Democratic Tendencies

I.

FORMER DEMOCRACIES.

I HAVE thought it necessary, at the risk of being tedious, to preface what I am about to say concerning democracy by a brief account of the earlier efforts to establish it. I do this to avoid the notion, which is only too prevalent, that we are in this age attempting something new in the art of government, when the fact is that we are continuing a very old experiment under widely changed conditions. Human nature remains the constant element in our problem, but it is now surrounded with a great variety of novel agencies, to which we are slowly and painfully trying to adapt ourselves.

There is probably no political question which has been more debated than the origin of society, — what it was that in the beginning brought large bodies of men together under one government. There is probably no subject more obscure. When it began to be looked into after the Renaissance, the view of Aristotle, that society had grown naturally, was the one generally adopted. Government was the product of the nature of man as a gregarious or political animal, as he calls him. Men loved to live in a herd, and in order to live comfortably in a herd, regulations were necessary; and as soon as speech came, these regulations became governments, but they were not at the outset really what we call government. They were, more properly, customs. There is nothing more wonderful or incredible in these than in the customs of the bees or of the ants. These animals have certain ways of acting under certain circumstances, which must be considered, as long as we deny them intellect, a true government. That is, a certain course of conduct is imposed on them by some power or influence superior to the individual will. Whether this power be instinct or custom makes little difference. It constitutes an orderly way of living in society. The essential thing in any government is that it should make living in society easy and secure, while living alone is insecure and disagreeable. The prevalence of the belief among individuals that things must be done in a certain way, and not in others, and that unless things are done in a certain way, and not in others, unpleasant results will follow, means organized society; and it makes no difference from what source the unpleasantness of these results may emanate. As soon as this power or influence takes hold of men, and a number of them agree in submitting to it, government of some kind is instituted.

Of the origin of custom we know little, although there has been a great deal speculation about it, too. But it is almost certain that every custom originated either in a common sense of the convenience of some practice, or in a gradually formed common belief in its efficacy as a protection against known ills. So it may be alleged with tolerable positiveness that the practice of being bound by certain customs was in the beginning a natural product of men’s gregariousness.

A great deal, also, has been written about the origin of law. In the beginning of this century Austin made some impression by the definition of law as a command promulgated by an official superior ; that is, that there must be a government, in our sense of the word, before there is law, and that even custom does not become law until it has received the sanction or affirmation of this political superior, or of its courts or judges. But, as has been pointed out by Maine and Holland and Pollock, the courts decide what customs are binding and what are not, showing that a custom may be a law before the political superior takes any notice of it. In fact, it is now generally recognized, as Maine suggests, that law begins in custom or religion ; that law is the product either of custom or of belief. As far as we can go back into the mists of time we find men living under the domain of custom. We find them doing some things and avoiding others, simply because their fathers before them have done them or have avoided them. We find this long before we can catch sight of any political authority whatever. Even to-day, according to Mr. Lumholst, there are Australian savages who have no political or social superiors, and whom nobody commands. But they have rules of living. Superiority of physical strength seems to lead, in process of time, to the predominance of one man, which finally brings with it moral influence. But political authority, apparently, does not come for a good while. Among American Indians, the chief is not always a political superior. He leads in a war party those who choose to follow him from confidence in his ability, but when the expedition is over he becomes simply a distinguished man, whose advice is valuable and whose prowess is great. What holds the tribe together is a collection of customs which fix the date and character of its doings, and which none dares to disobey. Not unnaturally, when a chief of more than ordinary force and character is able, in a more advanced state of society, to convert this influence into positive rule, — that is, to make himself a Homeric or Roman “ king,” and perhaps a hereditary king, - to become real political chief, and to give his family a semi-sacred character in the popular eyes, we have the foundation of a state.

But we meet with no sign in antiquity of the conscious foundation of a state by agreement. In all that we see or know of the foundations of society, we find no trace of conscious organization. Certain arrangements grow out of existing conditions. They are not made, and they differ infinitely as the previous circumstances differ. So that the Aristotelian view appears to have been founded on all that was known or could be learnt of the early history of mankind. The contract theory represented society as we see it, as having been founded by discussion between rulers and people, and the formation by mutual agreement of rules by which the government was to be carried on. This was, in the seventeenth century, the chief weapon of the friends of constitutional liberty against the absolutists. Sir Robert Filmer, on behalf of the absolutists, founded the monarch’s claim to rule on the paternal character of Adam. As Adam ruled all that then existed of the human race in virtue of his fathership, so the kings ruled his descendants as his successors in virtue of their fathership. Grotius went halfway towards this theory by founding the monarch’s title, not on a contract with the governed, but on the consent of the governed. They gave themselves to the monarch without conditions. Hobbes held that men formed society through fear of each other : each, being afraid the others would kill or rob him, thought it best for safety to enter into an aliiance with somebody, and thus tribes, and finally societies, grew up. But all agreed that in the original state of nature men lived as individuals, without relations with other men. Grotius made his theory support the existing condition of things on the continent of Europe. Sir Robert Filmer used his to defend the cause of King James, and Hobbes his to exalt the power of “ the state,” or “Leviathan,” in behalf of King Charles. Hooker, as a moralist, used his theory to inculcate the duty and advantages of mutual love and assistance, whatever the form of government might be. Locke held to the contract theory on behalf of King William ; but the only government he could have known to result, as Hooker says, from “the deliberate advice, consultation, and composition between men,” was that of the New England colonies, and more particularly that of Plymouth. What happened in “ the state of nature,” though described by nearly all these writers with minuteness, is pure guesswork.

