The People in Government

“I KNOW of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. In any constitutional state in Europe, every sort of religious and political theory may freely be preached and disseminated ; for there is no country in Europe so subdued by any single authority as not to protect the man who raises his voice in the cause of truth from the consequences of his hardihood.

. . . In America, the majority erects formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion : within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.”This reproach may have been deserved fifty years ago, when it was uttered by De Tocqueville. At that time the government of the United States was still an experiment, and a lurking consciousness of this fact in the minds of most Americans made them not only jealous, but fearful, of any opinions which seemed to menace the security of republican institutions. At that time, also, our country received very little respect or consideration abroad.¹ We shared in the contempt with which popular government was generally regarded after its failure in France, despite the blood that was shed to sustain it; and this unfriendly attitude of foreign powers tended to increase among us that sense of weakness which begets intolerance. De Tocqueville’s assertion on this point is confirmed by other authorities: by Dickens, for example, whose American Notes were published about the year 1840. Even after all just allowance has been made for his prejudice against things American, as well as for his inherent love of caricature and exaggeration, — even then it must be admitted that Dickens, certainly an acute observer, corroborates the French philosopher.

But the times of which they treated, and it is to be hoped the intolerance of which they complained, belong to a past that is already remote. Since then we have attained the maturity of experience. Our government has withstood a shock which every sensible man in Europe was sure would be fatal in one way or another to the integrity of the Union ; and now, having made good our position among the nations of the earth, we can afford to look about us, and even to search, if need be, the foundations upon which we rest. The young men just growing up and beginning to take part in public affairs are free from political prejudices, perhaps one might say from political principles, to an extent that is with us unprecedented. They come upon the stage too late to share in the passions which the civil war excited, and at a time when no new issues have arisen that are sufficient to arouse their enthusiasm.

It is plain, however, that social questions of the greatest, moment, soon to become political questions, are looming into view; and the solution of them may put our government to a test even more severe than that which it has already survived. In view of this possibility, it behooves every man, while he has time, to set his house in order, to clear his mind of cant, to discover what he really holds to be true in political and social science, so that, if ever the emergency arises, he may be able to speak, to vote, to act, if need be to fight, intelligently and conscientiously. It would be a miserable situation to find one’s self hesitating about first principles when the time for deliberation had passed, and the moment of action had arrived.

The first and perhaps the greatest difficulty that any one encounters who begins to ponder upon forms of government is the political capacity of the people. The term “ people ” has diverse meanings. When it is used with regard to an aristocratic form of government, it usually indicates the great mass who have no part in ruling the country. In Mr. Gladstone’s mouth it means the middle classes ; in Lord Salisbury’s, the lower classes. When the word is employed with respect to the United States, it commonly means the whole voting population, possibly the whole adult population ; for women have an indirect political influence. Even when thus used, however, it is chiefly the uneducated class that is intended, simply because this class is by far the more numerous, and it is in this last sense that the word is here employed. " The common people,” as the familiar phrase is, would perhaps hit my meaning more exactly.²

Political writings are full, on the one hand, of contemptuous condemnation ; on the other, of praise bestowed upon the people as a governing power. No wonder that the student finds his brain in a whirl when he attempts to reconcile these conflicting views, or to understand how it is that great authorities can differ so widely on this vital point. Innumerable wise men, from Plato down, have discoursed upon the incapacity of the people to make, much more to execute laws. They are the “ many-headed multitude ” whom it is the privilege and duty of the instructed few to govern. Nor is it easy to meet the stock arguments advanced by the opponents of the people, considered as a depositary of political power. Government, they say, is the most difficult, the most delicate task that men are called on to perform : it requires all, and more than all, the knowledge, experience, and acuteness that the ablest and best informed members of the community possess. How then can it safely bhe entrusted to the people? " It is impossible,” says De Tocqueville, “ after the most strenuous exertions, to raise the intelligence of the people above a certain level. Whatever may be the facilities of acquiring information, whatever may be the profusion of easy methods and cheap science, the human mind can never be instructed and developed without devoting considerable time to these objects. The greater or the less possibility of subsisting without labor is therefore the necessary boundary of intellectual improvement. This boundary is more remote in some countries, and more restricted in others; but it must exist somewhere as long as the people are constrained to work in order to procure the means of subsistence; that is to say, as long as they continue to be the people.”

