theory, though so characteristic of it as not to be dissociated from it,
is a result of underlying principles. There is always an ideality of the
human spirit in all its works, if one will search them, which is the
main thing. The State, as a social aggregate with a joint life which
constitutes it a nation, is dynamically an embodiment of human
conviction, desire, and tendency, with a common basis of wisdom and
energy of action, seeking to realize life in accordance with its ideal,
whether traditional or novel, of what life should be; and government is
no more than the mode of administration under which it achieves its
results both in national life and in the lives of its citizens. All
society is a means of escape from personality, and its limitations of
power and wisdom, into this larger communal life; the individual, in so
far, loses his particularity, and at the same time intensifies and
strengthens that portion of his life which is thus made one with the
general life of men,--that universal and typical life which they have in
common and which moulds them with similar characteristics. It is by this
fusion of the individual with the mass, this identification of himself
with mankind in a joint activity, this reenforcement of himself by what
is himself in others, that a man becomes a social being. The process is
the same, whether in clubs, societies of all kinds, sects, political
parties, or the all-embracing body of the State. It is by making himself
one with human nature in America, its faith, its methods, and the
controlling purposes in our life among nations, and not by birth
merely, that a man becomes an American.
The life of society, however, includes various affairs, and man deals
with them by different means; thus property is a mode of dealing with
things. Democracy is a mode of dealing with souls. Men commonly speak as
if the soul were something they expect to possess in another world; men
are souls, and this is a fundamental conception of democracy. This
spiritual element is the substance of democracy, in the large sense; and
the special governmental theory which it has developed and organized,
and in which its ideas are partially included, is, like other such
systems, a mode of administration under which it seeks to realize its
ideal of what life ought to be, with most speed and certainty, and on
the largest scale. What characterizes that ideal is that it takes the
soul into account in a way hitherto unknown; not that other governments
have not had regard to the soul, but, in democracy, it is spirituality
that gives the law and rules the issue. Hence, a great preparation was
needed before democracy could come into effective control of society.
Christianity mainly afforded this, in respect to the ideas of equality
and fraternity, which were clarified and illustrated in the life of the
Church for ages, before they entered practically into politics and the
general secular arrangements of state organization; the nations of
progress, of which freedom is a condition, developed more definitely the
idea of liberty, and made it familiar to the thoughts of men. Democracy
belongs to a comparatively late age of the world, and to advanced
nations, because such ideas could come into action only after the crude
material necessities of human progress--illustrated in the warfare of
nations, in military organizations for the extension of a common rule
and culture among mankind, and in despotic impositions of order,
justice, and the general ideas of civilization--had relaxed, and a free
course, by comparison at least, was opened for the higher nature of man
in both private and public action. A conception of the soul and its
destiny, not previously applicable in society, underlies democracy; this
is why it is the most spiritual government known to man, and therefore
the highest reach of man's evolution; it is, in fact, the spiritual
element in society expressing itself now in politics with an unsuspected
and incalculable force.
Democracy is contained in the triple statement that men are born free,
equal, and in brotherhood; and in this formula it is the middle term
that is cardinal, and the root of all. Yet it is the doctrine of the
equality of man, by virtue of the human nature with which he is clothed
entire at birth, that is most attacked, as an obvious absurdity, and
provocative more of laughter than of argument. What, then, is this
equality which democracy affirms as the true state of all men among
themselves? It is our common human nature, that identity of the soul in
all men, which was first inculcated by the preaching of Christ's death
for all equally, whence it followed that every human soul was of equal
value in the eyes of God, its Creator, and had the same title to the
rites of the Christian Church, and the same blessedness of an infinite
immortality in the world to come; thence we derived it from the very
fountain of our faith, and the first true democracy was that which
levelled king and peasant, barbarian and Roman, in the communion of our
Lord. Yet nature laughs at us, and ordains such inequalities at birth
itself as make our peremptory charter of the value of men's souls seem a
play of fancy. There are men of almost divine intelligence, men of
almost devilish instincts, men of more or less clouded mind; and they
are such at birth, so deeply has nature stamped into them heredity,
circumstance, and the physical conditions of sanity, morality and
wholesomeness, in the body which is her work. Such differences do exist,
and conditions vary the world over, whence nature, which accumulates
inequalities in the struggle for life, "with ravin shrieks against our
creed." But we have not now to learn for the first time that nature,
though not the enemy of the human spirit, is indifferent to all the soul
has erected in man's own realm, peculiar to humanity. What has nature
contributed to the doctrine of freedom or of fraternity? Man's life to
her is all one, tyrant or slave, friend or foe, wise or foolish,
virtuous or vicious, holy or profane, so long as her imperative physical
conditions of life, the mortal thing, are conformed to; society itself
is not her care, nor civilization, nor anything that belongs to man
above the brute. Her word, consequently, need not disturb us; she is
not our oracle. It rather belongs to us to win further victory over her,
if it may be, by our intelligence, and control her vital, as we are now
coming to control her material, powers and their operation.