Although Locke and Hooker described a free commonwealth or a “ perfect democracy ” with tolerable accuracy as the “ majority making laws for the community from time to time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointment,” we really get no glimpses of a “ people ” as we understand the word in the modern world. A people, in the political sense, has to be not simply a collection of individuals or families living in a certain region in a certain way, and making common cause against enemies, but a body conscious of its own existence as a political organism, and of the existence of certain duties of individuals to one another without blood relationship, and of rights of its own, and of control over its own affairs as a whole, and of the power to dispose of itself as a whole. When this self-consciousness first arose we do not know. We find all writers on government down to the French Revolution treating the states of antiquity, and especially the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, as illustrations or proofs of their theories. What was right politically was generally found in the Bible ; what was wise or admirable was generally found in Plutarch’s Lives or in Livy. Indeed, it may be said that before Montesquieu there was no political speculation worth serious attention. He was the first since Aristotle to base his theories on the nature of man, and to some extent on the experience of existing states. As he says in his preface, “ I have not drawn my principles from my prejudices, but from the nature of things.” He was, in fact, the first to consider the effects of character on government, and to look on government as modifying character. But he continued, like his predecessors, to find most of his illustrations in antiquity. This gave much of the writing on politics of the pre-Revolutionary period an academic air. Even Rousseau and Voltaire and the Encyclopædists seemed to be making literature rather than exerting an influence on government. It was not until the Revolution had sought to embody these speculations in practice that democracy, or the rule of the people, came out of the closets of the philosophers, either as a beneficent force or as a new kind of danger, and that discussions about government took on an air of real business. The Revolution sought to embody the speculations of the philosophers in practice, not so much because it fancied their theories as because the nation was miserable. Had the French people been happy and prosperous or well governed, the probabilities are that we should have heard little or nothing of the influence of the writers.

There is no doubt that the pre-Revolutionary writers were in the right way in relying on Greece and Rome for their illustrations. Up to that time the modern world, if we except England, had contributed little or nothing to the science of government. Certain customary bodies had grown up, such as the StatesGeneral in France and the House of Commons in England, which kept alive the theory that the people had something to do with the management of their own affairs. But as a rule government was in all countries a congeries of customs, maxims, or proverbs, literally without form and inexplicable, for which little could be said except that they had grown up, and that people were used to them and liked them. Symmetry was the last thing they sought. The ignorance and barbarism of the Middle Ages lingered in the laws and governmental arrangements of every European country. To get an idea of the orderly growth of states, as the result of manners, circumstances, and religion, readers have to go back to Greece and Rome.

Greece and Rome are, in truth, our political ancestors. From them have come to us, through some process of descent, the idea of nearly all our political arrangements. The habit of taking counsel together is a natural result of man’s gregariousness. But the practice of persuasion by discussion, and decision by a majority after a hearing, is Greek. The use of checks in the exercise of authority by law, and indeed the habit of trying experiments in politics, are Greek and Roman. The Greeks and Romans were the first we know of to make special machinery of government, to see how it would work, and to change it deliberately if it was unsuitable. The Greeks may be said to have been the founders of what is called “diplomacy; ” that is, of the art of conducting negotiations and transacting business through argument between equal states. The Romans set us the example of basing political arrangements on manners and religion. They took the family as their political model, and created the political father called the “ king,” or leader ; but they kept in mind that as there were many fathers, there must be discussion and agreement. They were the first, too, to embody in their polity a full recognition of the value of experience and deliberation by creating a body of seniors, or older men, called the “ Senate.” The early Roman Senate was composed simply of older men. To compose it mainly of distinguished public servants was the idea of a much later period.

In fact, what strikes one most, in reading the history of either ancient Greece or Rome, is its political activity, the incessantness with which the people sought after better ways of living in society. Greece was, for this purpose, somewhat in our position ; that is, it was made up of a number of small states, in which constant experimentation in politics was going on, within limits set by a certain number of Hellenic customs which roughly corresponded to our Federal Constitution. Every one of the small states tried something new, — monarchy, democracy, or aristocracy, military or peaceful habits, — and accepted or rejected it after trial. What is in our eyes most singular in these trials is the part distinguished men played in them. In nothing political do we differ more from the ancient world than in the disappearance from among us of the “ lawgiver,” Moses, Solon, Lycurgus, Minos, — the single statesman to whom the people commit the construction of a social and political régime by which they agree to live, or at least to try to live. We can hardly conceive of a state of mind in which we should be willing to leave to one man, however revered, the construction of a plan of life both civil and political, — sometimes, as in the case of Sparta, of great severity, — and then accept it, without question, for an indefinite period. According to Plutarch, the Spartans lived for five hundred years under laws of extraordinary rigidity contrived by Lycurgus. Solon at Athens, too, appears to have had no difficulty in enforcing the seisachtheia, or general release of debtors, in order to make way for his code of laws, and Moses, or some one of somewhat similar authority, supplied the Hebrews with a moral code of the most enduring character. It is to be observed, however, that the lawgiver always acted with the aid of religion. He was always supposed to have God or his oracles behind him ; that is, he had to be in some sense divinely appointed. There is more or less uncertainty about the exact nature of the kind of legislation which each provided, but no matter how mythical his character or doings might be, the mere conception of the lawgiver indicates a readiness to defer to individual wisdom,which has long departed from the world, — the most remarkable feature of ancient politics.