The most important political function of the people is their selection of representatives and of executive officers by ballot; but here again they are, we are told, and it must be admitted with some truth, conspicuously incompetent. " Long and patient observation,”De Tocqueville continues, ” and much acquired knowledge are requisite to form a just estimate of the character of a single individual. Men of the greatest genius often fail to do it, and can it be supposed that the vulgar will always succeed ? The people have neither the time nor the means for an investigation of this kind. Their conclusions are hastily formed from a superficial inspection of the more prominent features of a question. Hence it often happens that mountebanks of all sorts are able to please the people, whilst their truest friends frequently fail to gain their confidence.”

On the moral side, the case made out against the people, or rather against the greater part of any people, is scarcely less strong. It seems to be true that the standard of conduct, the ideal to which most persons desire to conform, in appearance if not in reality, is higher than they would be disposed to make it themselves ; in other words, it is imposed upon them by a more virtuous minority. This is the doctrine of the remnant, which has been stated with so much force by Mr. Matthew Arnold. “ Perhaps you will say,” Mr. Arnold remarks, ” that the majority is sometimes good ; that its impulses are good generally, and its action is good occasionally. Yes, but it lacks principle, it lacks persistence ; if to-day its good impulses prevail, they succumb to-morrow ; sometimes it goes right, but it is very apt to go wrong.” Such, roughly summarized, are the familiar arguments and assertions which tend to show the folly of depositing political power in the hands of the people.

On the other side, we have the grand principle upon which all democracy proceeds, namely, that " the great heart of the common people,” as the phrase goes, is always in the right. It was upon the common people that Abraham Lincoln relied for support, and in a very true sense for guidance. According to this doctrine, the majority of any race to which it has hitherto been applied are, in the main, good, well-meaning persons. The drift, therefore, of a society like our own is in the right direction, and every great change is an improvement, because the majority rule. This theory is in the air ; it is the one upon which every American citizen has been suckled, so to say; there is no necessity for explaining or elaborating it.

In this confusion of axioms and arguments, can the student discover any principle according to which the two conflicting theories can be harmonized, or any solid ground upon which he can accept one theory and reject the other ? He is told that the people are incapable of exercising political power rightly, and again that political power is safe only in their hands; that the majority are always morally corrupt, and again that the political instincts of this same majority are sound and just. The first two of the four propositions just stated are absolutely inconsistent with each other, but this is not true of the last two propositions. The majority may be, in a sense, morally corrupt, and yet remain politically sound. In what sense are the majority morally corrupt, and how far, within what limits, are they politically sound ? The answer to these questions must be sought in the fundamental qualities of human nature. Both of the propositions in question are true, but neither of them is true in the sweeping sense commonly given to it. Mr. Arnold and others of his way of thinking, when they say that the majority are always corrupt, have in mind chiefly, if not entirely, “ personal morality.” as it is called. One might accept the doctrine of the remnant, and still believe that the people constitute the proper depositary of political power. The difference between man as a political agent and man as an individual is almost equal to the difference between knowing what is right and doing it. The citizen may be morally corrupt, so far as his personal conduct is concerned, and yet be capable of giving a just opinion in a matter which does not immediately affect, his own interests or passions. When we say that the majority are morally corrupt, we imply that so far as concerns the kind of duties which we have in mind, man has a natural impulse to go wrong; and those who hold that in political matters the majority are sound mean that in such matters man has a natural impulse to go right. In either case, it is a question of tendency, not of an invariable habit ; and the theory of democracy is that the political instincts of the majority are on the whole sounder than those of the more virtuous minority. They are sounder because in the case of the majority the natural impulses have free play. There is also this great but collateral advantage ascribed to a democratic, form of government, namely, that whereas in an aristocracy the selfishness of the few works to the detriment of the many, in a democracy this selfishness of the many (who govern) works to the advantage of the many. In other words, the powerful lever of selfishness is made to operate in harmony with, instead of in opposition to, the generous impulses. Thus democracy has the advantage of position, and can afford to make many mistakes which would ruin an aristocracy. But the mere fact that a democracy, in legislating, legislates for itself is not, and would not be considered by its advocates a sufficient reason for entrusting it with the functions of government. It must be shown, not merely that the people will naturally desire to look out for their own interests, but that they have sufficient wisdom and virtue to perceive what their highest interests are, and to take that course, often a self-denying one, which will ultimately subserve them. Besides, there are minorities and foreign nations to be dealt with, so that mere selfishness, however enlightened, would make a very inadequate equipment for the governing power. The ability of the people to rule must, as I have said, be based upon their natural impulses to go right.

