Democracy (politics)

“ But every one will be politically active; and instead of the stronghold of politics in a desert of ignorance, there will be that interplay of political functions, distributed among the whole body of the people, which is the real meaning of democracy. ”

“ She attends to the substance, not to the form, in politics. At various times she has successively promoted monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; and at various times she has been betrayed by each. The three fundamental forms of all government are founded on the nature of things. Sovereignty must reside with an individual, or with a minority, or with the majority. ”

“ So in like manner, if anything is done by those who have the management of public affairs where a democracy is established, their actions are to be considered as the actions of the state, as well as in the oligarchy or tyranny. ”

“ The next characteristic of democracy is payment for services; assembly, law courts, magistrates, everybody receives pay, when it is to be had; or when it is not to be had for all, then it is given to the law-courts and to the stated assemblies, to the council and to the magistrates, or at least to any of them who are compelled to have their meals together. And whereas oligarchy is characterized by birth, wealth, and education, the notes of democracy appear to be the opposite of these- low birth, poverty, mean employment. ”

“ Every citizen, it is said, must have equality, and therefore in a democracy the poor have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. ”

“ Finally, when the state becomes a democratic organisation and co-operates with the individual in all spheres of his activity, the movement for political democracy has ripened and has produced its natural social fruits. ”

“ Therefore we should rather say that democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers, and oligarchy in which the rich; ”

“ We have next to consider how far it is possible so to organise the democracy, as, without interfering materially with the characteristic benefits of democratic government, to do away with these two great evils, or at least to abate them in the utmost degree attainable by human contrivance. ”

“ "I have got so far as to lose the distinction between right and wrong. Isn't that the first step in politics?" ”

“ The State, government with its functions and powers, is now the subject of vital interest to every thinking man. Political developments in all civilized countries have brought the questions home. Shall we have a strong government? Are democracy and parliamentary government to be preferred, or is Fascism of one kind or another, dictatorship - monarchical, bourgeois or proletarian - the solution of the ills and difficulties that beset society today? ”

“ Democracy as most frequently understood is essentially and exhaustively defined as a matter of popular government; and such a definition raises at once a multitude of time-honored, but by no means superannuated, controversies. ”

“ But when the democracy is supreme, there is no One or Few strong enough for dissentient opinions and injured or menaced interests to lean upon. The great difficulty of democratic government has hitherto seemed to be, how to provide in a democratic society—what circumstances have provided hitherto in all the societies which have maintained themselves ahead of others—a social support, a point d'appui, for individual resistance to the tendencies of the ruling power; a protection, a rallying-point, for opinions and interests which the ascendant public opinion views with disfavor. ”

“ The democratic principle has implications which are not exhausted with the destruction of autocracy or aristocracy or even with the formal affirmation of popular sovereignty and the institution of a universal and equal franchise. Historically, democracy is the product, direct or indirect, of popular risings against political privilege whether vested in a person or in a class. ”

“ A democratic people would in this way be provided with what in any other way it would almost certainly miss—leaders of a higher grade of intellect and character than itself. Modern democracy would have its occasional Pericles, and its habitual group of superior and guiding minds. ”

“ Democracy likewise appeals to authority, appeals to the people, to humanity, to the masses, to civilisation, progress, historical development, and so on. But these objective authorities must themselves be furnished with foundations. ”

“ As long, then, as we can count on honesty, goodwill, and intelligence in our streets and market-places, as we can to-day, mankind does well to elect its representatives to council and Parliament and proclaim democracy—"Government of the people, by the people, for the people"—as the proper government for mankind. ”

“ Democracy—the magic ballot-box—has few worshippers any longer except in America, where men will still shout for about two hours—and indeed much longer—that she is 'great'. But our pundits will be slow to surrender the useful words 'progressive' and 'reactionary'. ”

“ How very different are our modern democracies, which include millions of people scattered over wide areas! It is only by means of representation that modern nations can make any form of democratic government possible. ”

“ But that glorious struggle in which your destinies were pledged in common with the illustrious characters of that day, has eventually proved that a system of government, now in the history of the world, a confederative representative democracy, is the best guarantee for the liberties of a great people, is now confirmed by the experience of thirty-six years. ”

“ If that is Democracy, then, I entreat you, trifle no longer with the intelligence of the people by pretending that a strict limitation of the powers of government as the indispensable safeguard of popular liberty and republican institutions is an article of your creed. ”

“ In America to-day we are confronted with two parties,—one the great multifarious, unformed mass of the people, and the other the strong, emancipated, cultured American nation, which is at work shaping the democracy. ”

“ Party or “interests” govern us with some fiction of the “consent of the governed” which we say means democracy. We have not even a conception of what democracy means. That conception is yet to be forged out of the crude ore of life. ”

“ The government of all, by all, and for all, is a Democracy. ”