But what was really almost as striking was the capacity for general political progress of the communities which sprang up in the numerous islands and valleys of Greece, and of the various villages of shepherds and husbandmen who founded Rome. We can hardly imagine similar communities in our day doing more than live by a small set of customs, tending their flocks, cultivating their small farms, and only too happy to walk quietly and unostentatiously in their ancient ways. The Greeks and Romans, on the contrary, were remarkable for continuous search after better ways. The village on the Palatine grew into an empire through a series of experiments in war and peace. There were constant changes in the structure of the government from Romulus down to Augustus, to meet some existing ill. In like manner, every little community in Greece was occupied in steady pursuit of a better régime than that which it had. As a rule, each was a little democracy, engaged more or less frequently in resisting the attempts of rich men to set up either a monarchy or an aristocracy. These attempts were often successful for a time, but never permanently successful. Down to the end, in spite of their early respect for family, the Greeks appear to have remained thoroughly democratic in their ideas and manners. But the rich class were rarely content with the existing state of things, always felt they could do better if they had their way, and were as purely selfish as aristocracies are apt to be. They were convinced that the most important interest of the state was that they, not the many, should be happy and content. Aristotle furnishes several illustrations of this, the most remarkable being the oath which he says was taken by some of the oligarchies: “ I will be evil - minded towards the people, and bring on them by my counsel whatever mischief I can.”

In Aristotle’s Politics, in fact, may be found the best thought of the ancient world about politics, and, in general, about life in an organized state. It is somewhat startling to see how small is the advance we have made on his ideas. That the great end of men in society should be, not simply to live, but to live well; that a free state should be composed of freemen ; that a state in which the good of the rulers is sought rather than that of the many is not a free state ; that private property is essential ; that no man is a citizen who does not share in the government ; that a good citizen and a good man are synonymous terms ; that no man should be judge in his own cause ; that government should be adapted to the mental and moral condition of the governed; that every class in a state, if it gets possession of the government, is apt to seek its own advantage exclusively, — these are principles which have not been improved upon, and lie at the basis of all modern political constitutions.

The only matters on which we should be disposed, in modern life, to dissent from Aristotle are the judiciary and slavery. Judges, he thinks, in a democracy, should be numerous and elective, and he recognizes slavery as ordained by nature. But his description of the internal dangers of a state, of the different kinds of government which have been tried, of the objections to each, and of the things necessary to the successful practice of either monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy, has hardly been surpassed in our day, even with our vastly longer experience. In fact, it is rather humiliating to see how few are the advances we have made in the art of government as he describes it, in spite of our twentyfive hundred years of longer familiarity with its difficulties. From him we get the Greek idea of citizenship without qualification ; that is, government by universal suffrage, without regard to rank or property. But this has to be received with some allowance, owing to the existence of slavery. In every Greek republic the laboring class were slaves and were excluded from all share in the government, so that we cannot say that any one state made the experiment of democracy in the sense in which we understand it. Even in the successful democracies, the voters or citizens were, in a certain degree, an oligarchy, were possessed of property and independence, and had ample time to occupy themselves with politics and to go to the assemblies, or, as we say, “ to attend to their political duties.”

This points to other important differences between our idea of democracy and that of the ancients. With Aristotle, smallness was an essential condition of democracy. It was considered desirable that no democracy should be so large that all the citizens could not attend the general assembly and take a personal part in legislating and judging; also, that all citizens should be in some measure known to one another and to the magistrates. As the representative system had not been invented, our plan of committing the work of government to a class, while the rest of the population give the bulk of their time to some sort of bread-earning, was not known to the ancients as democracy. Such a state of things was not in their eyes a democracy, but an oligarchy or a monarchy. The personal participation of the citizen in all deliberations was essential. To secure this, as democracies grew larger, and the poor found presence at the meetings of the assembly a hardship, they were paid a small sum for their attendance, like our jurymen. Moreover, for the same reasons, every democracy was supposed to consist of a city simply, with all citizens living within easy reach of the agora or forum. Strangers and sojourners and slaves, however numerous, were excluded from citizenship, so that at Athens and Rome, in the later days, the real citizens were in a small minority, constituting what the French call the pays légal ; that is, the city or country recognized by or known to the law. This presence of a body of persons sharing the life and interests of the place, but not allowed to share in its government, was transmitted to the modern world, and became a feature in all the municipalities of the Middle Ages, and even of the democratic cantons of Switzerland. The citizens or burgesses owned the state or city as property, and transmitted it to their children. They gave nothing to the noncitizens but permission to reside and protection. The idea that mere birth and residence ought to give citizenship gained ground only after the French Revolution, and was really not received in England until the reform of the municipalities in 1832. The old confinement of the citizenship to a small body of property - holders, or descendants of property-holders, undoubtedly gave the property qualification to such of the modern European states as set up an elected legislature or council. Down to the passage of the Reform Bill in England, the exclusion of all but freeholders from the franchise seemed a perfectly natural arrangement. It was very difficult for most Englishmen, and the same thing is true of the earlier Americans, to suppose that any one could take a genuine interest in the welfare of the country, or be willing to make sacrifices for its sake, who did not own land in it. The central idea of the ancient city was in this way made to cover the larger area of a modern kingdom.

This idea of citizenship, too, accounts in some measure for the important place assigned in the Greek system to the “ demagogue.” Not only the name, but the picture of the demagogue comes to us from antiquity. He is literally a man who exerts great influence over the people, it may be for good as well as for bad purposes. We use the word in a bad sense, but originally the sense was not always bad. The demagogue was distinctly the product of oratory. It was oratory at Athens, for instance, which is said to have created him; and of course, to give weight to oratory, the body to be influenced must be small. To employ the common expression of our orators, those whom he addresses must be “within the sound of his voice.” In the absence of a periodical press this was essential. The people must have been a body which a man could address even in the open air. His distinguishing trait, however, as Aristotle describes him, was his correspondence to the flatterer or courtier of the monarch or tyrant. He always extolled the wisdom and other good qualities of the people, and claimed in virtue of this wisdom very great powers for it. He was the great enemy of checks and balances. Aristotle describes one sort of democratic government as “allowing the people, not the law, to be supreme.” “And this takes place,” he says, “ when everything is determined by a majority of voters, and not by a law, — a thing which happens by reason of the demagogues.” They might, in fact, be described as the great champions, on every occasion, of government by simple majority, a characteristic which they possess in our day. Most demagogues maintain the wisdom of the people, not generally, but with regard to the particular matter under consideration ; this wisdom is superior to all experience, to all checks imposed by antecedent laws or constitutions, and even to the moral ideas of any preceding generation. Their audience is always treated as either omnipotent or allwise within the sphere of legislation, and as much wronged by the restriction of its powers by any outward influence.

