion that each subject gives
of his property, in order to secure or enjoy the remainder.' To fix these revenues in a proper manner, regard should
be had both to the necessities of the State and to those of the
subject. The real wants of the People ought never to give
way to the imaginary wants of the State. Often have ministers of a restless disposition imagined that the wants of their
own mean and ignoble souls were those of the State.
" In free States, taxes may be laid either on person, lands,
or merchandise, on two of these, or on all three.
1" In the taxing of persons, it would be an unjust proportion
to conform exactly to that of property. At Athens it was
judged that every man had an equal share of what was necessary for nature; that whatsoever was necessary for nature
ought not to be taxed; that to this succeeded the useful, which
ought to be taxed, but less than the superfluous; and that the
largeness of the taxes on what was superfluous prevented
superfluity.
"Taxes ought to be very light in despotic countries.
" It is a general rule that taxes may be heavier in proportion
to the liberty of the subject.. This has always been and always will
be the case. It is a rule derived from nature that never varies.
" Taxes may be increased in most republics, because the citizen
who thinks he is paying himself cheerfully submits to them.




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.             359
" This (a free) nation is passionately fond of liberty, because
it is real; and it is possible for it, in its defence, to sacrifice
its wealth, ease, interest, and to support the burthen of the
most heavy taxes, even such as the most despotic prince durst
not lay upon his subjects."-V. i, pp. 274-7, 244, 283-4,
412.
This is not the place in which to discuss the
necessary details of a change from fiscal laws to
direct taxation. The principle is admitted, so far
that the whole drift of modern finance has been
the use of direct taxation, even of the income tax,
to reduce indirect taxation, and to "lighten the
springs of industry."
The following nine reasons against indirect taxation, may, however, be here summarised with
advantage:-lst. It does not tend to excite interest in politics.  2nd. Consequently, the national
resources are wasted in protecting and collecting,
wasted in use, and also misapplied.  3rd. Trade is
obstructed, and artificial pauperism created; the
consuming power of the People is reduced, and the
general demand also lessened. 4th. The charges
for interest, profits, and risk of capital advanced in
payment of the duties by wholesale dealers and
retailers (varying from 25 to 200 per cent.), constitute an extra burden on the People beyond the
amount received by the State, of at least twenty
millions sterling per annum.  5th. It thus costs
the People a large proportion of their entire
wages in prices enhanced by taxes and extra
charges occasioned by them. This is proved by
returns from the leading co-operative stores. 6th.
It constitutes a blockade of our coasts, rivers, and




360                  DEMOCRACY
harbours, and so promotes the perpetuation of
jealousies and prejudices which are the frequent
cause of war.  7th. It robs the  country of the
enormous increase of comforts and wealth, now
proved to result from the repeal of customs and
excise duties, by the experience of the past twenty
years, and the increase in trade and improvement
of the People consequent thereupon. 8th. The
increase of trade and intercourse tends to prevent war, and the decrease of them encourages
it.
The following calculation of the cost of excessive preserving of game is important, if only an
approximation:" Calculating the acreage of England at 32,500,000 and
16,000,000 acres on which one hare or rabbit is kept, and
supposing that one hare to every four acres is a fair quantity
for sporting purposes, there is an excess of hares and rabbits
of twelve millions. Taking these in equal quantities, the
hares represent ~900,000, the rabbits ~300,000, or a total of
~1,200,000. But two hares and two rabbits eat as much as
one sheep, and destroy as much as they eat. This would keep
three millions more sheep than are kept at present. At forty
shillings per sheep, twelve months old, we ought to get
~6,000,000 worth of food. The difference between that and
~1,200,000 is an indirect tax of ~4,800,000 on the People's
food, and would pay for all the cattle and sheep imported for
more than a year."
Toulmin Smith thus speaks of the mystification
and profligacy of the present system:" The results of the alteration from a system of direct taxation, based on local self-Government, to an indirect one, based
on centralisation, have been, and are truly startling. The
National Debt is no mean instalment of such results. But
every constitutional principle has become habitually violated.
Parliamentary assent to any money votes has become almost
a mere form. Expenditure is made without the least reference to
the assent and consent of the folk and people first had and ob



AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.                361
tained; as the common law and the Constitution require.
And if any man would, —in order to awaken attention to a
subject so importantly affecting the power of each man to use,
to the best advantage, the opportunities and faculties he has,
-show to his neighbours the part and amount of the burthen
which, through their apathy, has been stealthily fastened upon
them, he is stopped, at the outset, by that craftily-devised
scheme of centralisation, by which each place is no longer
separately assessed, and its share separately and cheaply collected, under responsible officers, but its share is undistinguishably merged in a great and mystified whole, and that whole is
collected, wastefully and extravagantly, under a centralised
and altogether irresponsible machinery.
" Men may, peradventure, be startled when called upon to
pay, in a direct form, twenty-five per cent., or more, of the
income of each (this being a low estimate of the proportion
now, 1851, actually paid by most in the middle classes of life)
towards the national taxation." —Toulmin Smith, on "Local
Self-Government," p. 385.
And Bentham  ("Plan," pp. 40-43) insists on
the controlling power of the purse: —
" The one thing needful is,-that the power of the purse
should be actually and effectively in the hands of the real
representatives, that being the power by the exercise of which,
for the defence of the People against Stuart tyranny, all other
needful powers were acquired.
" At various periods in the history of this country, this allproductive power was actually in the hands of the People;
witness statute after statute.
"If in those days,-when the press was unknown-when
scarce any man but a priest could read-when there was
nothing worth the reading-no, not so much as the Bible to
be read, —if the People could without danger, in those days of
ignorance and barbarism, possess and exercise the power of the
purse,-in these days shall cowardice or tyranny find in pretended universal ignorance a pretext for scaring universal
suffrage?
" What we want is, under the existing forms of subjection,
the ascendancy of the democratic interest. Less than this
cannot save us.
"W Vhat ground for any apprehension of danger in a partial
Democracy, with monarchy and aristocracy by the side, and at
the head of it, and for keeping it in order, a standing army?
" The thing required is,-leaving the executive where it is,
-that the controlling part of the Government shall be in the hands




362                DEMOCRACY
of those whose interest it is that good Government shall take the
place of misrule, in every shape, particularly in the two most
intimately connected-waste and corruption, corruption and
waste."
POLITICAL FREEDOM.
Political freedom means the franchise. It means
free trade in land; a just settlement law for the
poor;. and equality, the essence, as we have seen,
of Democracy, in the distribution of seats, and of
electoral power. It means the rule of a majority
of the whole educated People. It means that large,
religious, and powerful minorities shall no longer be
outraged by the rule of the sections. It means that
the large and living towns shall no longer be
reduced to negations by dead and dirty acres, and
by old and foolish squires.
It involves both free acquisition and free use
of political power. The possession of land is always
a test of this.
PRIMOGENITURE is incompatible either with the
free acquisition or use of power, for it tends to a
perpetual concentration and monopoly, and so to
unequal representation.
It makes land dear and concentrated, for under
it owners may buy, but (such is the tendency) cannot sell.
It often encourages two spendthrifts at once.
The father on the timber, the son on the chance of
surviving the father. The father spends by despoiling the estate. The son spends at an unnatural
rate of interest, and if the tenant for life would
improve the estate, he is often prevented by the




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.              363
consideration that his improvements become parcel
of the entail, and cannot, under whatever pressure
be made available for his own needs.  The system
injures the estate as well as the tenant for life and
in tail.
Primogeniture sacrifices the interests of the
widow, and of all children but the eldest son, to the
proud and lofty object of concentrating family power,
and creating a family. It is an imitation of royalty,
without its reasons. It is a remnant of feudality
without its reasons for sudden and effectual military service. The Dowager wife descends, on the
death of her husband, from her equal throne, and
after a life maternal authority; the daughters are
charged on a fraction of the estate; and the
younger sons complete the sacrifice. Primogeniture may make "families," but it is evidently
against the (modern) State. It studies the best
advantages (of the pride, exclusiveness, and indolence) of the fewest number. If the State did not
provide for cadets, cadets would revolt against primogeniture.
Montesquieu thus shows how Primogeniture
was introduced, and its inexpediency, especially in
a trading country like England:"As soon as the fiefs became hereditary, the right of
seniority was established. The ancient law of partitions was no
longer subsisting; the fiefs being charged with a service, the
possessor must have been enabled to discharge it. The right
of primogeniture was established, and the reason of the feudal
law was superior to that of the political or civil institution." —
V. ii, p. 486.
" It was a spirit of vanity that established among Europeans the unjust law of primogeniture. So unfavorable to pro



364                  DEMOCRACY
pagation, is that it directs the attention of a father to only one
of his children, and turns his eyes from all the others; is that
it obliges him, in order to make a solid fortune for one only, to
hinder the settlement of the rest; lastly, is that it destroys the
equality of citizens, which constitutes their wealth.
" The propagation of mankind is vastly promoted by a mild
Government. All republics are certain proofs of this. Nothing
invites strangers more than liberty and wealth, which always
follow the former: The equality of citizens, which commonly produces an equality in theirfortunes, brings plenty and life into every
part of the body politic, and extends them through the whole."
-V. iii, pp. 405-10.
" It is an excellent law, in a trading republic, to make an
equal division of the paternal estate among the children. The
consequence of this is, that how great soever a fortune the
father has made, his children, not being so rich as he, are induced to avoid luxury, and to work as he had done.
" As a great share of virtue is very rare where men's fortunes are so unequal, the laws must tend as much as possible to
infuse a spirit of moderation; and endeavour to re-establish that
equality which was necessarily removed by the (aristocratic)
constitution. The spirit of moderation is what we call virtue
in an aristocracy; it supplies the place of the spirit of equality
in a popular State.
" It is the business of particular laws to level as it were,
the inequalities, by the duties laid upon the rich, and by the
ease afforded to the poor.'" As to men of over-grown estates, everything which does
not contribute to advance their power and honour is considered
by them as an injury."-V. i, pp. 54-8, and 64.
We have seen two great English champions
of freedom treating this question of EQUALITY.
The one advocates Democracy; the other a species
of graduated manhood,-a "sliding scale" which
will enable the American to go on importing our
manhood from us. Mill says Equality is impossible, Gladstone advocates a fearless advance
towards it:Mill declares that "whoever does not desire
equal universal suffrage, cannot too soon begin to