This equality which democracy affirms--the identity of the soul, the
sameness of its capacities of energy, knowledge, and enjoyment--draws
after it as a consequence the soul's right to opportunity for
self-development by virtue of which it may possess itself of what shall
be its own fulness of life. In the inscrutable mystery of this world,
the soul at birth enters on an unequal struggle, made such both by
inherent conditions and by external limitations, in individuals,
classes, and races; but the determination of democracy is that, so far
as may be, it will secure equality of opportunity to every soul born
within its dominion, in the expectation that much in human conditions
which has hitherto fed and heightened inequality, in both heredity and
circumstance, may be lessened if not eradicated; and life after birth is
subject to great control. This is the meaning of the first axiom of
democracy, that all have a right to the pursuit of happiness, and its
early cries--"an open career," and "the tools to him who can use them."
In this effort society seems almost as recalcitrant as nature; for in
human history the accumulation of the selfish advantage of inequality
has told with as much effect as ever it did in the original struggle of
reptile and beast; and in our present complex and extended civilization
a slight gain over the mass entails a telling mortgage of the future to
him who makes it and to his heirs, while efficiency is of such high
value in such a society that it must needs be favoured to the utmost; on
the other hand a complex civilization encourages a vast variety of
talent, and finds a special place for that individuation of capacity
which goes along with social evolution. The end, too, which democracy
seeks is not a sameness of specific results, but rather an equivalence;
and its duty is satisfied if the child of its rule finds such
development as was possible to him, has a free course, and cannot charge
his deficiency to social interference and the restriction of established
law.
The great hold that the doctrine of equality has upon the masses is not
merely because it furnishes the justification of the whole scheme,
which is a logic they may be dimly conscious of, but that it establishes
their title to such good in human life as they can obtain, on the
broadest scale and in the fullest measure. What other claim, so rational
and noble in itself, can they put forth in the face of what they find
established in the world they are born into? The results of past
civilization are still monopolized by small minorities of mankind, who
receive by inheritance, under natural and civil law, the greater
individual share of material comfort, of large intelligence, of
fortunate careers. It does not matter that the things which belong to
life as such, the greater blessings essential to human existence, cannot
be monopolized; all that man can take and appropriate they find
preoccupied so far as human discovery and energy have been able to
reach, understand, and utilize it; and what proposition can they assert
as against this sequestering of social results and material and
intellectual opportunity, except to say, "we, too, are men," and with
the word to claim a share in such parts of social good as are not
irretrievably pledged to men better born, better educated, better
supplied with the means of subsistence and the accumulated hoard of the
past, which has come into their hands by an award of fortune? It is not
a fanciful idea. It is founded in the unity of human nature, which is as
certain as any philosophic truth, and has been proclaimed by every
master-spirit of our race time out of mind. It is supported by the
universal faith, in which we are bred, that we are children of a common
Father, and saved by one Redeemer and destined to one immortality, and
cannot be balked of the fulness of life which was our gift under divine
providence. I emphasize the religious basis, because I believe it is the
rock of the foundation in respect to this principle, which cannot be
successfully impeached by any one who accepts Christian truth; while in
the lower sphere, on worldly grounds alone, it is plain that the immense
advantage of the doctrine of equality to the masses of men, justifies
the advancement of it as an assumption which they call on the issue in
time to approve.
It is in this portion of the field that democracy relies most upon its
prophetic power. Within the limits of nature and mortal life the hope
of any equal development of the soul seems folly; yet, so far as my
judgment extends, in men of the same race and community it appears to me
that the sameness in essentials is so great as to leave the differences
inessential, so far as power to take hold of life and possess it in
thought, will, or feeling is in question. I do not see, if I may
continue to speak personally, that in the great affairs of life, in
duty, love, self-control, the willingness to serve, the sense of joy,
the power to endure, there is any great difference among those of the
same community; and this is reasonable, for the permanent relations of
life, in families, in social ties, in public service, and in all that
the belief in heaven and the attachments to home bring into men's lives,
are the same; and though, in the choicer parts of fortunate lives,
aesthetic and intellectual goods may be more important than among the
common people, these are less penetrating and go not to the core, which
remains life as all know it--a thing of affection, of resolve, of
service, of use to those to whom it may be of human use. Is it not
reasonable, then, on the ground of what makes up the substance of life
within our observation, to accept this principle of equality, fortified
as it is by any conception of heaven's justice to its creatures? and to
assume, if the word must be used, the principle primary in democracy,
that all men are equally endowed with destiny? and thus to allow its
prophetic claim, till disproved, that equal opportunity, linked with the
service of the higher to the lower, will justify its hope? At all
events, in this lies the possibility of greater achievement than would
otherwise be attained within our national limits; and what is found to
be true of us may be extended to less developed communities and races in
their degree.