It is the remembrance of this fact which has led, in modern times, to the adoption of constitutions changeable only at fixed times or in a prescribed way. The main object of them all is to put restrictions on the power of the majority vote, which vote is an object of great dread to nearly all political philosophers in our day. On the other hand, the object of nearly all demagogues, as they are called, is to establish this power. This has perhaps never been more remarkably illustrated than by the recent presidential canvass in this country. All, or nearly all, Mr. Bryan’s adherents wished, with regard to the currency and various other matters, to disregard the experience of the race and of the rest of the world, and to treat the wishes of the majority as sufficient to determine finally the action which the nation ought to take. The caution due to the fear of external resistance, which in previous democracies has generally been operative, was notably absent, owing to the unprecedented size of the democracy. The demagogues said that we were so large and powerful that we could do what we pleased. No ancient democracy was able to say this or think it. It always had neighbors of nearly equal strength, whose enmity was to be feared or whose good will had to be courted. What other neighboring states thought, or would be likely to think, of most measures under discussion was generally a consideration of more or less weight. Then, the possibility of emigration on the part of any class or set of men whom legislation might oppress or discriminate against had to be taken into account. The ancient world along the shores of the Mediterranean was constantly agitated by movements of discontented people in search of new homes. Seneca’s explanation of the causes of the foundation of colonies would apply almost exactly to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It would apply even to the emigration of this century, — with this difference, however : that the ancient colonists never went very far away, but settled in what might be called Greek or Roman regions, while ours, as a rule, have planted themselves in the wilderness, where the work of civilization had to be begun from the very foundations. The Swiss, from the earliest times, enjoyed this advantage of having powerful neighbors, whose presence exerted a more or less moderating influence on all democratic schemes or enterprises. Even their extraordinary military success in the sixteenth century did not rid them of the fear of foreign critics.

In all ancient democracies, including early Rome under this term, the internal history is generally an account of contests between the poor and the rich ; meaning by “ poor ” persons who are not rich, — not the extremely poor. An oligarchy always consists of rich men ; a democracy, of what may be called people of moderate means. For the most part, the rich seem never to be thoroughly content with the rule of the many, and long to rid themselves of it. Nor do they share the democratic or Aristotelian idea of the state as a community of freemen. They think themselves entitled to rule, and think their contentment the chief object of the state. There consequently prevailed between them and the masses a somewhat fierce animosity. When a revolution took place in a Greek state, it was generally either a rising against an oligarchy of rich men, or else an attempt on the part of rich men to overthrow democratic government: hence the attempts of the lawgiver to enforce equality in living, so as to prevent the rich man from making, in his mode of life, any outward display of his wealth. In Sparta Lycurgus went so far as to make all eat at the same table. But the idea of the sacredness of property, as we hold it, can hardly be said to have existed in the ancient communities. Dispossessions, confiscations, redistributions, were not uncommon. The power of the lender over the borrower’s person was from the earliest times, both in Greece and in Rome, very great, and kept alive the discontent of the poor, making it extremely important for the rich man everywhere to get and keep possession of the government. It was only by getting hold of the administration of the law that he could feel absolutely secure.

To understand this more completely, we have to bear in mind that there is no record of a poor aristocracy having long retained possession of any state. In spite of the definition of the word which makes aristocrats the best men in the community, all attempts to maintain an aristocracy very long in power without wealth have proved failures. A poor nobility, even when it has a court and a standing army to support it, is never well able to justify itself in the popular eye. The people expect a powerful man to live with a certain ostentation. He has to have very commanding talents or to render great services, in order to live simply, without loss of political prestige. Consequently, notwithstanding what long and illustrious descent might do for a man, the Greek definition of oligarchy or aristocracy as rich men was not far wrong. There is something a little ridiculous about the poor nobleman, and he has been in all ages extensively caricatured, and his pretensions to eminence have been mocked at.