But it may be objected that there are no “ natural impulses ” or instincts ; that this is a mere phrase, without any corresponding reality. Certainly, it must be admitted that there is no such thing as man in a state of nature. The most primitive tribes have unnatural customs, — customs, that is, which are not founded on animal necessities. Nevertheless, although there be no such thing as man in a state of nature, there is the nature of man and there are natural impulses. Every human being has, for example, a natural impulse to cherish and protect his offspring. We can imagine a particular individual failing, from fear or from some other motive, to defend his child, but such a failure would not be the result of his first impulse, however degraded he might be. This instinct, if it may be called such, man shares with the lower animals. (There is another which he also has in common with them, namely, the impulse to resent an injury or an insult, though fear, affection, respect, or avarice may act as a restraint. With this last instinct, if it may be called such, I am not now concerned, but it may be touched upon later.)

These natural impulses, of which an illustration has just been given, and upon which the supposed political infallibility of the people is based, may be summed up in the single word " pity.” To pity is natural to man, whether the object of commiseration be his own child, some other human being, or a dumb animal in distress, — natural in the sense that, it is his first impulse ; and if he is restrained from acting to relieve or to benefit the object of his pity, it is by an afterthought in the form of, some selfish consideration. On the other hand, when a man’s passions are excited, the case is reversed: the first impulse is to gratify them, and he is restrained, if restrained at all, by an afterthought, the suggestion of morality or of prudence. These two facts or principles of human nature constitute the logical basis of the two theories, first, that the political instincts of the majority are sound; and secondly, that the majority of any people are morally corrupt. The first proposition is true, so far as the political instincts have to do with questions that concern primarily a duty to others, and the second will be found true so far as what has been called personal morality is concerned.

The doctrine of pity here set forth is of course new only in the limitations put upon it, for it is the main doctrine of Rousseau.

“ Mail has by nature,” he declares, " one virtue only, but that one is so obvious that the greatest traducer of the human race was unable to deny its existence. I speak of pity, a quality which must needs be found in a creature who is weak and subject to a thousand ills. Pity is universal, invaluable, because it is independent of reason; and so natural that the very beasts of the field give lively proofs of possessing it. I will not stop to speak of the tenderness of mothers for their children, or of the dangers that they will brave in defending them. . . . Even the author of the fable of the Bees, forced to recognize in man this quality of compassion, departs for once from the cold and analytical style to which he is accustomed, and paints a pathetic picture of the captive, who, looking between the bars that confined him, saw a ferocious beast tearing a child from its mother’s breast, and crushing its tender limbs with his teeth. What agitation does he not undergo, this mere spectator of an event in which he has no personal interest hat pain does he not feel from his inability to aid the fainting mother or the dying child !

“ So pure and strong is this natural impulse of pity, so anterior to all reflection, that the most depraved habits of living hardly suffice to destroy it. How often do we see at the theatre a spectator moved to tears by the fictitious misery of the stage, who, if he were himself in the place of the tyrant exhibited would overwhelm his enemies with even greater cruelty ! . . . Mandeville clearly saw that with all their morality men would never have been anything better than monsters, if nature had not given them pity in support of reason ; but he did not perceive that, from this quality alone spring all those social virtues which, he contends, are unnatural to man. What are generosity, mercy, and philanthropy hut pity in its practical application to the weak, to the culpable, to humanity in general ! Even love and friendship are in reality the effect of this emotion constantly exercised upon one particular object. To desire that a fellow-being should not suffer, — is not this to desire that he should be happy ?

“ If it be true that compassion is merely an emotion, which we feel when, in imagination, we put ourselves in the place of another, and this emotion is vigorous though feebly realized in the savage, and weak but fully realized in the civilized man, — if this be true, it only adds to the force of what I have said. In fact, pity will he so much the stronger in proportion as the spectator identifies himself with its object ; and it is plain that this identification is infinitely more close in a state of savagery than it is in a state of reason. . . . It is philosophy that isolates.”