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.        365
reconcile himself to plural voting," and when terms
of capitulation are recommended by cool onlookers
like Mr. Mill, victory cannot be far distant. But
it is not in England that such terms will either be
offered by a party, or accepted by the People.
In England, minorities have ruled from time
immemorial. But they have ruled by power, not
by sufferance. Since Kings ruled as despots,
Families have ruled as communists. An age or
two ago steam began to create the power called
public opinion, which has since confronted Family
Government. Between these two the conflict for
power now rages. The Families constitute the
whole Upper House. They own two-thirds of the
county seats, and more than half the small boroughs.
And the evil which Mr. Mill anticipates from popular Government is a class rule, a popular class
rule, and the remedy he prescribes is that very
minority class rule, which if defeated in one form,
shall reappear in another! The great principle of
the sliding scale is promoted from corn to manhood.
But this is not the way in England. The facts
only unveil the real principle of this minority
Government, and make it hateful. Englishmen
may suffer awhile the rule of the old traditional
minorities, but henceforth all new minorities that
climb to power, must do so by conquering ac majority by the natural process of reason and publicity.
Thus the contest is between the new England
and the old. But the essential principle of this
contest is " minorities and majorities," Families or
Men, the People or the Sections. A balancing of




366             DE3MOCRACY
class interests against the onward and majestic
march of the whole nation, one and indivisible.
They, therefore, but ill understand the temper or
the metal of Englishmen, who imagine that, having
gotten the victory by force, they will surrender its
results to cajolery or indirection,-that having
stormed the Malakoff of Oligarchy, they will set up
over it the flag of the enemy,-the symbol of defeat and reaction.
The fight means just this:-" Is or is not the
majority to rule?" To the victors will be the
spoils. Not even Mr. Mill will get them for the
vanquished.
With her comparatively narrow basis of men
and land, old England can only survive by adopting
the principles of the new; and the new England
will conquer by using present forms whilst evoking
the true and noble spirit of the British Constitution.
Without this, England would soon be an
island'in the sea,-an island, and nothing more.
Of two things one, we must cast out our
Oligarchy, or degrade our nationality against
Democracies.  We must stand on Democracy
or on nothing.  The strength and the  truth
of Commerce, of Politics, and Religion,-of the
Body, Mind, and Spirit of the nation, must make
us free, for we have now to run the world-race
against Democracies, if we run that race at all.
Walking in the paths of the Constitution, we should
insist that its principles demand a much wider
freedom than we now enjoy. We must recognise




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.               367
that freedom begins with the Few and ends with
the All. That thus the base of a true nation widens
from age to age, and that nationality and freedom
together must broaden, —not downwards, but upwards, " from precedent to precedent " of glory.
Yielding to this truth, Mr. Gladstone thus
enunciated the principle and stated the facts upon
the strength of which he appeals to the country
for an instalment of justice. He wants to lay his
foundation on that which is catholic in truth,
immutable in strength, and universal in numbers.
None can flank his position, unless they go for a
wider Demiocracy than his.
" What I would state is this:-Every man who is not presumably incapacitated by some consideration of personal unfitness or political danger, is morally entitled to come within the
pale of the Constitution.... The present franchise may
be said, upon the whole, to draw a line between the lower
middle class and the upper working class. The lower middle
class is generally admitted. The upper working class is generally excluded. Is that a state of things which is recommended
to us by any clear or definite principle of reason? Are the
upper portion of the working class really inferior to the lower
portion of the middle class? I wish that question to be considered on both sides of the House. It appears to me thatthe
negative of that assertion may be held with the greatest confidence."
And again as to the facts which we believe to
be more reliable than the later hasty returns:" Somewhere between one-tenth and one-twentieth of the
elements of the borough and county constituencies, taken together, is made up of the working classes themselves. I
venture to maintain that if 49-50ths of the working classes are
excluded, it is on those who MAINTAIN THAT EXCLUSION to show on
what it rests."-Speech in the House, May 11th, 1864.
6" I doubt whether, at the present moment, as large a proportion of the working classes holds the suffrage as held it in
the month of December, 1832. Is that a proper or a right state
of things?"




368                DEMOCRACY
Surely here is either the wildest revolution or
the soundest and safest conservatism.
And at Chester, on the 31st May, 1865:" I believe if we take the whole constituency of the country
at about one million, the working men of that million, in the
estimation of many, do not exceed 50,000, and hardly any one
thinks they exceed 100,000. What do I mean by liberal principles? The principle of trusting the People, only relieved by
prudence."
While Mill represents the conservatism of
Democracy, Gladstone represents that equation between Conservatism and Democracy, which results
in a safe progress. Others represent the timidity which does not rest absolutely on first principles, which fears to be too much in the right, and
exerts enormous ingenuity to find a shorter road
than the direct one; whilst Bright represents the
living power and passion of Democracy incarnate,
which is the motive force of all.
~
Mr. Cobden powerfully states the importance
of the BALLOT, and if to be " one-sided " is to be
strong, it is perhaps, after all, better not to have
read " Thucydides." If one cannot be encyclopedic
without being emasculated, it is best to be onesided.
Mr. Cobden said:-" The Ballot is a moral
engine which is not appreciated in England, because it is not sufficiently known. Let it once be
established in any constituency, and it will spread
like wildfire throughout the country."
Mr. Mill appears to us scarcely to make due




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.               369
allowance for the position of the voter.  He says,
" slavish dependence" and " electoral intimidation "
can be defied by the elector, although this is only
true of few places and under certain particular
circumstances.
He also argues against the Ballot, that voting
is "a public and important act," whereas that is
the very reason why the voter should be protected.
He argues from  trade  combinations, to  the
independence of the isolated voter.
The real ground of " ballot or no ballot" seems
to be expounded by Montesquieu, the greatest of
political writers. He says (vol. i, pp. 14-15, Trans.,
A.D. 1777):"The law which determines the manner of giving the
suffrage is fundamental in a Democracy. It is a question of
somle importance whether the suffrages ought to be secret.
The People's suffrages ought doubtless to be public (at Athens
the People used to lift up their hands), and this should be
considered a fundamental law in Democracy. The lower class
ought to be directed by those of a higher rank. Hence by rendering the suffrages secret in the Roman Republic, all was
lost. It was no longer possible to direct a populace that
sought its own destruction. But when the body of the nobles
are to vote in an aristocracy, as the business is then only to
prevent intrigues, the suffrages cannot be too secret.
"' The thirty tyrants of Athens ordered the suffrages of the
Areopagites to be public in order to manage them."
Distinguishing, then, between the dangers of
want of direction, which are evidently those which
Montesquieu provides against, and those of intimidation, which are what we have, to a great extent,
to guard against, and allowing for the fact that our
electors do not require "direction by those of
higher rank," we get this conclusion, —that where
2 B




370              DEMOCRACY
ignorance, and consequent need of direction, are
mostly to be feared, this great writer prescribes
publicity, but that when intimidation is to be
feared, then secrecy and the Ballot are necessary.
The suffrages of the English are kept "public in
order to manage them," and when the object is to
"prevent intrigues," or to prevent the "tyrannical
management of electors," then "suffrages cannot
be too secret."
The Ballot ought to be universal, or else to be
granted to constituencies that demand it.
To make intimidation FELONY, is the only
alternative, if, indeed, it be a practicable alternative.
Without this, or the Ballot, there can be no political equality. The intimidator can destroy the
position of his victim. Arm the latter with equal
powers to strike, or enable him to defend himself.
He can only defend himself in many cases, by
secrecy, or by being enabled by law to destroy the
position of his adversary.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.
Freedom demands also that Religion shall be
without State-imposed political character and
bias.
The fundamental objection to the much-discussed connection between Church and State is
that each is a Sovereignty, or nothing.
Religion opposes every false sovereignty, and
upholds all that are true. But if the nominal
head of the Church be also the head of the




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.          371
State, where the State is unjust the Church must
either denounce its own head or be a party to
wrong.
I C sovereignties conflict, one of them must
be destroyed.  The actual results are seen in
Roman Catholicism, where the Church is sovereign;
in Protestant countries, where the State is sovereign; and in countries partly one and partly the
other, where the sovereignties conflict.
The conflict tends to compromise and corruption.
The State uses the Church for Statecraft; the
Church uses the State for Priestcraft.
The spirit of Religion must rule, but it is hampered by the weight of secularity. The secular
must also rule,-if not by opinion, then by force or
by corruption.
Separation is the only peace that is not death.
If Religion be only Religion, and its organisation,
apart from the State, it will uphold the State, if
it be right, and alter it if wrong. The Puritan
principle has never been destroyed, and in America,
where it is free, its ecclesiastical provisions are the
most splendid and ample.
Common sense demands that no Church shall
be "established " that is not infallible. If infallible,
it cannot fail for want of establishment. If fallible,
the sooner it fails thae better. Whether fallible or
infallible, bribery and force are no part of Religion.
Statesmanship demands, on the one hand, that
Religion shall not be prostituted as an engine of
Government, and, on the other hand, that favourit2B2




3 72             DEMOCRACY
ism shall not array section against section, and so
weaken the State.
Purity demands that ideas of the market and
the auction room shall not be inflicted on it by
authority; that the People shall pay for and elect
their own religious teachers; that Statesmen shall
not buy the Church; that private individuals shall
neither buy nor sell it; that it shall not become
encrusted with abuses and traditions, irremoveable
because they are established, and established in the
sense of a settlement of the monies of the whole
People upon the opinions and forms of a mere section, a Malakoff of caste, corporate abuse, and
hierarchical prerogative, without, and against the
People and their pre-ordained progress. The caste
feeling resulting from the "establishment" of a
sectional Church is one of the curses of middleclass society in England. Either the Church will
become truly national by becoming Democratic, or
it will cease to be national in any sense, and
become more intensely sectional. If it be national,
its funds (saving vested private interests) are
national, and the nation may vote them. If it be
not national, it ought to account for the use of the
funds that are national, and of which it then has
no ownership.
There is nothing in the ancient constitution of
England savouring of such "establishments" of
prelacy, sectarianism, wordly mindedness, priestcraft, and money changing.
They savour of Despotism, Centralisation, and
Rome, of the notion that Religion is a matter of




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.         373
form, ceremony, and compulsion, and that His
Majesty the People can and ought to be taken in
and done for by his own creatures.
An established Church cannot be catholic without being licentious  A Church cannot be established without being Popish. For all establishments settle forms upon posterity and settle money
upon forms, —in fact connect interest with opinion,
affix a premium on immobility, and a penalty on
free thought.
This is either useless, —trying to perpetuate what
cannot be perpetuated, or tyrannical, attempting to
perpetuate by some form of force or favour, that
which opinion would otherwise condemn.
"No true Protestant (says Toulmin Smith,'Local self-Government,' pp. 333-4), can suffer any
disability for any civil office to attach to any one
by reason of his religious faith. The laying down
such disability is an act and mark of Popishness.
The true Protestant must resist all means by which
the free development of the faculties of man is
sought to be hindered."
Religious liberty therefore demands the abrogation of all laws and usages which inflict disability,
or confer privilege, on ecclesiastical grounds, upon
any subject of the realm.
The disabilities inflicted on Dissenters are
fewer than in past days, but still remain much as
follows. "As a general rule, Dissenters cannot act
as masters or trustees of the ancient Grammar
Schools, which are national property; while Dissenting scholars must use the forrmularies of the




