Autocracy

“ The only point, then, in which democracy can claim to differ essentially, not only from autocracy, but from any form of oligarchy, lies not in its form of government, but in the power that is behind its government. ”

“ It is conceivable, nay probable, that an ideal autocracy could achieve more good for its country and for the world at large in a given time than the rule of the most enlightened democracy. It is certain that ideal autocracies hold sway but once in a blue moon. ”

“ We expect, as firmly as we can expect anything, that autocracy is by way of coming to grief and that democracy is waiting to come into its own, in the realized ideals of that Declaration which puzzled a belated Englishman like Ruggles, but which is as divinely postulated as the authority of kings used everywhere to be. ”

“ The old vicious cycle of empires threatened to repeat itself, the old story of the many led by the few. Always it had come, autocracy, the too great power of one man; then anarchy, the overthrow of that power by the angry mob. Out of that anarchy the gradual restoration of order by the people themselves, into democracy. And then in time again, by that steady gravitation of the strong up and the weak down, some one man who emerged from the mass and crowned himself, or was crowned. And there was autocracy again, and again the vicious circle. ”

“ Can these be outrivaled if readily duplicated in any autocracy or democracy ruled by a dictator anywhere? At the same time,{232} is it not true that, if the country is to succeed or at least progress materially, a place must be made for the selfish, self-aggrandizing individual either as leader politically or as creator? Will life go forward without some such process or opportunities for immense rewards or honors to the individual—the right to satisfy his feverish if ridiculous ambition for supremacy? Will patriotism, love of country, alone do it? ”

“ The autocracy is not equal to the problems of a modern great power, and it would be against all historical precedents to assume that it would voluntarily yield without external pressure to a constitutional form of government. ”

“ That identical thing happens in government. When you take away one or more of the four elements you have autocracy. When you add one or more to the four elements you have democracy. This accounts for the comparatively slight progress which was made toward the solution of the problems of government during all the thousands of years prior to 1788 A.D. The pendulum was swinging back and forth from the extreme of autocracy, with its attendant evils, to the extreme of democracy with its attendant evils. ”

“ And there is the further fact that habitually, in societies where an offending autocrat is from time to time removed, another autocrat is set up; the implication being that the average sentiment is of a kind which not only tolerates but desires autocracy. ”

“ Liberty, when obtained, is forthwith surrendered to an avowed autocrat; or, as we have seen within this year, it is allowed to lapse into the hands of one who claims the reality of autocracy without its title. ”

“ But behind even the great conflict between autocracy and democracy lay a yet deeper issue. In the last analysis the final question in human life is between a material and a spiritual interpretation of the universe, whether might makes right and the strong are to rule, or whether right makes might and the moral order is supreme. There is a material and a spiritual side of life. ”

“ He may be ruled by a master passion, but the rule is not a monopolistic autocracy. Its supremacy is constantly disputed and threatened by mob rebellion. Civil war is the usual rêgime, and the attainment of a stabilized government is rare. ”

“ That the efficient governor, though he need not always be a genius, must in some respects, at all events, be a great or exceptional man, is of course admitted by the advocates of autocracy, aristocracy, or oligarchy. All that requires to be shown is that it is admitted also by the thinkers who are most opposed to them—by socialists and extreme democrats. ”

“ Since democracy ever opens itself to more numbers, its authority tends in a like ratio to slide into autocracy. Therefore, the old balances and checks, the counter-weights and counter-checks, of the constitution of our fathers stand in danger of the judgment, so that, however much we prize them, we must not pin all our political faith to these. ”

“ It is not true to say that this is a war between the rival principles of democracy and autocracy. A too great absorption in our own particular sector of the situation has led certain writers to put forward, as a general explanation, this formula which is not only inadequate, but misleading. The real issue is something wider and deeper than a struggle between forms of government. It is concerned with the groundwork of human beliefs. ”

“ Autocracy presupposes inferiority of nature on the part of both ruler and subject: on the one side a cold, unsympathetic sacrificing of other’s wills to self-will; on the other side a mean, cowardly abandonment of the claims of manhood. Our very language {312} bears testimony to this. Do not dignity, independence, and other words of approbation, imply a nature at variance with this relation? ”

“ Autocracy is a government of the few from ”

“ The autocracy has been confirmed and established because it is the only institution which symbolizes and maintains the unity of the great mass, and the military and tax burdens have distorted the growth of the society to such an extent as to produce disease and weakness. ”

“ The question may fairly be asked whether we are not at a parting of the ways, when our democratic idea must [256] be more clearly defined, and we must decide whether we shall change toward autocracy; or now, at the end of our stage of primitive democracy, enter upon a plane of higher democracy. ”

“ An autocracy, if wisely administered, undoubtedly means greater order and efficiency, until the democracy has mastered its new problems and its people have become thoroughly educated. Rough working of new machinery is almost inevitable ”

“ The Allies will never destroy the idea of Communism with their guns. The Communists can never destroy the idea of kingship and capitalism with their scaffolds. Only a good idea can slay a bad one. Only by proving that there is more manliness in democracy than autocracy, and more morality in Communism than in capitalism will the one institution give way to the other. ”

“ For by this division of power the ruler rendered it impossible for himself to govern without help from others, and opened the way to a contract of compromise with the people. The influence of individuals upon the state spread, thus, to the people itself. Self-government, pure parliamentarism, is the ultimate end to be reached by the process.
We have seen that neither pleasure, nor utility, nor virtue, nor, finally, religion, can be regarded as the absolute means, but only as the relative means to the attainment of happiness. ”