“ It is these three transformations—the abandonment of the old abstract notions and the testing of democracy by its results, the expansion of its application over the entire population, and the invention and development of representative government—it is these three changes that make our democracy a new order of society, new in its problems, its menaces, its solutions. ”

“ It is in the nature of liberties and rights, abstractly considered, to be insubordinate and to conflict both one with another and, perhaps, with the common weal. If the chief purpose of a democratic political system is merely the preservation of such rights, democracy becomes an invitation to local, factional, and individual ambitions and purposes. ”

“ The Growth of Radicalism.—Two working principles have hitherto furnished the basis for political and economic organizations in such countries as the United States, Great Britain, and France. |Democracy and individualism.| Democracy, by which we mean the control of government by the whole people, acting chiefly through their representatives, has been the accepted basis of political institutions. ”

“ This is what Democracy is to me—Democracy is a belief in the faithfulness, ability and shrewd good-heartedness of crowds and their power to select great and true leaders.
The essential fundamental principle of the democratic form of government is supposed to be that more than any other form of government on the face of the earth it trusts people. ”

“ Franklin Henry Giddings, Professor of Sociology of Columbia University, differentiates between democracy as a form of government, democracy as a form of the state, and democracy as a form of society. He says: “Democracy as a form of government is the actual decision of every question of legal and executive detail, no less than of every question of right and policy, by a direct 14 popular vote.” ”

“ We believe the country has already made up its mind as to the answer, and will prove that a democracy may have as clear a conception of its interests and duties, as fixed a purpose in defending the one and fulfilling the other, a will as united and prompt, as have hitherto been supposed to characterize forms of government where the interests were more personal and the power less diffused. ”

“ It showed that government by democracy—i.e. by popular meeting, suitable enough for small and primitive societies—must degenerate into hopeless confusion in a large population; that monarchy and aristocracy which sprang from the political confusion of the people must degenerate into incapacity. A representative government was the control of a nation by persons elected by the whole nation, and the Rights of Man were the rights of all to this representation. ”

“ To put this question is to ask in effect whether democracy is in substance as well as in form a possible mode of government. To answer this question we must ask what democracy really means, and why it is the necessary basis of the Liberal idea. ”

“ Thus we shall deserve and possess the increased confidence of mankind, and enhance the credit of republican government by showing how an intelligent democracy can, unseduced by vulgar ambition, remain true to itself. ”

“ If, however, we consider the underlying conditions and forces that create the democratic type of government, and at times contradict the external forms to which the name democracy is applied, we shall find that under this name there have appeared a multitude of political types radically unlike in fact. ”

“ But when all the dangers and difficulties that beset democracy are enumerated, and all its weak spots are laid bare, we can still hold democracy to be the only suitable form of government for persons possessing free will, and the representation of the people the most satisfactory expression of democracy. ”

“ Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less. ”

“ But an analogous mistake lurks in all static forms of democracy. The bestowal and the exercise of political and civil rights are merely a method of organization, which if used in proper subordination to the ultimate democratic purpose, may achieve in action something of the authority of a popular Sovereign will. ”

“ In the new political society they realized that complete democracy which already existed in every essential principle, but which required a change in the plan of government to give it a more ample field and a fuller expression. ”

“ If, in connection with these solid foundations for a natural religion, we add the important fact, that this is a republic, in which the wish of the majority, should become the law of the mass; we shall discover that politics become the natural channel, through which the wishes of the majority are expressed; that corrupt politics, result in bad government; that pure politics, insure good government; that a wise, just government, is the greatest political benefit which can be conferred on the people governed. ”

“ It will create a knowledge of the interdependence of individuals, communities, and nations, and a genuine respect for the work of the hands and for the worker. The importance of this respect is not likely to be overestimated. Without it a true democracy cannot long exist. ”

“ The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy. ”

“ Democracy, to us, means complete personal liberty, the right to live, work and play how, when and where one chooses, in open competition, and is maintained by a process of checks and balances or trial and error. ”

“ Finally, in its broadest and deepest, most comprehensive and most interesting sense, democracy is the name for a certain general condition of society, having historic origins, springing from circumstances and the nature of things, not only involving the political doctrine of popular sovereignty but representing a cognate group of corresponding tendencies over the whole field of moral, social and even spiritual life within the democratic community.”—Lord Morley. ”

“ Is it not obvious, then, that the student who seeks for the explanation of democracy in the social and economic forces that underlie political forms must make inquiry into the conditions that have produced our democratic institutions, if he would estimate the effect of these vast changes? ”

“ With us, politics chiefly engage the attention of those who stand foremost in the community, which, indeed, arises from the freedom and peculiar excellence of our constitution, without which even the spirit of men of letters in general, and of philosophers in particular, who never directly interfere in matters of government, would languish. ”