The real public opinion of a nation, expressing its deepest conviction
(as distinguished from what is ordinarily called public opinion, the
first cry of professional politicians and journalists, which usually
goes wrong,) is undoubtedly entitled to very great respect. But after
making all fair allowances, no honest man, however warm a democrat he
may be, can shut his eyes to the facts which stare him in the face at
home, in our colonies, in the United States, and refuse to acknowledge
that the will of the majority in a nation, ascertained by the best
processes yet known to us, is not always or altogether just, or
consistent, or stable; that the deliberate decisions of the people are
not unfrequently tainted by ignorance, or passion, or prejudice.
Are we, then, to rest contented with this ultimate regal power, to
resign ourselves to the inevitable, and admit that for us, here at
last in this nineteenth century, there is nothing higher or better to
look for; and if we are to have a king at all, it must be king people
or king mob, according to the mood in which our section of collective
humanity happens to be? Surely we are not prepared for this any more
than the Pope is. Many of us feel that Tudors, and Stuarts, and Oliver
Cromwell, and cliques of Whig or Tory aristocrats, may have been bad
enough; but that any tyranny under which England has groaned in the
past has been light by the side of what we may come to, if we are to
carry out the new political gospel to its logical conclusion, and
surrender ourselves to government by the counting of heads, pure and
simple.
But if we will not do this is there any alternative, since we repudiate
personal government, but to fall back on the old Hebrew and Christian
faith, that the nations are ruled by a living, present, invisible King,
whose will is perfectly righteous and loving, the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever? It is beside the question to urge that such a
faith throws us back on an invisible power, and that we must have
visible rulers. Of course we must have visible rulers, even after
the advent of the “confederate social republic of Europe.” When the
whole people is king it must have viceroys like other monarchs. But is
public opinion visible? Can we see “collective humanity?” Is it easier
for princes or statesmen—for any man or men upon whose shoulders the
government rests—to ascertain the will of the people than the will of
God? Another consideration meets us at once, and that is, that this
belief is assumed in our present practice. Not to insist upon the
daily usage in all Christian places of worship and families throughout
the land, the Parliament of the country opens its daily sittings with
the most direct confession of this faith which words can express,
and prays—addressing God, and not public opinion, or collective
humanity—“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” Surely it were better to
get rid of this solemn usage as a piece of cant, which must demoralize
the representatives of the nation, if we mean nothing particular by it,
and either recast our form of prayer, substituting “the people,” or
what else we please, for “God,” or let the whole business alone, as one
which passes man’s understanding. If we really believe that a nation
has no means of finding out God’s will, it is hypocritical and cowardly
to go on praying that it may be done.
But it will be said, assuming all that is asked, what practical
difference can it possibly make in the government of nations? Admit
as pointedly as you can, by profession and by worship, and honestly
believe, that a Divine will is ruling in the world, and in each nation,
what will it effect? Will it alter the course of events one iota, or
the acts of any government or governor. Would not a Neapolitan Bourbon
be just as ready to make it his watchword as any English Alfred!
Might not a committee of public safety placard the scaffold with a
declaration of this faith? It is a contention for a shadow.
Is it so? Does not every man recognize in his own life, and in his
own observation of the world around him, the enormous and radical
difference between the two principles of action and the results which
they bring about? What man do we reckon worthy of honor, and delight to
obey and follow—him who asks, when he has to act, what will A, B, and
C say to this? or him who asks, is this right, true, just, in harmony
with the will of God. Don’t we despise ourselves when we give way to
the former tendency, or in other words, when we admit the sovereignty
of public opinion? Don’t we feel that we are in the right and manly
path when we follow the latter? And if this be true of private men, it
must hold in the case of those who are in authority.
Those rulers, whatever name they may go by, who turn to what
constituents, leagues, the press are saying or doing, to guide them as
to the course they are to follow, in the faith that the will of the
majority is the ultimate and only possible arbiter, will never deliver
or strengthen a nation however skilful they may be in occupying its
best places.