The doctrine of the equality of mankind by virtue of their birth as men,
with its consequent right to equality of opportunity for
self-development as a part of social justice, establishes a common basis
of conviction, in respect to man, and a definite end as one main object
of the State; and these elements are primary in the democratic scheme.
Liberty is the next step, and is the means by which that end is secured.
It is so cardinal in democracy as to seem hardly secondary to equality
in importance. Every State, every social organization whatever, implies
a principle of authority commanding obedience; it may be of the absolute
type of military and ecclesiastical use, or limited, as in
constitutional monarchies; but some obedience and some authority are
necessary in order that the will of the State may be realized. The
problem of democracy is to find that principle of authority which is
most consistent with the liberty it would establish, and which acts with
the greatest furtherance and the least interference in the
accomplishment of the chief end in view. It composes authority,
therefore, of personal liberty itself, and derives it from the consent
of the governed, and not merely from their consent but from their active
decree. The social will is impersonal, generic, the will of man, not of
men; particular wills enter into it, and make it, so constituted,
themselves in a larger and external form. The citizen has parted with no
portion of his freedom of will; the will of the State is still his own
will, projected in unison with other wills, all jointly making up one
sum,--the authority of the nation. This is social self-government,--not
the anarchy of individuals each having his own way for himself, but
government through a delegated self, if one may use the phrase,
organically combined with others in the single power of control
belonging to a State. This fusion is accomplished in the secondary
stage, for the continuous action of the State, by representation,
technically; but, in its primary stage and original validity, by
universal suffrage; for the characteristic trait of democracy is that in
constituting this authority, which is social as opposed to personal
freedom,--personal freedom existing in its social form,--it includes
every unit of will, and gives to each equivalence. Democracy thus
establishes the will of society in its most universal form, lying
between the opposite extremes of particularism in despotism and anarchy;
it owns the most catholic organ of authority, and enters into it with
the entire original force of the community.
This universal will of democracy is distinguished from the more limited
forms of states partially embodying democratic principles by the fact
that nothing enters into it except man as such. The rival powers which
seek to encroach upon this scheme, and are foreign elements in a pure
democracy, are education, property, and ancestry, which last has its
claim as the custodian of education and property and the advantages
flowing from their long possession; the trained mind, the accumulated
capital, and the fixed historic tradition of the nation in its most
intense and efficient personal form are summed up in these, and would
appropriate to themselves in the structure of government a
representation not based on individual manhood but on other grounds. If
it be still allowed that all men should have a share in a
self-government, it is yet maintained that a share should be granted, in
addition, to educated men and owners of property, and to descendants of
such men who have founded permanent families with an inherited capacity,
a tradition, and a material stake. Yet these three things, education,
property, and ancestry, are in the front rank of those inequalities in
human conditions which democracy would minimize. They embody past custom
and present results which are a deposit of the past; they plead that
they found men wards and were their guardians, and that under their own
domination progress was made, and all that now is came into being; but
they must show farther some reason in present conditions under
democracy now why such potent inequalities and breeders of inequality
should be clothed with governing power.
Universal suffrage is the centre of the discussion, and the argument
against it is twofold. It is said that, though much in the theory of
democracy may be granted and its methods partially adopted, men at large
lack the wisdom to govern themselves for good in society, and also that
they control by their votes much more than is rightfully their own. The
operation of the social will is in large concerns of men requiring
knowledge and skill, and it has no limits. In state affairs education
should have authority reserved to it, and certain established interests,
especially the rights of property, should be exempted from popular
control; and the effectual means of securing these ends is to magnify
the representatives of education and property to such a degree that they
will retain deciding power. But is this so? or if there be some truth in
the premises, may it not be contained in the democratic scheme and
reconciled with it? And, to begin with, is education, in the special
sense, so important in the fundamental decisions which the suffrage
makes? I speak, of course, of literary education. It may well be the
case that the judgment of men at large is sufficiently informed and
sound to be safe, and is the safest, for the reason that the good of
society is for all in common, and being, from the political point of
view, in the main, a material good, comes home to their business and
bosoms in the most direct and universal way, in their comfort or
deprivation, in prosperity and hard times, in war and famine, and those
wide-extended results of national policies which are the evidence and
the facts. Politics is very largely, and one might almost say normally,
a conflict of material interests; ideas dissociated from action are not
its sphere; the way in which policies are found immediately to affect
human life is their political significance. On the broad scale, who is a
better judge of their own material condition and the modifications of it
from time to time, of what they receive and what they need from
political agencies, than the individual men who gain or suffer by what
is done, on so great a scale that, combined, these men make the masses?