3 74              DEMOCRACY
Church of England, or be excluded. A Dissenter
cannot take a higher degree than that of B.A. at
Oxford University, and M.A. at Cambridge; while
at both universities he is excluded from the fellowships, and from every post involving authority and
emolument. The Dissenter cannot avail himself of
the services of his own minister, in the burial of
the dead, in the English churchyards; and, in the
case of Dissenters dying unbaptized, the parochial
clergyman may legally refuse to perform  anv
funeral service. No Town Councillor, Alderman,
or other municipal functionary, can take office
without making a declaration acknowledging the
legal supremacy of the Established Church. The
canons of the Established Church denounce both
Dissent and Dissenters in the severest terms. On
the other hand, the Bishops of the Church of England sit in Parliament, and legislate for Dissenters
as well as Episcopalians. Its ministers monopolise
nearly all the masterships of public schools, and
hold many public offices; preside by law over
parish vestries, and, in virtue of their legal position, claim precedence of all other ministers of
religion, and frequently treat them with studied
contempt. As the result of this repression on the
one hand, and favoritism on the other, Dissenters
are placed at a serious disadvantage in respect to
their opinions, worship, and religious efforts, as
well as to their social and political position. Whut
is wanted in lieu of this state of things is Religyous
Equality -the State protecting all men in the expression and practice of their religious views, but




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.          375
neither patronizing nor endowing any religious
body."
~
Religious Liberty also demands the application
to secular uses, after an equitable satisfaction of
existing interests, of all national property now held
by the United Church of England and Ireland and
the Presbyterian Church of Scotland; and, concurrently with it, the liberation of those Churches
from all State control.
As Lord Brougham said in his Irish Church
Bill speech of 1836, "when the Christian Religion
was first planted in this land, it was supported by
the voluntary oblations of the faithful," Equality,
therefore, in this respect also, is but a return to the
ancient ways.
The power of the  State over all public
"Church" property is settled by right, precedent,
authority, and necessity.
The law recognises the personal and official
right of the officiating individual, but has never
safely allowed, nor could safely allow, such an imperium in imperio as a Church absolutely possessed
of national public property.
The State has as much power over the property
of the " Church of England " as over the revenues
of the army and navy. It has changed the conditions of its tenure five times already. [See
Mackintosh and Brougham hereon, and note the
manner of past changes. Also "Edinburgh Review," January 1835, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke,




376                  DEMOCRACY
Fuller, Dean Milman, and Lords Campbell, Melbourne, Althorp, and Palmerston.]
It was not the Church, but King, Lords, and
Commons that changed  Roman Catholicism  for
Protestant Episcopalianism. Queen, Lords, and
Commons next reversed the process. Elizabeth
and her Parliament again sent Romanism to the
right-about. The Commonwealth established Presbyterianism, and Charles II made the last change.
Through all changes the endowments remained and
the establishment was altered. The Church always
held from the State and subject to the State, the
Church being only a system of ecclesiastical rule.
Montesquieu (of Laws in Monarchies), thus
extols the subjection of the Church to the
Law:
"' The English to favor their liberty, have abolished all the
intermediate powers of which their monarchy was composed.
They have a great deal of reason to be jealous of this liberty:
were they ever to be so unhappy as to lose it, they would be
one of the most servile nations upon earth."
And this great master of political science further says:" Though the ecclesiastic power be so dangerous in a republic, yet it is extremely proper in a monarchy, especially of the
absolute kind. A barrier ever useful where there is no other; the
very evil that restrains a despotic Government is beneficial.
" With regard to religion, as in this State (a free State),
every subject has a free will, and must consequently be either
conducted by the light of his own mind or by the caprice of
fancy, it necessarily follows that every one must either look
upon all religion with indifference, by which mneans they are led to
embrace the established religion, or they must be zealous for religion in general, by which means the number of sects is increased.
"The clergy (in such free State) not being able to protect
religion, nor to be protected by it, only seek to persuade. (Vol.
i, pp. 21, 415, 416.)




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.                 377
"But the political state of the Government received the
greatest injury from his (Justinian's) project of establishing a
general uniformity of opinion in matters of religion, and in circumstances that rendered his zeal as indiscreet as possible.
"The ancient Romans fortified their empire by indulging
all sorts of religious worship; but their posterity destroyed it
by rooting out the various sects, whose doctrines were not
predominant.
" But when she (the Church) appears triumphant to the
eyes of the world, she is generally sinking in adversity.
"A universal bigotry had stupified and emasculated the
whole empire.
"Those who may happen to read the history written by
Pachymerus, will. be effectually convinced of the unalterable
inability of divines to accommodate their own disagreements, and
will see an emperor who spent his days in assembling people
of that class, listening to their disputations, and reproaching
them for the inflexibility of their opinions: they will likewise
behold another engaged with a hydra of controversies, &c.
The same artless pliancy to their intrigues, joined with the
same deference to their aversions, will never reconcile these implacable ecclesiastics while the world endures.
" An unacquaintedness with the true nature and limits of ecclesiastical and secular power, was the most pernicious source of
all the calamities that befel the Greeks, and involved both priests
and people in perpetual errors.
" This great distinction, which constitutes all the tranquillity of
a nation, is founded, not only on religion, but on reason and nature,
which never confound things really distinct in themselves,
and which can only subsist in consequence of that very distinction."-Montesquieu, vol. iii, pp. 154, 162-3, 171-2-3,
"Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire."
And to this should be added the opinion of one
of the very first of modern philosophers upon history.
Mr. Draper, discussing the union of Church and
State, under Constantine, the questions of religious
unity and individual freedom, of the hierarchical
principle, of toleration, and of the true and ultimate
meaning of the Reformation, thus expresses himself: -
"The unavoidable consequences were a union between




378                    DEMOCRACY
the Church and State; a diverting of the dangerous classes
from civil to ecclesiastical paths, and the decay and materialisation of Religion....   The fatal gift of a Christian
Emperor had been the doom of true religion."
"This decline of its (ecclesiasticism) ancient influence,
should be a cause of rejoicing to all intelligent men, for an
ecclesiastical organisation allyi;ng itselj to political power cacn never
now be a source of any good.  In America we have seen'the
bond that held the Church  and State together abruptly
snapped. It is therefore well that, since the close of the Age
of Faith, things have been coming back, with an accelerated
pace, to the state in which they were in the early Christian
times, before the founder of Constantinople beguiled the devotional spirit to his personal and family benefit-to the state in
which they were before ambitious men sought political advancement and wealth by organising hypocrisy-when maxims
of morality, cha-rity, benevolence, were rules of life for individual man-when the monitions of conscience were obeyed
without the suggestions of an outward, often an interested
and artful prompter-when the individual lived not under the
sleepless gaze, the crushing hand of a great overwhelming hierarchical organisation, surrounding him on all sides, doing his
thinking for him, directing him in his acts, making him a mere
automaton."
1"THE REFORMATION ITSELF, philosophically considered,
really meant the casting off of authority, the installation of
individual inquiry and personal opinion."
"The history of the Reformation does not close where
many European authors have imagined, in a balanced and final
distribution of the north and south between the Protestant
and Catholic.  The predestined issue of sectarian differences
and dissensions, is individual liberty of thought. So long as
there was one vast overshadowing, intolerant corporation,
every man must bring his understanding to its measure, and
think only as it instructed him to do. As soon as dissenting
confessions gathered sufficient military power to maintain
their right of existence-as soon as from them, in turn, incessant offshoots were put forth, toleration became not only possible, but inevitable, and that is perlaps as far as the nmovemnent
has at this time advanced in Europe. But Macaulay and others
who have treated of the Refortmation, have taken too limited a
view of it, supposing that this was its point of arrn est. It made
another enormous stride whlen, at the American revolution, the State
and the Church were solemnly and openly dissevered from one another.
Now might the vaticinations of the prophets of evil expect to
find credit; a great people had irrevocably broken off its
politics from its theology, and it might surely have been ecx



AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.                379
pected that the unbridled interests, and instincts, and passions of
men would have dragged everything into the abyss of anarchy.
Yet what do we, who are living nearly a century after that
time, find the event to be? Sectarian decomposition, passing
forward to its last extreme, is the process by which individual
mental liberty is engendered and maintainred. A grand and
imposing religious unity implies tyrann.y to the individual; the
increasing emergence of sects gives him increasing latitude of
thought-with their utmost multiplication he gains his utmost
liberty. In this respect, unity and liberty are in opposition;
as the one diminishes, the other increases. The Reformation
broke down unity; it gave liberty to masses of men grouped
together in sufficient numbers to ensure their position; it is
now invisibly but irresistibly making steps, never to be stayed
until there is an absolute mental emancipation for man.
"Great revolutions are not often accomplished without
much suffering and many crimes. It might have been supposed before the event,-perhaps it is supposed by many who
are not privileged to live among the last results,-that this
decomposition of religious faith must be to the detriment of
personal and practical piety. Yet America, in which, of all
countries, the Reformation at the present moment has furthest
advanced, should offer to thougb tful men much encouragement.
Its cities are filled with churches built by voluntary gifts; its
clergy are voluntarily sustained, and are, in all directions, engaged in enterprises of piety, education, and mercy. VWhat a
difference between their private life, and that of old ecclesiastics before the Reformation! Not, as in old times, does the
layman look upon them as the cormorants and curse of
society; they are his faithful advisers, his honoured friends,
under whose suggestion and supervision are instituted educational establisments, colleges, hospitals,-whatever can be of
benefit to men in this life, or secure for them happiness in the
life to come."-Draper's "Intellectual Development of Europe,"
v. i, pp. 269, 274; v. ii, pp. 220-1-2.
These principles are vindicated equally in the
splendid advance of the latest of the Anglo-Saxon
empires, as in the declension of that of the Romans.
The  Hon. C. Gavan  Duffy, returned  from
Victoria, at a dinner given to him at St. James's
Hall, in May last (18 65), states."If Mr. Gregory wished to present to Parliament a startling contrast between the old country and the new, he would
furnish him one which had the advantage of being founded in