It is a strange fact that although the influence of Rousseau is greater at the present time than it was fifty years ago, —greater in the sense of being more widely extended, — yet his reputation as a political thinker is now very slight. To defend the philosophy of Rousseau requires, such are the fashions of the day, almost as much hardihood as to admire the poetry of Pope or the rhetoric of Macaulay. Two causes have contributed to this low estimation of an author once held in such high repute. In the first place, Rousseau’s Man in a State of Nature —and it is with this creation that his name is chiefly identified — has been exploded completely and consigned to the limbo of unrealities. " No general assertion as to the way in which human societies grew up is safe,” Sir Henry Maine says, “ but perhaps the safest of all is that none of them were formed in the way imagined by Rousseau.” In the second place, popular government is now everywhere closely associated with representative government, which Rousseau detested. Upon a superficial view, it would seem, then, that Rousseau’s influence is at an end ; but the truth is that the gist of his philosophy remains, and was never before so widely disseminated. Not in the United States alone, but in England, we find the theory that the instincts of the people form the proper source and guide of political action. Man in a state of nature, or rather the notion of such a being, has disappeared, but the natural impulses of mankind remain, and must ever remain.

It is Rousseau who has reduced to a political principle the doctrine of the natural impulses, of pity ; but, as the reader does not need to be reminded, this doctrine is recognized in all systems of philosophy, ³ and it is now more firmly established than ever before, both on the historical and on the psychological side. It is treated as a fundamental principle by Darwin, who thus sums up his view of the subject: “ Philosophers of the derivative school of words formerly assumed that the foundations of morality lay in a form of selfishness, but more recently in the ‘ greatest happiness’ principle. According to the view given above, the moral sense is fundamentally identical with the social instincts ; and in the case of the lower animals it would be absurd to speak of these instincts as having been developed from selfishness or for the happiness of the community. They have, however, certainly been developed for the general good of the community. . . . Finally, the social instincts, which no doubt were acquired by man, as by the lower animals, for the good of the community, will from the first, have given to him some wish to aid his fellows and some feeling of sympathy. Such impulses will have served him at a very early period as a rude rule of right and wrong.” ⁴

It is clear that the people, as distinguished from the educated minority, are far stronger in the natural impulses than the latter class. Education and the conventionalities of civilized life undoubtedly tend to weaken, or at least to restrain, natural impulses, both good and bad. It is for this reason that those who pin their faith to the political instincts of the majority look with some suspicion upon the educated class, as being tainted with a certain unsoundness ; as having lost, in greater or loss degree, that magical something which gives the ignorant man his superiority. Mr. Gladstone’s Classes against the Masses is perhaps the latest example. Rousseau puts the matter in his usual sweeping and indiscriminate fashion, taking no account of the moral convictions, as they might be called, which education always should, and sometimes does supply : —

“ It is only suffering m the abstract which disturbs the tranquil repose of the philosopher, or drags him at an untimely hour from his bed. You are perfectly safe in murdering your fellow-creature beneath his academic window, for he has but to reason a little, covering his ears with his hands, and behold he has stifled the natural impulse to identify himself with your victim. The savage lacks this admirable talent ; being deficient in reason and sagacity, he stupidly gives himself over to sentiments of humanity. If a riot be impending in the streets, the populace assemble, but the prudent citizen takes himself off ; it is the canaille, the fishwomen, who interfere, separate the combatants, and prevent the honest fellows from cutting each other’s throats.”

But to say that natural impulses are strongest in the uneducated is not equivalent to asserting that education is a bad thing, although I am aware that some philosophers have gone so far as this. The true end of education is of course to eradicate or restrain the natural impulses which are bad, and to fortify those which are good ; or, as has already been suggested, to supply their place with convictions which form an inherent part of the character, and which are more rational, and therefore, perhaps, more trustworthy. This is the ideal result, but not a common one, and it implies much more than mere intellectual training. The acquirement of knowledge does not bring it about. In the first quarter of the present century, there was a revival in England of the notion that knowledge includes virtue, and that academies, workingmen’s institutes, high schools, and libraries are sufficient to regenerate society ; but the falsity of this theory is apparent. There is, consequently, to repeat the assertion, some ground for suspecting in political affairs the socalled educated class. What that class has lost is certain, — the pristine strength of its natural impulses, — but what it has gained is matter of uncertainty. A famous writer once declared, speaking of the Bible, that no single book can withstand " the wild, living intellect of man.” That same intellect busies itself with the defense and development of error as well as of truth, and education often stifles some good natural impulse by means of a fallacious but seemingly logical system. Malebranche, one of the most tender-hearted of men, did not hesitate to strike a small dog which had the misfortune to belong to him. The great philosopher had adopted the theory that brutes are mere automata, without real feeling, and so it was nothing to him that the animal howled when he was beaten. The Inquisition affords a wider and more striking illustration. This was a measure which approved itself to a learned, refined, and in some respects humane minority ; but, had it been submitted to the uneducated instincts of the people, it would have been rejected with horror.