When, in the beginning of this century, the result of the French Revolution had discredited democracy as a cure for modern ills, there naturally and speedily arose among the champions of aristocracy a desire to discredit ancient democracy also as an example for the modern world, and modern writers speedily took sides between the Greek rich and the Greek poor. More particularly, a history of Greece written by Mr. Mitford, and published in 1810, seemed to have for its special object to show the failure of Athenian democracy, and to warn the modern advocates of popular government of the danger of their theories. He was apparently producing a good deal of effect, and was having his own way, when George Grote, then a young man, appeared on the scene with an article criticising him (in the Westminster Review of April, 1826) that excited a sensation which we in later days find it difficult to understand. He overwhelmed the historian with Greek learning, — with his minute knowledge of all that could be known concerning Greek manners, ideas, history, geography, and literature. The article was not very long, but it was conclusive, and after its appearance Mitford ceased to have authority. But in spite of Thirlwall’s more impartial view and of Grote’s own vindication of Greek popular government in his history, Athens continued to be, in the eyes of many conservatives, an example of the dangers of a government of the majority, until a comparatively recent period. Democracy had certainly to contend with powerful illustrations of the superiority of the government of the few in the matter of continuity of policy, to be found in the history of states like Venice, Berne, and Geneva, where public affairs were administered with apparent success for centuries by a minority of patricians. All these fell, not directly through their own weakness so much as through the French Revolution, which may be said to have swept them away by force. But in any case they could not have survived the gradual growth of cheap literature. The success of aristocratic policy everywhere is due, in large part, to the possibility of secrecy, and to the possibility of administering through few counselors and without much discussion. The existence and expression of such a thing as “public opinion ”— that is, the opinion of a great number of people, most of them ill informed as to the matter in hand — are fatal to it. The boldness which has always been one of the marks of aristocratic government is, in fact, due largely to the belief that it knows exactly how the few feel whose feeling about any matter is of importance. If the multitude had to be consulted, this boldness would be impossible, owing to uncertainty as to what the final tribunal would think. Consequently, the rise of the newspaper press — furnishing to every man the materials for an opinion of some sort about public affairs, and the opportunity to say something about them, whether well or ill judged — had naturally a paralyzing effect on aristocratic policy, and would have led to the downfall of aristocratic states even if the French Revolution had never occurred. The contentment with material conditions, such as the careful administration of the finances and of justice, and the general security that were characteristics of a government like that of Berne, would have disappeared rapidly before the popular desire to share in the government. This would have been the inevitable result of popular knowledge of what authority was doing which the cheap press brought with it. When every man in the state knew, or thought he knew, what ought to be done, the period of government by small trained minorities had passed away.

But as I have said, independently of this influence of the printing-press, the eighteenth century closed with the revelation of great aristocratic failures all over Europe. The states which Napoleon overthrew were all administered by a few men of aristocratic birth with but indifferent success. The break-down of their régime in France was made notorious by the terrible way in which popular discontent found expression. But in nearly every country on the Continent, outside Switzerland, privilege reigned supreme, with harsh, even contemptuous treatment of the poor, and with little or no economy in the administration of the finances, except for military purposes. Indeed, in every state on the Continent the government may be said to have failed, even as an instrument for carrying on war with its neighbors. All its political arrangements seem to have been made simply for the purpose of enabling a small class to enjoy themselves, and to indulge in their favorite amusement of commanding armies.

In the discussion which arose out of the great uprising at the end of the century, therefore, there was little or nothing to be said for the old régime. The most was made of the excesses of the Revolution, but no defense was possible of what the Revolution overturned. It was not surprising, then, that the supporters of the old régime should turn to Athens for examples of what the popular movement was likely to lead to if the world chose to abandon its ancient ways. What this abandonment would mean it is difficult for us to conceive now, in an age when birth has lost its prestige, and the distinction between the manant and the nobleman has become almost diverting. The only places in which it survives with any power are Austria and Germany, particularly Austria, in which the noble class, or class with a “sixteen quarterings,” still lives apart, and monopolizes many of the offices of state and much of the command of the army, as it did in France before the Revolution. There was a time when this state of things seemed natural and proper, and the noble class has not in any country changed its mind about its own importance to the state. The change has come among the people at large.

Nearly everywhere, however, even in as democratic states as ours, aristocracy leaves traditions which are strong enough to make the rich desire to inherit them. All over the modern world the desire to belong to a class apart, with other needs than those of the masses, and with claims to consideration not possessed by the notrich, the tendency to consider themselves in some way superior to the rest of the community, is one of the marks of the wealthy. And this claim on the part of the rich to be the heirs of the old aristocracy, and to possess the same social though perhaps not the same political value, constitutes one of the dangers of the time. Everywhere the rich man seeks in some way, generally by marriage, to ally himself with the old aristocracy and be absorbed into it, and he demands whatever social deference used to be accorded to birth. Tocqueville makes some gentle fun of the American’s disposition to trace his descent from a noble family of the same name in England; and the tendency of well-to-do Americans to ally themselves, immediately on landing in Europe, with the old order of nobility is described by Laboulaye in the pleasantry. “ Un Yankee à Paris se croit né gentilhomme.”

II.

EQUALITY.

The event, however, which first gave the idea of democracy a recognized place in the modern world was the embodiment of the American Declaration of Independence in political revolution. There has been a great deal of discussion as to the origin of the doctrine of the equality of men which it proclaims, and it is a point of some interest for the political philosopher, as Sir Henry Maine has shown. But its history as a political dogma is not really important, because it must have been in the air all over modern Europe after the spread of Christianity. It was impossible to teach Christianity to any man without leading him to think himself as good as anybody. The great importance which the Christian religion attaches to the future of the soul, and its bold affirmation of the equality of souls after death, must have led even slaves, in the earlier ages, to put themselves secretly on the same plane, before the Creator, with kings and senators and noblemen. Macaulay’s florid description of the Puritan’s attitude towards “ kings and priests ” fairly represented, doubtless, the state of mind of thousands, if not of millions, for centuries. What was wanting was the physical power to procure recognition of the doctrine from the state, so dominating was the influence of prescription, tradition, and custom. So that there is every likelihood that its production by a community in arms, no matter for what reason, was simply the expression of a thought which was already popular in the sense of being widely held.

That it had at that time the signification which we are now so apt to attach to it—not only that all men are born equal, but that for public purposes one man’s opinion is as good as that of any other man, and that there is as much reason for consulting him regarding common affairs as any other man — is not probable. The state of the world in the eighteenth century warrants the belief that what men meant by equality at that time was equality of burdens, the abolition of all exemptions from the common liabilities and of all privileges in running the race of life. This was really the kind of equality of which both the American and the French Revolution were the expression in the beginning. I conclude this from the readiness in both, at the outset, to follow and obey the lead of men of mark; the recognition of the wider range of experience which education and property give a man, or may give him, and his generally greater fitness to lead in politics, which prevailed at that time. This was a characteristic, in particular, of the American Revolution. It was conducted largely with loyal support from the masses, under the direction of men of some social distinction. The class of “ notables ” seems to have held its place in the community, undisturbed by political events. The English tradition that a prominent social station entitles a man to some sort of political leadership, or at all events to high office, does not seem to have been really broken down, or even to have been strongly assailed, until Andrew Jackson’s time, when the doctrine of equality took on a new form, and found for the first time full expression in our politics.