380                   DEMOCRACY
fact. He might ride over a district in Victoria larger than the
county he represented without meeting a man who had not
sufficient to eat and drink and wear, and without seeing a
farmer who did not own the land he tilled in fee simple, or
hold it on terms of independence; without seeing a clergyman
living at the cost of the country without a flock, or a church built by
the State without a congregation."
The weight of authority  against this money
connection, this "protection" of the Church by
the State, is as encyclopoedic as it is against any
other prostitution. And as spiritual freedom is of
the  essence, we add the following from  Milton, De
Tocqueville, Hegel, Macaulay, Goldwin Smith,
Mill, Guizot, Humboldt, and Adam  Smith.
"M. Guizot has not overlooked, but impartially analysed,
the mixed character of good and evil which belonged even in
that age, and still more in the succeeding ages, to the power
of the Church. One beneficial consequence which he ascribes
to it is worthy of especial notice; the separation (unknown to
antiquity) between temporal and spiritual authority. He in
common with the best thinkers of our time, attributes to this
fact the happiest influence on European civilization.' It was
the parent,' he says,'of liberty of conscience.' The separation of temporal and spiritual is founded on the idea, that material force has no right, no hold, over the mind, over conviction, over truth."-V. ii, p. 243, " Dissertations," by John Stuart
Mill, " Edinburgh Review," October, 1845.
" If proceeding further,-than removing obstacles, the
legislator ventures to direct or diffuse a spirit of religiousness;
if he shelters or encourages certain definite religious ideas;
or if, lastly, he dares to require a belief according to authority in
lieu of a true and sincere conviction, he will most effectually
thwart and deaden the soul's noblest aspirations, and throw fatal
impediments in the way of true spiritual culture, and he can never
produce virtue. For this is independent of all peculiar forums of
religious belief, and incompatible with any that is enjoined by, and
believed on, authority."-Baron A. von Humboldt, " Sphere and
Duties of Government," p. 86.
" The principles of Christianity would be infinitely more
powerful than the false honour of monarchies, the humane
virtues of republics, or the servile fear of despotic States.
"The religion sent from heaven is not established by the
same methods as the religions of the earth. Read the history




AND ITS REQUIREMENTS.                 381
of the Church, and you will see the wonders of the Christian
religion. Has she resolved to enter a country?-she knows
how to open its gates, and all instruments are proper for that
purpose. Sometimes God makes use of a few fishermen; at
others, he places an emperor on the throne, and makes him
bend his neck under the yoke of the Gospel. Is Christianity
concealed in caverns and subterraneous abodes? stay a
moment, and you will see the Imperial Majesty speak in her
behalf. She, whenever she pleases, crosses the seas, rivers,
and mountains, and no obstacles here below can stop her progress. Place repugnance in the mind; she will make it fly
before her: establish customs, form habits, publish edicts,
make laws; she will triumph over the climate, the laws that
result from  it, and the legislators who made them." —Montesquieu, " Spirit of Laws," v. iv, p. 256.
" But if politics had never adopted the tenets of one sect
more than of another, it would probably have dealt impartially
with all the different sects.  The concessions which the
teachers of each sect would find it convenient and agreeable
to make to one another, might in time probably reduce the
doctrine of the greater part of them to that pure and rational
religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture, or
fanaticism, such as wise men have in all ages of the world
wished to see it established; but such as positive law has
perhaps never yet established, and probably never will establish
in any country. If this plan of no ecclesiastical Government
(proposed to be established by the Independents towards the
end of the civil war) had been established, it would probably
by this time have been productive of the most philosophical
good temper and moderation with regard to every sort of
religious principle. In countries where there is an established
religion, the Sovereign can never be secure unless he has the means
of izfluencing in a considerable degree the greater part of the
teachers of that religion. The clergy of every established Church
constitute a great incorporation. Their interest is never the
same with that of the Sovereign. It is to maintain their
authority with the People, and this depends upon the supposed
necessity of adopting every part of their doctrine with the
most implicit faith, in order to avoid eternal misery." —Smith's
"Wealth of Nations," v. iii, pp. 201-207.
" As a nation assumes a democratic condition it becomes
more and more dangerous to connect religion with political
institutions.  American legislators succeeded to a certain
extent in opposing the permanence of the religious world to
the continual shifting of Politics. In Europe the living body
of Religion has been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity."-De Tocqueville, v. 2, p. 266.




382                  DEMOCRACY
" Religion as such is Reason in the soul and heart. Thus
Freedom in the State is preserved and established by religion.
he Church was (in the middle ages) no longer a
spiritual power, but an Ecclesiastical one.... The third
kind of contradiction is the Church itself in its acquisition as
an outward existence, of possessions and enormous property-a
state of things which, since that Church despises or professes to
despise riches, is none other than a Lie.... The corruption of the Church was not an accidental phenomenon.
The element in question, which is innate in the Ecclesiastical
principle, only reveals itself as a corrupting one when the
Church has no longer any opposition to contend with,-when it
has become firmly establishled. It is that externality in the Church
itself which becomes evil and corruption."-Hegel's " Philosophy of IIistory."
" It is an unquestionable and most instructive fact that the
years during which the political power of the Anglican hierarchy was in the zenith, were precisely the years during which
national virtue was at the lowest point."-Macaulay's England, vol. i., p. 181.
" Shall I believe that Christianity deprived of State support
must fall, when I see it without State support not only standing, but advancing with the settler into the remotest West?
Will the Laity of Europe long remain under their illusion in
the face of this great fact?" —Goldwin Smith.
" The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or
civil liberty. As for spiritual, who can be at rest, who can
enjoy anything in this world with contentment, who hath not
liberty to serve God, and to save his own soul, according to
the best light which God hath planted in him to that purpose,
by the reading of his revealed will, and the guidance of His
HIoly Spirit?" —Milton.
All goes to this,-that material, political, and
religious freedom are the complement of Democracy,
or national self-Government, but that every nation
that aspires to self-Government must get also the
four-fold foundation of School, Press, Church, and
Assembly, and cement and perpetuate that grand
victory over ignorance and despotism by the bond
and guarantee of equality.




DEMOCRACY AND CENTRALISATION;
OR,
THE OLD POWER AND THE MODERN
ORGANISATION.
" I contend, that in order to combat the evils which equality may produce, there is only one effectual remedy —namely,
polical freedom.
"Instruct, at all hazards, for the age of implicit selfsacrifice and instinctive virtues is already flying far away from
us, and the time is fast approaching when freedom, public
peace, and social olrder itself will not be able to exist without
instruction." —De Tocqueville.
" The Lower House of Parliament, is not, in proper language, an estate of the realm, but rather the image, and representative of the Commons of England; who, being the third
estate, with the nobility and clergy, make up and constitute
the people of this kingdom and liege subjects of the crown."
-Hacllam's Mliddle Ages, v. iii; p. 105.
"Without a ministry, the working of a Parliamentary
Government such as ours must always be unsteady and
unsafe. It is essential to our liberties that the House of
Commons should exercise a control over all the departments
of the executive administration. The ministry is a committee
of leading members of the houses, and is almost as essential a
part of our polity as the Parliament itself. It consists exclusively of Statesmen whose opinions on the pressing questions
of the time agree in the main with the opinions of the majority
of the House of Commons." —-Macaulay, 434-5, v. iv.
"In all communities, some one principle of action may be
discovered which preponderates over the others."-De Tocqueville.
"The simultaneous accordant action of the executive and
legislature is essential to a perfect Government."- Walter
Bagehot.
" With the rise of new functions and the increase of complexity, unity obtains its completest form and fullest expression. This is a great law of universal progress. By virtue of
it, a nation is a living organism."




"Entails are founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions, that every successive generation have not an equal
right to the earth and all that it possesses." —Adam Smith.
"' Laws frequently continue in force long after the circumstances which first gave occasion to them, and which could
alone render them reasonable, are no more. The right of
prirnogeniture, however, as it is the fittest to support family
distinctions, is still likely to endure. In every other respect,
nothing can be more contrary to the real interest of a numerous
family."-Adam Smith,'" Wealth of Nations," v. i, p. 84.
"An equal division of lands cannot be established in all
Democracies.  We are not always obliged to proceed to
extremes. If it appears that this division, designed to preserve
the People's morals, does not suit with the Democracy,
recourse must be had to other methods."-lMontesquieu.
" InAristocratical Governments there are two principle sources
of disorder: EXCESSIVE INEQUALITY between the governors and
the governed, and between the governors.
"' This inequality occurs, likewise, when the condition of
the citizens differs as to taxes: which may happen four different ways; when the nobles assume the privilege of paying
none; when they commit frauds to exempt themselves; when they
engross the public money under pretence of rewards or appointments for their respective employments; in fine, when they
render the common people tributary, and divide among their
own body the profits arising from the several subsidies. This
last case is very rare: an aristocracy so instituted would be the
most intolerable of all governments.
" The laws ought to abolish the right of primogeniture
among the nobles, to the end that by a continual division of
the inheritances, their fortunes may be always upon a level.
" When the laws have compassed the equality of families,
the next thing is, &c. In fine, the laws must not favor the
distinctions raised by vanity among families, under pretence that
they are more noble or ancient than others. Pretences of this
nature ought to be ranked among private weaknesses.
" Aristocracy is corrupted if the power of the nobles becomes arbitrary.  The extremity of corruption is when the power
of the nobles becomes hereditary, for then they can hardly have
any moderation."-Montesquieu, v. i, pp. 65-68-147.
"Such powers as are established by commerce, may subsist
for a long series of years in their humble condition, but their
grandeur is of short duration."-Ibid, pp. 24, v. iii.