“ In this act, so lightly esteemed by the mere materialist, behold the realization of that great idea struggled for in the ages and proclaimed by the Fathers, the right of self-government. That little piece of paper dropped into a box is the symbol of equality, of citizenship, of wealth, of virtue, education, self-protection, dignity, independence and power—the mightiest engine yet placed in the hand of man for the uprooting of ignorance, tyranny, superstition, the overturning of thrones, altars, kings, popes, despotisms, monarchies and empires. ”

“ What assurance can you give the people, sir, that under your rule they will have more freedom for self-government, more opportunities for self-advancement and prosperity and happiness than they have at present? ”

“ They imagined they could see the distant gleam of self-government. Others again, with a less imaginative nature, thought that even if self-government was still a far-off dream, they might yet see better days. ”

“ The people, not privileged orders, are to draw eminent qualities from eminent men. How? By election and responsibility, or by rejecting the government of authority, and exercising self government. A monarchy made out of Aristotle, as girls make a peacock by patching together shreds of silk, in the face of his unequivocal preference of a popular government for an agricultural people, would be a perfect emblem of authority. ”

“ To talk of glorious self-government, of suffrages and hustings, and the fight of freedom and such like, is a vain thing in your case. By all human definitions and conceptions of the said fight of freedom, you for your part have lost it, and can fight no more. Glorious self-government is a glory not for you, not for Hodge's emancipated horses, nor you. ”

“ Is it better to be a subject and a man, or a citizen and a flunkey—to own the sway of a "gory tyrant" and retain one's self-respect, or dwell, a "sovereign elector," in the land of liberty and disgrace it? ”

“ A people having experienced the happy effects of the wisdom or the valour of particular men, might be led to trust them with unlimited power as their rulers and legislators. But they would soon find reason to repent: And the time, I hope, may come, when mankind in general, taught by long and dear experience, and weary of the abuses of power under slavish governments, will learn to detest them, and never to give up that Self-Government, which, whether we consider men in their private or collective capacities, is the first of all the blessings they can possess. ”

“ Can any such solid foundation for government be found in a self-governing community? In other words, can the people govern themselves for their own weal, and maintain institutions solely by the force of their own will, which shall accomplish the purposes of good government, and for ever secure the approval of all wise and virtuous citizens? If nay, then, royalty and aristocracy being repudiated, whither shall we fly for refuge and hope? ”

“ They fawned upon the people till they became possessed of the power they coveted, and then endeavoured to exert a more absolute authority than had ever been exhibited by the government they superseded. Self was the great object of all their exertions, and to selfish ends their fine speeches and liberal promises always tended. They had no care for the multitude except as steps for [146] their own advancement. ”

“ Self-government is a beautiful subject for oratorical declamation. If the fact corresponded to the theory and if the possession of a vote produced the elevating effects upon the character which are so noisily insisted upon, it would be the welcome panacea for political and social disorder. ”

“ Is an act of its own will sufficient for it in order to employ to its own liking under all circumstances, as it shall understand them, the power that has been confided to it? Government must have been thus exercised in early society, and in the infancy of the art of governing. But the power, exercised by men, may go astray in different ways, either through weakness or through excess of force. ”

“ Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the [p. 384] tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers, who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the free men who compose it. ”

“ Sir, whenever political life is regulated by constitutional forms, and by that infinite ramification of power, called self-government there can be no uniformity and regularity of movements, like that of a clock. ”

“ So would you avenge an insult to a shadow, while you allow the substance to be stolen from your grasp. Our jewel, as freemen, is the right of self-government; the form of government is a mere convenience—a machine, which may be dismembered, destroyed, remodelled a thousand times, without detriment to the great principle of which it is the outward sign. ”

“ I should not be dealing sincerely with you if I did not express my own opinion that this tendency carries with it dangers even more serious than those of the opposite exaggerations of a past century: dangers to character by sapping the spirit of self-reliance and independence; dangers to liberty by accustoming men to the constant interference of authority, and abridging in innumerable ways the freedom of action and choice. ”

“ If man in power, for the supposed benefit of the man out of power, does so, it is merely the result of policy, or passion, or human prejudice, or selfishness; and no man that ever lived, from the Pope of Rome to the backwood preacher, and from the preacher to the ethical moralist, has had that right inherent in his particular nature, to tax as a royalty the patent of the human mind to the grand prerogative of thought. ”

“ I stand firmly, immovably upon those great principles of self-government and state sovereignty upon which the campaign was fought and the election won.... If, standing firmly by my principles, I shall be driven into private life, it is a fate that has no terrors for me. ”

“ We stand, the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last, experiment of self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. ”

“ If the principle were predicated of one individual alone, the assertion of his sovereignty, or, in other words, of his absolute right to do as he pleases, or to pursue his own happiness in his own way, would be, confessedly, to invest him with the attributes of despotism over others. ”

“ It was once fashionable--and that not a very long time ago--to speak of political society with a certain distaste, as a necessary evil, an irritating but inevitable restriction upon the "natural" sovereignty and entire self-government of the individual. ”

“ Now, it is clear that the very absence of any powerful authority amongst us, and the prevalent doctrine of the duty and happiness of doing as one likes, and asserting our personal liberty, must tend to prevent the erection of any very strict standard of excellence, the belief in any very paramount authority of right reason, the recognition of our best self as anything very recondite and hard to come at. ”