Equality, as every one acknowledges, is the foundation of democracy. It means democracy when it gets itself embodied in law. When all are equal, there is no reason why all should not rule. But the equality of the French in 1792, when the revolutionary government was established, was something different from the equality of 1789. In 1789 the equality which was asked for was, in the main, simply an equality of rights and burdens between the nobility and the tiers état. Equality, as Montesquieu uses the term, means simply love, not of one’s order, but of one’s country, and as such he made it the equivalent of democracy. Democracy, he says, is equality. But the word “ equality ” for him evidently had no social signification. It meant rather equality of service to the country : that every one was held to the same amount of public duty, according to his means, and that every one was entitled to the same opportunities of taking part in the government. That being born of particular parents made any one essentially of better quality than anybody else, that if one hundred babies of different conditions were brought up in the same manner the sons of noblemen or gentlemen among them would show their superiority to the others in their character, was a doctrine which, after the Middle Ages, was probably never fully accepted even by the most ardent believers in heredity. Every generation was witness of the breakdown, if I may use the expression, of the principle of heredity. That is to say, a large number of noble or gentle families in every generation lost their position or property, because the founder did not transmit his qualities of mind or character to his descendants. The folly or extravagance or imprudence which led to this social déchéance was generally due to marked departures in intellect or morals from the original type. The believers in heredity were misled by the analogy of the breeding of animals. Horses transmitted speed and bottom, birds peculiar appearance, with extraordinary certainty. Therefore, it was concluded, a man was likely to have his father’s wisdom or foresight or mental strength. But his descendants rarely inherit from a father more than one or two mental peculiarities, valuable when united with other things, but, standing alone, of little use in the battle of life, — a fact which may be verified anywhere by observing the families of distinguished men. A man eminent in politics, or law, or medicine, or commerce, or finance, or war, is seldom succeeded by a son who recalls the ensemble of qualities which have secured the father’s success, although he may have one or two of his characteristics. Heredity obtained its stronghold in the popular imagination in the Middle Ages, owing to the fact that the son was in possession of the father’s power when he died, and that in a rude age, when things were mainly decided by fighting, it offered the readiest means of settling peaceably questions of succession. But as soon as the question of the right of a class to rule in virtue of heredity became a subject of discussion, heredity broke down. It was a custom which was valuable in the time of its origin, but, like most customs, found it impossible to justify itself by any better argument than that, under some circumstances, it had produced good results.

But in America, from the settlement of the colonies, the English doctrine that distinction should serve in place of heredity seems to have held its place in the popular imagination. The founding of colonies, the making of conquests, the growth of trade and commerce, and the early practice of admitting able lawyers to the House of Lords had familiarized Englishmen with the idea of a man’s making his fortune by some sort of adventure, no matter what his origin. The peers, too, sapped their own power unconsciously by making legislators of young men of promise, no matter of what extraction, and giving them seats in the House of Commbns. The result was that the association, in the English mind, of men of mark of some kind with office-holding and the work of government took deep root after the revolution of 1640, and was transferred to America. It was generally leading men of prominence and character who were made governors and judges, and were sent to the legislature and to Washington. The Revolution was carried through, and the Constitution formed and its adoption brought about, by men of this kind. The idea of an obscure man, of a man who was not lifted above the crowd in some way, being fit for the transaction of public affairs was still unfamiliar. All the members of the Constitutional Convention were men of some local note, and so were the earlier administrators of the new government.

This, too, down to that period, had been the strongest tradition of all previous democracies. All democracies, both ancient and modern, had made a practice of electing to office, not always their best men, but their most prominent men. In none of them had a man who was not in some way raised above the mass of his fellow citizens — who had not succeeded in life, in short — much chance of filling a high or an important place. This was eminently true of Greece and Rome and Switzerland. In a small state, where everybody knows everybody well. and where elections and other public affairs are transacted in the marketplace, within sound of an orator’s voice, this is not difficult. Office-seekers are in a measure compelled to be eloquent or distinguished for something. An obscure man, or a man whose character bears serious blemishes of some kind, will hardly dare to ask the confidence of the citizens in his fitness for great duties. The composition of the Roman Senate, which from the beginning consisted of notables who had in some manner rendered the state marked service, and the selection for which the people for centuries committed to a magistrate, showed better than almost anything else the desire of the ancient democracies to avail themselves of their best talent. What they seem to have insisted on above all things, in the management of the state, was, not the right of filling offices with anybody they pleased, but the right of filling them with their most competent men. It may be said that this was not so great a mark of wisdom as appears, because every ancient democracy was in a position of some danger. It was continually exposed to war and subjugation by some stronger neighbor, and the penalty of defeat in those days was tremendous. The vanquished were killed or sold into slavery, and their women were appropriated by the conquerors. So that the cultivation and recognition of ability were conditions of existence. In the case of Rome this necessity was even stronger than elsewhere, for she entered on a career of conquest from the very beginning, and this called for the filling of the Senate, which decided what was to be conquered and selected generals for the work, with the ablest men in the state.