385
CHAPTER VI.
DEMOCRACY AND CENTRALISATION;
OR,
THE OLD POWER AND THE MODERN
ORGANISATION.
"After providing in the most liberal manner for education,
free countries have but one thing more to do for the accomplishment of the rest, —to secure intellectualfreedom." —Draper,
"Intellectual Development of Europe."
"As in a country of liberty every man who is supposed a
free agent ought to be his own governor, the legislative power
should reside in the whole body of the People. But since this is
impossible in large States, it is fit the People should transact
by their representatives what they cannot transact by themselves."-Montesquieu.
" It no longer appears to me to be the end and purpose of
the present world to produce that state of universal peace
among men, and of unlimited dominion over the mechanism of
nature, merely for its own sake,-but that it should be produced
by man himself; and since it is expected from all, that it should
be produced by all, as one g'eat, free, moral community."Fichte.
" If any of the provinces of the British Empire cannot be
made to contribute towards the support of the whole empire,
it is surely time that Great Britain should free herself from the
expense of defending those provinces in time of war, and of
supporting any part of their civil or military establishments
in time of peace, and endeavour to accommodate her future
views and designs to ithe real mediocrity of her circumstances."
-Adam Smith, v. iii, p. 465.
"The land of France belongs to fifteen or twenty millions
of peasants, who cultivate it: the land of England belongs to
an aristocracy of thirty-two thousand persons, who have it
cultivated. This is one of the spiritual characters of our
revolution. Man outweighed the land. In England, the land
has outweighed man."-Michelet.
When the national intellect becomes sufficiently
developed and organised, not only will it have
2 c




386             DEMOCRACY
superseded the reign of force and of chattel property, it will also undertake that opinions shall
not be judged by interests, but rather interests by
opinion.
Force could not then organise, for elements of
organisation would remain above it and beyond it.
Property could not organise, for it would be but the
mqdium of preparation and enfranchisement of its
master-manhood. That only can completely organise which develops by governing, and governs by
developing.-In which the units are not sacrificed to
unity, nor unity to the units, but in which the
State and the Individual are equally and completely
considered.
The harmony of organisation with power is the
test of conservative adjustment.  The adj ustment of power with preparation and right is
the crucial question with Democracies.
Centralisation and Democracy both, are of the
body, mind, and character,-by force, opinion, or
conscience.
That only can be and remain universal, which
is complete as to numbers and character,-as to
quantity and quality. That alone which is thorough
as to the whole man, can be catholic as to a whole
People.
Democracy is founded, as we have seen, on
material, political, and religious freedom. There
can be no complete centralisation until this Democracy is universal in a nation, and " the whole
of the all " is (approximately) organised.
Thus an intenser individuality than of old, can




AND CENTRALISATION.          387
alone meet and mate, as the universal soul of the
world, the vast material combinations of the
present, and the vaster ones of the future.
Organisation depends on discipline; discipline
upon intelligence; unity upon the quality of the
units. Although in a Democracy there is no will
but the People's, there is in the whole world no
other concentration of will so intense, all pervading,
and terrible.
Scientifically, the cohesion of the whole depends much upon the minuteness of the parts.
Politically, homogeneousness means unity, and
universality of suffrage and of will is the only
agency that can compete with and excel autocracy
in intensity and concentration.
In tracing, therefore, the process of the destruction of local self-Government by the necessity of
more comprehensive and intimate unities, and by
various corporate excrescences and abuses of privilege, priestcraft, and prerogative, and the growth
of factitious and gangrenous sub-unities, the
true stand point is at a sufficient distance to grasp
the unity of the problem. At a sufficient elevation
to take in the beauty and the glory of the
promised land, we see the gradual gathering of
the elements of power,-a gradual perfectioning of
the instrument which the People are preparing to
wield. We see, in fact, how through the centuries,
Democracy and centralisation, freedom and order
are made meet for one another.
It may be said that we in England have no
2 c2




388              DEMOCRACY
means analogous to the "State-right" power of
America, wherewith to enforce the interests of
locality against generality and centralisation, and
to a certain extent the allegation is at present
true. When county magnates were a reality, they
had their State-rights and policy, but now the
machine is on too colossal a scale, and even with
universality of suffrage, centralisation can never
become sufficiently intense and imminent to constitute ours a true empire. At home the antinational interest of endowed sects and families will
for ages obstruct the progress of the People and
the unity of the nation. Abroad, in the colonies,
the "State-rights" of Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa, and India, will be ever
more and more powerfully advocated, and the
materials for making of them one empire do not
exist, and cannot be created.
The longest lived empire of the past,-Rome,
was not seated upon widely different latitudes.
The influences of climate were similar. This, one
of the most notable facts respecting the homogeneousness of that empire, is altogether reversed in
the case of our own.
While, therefore, distance, climate, and raced(ifferences, will prevent the permanence of the
English Empire, the oligarchic constitution of
English society and politics, withstand the advance
of our Democracy, and the completion of our
nationality.
The two hostile forces are here, as always and
everywhere, Democracy and Oligarchy, —that which




AND CENTRALISATION.               389
seeks power in the sections, and that which seeks
it in the whole.
The power that will constitute our material
basis of Democracy is to be found in a gradual
union of the forces and interests of labor and capital, which will modify, counteract, or outweigh the
union of capital with aristocracy.
SAFEGUARDS.
From time to time the immemorial safeguards
of local and individual rights have been, or will
be, as far as possible restored, and the British
constitution revindicated.
Of these safeguards there are two classes; the
first are of a primary nature, relating to the institutions themselves which are the source of all
authority, and whose special business is the assertion of the rights and responsibilities of freemen.
" I. Frequent, fixed, regular, and accessible folk-motes, to
which all freemen shall come, and discuss all matters, both of
local and general interest. As to the latter this ancient
custom is now partly resumed, in the shape of annual meetings
of members with their constituents.
"II. Open elections of all local officers, and of the representatives to the local and general assemblies, in full folkmote, and without any delayed poll.
"'III. The frequent elections of all officers and representatives."
The other class of safeguards may be called
secondary, not by reason of their little importance,
but inasmuch as they have special reference to the
existence of a body having a derived authority
only. It must be remembered their main object is,




390                  DEMOCRACY
-not like the primary ones, to assert rights and
responsibilities, but, —to prevent encroachments by
those holding a deputed authority, and to maintain
statute law in harmony with common law.
" I. Frequent and regular meetings of (and elections to)
Parliament. Attention has been already called to the frequent assertions of the necessity of this; and to the statutes,
among others of 4 Edward III, c. 14, and 36 Edward II1,
c. 10, requiring Parliaments to meet each year once, and
oftener if need be. It has also been called to the 7 Henry
IV, c. 15, by which it was, as " declaratory of the ancient
laws and customs of Parliament," declared that the elections
should be made, notwithstanding any prayer or commandment to the contrary, and also without any commandment of
the King, by writ or otherwise. Of this Act the statute 16
Charles I, c. 1, was but a re-declaration. The latter was repealed by Charles II, c. 1. But the principle thus violated has
been still more daringly, unconstitutionally, and mischievously departed from, for the first time in English history, by the " Septennial Act " of 1 George I, statute ii, c. 38, passed so late as
1716.
" II. The constant and regular attendance in their places
of all the members. The contrary is quite recent in England,
and was not permitted of old. No member could depart without special licence from the hIouse, and under heavy penalties.
" III. The holding conference by the representatives with those
whom they represent on every matter on which doubt exists. In the
13th Edward III, the Commons answered the King that "they
dare not assent (to a money vote) until they have conferred
and advised with the Commons in the country. Wherefore
they pray that a Parliament be summoned again at an early
day;-and in the mean time every member will go down into
his own part, and use all his endeavours to get the King's
request agreed to."
"Taxes were over and over again asked, and very properly
refused. MI3embers dared not vote the money without their constituents' assent. Every man thus knew what taxes were asked,
and what for.
"IV. The reporting back by the representatives to those
whom they represent, what has been done on each matter.
"VIII. The answering of every petition, during the same
sitting of Parliament.'"There is not one safeguard more important than this,




AND CENTRALISATION.              391
or which is alone more calculated to keep Parliament and the
Crown within the proper limits of their respective functions.'Parliament,' says the ancient document called the Modus
Tenendi Parliamentum,' ought not to separate so long as any
petition remains undiscussed; or, at least, to which the
answer is not determined on; and if the King permit the
contrary, he is perjured."-Toulmin Smith, pp. 129, 133, 134,
140.
These are the arrangements which can alone
protect local and individual rights against centralisation, and adjust them thereto.
Feudality itself, therefore, left to the People
more complete franchises and immunities  than
oligarchy now permits us, tempered as it is with
the influences of labor, capital, and monarchy.
Earl Russell now informs us that owing to the
Chandos clause in the Reform Bill of 1832, and
" the admission of ~50 tenants-at-will on the same
basis as independent freeholders, the county representation was, as Lord Althorpe predicted, weighed
down by the influence of the great landowners."
The conflicting principles of the voting qualification now are:1st. Has the country the right to judge of
a man's capacity to understand his own political
interests,
2nd. Or ought it only to enquire if a man has
already some material stake and interest in the
public welfare?
The first principle involves some sort of educational or other arbitrary and theoretical test,




392              DEMOCRACY
The second simply asks, " Is the man rated?"
or, has he, say, a  "residential" stake  in the
commonweal?  "Can he give hostages to the
nation.2"
Let us at least agree with Earl Russell, " to
trust to no nice tricks of Statesmanship, no subtle
invention of ingenious theorists," &c.
As to the true principles of the British Constitution, we may further refer to the treatise of
Penn thereon, a treatise of immense and exhaustive research, wherein he lays down the rights of
absolute property; (which includes the right of
fair taxation) of voting; and the judicatory right,
or right to be judged by a fair jury, as the primary
and immemorial rights of Englishmen. And he
adds thereto, that " religion being settled by the
State, was no part of the old English Constitution."
An ancient writer remarks that "the Acts of
an Anglo-Saxon Parliament are a series of treaties
of peace between all the associations that make up
the State; a continual revision and renewal of the
alliances offensive and defensive of all free men."
And another writer adds that " national representative assemblies cannot without a departure from
their true functions, be allowed to become oligarchies having independent  authority."  (All
their authority being derived not original.)
And Sir Edward Coke declares that what is
done by Parliament "must have two special properties; the one in creation, namely, that it be
given by the common consent of the whole realm in




AND CENTRALISATION.                393
Parliament; the other in the execution, namely
that it be given and employed for the common
benefit of the whole nation, and not for private and
other respects."
The duty of reformers is plain. It should be
to restore the observance of the principles of the
British Constitution and of popular self-Government, and to adjust them in practice, as Disraeli
recommends, "to the moral and material development of the nation." To restore in fact the harmony of "organisation" with "power."
And not the least evils of the present state of
things is that that has now to be done by agitation
which used to be done, and of right ought to be
done or prevented, by the direct action andparticipation of the People in Government.
" Propose," said Bentham, "' anything good; the answer is
at hand —wild, visionary, theoretical, utopian, unpracticable,
dangerous, destructive, ruinous, anarchical, subversive of all
Governments-there you have it. —Well, but in America there
it is: and no such evil consequences. Aha!-and so the United
States Government is your Government, is it? You are a
Republican then, are you? What you want is-to subvert
this Constitution of ours: the envy of nations-matchless in
rotten boroughs and sinlecures.
" Propose anything that would put power into the hands
of those of whose obedience all power is composed-you propose Democracy.
" What, according to these men, is the use of the Constitution?  To make the People happy?  What then? Only to
make the one man happy, with the small number of others.
"Now by this bugbear Democracy are the People of this
country to be frightened out of their senses?
" Here we have one partial separate sinister interest-the
interest of the ruling One with which the universal, the democratic interest has to antagonise. And here we have another
partial, separate, and sinister interest-the aristocratical interest-with which the democratical interest has also to antagonise."