It might be well to gather up at this point the threads of the argument. We started with the familiar propositions that —

(1.) The political instincts of the people are sound.

(2.) The people are, by reason of ignorance and unwisdom, incapable of governing well.

(3.) The majority of every people are morally corrupt.

It has been shown that all of these apparently inconsistent propositions are true in a restricted sense. It is true that so far as concerns a man’s duty to himself or even to his neighbor, when his passions are aroused, the majority of any people are corrupt; it is true that for many functions of government knowledge and wisdom are required, which it is impossible that the people as a whole should possess; finally, it is true that in such political matters as concern an individual’s or a nation’s duty to another, the “ great heart of the common people ” is sound and trustworthy, because it is guided by natural impulses, by what may be called the instinct of pity. If the question were as to the emancipation of slaves, as to the duty of going to war for the sake of preventing or revenging an injustice, or as to the treatment of any particular class in the community, the people would be most likely to take the right view. But if the point at issue were, for example, a financial one, such as the relative advantages of free trade and protection, or the desirability of a double standard in money, the opinion of the people would be without value, right or wrong by accident. If, then,

“ the great heart of the common people ” be a sound basis, it is also a restricted one. It justifies the people in exercising some, but not all, of the functions of government. Vox populi is vox Dei within limits.

There is one other ground, although, I believe, it has never yet been put forward, upon which the political capacity of the people in certain directions may properly be rested. The fact has been alluded to already that, beside the instinct of pity, man, in common with the lower animals, has a natural impulse to resent an injury or an affront: and it is upon this impulse that, in the last analysis, the honor both of individuals and of nations is based. The rough in the street, in whom the instinct in question is stifled by no considerations of thrift or " respectability,”has therefore a sense of personal honor more nearly like that of the highest than of any other class in society. In the really educated man the instinct of resenting an insult becomes a conviction of what is due to his self-respect, losing its spontaneous character, and acquiring the obligation of a duty.

But in the intermediate, the middle class, as it is called in England, and the common-schooled but uneducated class, as it has been called in this country, the lighting impulse is much weaker. The intermediate man hates a “ row; ” violence is inconsistent with his idea of respectability; and he counts the cost and reckons up the consequences of a blow. This coldness on his part arises from no lack of courage; " he has given his proofs,”as the French say, on a thousand battle-fields; but his natural impulse to resent an affront has been weakened by the process of civilization. Now, in nine cases out of ten the propriety of going to war is essentially the same question as that of resenting a personal insult, or avenging or preventing a personal injury, and will be decided by every citizen upon similar grounds. It follows, then, that in questions of this character the people, meaning the great mass of the uneducated, will take a soldier-like view, and will commonly be found at one with the aristocracy, if any such exist in the country concerned. For an illustration of this fact one need look no further than England. During many years it has been made the reproach, whereas in truth it is the high honor, of the conservative party that their foreign policy has found in the mob its most numerous and most enthusiastic supporters. A street, row, originating in an affront, is begun and conducted upon precisely the same principles as a war between two great powers. Such considerations as these are obvious enough, but they are commonly overlooked. " The bane of philosophy,”Mr. Walter Bagehot acutely remarked. “ is pomposity ; people will not see that small things are the miniatures of greater ; and it seems a loss of abstract dignity to freshen their minds by object-lessons from what they know.”

Candid supporters of the two theories which I have now examined, and to some extent harmonized, must occasionally have felt a misgiving that their opponents were right, after all, or at least that something substantial was to be said on that side. Such a misgiving would be founded in fact ; and indeed it is preposterous to suppose either that the much-vaunted and widely held political capacity or the equally celebrated political incapacity of the people could be a mere delusion. There must be a basis of truth for each contention ; and if that basis has been ascertained correctly in the foregoing analysis, then it follows that the people will, as a rule, decide rightly so far as questions of humanity, of justice, and, generally speaking, of war are concerned, but that so far as ordinary business questions of government or the selection of representatives may be involved, the people are unfit to govern.

The inquiry here undertaken is important and fundamental, but it is a narrow one. No attempt is made to ascertain who ” the people are, or what degree of education removes a man from this class, or what weight the people really exercise in our government, or how completely their will is expressed. Finally, it does not follow that a particular system of government should be discarded so soon as it is found to be in any respect illogical or even absurd. The choice to be made is a choice of evils. All forms of government are bad, but the worst is better than anarchy.

H. C. Merwin.