In nothing does modern democracy differ so much from the ancient democracy as in this indifference to distinction, owing in a large degree to the size of the two communities which fully practice it, and to the great preponderance of the less instructed class in the elections. The Greek democracy, and in a less degree that of Rome, were composed of a selected body the principal occupation of which was politics, and it was brought in almost daily contact with the leading men of the community, and was consulted by them in the forum concerning both war and peace. We can hardly imagine a better education than this, touching the management of affairs and the qualities which it requires. The consequence was that the people were daily engaged in forming judgments as to the capacity of men with whom they were familiar, and the men were daily engaged in giving viva voce reasons for their advice, or explaining and defending their conduct, or setting forth their own claims to an office. Our democracies, on the other hand, are composed of vast bodies of men who have but small acquaintance with the machinery of public affairs, or with the capacity of individuals for managing it.

This brings me to what is probably the greatest danger of modern democracy, if, like all previous régimes, it should lose its hold on popular affections and fall into decay. The spread of democracy — that is, the participation of the whole community in the work of government — has been accompanied by a great increase in the complexity of human affairs. The interdependence of nations through the growth of trade, the increase of literature, the incessant conversation with one another kept up by the press, the greatly improved facilities of travel, have grown to a degree undreamt of even a century ago. A debate in a legislative body, the careless speech of a chief magistrate, a slight change in the system of taxation of even one nation, a small discovery by a man of science in any country, in our time produces an almost instantaneous effect over the whole civilized world ; and one might say, the whole world, whether civilized or not, for civilization now asserts the dominion of its ideas everywhere. In truth, the extent to which all news, no matter whence it comes, affects or may affect the lives of most of us, is present to every man every time he opens his newspaper in the morning. And all private business partakes of this public complexity. The size of all undertakings, either of production or exchange or transportation, is tasking the human faculty of administration to the uttermost, and leads a great many people to suppose that individuals are no longer equal to the task, and that it must be hereafter assumed by the state. For success in any business now, an amount of knowledge is necessary which in the last century hardly one man in a million possessed ; decisions must now be made on the moment, for which, a hundred years ago, a merchant might take half a year.

The result is that the government of such a world needs an increase in intellectual equipment corresponding to the increase in business. The amount of property, too, which is placed at the disposal of the modern legislator is something beyond calculation. Since the exclusion of the old landed class from the work of government, a process which began soon after the French Revolution, the growth of personal property, which to be enjoyed or increased has in some way to be displayed, and thus comes within the reach of the government, is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the modern world. When the old ruler had taxed land, his resources were wellnigh exhausted. To-day the number of movables out of each of which the public treasury can extract tens of millions, in every civilized country, has made taxation one of the nicest of arts. The little armies of fifty thousand or one hundred thousand, of the beginning of the present century, have been succeeded in most countries by armies of millions. Even Napoleonic campaigns would now make but a comparatively small draft on the resources of any of the Great Powers. The transformation of the navies is still more remarkable. Floating engines of extraordinary complication have taken the place of the huge wooden wind-boats which Nelson commanded. In fact, one has but to read such a book as Mr. Wells’s Recent Economic Changes to see that within a century we have entered a new material world, a description of which would have been deemed fantastic even in 1800. In every field of human activity we have drawn heavily on the supply of administrative talent. Whether it wishes to command a great army or a great fleet, or to conduct a great business, every state has to search its entire population to get a man fit for the work. In some things in which capacity is not easy to test, such as war, most countries remain, pending the outbreak of hostilities, in great uncertainty as to the capacity of their military men, by sea or by land.

The first visible effect or concomitant of the influence of democracy on modern governments was the multiplication of public offices. Much of this multiplication is made necessary by the growth of population and business. The world, through the increase in its offices and its activity, needs far more regulation than it used to need. Taxation, police, war, transportation, call for a great addition to the number of the agents of authority. This regulation, too, which we will call legislation, needs to have a much greater force of men engaged in producing it. A century ago the American Congress or the British Parliament would have been entirely equal to the management of all the affairs of the communities within its jurisdiction. We now think both Congress and the state legislatures hardly equal to the task imposed on them, and there are growing complaints in England of the inability of Parliament to cope with its business, and many demands for some sort of federal system. Then the steady growth of attempts to widen the province of government by insisting on its occupying itself more with the material condition of the masses, and making direct efforts to ameliorate it, has made necessary a large army of inspectors of one sort or another, whose duty it is either to see that laws are faithfully executed, or to find out what additional laws are needed. So that the civil service of all countries has been greatly increased. Government has grown more powerful and more active ; and the more powerful and active it is, the more functionaries it must have.

We must remember, too, that this great increase of affairs, this vast growth of trade and commerce, is made possible by the creation of what is called “ credit.” Without credit, in spite of the improvements in transportation and in the transmission of intelligence, we could not have had this expansion of business. All the gold and silver in the world would not have been sufficient. We have had to call into use men’s faith in the fulfillment of one another’s pledges, so that modern prosperity has come to rest, in the main, on written promises or letters of private individuals, saying they will pay a certain amount of money, or deliver a certain quantity of goods, on a day named. The result is a great structure of what may be called mutual faith, of extraordinary delicacy, which the slightest suspicion that the world will not continue to go on in the way in which it is going on, that there will be a war or an earthquake or a startling piece of legislation, may overthrow at any moment. In fact, it would perhaps be more accurate to compare it to a network covering the whole earth than to a building. The slightest derangement or break in it anywhere is felt everywhere else, and may involve great depreciation of property, and the postponement or abandonment of enterprises of great importance. The care of it, the avoidance of all measures or movements likely to disturb it, has, therefore, in our day, to be one of the first cares of a statesman. To be fully aware, however, of the importance of credit, either actual experience of the work of exchange or theoretical knowledge of it from study is necessary. An ignorant man or a small farmer, who knows nothing of any dealings but cash dealings, finds it difficult to understand its importance, and may be frequently tempted to take steps in administration and legislation seriously detrimental to it, without meaning or foreseeing any harm.