394              DEMOCRACY
Nevertheless "the privilege of starting new
subjects of deliberation, and in short of propounding in the business of legislation, which, in England, is allotted to the representatives of the
People, forms another capital difference between
the English Constitution and the Government of
other free States, whether limited monarchies or
commonwealths, and prevents that which, in
those States, proves a most effectual mean of
subverting the laws favourable to public liberty,
-namely, the undermining of the these laws by
the precedents and  artful practices of those
who are invested with the executive power in the
Government."-De Lolme "on the Constitution,"
pp. 478-479.
Evidently, to make this house, which thus
propounds and initiates, the actual house of the
People, is a great part of the problem of "Democracy and Centralisation."
As regards our Foreign affairs, the less said
respecting the virtues of Oligarchic Government
the better. The whole virtue and energy of the
country barely, even now, suffices to make its
national action negative. A Government by the
nation's manhood would permit no abject diplomatic wars; and, by a clear, decisive policy, would
make most wars impossible.
Since Cromwell, until lately, our international
interventions and non-interventions have combined
the evils of a policy of permissive wrong with those
of a policy of active wrong. We have first murdered our brother in the name of principle, and




AND CENTRALISATION.               395
then declared in the names of policy and of peace
that we are not our brother's keeper.
COLONIAL POLICY.
Let us, as a sample, contrast the results of
Government by the few with those of Government
by the all, as admitted by Mr. Russell, and as just
drawn by the Hon. Joseph Howe, of Canada, who
anticipates in Canada the rival, or probably the
future enemy of England:"Our columns of gold and our pyramids of timber may
rise in your Crystal Palaces, but our Statesmen in the great
Council of the empire, never.
"When the independence of the United States was established in 1783, they were left with one-half of the continent,
and you with the other. You had much accumulated wealth,
and an overflowing population. They were three millions of
people, poor, in debt, with their country ravaged and their
commerce disorganised. By the slightest effort of statesmanship
you could have planted your surplus population in your own
provinces, and in five years the stream of emigration would
have been flowing the right way. In twenty years, the
British and Republican forces would have been equalised.
But you did nothing, or often worse than nothing. From 1784
to 1841, we were ruled by little paternal despotisms established
in this country. We could not change an officer, reduce a
salary, or impose a duty, without the permission of Downing
Street. For all that dreary period of sixty years, the Republicans
governed themselves, and you governed us. They had uniform
duties and free trade with each other. We always had separate
tariffs, and have them to this day. They controlled their
foreign relations,-you controlled ours. They had their ministers and consuls all over the world, to open new markets, and
secure commercial advantages. Your ministers and consuls
knew little of British America, and rarely consulted its interests.  Till the advent of Hluskisson, our commerce was
cramped by all the vices of the old colonial system. The
Republicans could open mines in any part of their country.
Our mines were locked up, until seven years ago, by a
close monopoly held in this country by the creditors of the
Duke of York. How few of the hundreds of thousands of




396                 DEMOCRACY
Englishmen who gazed at Nova Scotia's marvellous column of
coal in the Exhibition, this summer, but would have blushed
had they known that for half a century the Nova Scotians
could not dig a ton of their own coal without asking permission
of half a dozen English capitalists in the city of London. How
few Englishmen now reflect, when riding over the rich and
populous States of Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and Arkansas,
that had they not locked up their great West, and turned it into a
hunting ground, which it is now, we might have had behind
Canada three or four magnificent provinces, enlivened by the
industry of millions of British subjects, toasting the Queen's
health on their holidays, and making the vexed question of the
defence of our frontiers one of very easy solution."-Russell's
Canada, pp. 195, 196.
When Downing Street and republican rule are
thus compared by Canadians, the gravitation of
Canada to the Republic appears a less unlikely
thing.  Russell (p. 241) also speaks of British
Northern America, as-" a country which suffers
from the early neglect of the home Government, the
studied aspersions and misrepresentations of powerful agencies."
These results of our Colonial policy represent,
amongst other things, the absence of the sympathies
and  full national manhood  from  the  national
councils.
They represent, also, middle-class superciliousness at popular self-Government amongst the
Anglo-Saxons, witness the Hon. C. Gavan Diify,
at St. James' Hall, May, 1 865, on Australia.  We
quote his picture, as the companion to the Hon.
Joseph Howe's. Both empires are flouted, misrepresented, and scorned alike:"Long residence in a country where material prosperity was
universal; where, in nine years, he had seen only three beggars;
where those who held the plough, as a rule, cultivated their
own land, and were at no man's mercy; where there was




AND CENTRALISATION.                3 9 7
absolute religious equality in all respects; where the population
was constantly increasing; where the Government of the
country and the laws of the country spring directly from the will of
the People, and where the soil was guarded by citizen soldiers,would not fit him, he feared, to look with much patience on
the spectacle which Ireland presented at present. He rather
turned to a country of which he might speak freely, as having
recent knowledge of it, and in respect of which he had only
to guard against the temptation to exaggerate its advantages
which springs from a sense of gratitude. No man, indeed,
had more reason to be grateful. He had found in that country
all the essential conditions of happiness-work to do which he
was pleased to be engaged in, and which had sufficient success
to be easy and agreeable-a liberal, and even a bountiful
reward for labour-friends, health, and contentment. Coming
back with such recollections and impressions, he felt surprised
and wounded at the tone which prevailed in respect of the
Australian colonies in the press and in the Parliament of this
country. He thought there was a great mistake of policy,
and a strange lack of good feeling, in the eagerness with
which every fact that appeared to damage or lower the reputation of the Australian communities was received in England.
A century ago, the same prejudices existed towards the
colonies of North America; and the evil consequences had not
died out yet, and perhaps would never die out. There was a
generous and cordial feeling towards their native country
among the mixed population of Australia; but they had the
sensitiveness to unjust criticism which distinguishes every
new People; and they might be made as hostile as America
had been by the same causes. He was puzzled to account for
this sentiment towards Australia. What had Victoria, for
example, done to provoke hostility? She had never cost the
Imperial treasury a guinea, except for strictly Imperial purposes. She had managed her own affairs without pestering
the Imperial Parliament, and managed them with notable
success; she had poured a tide of gold-averaging nearly a
quarter of a million sterling every week-for the last dozen
years into the commercial capital of England, and from which
wealth every class, and almost every individual, in this community were more prosperous than they would otherwise have
been.
"If the colonial Parliaments sympathised intensely with
the colonial communities, he would cite against the conclusions
of a political philosopher like Mr. Lowe the doctrine of a
greater political philosopher, Edmund Burke,-that it was a
more natural and tolerable evil, that Parliament should be
infected even with popular epidemics, as this would indicate




398              DEMOCRACY
some consanguinity with the nation, than that they should be
wholly untouched (as a certain moribund House of Commons
seemed to be) by the opinions and feelings out of doors."
INTERVENTION AND NON-INTERVENTION.
It is wonderful to see how fine phrases about
"the Principle of Non-Intervention," lead men to
suppose that non-intervention as a principle is
either moral, logical, or possible.  And yet the
interventions and non-interventions of a nation
are the best test of its essential spiritual life.
For ages, interventions have been on the wrong
side. It is true that France intervened for Democracy and nationality in Italy. We are told she
had her ideas and her interests, and we hear always
the same weary wisdom against the right. But
the great lesson sought now to be impressed
on Statesmen and People, was derived from the
great wars for the balance of power, from the wars
against Bourbons and for them, from the war against
the American nation, and the French Republic,
the war against Napoleon and with Napoleon, and
the war in the Crimea.
Weak and wicked interventions have prejudiced
the English mind against intervention.  Our
Statesmen are not trusted to make a good and
holy war under any circumstances, and the argument from the abuse is made to tell not for, but
against the use.
Were it not that human nature is wiser than
those who aspire to manage her, this "reaction"




AND CENTRALISATION.           399
against intervention would take an age or two of
infamous neutrality to teach John Bull that neutrality may mean dishonour, but cannot always
mean inaction, and that neutrality itself, is often,
in this vicinage of European States, one of the
intensest forms of complicity and of intervention.
Non-intervention may be, upon occasion, often
Statesmanlike, moral, and possible.  But it is
rarely in this world of action and interaction, "a
principle."
The " Principle of Non-Intervention " amounts
simply and solely to this. The Creator has subdivided the race, and planted the various families of man in diverse regions, climates, and conditions, to work out separate problems, and to
complete amongst themselves the various national
individualities, which the providential education of
the world requires.
For an alien material force, to interfere with
this separate and preparatory isolation, tends
obviously to obstruction or anarchy.
But ideas must and will enter everywhere, and
carry on an inevitable propagandism.
Well, the training progresses. Ideas are generated within, or enter from without. Of two
things one, authority adjusts itself to the advancing
enlightenment and civilisation of the People, or it
opposes these processes.
In the latter case, soon or late, authority is
deposed, or it calls in physical force from authority elsewhere. Without this, local progress is
inevitable, for the local force would always finally




400              DEMOCRACY
be overmatched by the inevitable moral propagandism of the outer world, and by the local
resistance and organisation. This is the common
sense of non-intervention.
But the rule, hitherto, has been that Government helps Government,-that Priests join with
King, and Despot with Despot, and that so, fraud
and physical force oppose and extinguish in detail
the progress and ideas of mankind.
This has been the practice and "principle" of
Intervention.
Thus, if we content ourselves with asserting the
principle of Non-Intervention against the practice
of Intervention, we simply meet as children, as
traitors, as atheists, as murderers, or as idiots,
the most tremendous political problem which
events ever set before the doers and thinkers of
the world.
Let Non-Intervention mean Non-Intervention,
and we are content.
But if it do mean Non-Intervention,-if principle be not another term for license, then NonIntervention must include Intervention, as the
ultima ratio of law, of civilisation, and of justice,
against barbarism and brute force.
The battle of the world is to be won by opinion
or by arms. Opinion against opinion, the right
will hold its own. Arms against arms, the wrong
cannot conquer. But if the wrong is to ally itself
with wrong, and if right is to isolate itself from
right,-if wrong is to be allowed to concentrate,
and extirpate one by one the thoughts and aspira



