CHAPTER II

THE TENDENCY OF DEMOCRACY

IN which of these directions, the fraternal or the individual, has America been tending for the last hundred and thirty years? In which of these directions should thoughtful Americans endeavor to guide the country?

In which direction America has been tending is tolerably clear to all observers, whether they approve or disapprove the tendency.

The immediate occasion of the Civil War was the question between the sections, whether slav-· ery was a beneficent form of industrial organization and should be protected throughout the Nation, or an unjust and injurious form of industrial organization and should be confined within its then existing limits in the expectation of its ultimate abolition. The proximate cause of the Civil War was two contrasted opinions respecting the interpretation of a written Constitution upon two questions on which that Constitution was absolutely silent: Had a State a right to secede? If it attempted to secede, had the Federal Government a right to compel it to remain in the Union? But underlying both questions was the still more fundamen

tal issue between the Hebraic or Puritan conception of government and the Latin or French conception of government.

The doctrine that all government is foundedon a compact, when applied to the United States, naturally led to the affirmation that the Nation was a confederation of independent and sovereign States. The doctrine that all government rests on the consent of the governed, when applied to such a supposed confederation, naturally led to the conclusion that if the consent of any one or more of these sovereign States was withdrawn, the government over them ceased to be a just government, and the right either of repudiation or of • revolution followed. To Calhoun and his political associates this meant nullification, or the right of a sovereign State in the exercise of its sovereignty to refuse its assent to any Federal law which it deemed unjust. To Jefferson Davis and his associates it meant the right of a sovereign State to withdraw from the confederacy altogether when the acts of the confederation were injurious to its interests. How pervasive this doctrine that government rests on the consent of the governed had become in America is evidenced by the fact that Mr. Buchanan, who denied the right of a state to secede, also denied the right of the Federal government to prevent

secession, and that Horace Greeley, the foremost anti-slavery editor of the North, besought the nation to let the erring sisters depart in peace.

The result of the Civil War has been to expel absolutely from the consciousness of the nation, both North and South, the doctrine that just government depends on the consent of the governed. The Union of to-day is not what Horace Greeley feared it would be, that of a triumphant North over a subjugated South. It is a Union cemented by mutual respect, affection, and esteem, based on the tacit assumption that government is something more than copartnership, whether of individuals or of States; that it is a divine organism, deriving its authority, not from the con- • sent of the governed, but from the justice with which the governors exercise their authority, and is neither founded on consent nor can be dissolved by dissent. Thomas Jefferson advocated an occasional revolution, much as the doctors of the old school advocated an occasional blood-letting, as a useful measure of hygiene. "God forbid that we should be twenty years without a rebellion. We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been but one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each State. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? What

signifies a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." That phase of Jeffersonianism would to-day find no advocate in America in any section of the country. Even the wildest-eyed anarchist, if he ventured to affirm it, would be listened to, if at all, with scant politeness.

The doctrine that government rests on the consent of the governed carried with it by necessary implication that all the governed must have some share in making the government. Universal suffrage as one of the natural rights of man was a logically necessary element in the Latin theory of law and liberty." The right to vote for representatives," says Professor Dunning, "was held to be an immediate corollary of the principle that every man was by nature free and could be subjected to government only by his consent; for government must be by law, and law must be the will of each individual, expressed either in person or through a representative." 2 The omnipotence of the majority carried with it, in the minds of certain theorists, the infallibility of the majority. Strictly speaking, there

1 W. E. Curtis, The True Thomas Jefferson, p. 81.

2 W. A. Dunning, A History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu, p. 236.

was no real minority and could be none. Says Rousseau :

When a law is proposed in an assembly of the people, what is asked of them is not exactly whether they approve of the proposition or whether they reject it, but whether or not it conforms to the general will, which is theirs; each one in giving his vote gives his opinion upon it, and from the counting of the votes is deduced the declaration of the general will. When, however, the opinion contrary to mine prevails, it shows only that I was mistaken, and what I had supposed to be the general will was not general. If my individual opinion had prevailed, I should have done something other than I had intended, and then I should not have been free.1

(The Puritan doctrine, on the other hand, regarded suffrage as a prerogative to be earned by a worthy character."The saints should govern the earth," said the Puritan; and not all men were saints. In the early New England colonies, therefore, suffrage was conditioned on possession of property, possession of intelligence, paying of taxes, and, in some cases, on church membership. It is true that the disciples of neither school were always consistent. Political theories in practical application rarely are consistent. Thomas Jeffer son advocated a restricted suffrage based on edu

1J. J. Rousseau, The Social Contract, book iv, Chap. 2.