As I have already said, the really alarming feature connected with the growth of democracy is that it does not seem to make adequate provision for the government of this new world. Its chief function, like the chief function of the monarch whom it has succeeded, is to fill offices. This is the chief function of the sovereign power everywhere, no matter by what name it is called. To find the right men for the public places is almost the only work which falls, or has ever fallen, to the ruler. It is by the manner in which this is done, more than by the laws which are passed, that the goodness or badness of a government is tested. If the functionaries are honest and faithful, almost any kind of political constitution is endurable. If they are ignorant or tyrannical or corrupt, the best constitution is worthless. If we listen to the conversation of any group of men who are condemning a political system, we shall find that their talk consists mainly of reports of malfeasance in office, of officials having done things which they ought not to have done, and of their having failed to do things which they ought to have done. Government is an impalpable abstraction except as it makes itself felt through functionaries, which is about the same thing as saying that administration is even more important than legislation, that even bad laws well executed hardly work as much unhappiness as good laws badly executed.

The first effect of this great change on democracy was delight at finding that government places and commissions in the army were no longer the monopoly of the aristocracy, that family or wealth was no longer a necessary qualification for them, and that the influences through which they might be procured were within the reach of the poor or lowly born. The tide of democratic opinion has ever since been in favor of the increase of offices. In France, in Italy, and in the United States, every government has found that this increase was a popular measure, and has given way to the temptation of strengthening itself by the bestowal of them. The passion for them, even where the tenure is brief or insecure, has apparently grown with their number. The tradition of the old régime, that a man who represented the government was in some way superior to the people with whom he came in contact, has apparently, in the popular eye, clung to the places. Then, the certainty of the salary to the great multitude who in every country either fail in life, or shrink from the conflicts which the competitive system makes necessary, is very attractive ; it soon converted the civil service into what has been called “ spoils ; ” that is, booty won by victories at the polls.

It is easy to see that the only way to meet this necessary growth of demand for offices was to adhere to the old system of applying to the management of state affairs the principle which reigns in business, that of securing the best talent available ; and of giving the chief places, at least, to men who had already made a mark in the world by success in some field of activity. This, as I have said, was the rule of the democracies of the ancient world. To preserve for the democratic government the old respect and authority which used to surround the monarchical government, it was absolutely necessary to compete vigorously, through both money and honors, in the labor market, with private business, the demands of which on the community’s store of talent became very great as soon as steam and electricity were brought into the service of commerce and manufactures. But the tendency has not run in this direction. As regards the lower offices, the duties of which are easily comprehensible by everybody, and are merely matters of routine, in which discretion or judgment plays little part, there has been in this country a decided return to the tests of ordinary business, such as character and competency, and a decided revival of confidence in such motives as security of tenure and the prospect of promotion. But as regards the higher or elective offices, such as those of legislators and governors, the tendency to discredit such qualifications as education and special experience has been marked. In the popular mind there is what may be called a disposition to believe not only that one man is as good as another, but that he knows as much on any matter of general interest. In any particular business the superiority of the man who has long followed it is freely acknowledged, but in public affairs this is not perhaps so much denied as disregarded. One of the most curious characteristics of the silver movement was the general refusal to accept the experience of any country or age as instructive, and this in a matter in which all light comes from experience. Bryan’s proclamation that the opinion of all the professors in the United States would not affect his opinions in the least, was an illustration of this great self-confidence of a large democracy. In a small democracy this could hardly have occurred.

All the great modern democracies have to contend almost for existence against the popular disposition to treat elective offices as representative, and to consider it of more importance that they should be filled by persons holding certain opinions or shades of opinion than by persons most competent to perform their duties. The distinction between representing and administering seems plain enough, and yet, since the French Revolution, the democratic tendency has been everywhere to obscure it. This has not unnaturally led to the idea that the offices are rewards for the persons who have done most to propagate or defend certain views, and ought to be given to them independently of their fitness. To this confusion of two different functions I must ascribe the deterioration which has been remarked so frequently in the legislatures of all democratic countries in modern times. The number of men of experience or special knowledge, as well as of conspicuous men, which they contain, seems to decline steadily, and the number of interests committed to their charge as steadily to increase.

This disregard of special fitness, combined with unwillingness to acknowledge that there can be anything special about any man, which is born of equality, constitutes the great defect of modern democracy. That large communities can be successfully administered by inferior men is a doctrine which runs directly counter not only to the experience of the race, but to the order appointed for the advance of civilization, which has been carried forward almost exclusively by the labor of the fittest, despite the resistance or reluctance of the unfit. This order of nature, too, has been recognized fully in private affairs of every description. In all of them competency on the part of administrators is the first thing sought for, and the only thing trusted. But in private affairs the penalty of any disregard of this rule comes quickly; in public affairs the operation of all causes is much slower, and their action is obscure. Nations take centuries to fall, and the catastrophe is preceded by a long period of the process called “ bad government,” in which there is much suffering and alarm, but not enough to make the remedy plain. France furnishes the best modern illustration of this rule. The causes of the Revolution undoubtedly began to operate at the majority of Louis XIV., but for over one hundred years their nature and certain results were not perceived, in spite of the great popular suffering which prevailed during the whole period.

The worst of the slowness of this decadence is that it affects national character to a degree which makes recovery more difficult, even after the origin and nature of the disease have become plain. Men soon get accustomed to the evils of their condition, particularly if there is nobody in particular to blame. The inaction or negligence or shortcomings of great numbers assume the appearance of a law of nature or of repeated failures, of attempts at the impossible. The apparent difficulty of reform, except by catastrophe or revolution, begets either despondency or over-cheerfulness.

E. L. Godkin.