AND CENTRALISATION.         401.
tions of the People striving for resurrection or for
life, then, once for all, we say, human nature is not
bad enough for this,-cannot-in this world-be
made bad enough for it, and that they who would
lead it to such a consummation, either betray freedom and religion peacemeal, or are preparing for
some final and tremendous arbitrament.
We assume, therefore, when men extol the
great principle of Non-Intervention, that they do
not understand their own meaning, that they are
too simple for the ways of this wicked world, or
that they are consciously betraying the right.
There are but three meanings to the phrase. The
first expresses the theory of the separate providential training of nations. The second asserts
that that separate training process and national
individuality shall be respected. The third says
that it shall not be respected. That a wrong
may be helped, but that the right shall not be
helped, and they who knowingly teach this doctrine,
will never hold power in England. Theirs is the
teaching, and upon their brows will be the brand
of Cain. Soon would they be sent upon their
wanderings, and though they should seek to build
great cities in the West, the'West would cast
them out. For it is not the great Republic of
the People that will divide People from People in
the right, or unite tyrant against tyrant for the
wrong.
The criminal nature of our foreign and colonial
policy is owing chiefly to the want of political
education and power amongst the masses.
2 D




402             DEMOCRACY
How we come to be wanting in this respect,
after the glorious advance in our national education and character two hundred years since, is for
the dominant parties and sects since that period to
answer. Then was begun again an English nation
from the beginning. America left in England all the
advantages and evils of its existing organisations,
and yet of the three great wars of the West two
were for Independence, and the third is the holiest
that ever was waged.
- Responsibility educates, and we here have
always feared the People, because we have always
used them up body and soul for unjust wars, and
withheld from them  free secular and religious
teaching.
Is it strange, then, that the Pope and the Devil
should have gone on tick to the descendants of the
Puritans? That our debt should be owed for putting down republics, and setting up legitimists?
First we intervened, next we make the consequences of intervention indelible by proclaiming
the great principle of non-intervention.
First we settled, or allowed to be settled, the
future of the world at Vienna; we accept, or allow
to be accepted, the theory of the balance of power,
and then allow exceptions and unsettlements,- on
the wrong side.
Look at the diplomacy of Cromwell:- " I will
sail a fleet over the Alps to stop that." "The guns
of England shall be heard at St. Angelo."  "I tell
you England has much to do with this Hungarian
business." How he encouraged the trade of the




AND CENTRALISATION.         403
Puritan colonies of America. What a legacy of
glory to the Puritans. What majestic traditions
for the nation. What minute insight. What
Titanic grasp. Look at these things, and then
mark how England, not being strong enough for
Democracy then, has indeed " done many great and
glorious works in the name of Christ," by individuals or societies, but as a nation among nations,murder and treason against policy and right continually.
We have got at last, after two hundred years,
to the era of compromise! Indeed! and are glad,
— we that came from Cromwell, to thank God for
that. We are got to the era of non-intervention
for right,-we that intervened for wrong for three
ages, —-we whose non-intervention to repeal our
former interventions, is itself intervention perpetuated. We are got to "neutrality," —we who
shook the den of every despot, and startled the
legitimists of Europe like vermin to their holes!
If we have come from intervention for the
wrong to non-intervention for the right,-if we are
preparing to go from non-intervention and neutrality to activity for the right, —it is because the
masses are marching on power, and because the
great fight of the People in the West warns the
holders of power to make terms with Democracy
while they may.
If any now turn to the People and demand,
"Where have been the Ironsides of England?"
We say, for the West, they were with the legions
of Lincoln; and for old England, history does not
2 D 2




404              DEMOCRACY
in this sense repeat itself,-but our Democracy,
which could not last in 1660, has stepped back to
organise itself upon a broader base and a more enduring platform.
The words of the great diplomatist are sometimes truer than those of the more sincere philanthropists.  Talleyrand well said of non-intervention,-" C'est un mot mittaphysique et politique,
qui signiJie d, peu pres la mnme chose qu'intervention."
PARALLELS AND PROGRESS.
In England the great principles of Material,
Political, and Religious Equality are yet undeveloped, but are advancing. Our Democracy and our
Centralisation are therefore alike incomplete.
A nation can only advance by a principle or
by a man, and as our own "' Statesmen," not of our
" compromise era " (for that only begun lately with
non-intervention for the treaties of Vienna), but of
the era of the betrayal, without compromise, for
eighty years, of the whole ruling power of England
to despotism, superstition, and feudality, pass away
from the scene (like " Statesmen " of a similar era
in America), it becomes possible that this great
trading, fighting, praying, and deceived nation may
get its will for freedom and nationality thoroughly
done by its Government for itself and on the world.
There can be no guarantee for permanently
good Government without the People. They will
never have power till they deserve it. When they
deserve it, they will conquer it by the help of the




ANlD CENTRALISATION.        405
real aristocracy, and of the politically well informed
and truly liberal portion of the middle class. The
Commons, truly, are absorbed by the Lords, and
the Lords represent themselves, and if we compare
the present with the last great crisis of American
Democracy, we shall find that the centralisation and
the safety, the progress, and the honour, are in proportion as the Government is popularised and open.
Then a great historical figure contended with
the aristocracy on behalf of the People.  Then
Chatham denounced the farce of virtual representation of America and of the English. Then, as now,
the English Constitution was unbalanced. Chatham
denounced it then,-Gladstone and Bright now.
In some points the contrast is striking. In others
the similarity is more striking still. Then Pompadour and Yarmouth were powers in England and
France till, as to England, George III took prerogative for his mistress, and worshipped her with
desperate and live-long chastity. Then the English Government was in the market for French or
Indian scalps. The slave trade was forced upon
America,-upon South Carolina, and Virginia even,
by repeated and categorical instructions from
England. Then Austria was to be detached from
Spain by the offer by England of territory in Italy
or in Silesia. Then the Empress of Russia was in
the market for fifty thousand dollars; the English
King got seven hundred thousand pounds as his
share of the spoils of French merchant ships seized
in full peace. Protestantism and Frederick were
to be extinguished in Europe, that France might




406             DEMOCRACY
be provided against, there, and in Canada. Pitt,
just married, poor, and in office, left it rather than
support prerogative and privilege against the
People, and Pitt and Frederick seemed abvut the
two honest and capable men of the age and hemisphere. Then did America unite herself against
Prerogative, and Prerogative and Privilege, Peers,
Bishops, and Kings' Mistresses, conspired with
prerogative against England.
It was because the English People were unrepresented, that these things could be. It was to
Pitt, as the Minister of the People, that all things
for a time seemed possible. It was Chatham and
the People of England and America, who kept the
empire for a time together, but ultimately drove
king and aristocracy into alliance against them,
till at last Chatham was hustled from power and
life, and the first step in the dismembermnent of the
British empire was accomplistied.  But man proposes and God disposes. The spirit that waked
first in Cromwell and puritan England, stirred the
mighty'Frederick, the, perhaps, mightier Chatham,
and it animated the American nation and returned
in revolution upon Europe.
"Pitt prepared with one hand to smite the
whole family of Bourbons, and to wield in the
other the Democracy of England." England has
ended by acknowledging Napoleon and watching
Austria out of Italy.
Had England not persecuted, Emigrants had
been, not middle-class Puritans, but traders, speculators, cadets, or felons!




AND CENTRALISATION.         407
Had England not oppressed, the States might
have remained separate Governments to this day,
and the true principle of Federation had had no
exemplar.
Had England not forced the slave trade on
America, there had been no Lancashire cotton
famine, no Southern cotton monopoly. There probably had been a regular trade with India, but
slavery being in the South and remaining, the,
South could hardly do either better or worse, or
less or more than it has done.
Had England not warred against the French
Democracy, France had not got panic-stricken by
coalitions, and then drunk with glory, nor had
Napoleon arisen to do the greatest secular work
since the disruption of the Roman Empire, —the
breaking in pieces of the feudal system, and all the
four-fold despotism and ruin, of standing armies,
autocrats, oligarchies, and priestcraft.
The Americans and the English are one
People. America drew its blood and its creed from
the heart of England.
It won its Independence by the sword, but at a
time when Prerogative against Privilege, and Privilege against Prerogative, or both against Popular
rights, were the only combinations that troubled
much either the King, the Lords, or the Commons.
We know the Pedigree of that great People,
both after the flesh and after the spirit, and we will
swear that it is worth its breeding.




408              DEMOCRACY
It left Europe for Freedom. Its utterance
breathed the very spirit of" the pure Democracies
and of Gospel antiquity. Its battle now is set for
Principle, as well as Democracy. Throughout its
history, it has based its rights on those of the common human nature, and on the inalienable gift of
the Creator.
There are no muniments in the universe like
the Title Deeds of the American nation, and the
pedigree of its rights.
Its Declarations appealed to the rights of representation. The representative principle was the
main feature in the British Constitution. The
British Constitution adopted them as the natural
and inalienable rights of man. And they were
conferred upon man by the will of God!
The "Book of its Generation," as well as the
story of its progress, is unlike that of any other
People or Government, and fifty years but confirm
the thought of Washington in his inaugural address:-" Every step by which they have advanced
to the character of an independent nation, seems to
have been distinguished by some token of a providential agency."
THE SITUATION.
The only danger in England now is this,-that
the "power" and the "organisation" may not harmonise soon enough or fully enough to guarantee
progress from violence or haste.
The spirit is at variance with the forms.