Experience is their touchstone, and it is an experience universally
diffused. Education, too, is a word that will bear interpretation. It is
not synonymous with intelligence, for intelligence is native in men,
and, though increased by education, not conditioned upon it.
Intelligence, in the limited sphere in which the unlearned man applies
it, in the things he knows, may be more powerful, more penetrating,
comprehensive, and quick, in him, than in the technically educated man;
for he is educated by things, and especially in those matters which
touch his own interests, widely shared. The school of life embodies a
compulsory education that no man escapes. If politics, then, be in the
main a conflict of material interests broadly affecting masses of men,
the people, both individually and as a body, may well be more competent
to deal with the matter in hand intelligently than those who, though
highly educated, are usually somewhat removed from the pressure of
things, and feel results and also conditions, even widely prevalent, at
a less early stage and with less hardship, and at best in very mild
forms. Besides, to put it grossly, it is often not brains that are
required to diagnose a political situation so much as stomachs. The
sphere of ideas, of reason and argument, in politics, is really
limited; in the main, politics is, as has been said, the selfish
struggle of material interests in a vast and diversified State.
Common experience furnishes a basis of political fact, well known to the
people in their state of life, and also a test of any general policy
once put into operation. The capacity of the people to judge the event
in the long run must be allowed. But does broad human experience,
however close and pressing, contain that forecast of the future, that
right choice of the means of betterment, or even knowledge of the remedy
itself, which belong in the proper sphere of enlightened intelligence? I
am not well assured that it is not so. The masses have been long in
existence, and what affects them is seldom novel; they are of the breed
that through
"old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain."
The sense of the people, learning from their fathers and their mothers,
sums up a vast amount of wisdom in common life, and more surely than in
others the half-conscious tendencies of the times; for in them these are
vital rather than reflective, and go on by the force of universal
conditions, hopes, and energies. In them, too, intelligence works in
precisely the same way as in other men, and in politics precisely as in
other parts of life. They listen to those they trust who, by
neighbourhood, by sympathetic knowledge of their own state, or actual
share in it, by superior powers of mind and a larger fund of
information, are qualified to be their leaders in forming opinion and
their instruments in the policy they adopt. These leaders may be called
demagogues. They may be thought to employ only resources of trickery
upon dupes for selfish ends; but such a view, generally, is a shallow
one, and not justified by facts. It is right in the masses to make men
like themselves and nigh to them, especially those born and bred in
their own condition of life, their leaders, in preference to men,
however educated, benevolent, and upright, who are not embodiments of
the social conditions, needs, and aspirations of the people in their
cruder life, if it in fact substantially be so, and to allow these men,
so chosen, to find a leader among themselves. Such a man is a true chief
of a party, who is not an individual holding great interests in trust
and managing them with benevolent despotism by virtue of his own
superior brain; he is the incarnation, as a party chief, of other brains
and wills, a representative exceeding by far in wisdom and power
himself, a man in whom the units of society, millions of them, have
their governmental life. No doubt he has great qualities of sympathy,
comprehension, understanding, tact, efficient power, in order to become
a chief; but he leads by following, he relies on his sense of public
support, he rises by virtue of the common will, the common sense, which
store themselves in him. Such the leaders of the people have always
been.
If this process--and it is to be observed that as the scale of power
rises the more limited elements of social influence enter into the
result with more determining force--be apparently crude in its early
stages, and imperfect at the best, is it different from the process of
social expansion in other parts of life? Wherever masses of men are
entering upon a rising and larger life, do not the same phenomena occur?
in religion, for example, was there not a similar popular crudity, as it
is termed by some, a vulgarity as others name it, in the Methodist
movement, in the Presbyterian movement, in the Protestant movement,
world-wide? Was English Puritanism free from the same sort of
characteristics, the things that are unrefined as belong to democratic
politics in another sphere? The method, the phenomena, are those that
belong to life universal, if life be free and efficient in moving masses
of men upward into more noble ranges. Men of the people lead, because
the people are the stake. On the other hand, educated leaders, however
well-intentioned, may be handicapped if they are not rooted deeply in
the popular soil. Literary education, it must never be forgotten, is not
specially a preparation for political good judgment. It is predominantly
concerned, in its high branches, with matters not of immediate political
consequence--with books generally, science, history, language, technical
processes and trades, professional outfits, and the manifold activity of
life not primarily practical, or if practical not necessarily political.
Men of education, scholars especially, even in the field of political
system, are not by the mere fact of their scholarship highly or
peculiarly fitted to take part in the active leadership of politics,
unless they have other qualifications not necessarily springing from
their pursuits in learning; they are naturally more engaged with ideas
in a free state, theoretical ideas, than with ideas which are in reality
as much a part of life as of thought; and the method of dealing with
these vitalized and, as it were, adulterated ideas has a specialty of
its own.