AND CENTRALISATION.               40,9
England has advanced from local self-Government to centralisation. She must remain where
she is, or return to local self-Government, or accept
the centralisation, and balance it by INDIVIDUAL
SELF-GOVERNMENT,-by making the suffrage and
the political competency universal.
"The English Aristocracy," says De Tocqueville, " is perhaps the most liberal which ever existed. It cannot, however,
escape observation that in the legislation of England the good
of the poor has been sacrificed to the advantage of the rich,
and the rights of the majority to the privileqes of the few. The
consequence is, that England, at the present day, combines
the extremes of fortune in the bosom of her society, and her
perils and calamities are almost equal to her power and renown.'l
And Montesquieu points out similar dangers, as
also the remedy, and the reason why they have not
been more injurious.
In language already quoted, he denounces the
two kinds of inequality which are in aristocratical
Governments the principal sources of disorder:
he speaks of unequal burthens, exemptions, monopolies, primogeniture, and hereditary power. He
then proceeds:"Ihe mischief is when excessive wealth destroys the spirit of
commerce.
"Such powers as are established by commerce, may subsist
for a long series of years in their humble condition, but their
grandeur is of short duration; they rise by little and little, and
in an imperceptible manner, for they do not perform any particular exploit which may make a noise, and signalize their
power; but when they have once raised themselves to so
exalted a pitch, that it is impossible but all must see them,
every one endeavours to deprive this nation of an advantage
which it had snatched as it were, from the rest of the
world."
2 D 3




410                DEMOCRACY
" The British Government is one of the wisest in Europe,
because there is a body which examines it perpetually, and is perpetually examining itself; and its errors are of such a nature,
as never to be lasting, and are frequently useful by rousing
the attention of the nation." —Ibid., pp. 24-60, v. iii.
The principles of Democracy are as clear as the
dangers of oligarchy.
Manhood-development,-the foundation of freedom and of nationality, must be gradually relieved
of its shackles, and oligarchy, the rule of
privilege and force, exchanged for aristocracy, the
free rule of the People, and the best of every class.
All obstructions whatsoever to this master
principle of " Development and Association," must
be abolished or destroyed. All monopolies whether
in office, land, religion, commerce, or the franchise,
must be extinguished. Education should be the
freest and most universal of all things.
In fine, the course of the last thirty years must
be persevered in, till our nation and Democracy
are also made, and the power and the will of the
all shall rule.
That particular situation " when the chiefs and
the People deliberated and the People decided,"
and when "the kings were neither fathers, elders,
imperators, nor despotic lords, but the creation of
a social wisdom far more excellent in conception,
and beneficent in practice," must of necessity
belong to a primitive or to a very advanced epoch,
-when the objects of society were extremely
simple, or its organisation nearly complete.
A dilemma soon presented itself to our
Teutonic ancestors. Unless the all voted directly




AND CENTRALISATION.          411
on public questions there could be no freedom: if
the all voted there could be no Government. To
avoid despotism on the one hand, and confusion on
the other, the representative system was invented,
-a system of governing by proxy.
But another dilemma. If the all do not vote
for representatives, there is a mixture of despotism
and representation: if the uneducated all vote,
there is anarchy and misgovernment. Practically,
despotism and oligarchy are providential provisional governments for the minority or dotage of
States, when, of necessity, masters represent a
large proportion of the population (as Sharon
Turner tells us was the "constitutional practice"
in the national council of the Anglo-Saxons), " like
the rest of their property."
W\ithout virtue, Democracies miscarry as entirely as without freedom, and virtue, which, as
Hume well says, " is nothing but a more enlarged
and cultivated reason, never flourishes to any degree, nor is founded on steady principles of honour,
except where good education becomes general."
In fine, unity can exist only in an extremely
simple and rudimentary state of society,-a state
which cannot and ought not to be perpetuated,
or in that complete state where the units are prepared by education, and by an infinite complexity
of interests, for a high civilisation, and an entire
national self-Government, —where the whole of
the all is developed and organised, and the single
final preponderating power, is the universal one of
the People.




412              DEMOCRACY
INDIVIDUAL SELF GOVERNMENT.
God and the Soul, are the alpha and omega;
the beginning and the end of politics. To perpetuate the exclusive rights of the few, you must
perpetuate the universal wrongs of the many. To
destroy the rights of the People, you must deny
and destroy their God. A policy of concession, a
policy of suicide, or a policy of despair, therefore,
awaits the Governments of the old world, and
except as a question of time, Democracy is no
experiment to any who comprehend the meaning,
the nature or the history of man.
Man is generically one, and this secures, within
a State, association of persons or parties, and without it, of States and nations. The solidarite of
Peoples is only the ultimate expression of the
unity of the species.
Creation is Democracy, and there is no lasting
aristocracy, save that which is identical with a
true Democracy, and is set to destroy all other
aristocracies whatsoever, which addresses all and is
revolutionary, and which teaches the unity, equality, and freedom of man.
What then is the issue now of this philosophy?
It is for America the making of that nation as
the sign and flag of the Peoples everywhere.
It is for England (which was not ripe for
Democracy two hundred years ago, and is not ripe
now), a constitutional balance, popular rights, and
a national strength and progress, unchecked and




AND CENTRALISATION.          413
unmeasured.  In  fact, an honest enacting of
such Constitution as we have. We shall have our
army under constitutional control. Our diplomacy
not a screen for partisans or a mask for conspirators, but open, national and true. We shall no
longer have a monopoly of power by one estate, temnpered only by an unrepresented public opinion,-a
practical revolt of opinion against forms and force.
We shall have done with a mere mechanical balance
of power, which is socialism applied to politics.
We shall replace the present solidarit6 of families
(a communism of whigs within, and legitimists
without) by a solidarite of Peoples.
Where, as in England, self-restraint is of the
national genius and character, and where opinion
rules, ASSOCIATION is the power that will effect this
change. Where opinion does not prevail, revolution is the last resort of necessity and of nature.
Meanwhile non-intervention must be the safeguard of the Peoples, to prevent all propagandism
save that of ideas; but if civilisation is to be maintained, intervention must wait upon non-intervention, as penalty waits upon law.
A propagandism of ideas and religion cannot
fail to regenerate the world, if only brute force be
kept at bay.  Non-intervention does not mean
that the right is to be destroyed piecemeal, that
were to sacrifice the spirit to the letter, and to
cause non-intervention itself to intervene, —that
were to yield the rights of the world to its wrongs,
to unite the one and isolate the other.
From the mere commercial point of view, we




414              DEMOCRACY
want everywhere higher civilisation, completer
education, that we may have more employment for
labour, and greater economy and better direction
of the social resources of power. For there are
no new continents to be discovered, and "over
production" of men, and "over production" of
commodities, must neutralise each other.
With or without, or against its rulers, England
must advance, else, if she fall not back amongst
the ruck and refuse of nations, she will at least
cease to lead them.
As to Democracy, to overthrow that, there
must be founa a power more universal than the
People's, and more deeply rooted than the human
soul, more certain than the constant reach and
progress of man after knowledge, self-interest and
power.
Whithersoever America may tend, it is her
own hand that grasps the helm,-her own voice
that directs her servants, her own soul that (as
far as human agency may) presides over her destiny.
The policy that in any country does not enact
the will of the intellect and character of the
country, is anarchical and doomed. The policy
that does not rest on the intellect and character
of at least the majority, is weak, uncertain, and
precarious.
There are but two perfect theories of Government, Democracy and Theocracy. The one, where




AN D CENTRALISATION.        415
God conducts the People by outward voice and
sign; the other where the whole People is represented, and is by education and morality fitted for
representation. From the one to the other,-from
the God-Government of the garden and the wilderness, to the continent and nation, and Government
of the People, the world has advanced. Every state
of Government between has been a compromise and
an interregnum. God or man must govern. If
man govern, then the usual course must be from
power to justice; from prerogative to privilege;
from virtual to actual representation, and the march
of progress is strewn with the wrecks of systems
that man has left behind. The warrant for the existence of any oligarchy is, not right, but necessity,'the
necessity for order. The warrant of the doom of
every oligarchy that has failed, has been that it
has not used order for progress,-that it has failed
to hand down the Government to an oligarchy less
exclusive, or to a representation more numerous
and complete.
Thus order is the warrant of oligarchies.
Progress is the term of order. Democracy is the
ultimate goal of progress, and rests on the nature
of the soul and the law of God.
It is "the Son of man, which was the Son of
God."
CONCLUSION.
As the result of this enquiry into the spirit of
the English nation and the forms of the British
Constitution, and the relations between Freedom




416              DEMOCRACY
(or Equality) and Order, self-Government and Centralisation, we can only say that the principles of
Locality and Generality, of Individuality and of
Empire, have, in every age and by every People, to
be accommodated as best they may to its living
spirit and to the actual facts.
On a small scale they were admirably united
in England by "Local and Representative selfGovernment."
On a large scale, they are admirably carried
out in America, by " State" and National Governments, and by Popular Sovereignty. These never
really clashed, except under the influences of an
Oligarchy, called there " Slavery."'The negative assertion of inviolable and absolute Local or State right is found in Germany, and
results in a dead lock, in a neutralisation of the
German nation, and in a "constituted anarchy.'
The positive assertion of absolute State rights
was found in "the South." State right there
meant the right of the parts not only to arrest the
development of the nation by a gigantic economic
blunder, but to destroy the life of the nation by
forcing a sectional sin upon its soul.
The assertion of the Southern theory was
active,-and the South is destroyed. The assertion
of German provincialism is partial, and the nation
neither progresses nor dies, but remains.
In England and America the People have
power to overcome and to use an obstructive or
vicious organisation, by and for their own Sovereignty.




AND CENTRALISATION.         417
For England, the positive lesson seems to be
the fatuity of withholding, or of not urging on,
that universal Manhood-Development and consequent variety and fullness of character, and that
political equality, which can alone complete our
nationality, and enable it to hold its own amongst
Democracies in the coming era.
For Her, also, the negative lesson seems to be
that it is especially unstatesmanlike to yoke to the
sovereign power another power-the Church,which is in its essence sovereign, and which in
conflict with any other sovereignty must destroy
or be destroyed. And that, moreover, that or any
other corporate power of a certain immobility and
closeness of nature, tends to anarchy, is an imperium in imperio, is another "Southern" exaggeration of the rights of the parts, and against the
interests and progress of the whole, —in fact,
directly contravenes unity, magnifies forms against
spirit, and minor organisations against the national
organisation.
That the triumph of oligarchy and privilege
over local self-Government resulted in centralisation, but Democracy balances centralisation with
Equality, and combines the two for the best
national uses, and the maximum national power.
The battles of the future, whether of peace or
war, will be fought and won, not so much by
nations that are wielded by the strongest Governments, as by nations that are the more individually
complete, by those that best deserve the name of
"national individualities."




418              DEMOCRACY.
For England and the world the great lesson
seems to be that, on a large scale, Federation is the
only mode by which the rights and the progress of
the whole and of the parts can be accommodated.
That for building on so vast a scale, the Atoms
must be bound together by the adamantine cementof
freedom. That nations can only obtain or qualify
for freedom by securing its four-fold assertion in
School, Press, Church, and Assembly; —the first
and second to educate universally, the third to
guard religion against secular taint, or complicity
of State craft; the last as the forum and Parliament of the actual People. That thus educated,
man must associate for political action. That thus
associating, he must win political equality. That
a nation of such men is the only true national unity,
and is alone Jit to enter with other such nations into
those grander combinations of economy, of harmony,
and of the progresses and ambitions of Peace, for
which the world prepares.
Whilst, therefore, towards Federation is the
tendency of Governments, universal manhood suffrage and equality is not only the right of educated
Peoples, but the only Factor of Unity, and the
Necessity, and the Conservatism, and the Balance
of States. Democracy begins with the Individual.
It ends only with the world.
PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS, ST. IMARTIN'S LANE.