Democratization

“ They go to the form and substance of government, not to its policy, as in America, where every party cry, radical or conservative, is attuned to the music of a republican federation, and which is the sine qua non to all political conclusions. How can a nation progress until its people have chosen, or are competent to choose, a stable form of government, and are satisfied with certain organic political principles? ”

“ Whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, there has always been something in this country round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the majesty of the law, the administration of justice, and involving, at the same time, the security for every man's rights and the fountain of honour. Now, gentlemen, it is well clearly to comprehend what is meant by a country not having a revolution for two centuries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With us, government is not the prerogative of the Crown, or of a few families; or of men of rank or wealth. It is not despotic, or aristocratic, or plutocratic, but democratic—that is to say, it is in the hands of the people, or of those of the people to whom it has been entrusted, and who form a large proportion of the male inhabitants of the country; on them devolves the making of the laws by which the country is governed. They are bound to do their best to see that these laws are what they should be—equitable and righteous, and for the interest of the whole community. ”

“ But though we may be proud of these conquests, we are compelled in the last analysis of our institutions, to return to a few fundamental notions of our government. We must continue the representative idea based upon the doctrine of the equality of rights and exercised by representative assemblies founded on popular elections; and after our most pleasing contemplation of the institutions of America, we must return to the people, the foundation of our government. Their wisdom and self-control, and these alone, will impart to our institutions that strength which insures their perpetuity. ”

“ 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? ”

“ We must create a power which will be recognised by the whole democracy. If the Congress wishes to be the voice of the revolutionary democracy it must not sit with folded hands before the developing civil war, the result of which may be a dangerous outburst of counter-revolution.... ”

“ The effects, therefore, of a democracy are, first to raise an inordinate ambition among the people, and then to cramp the very ambition which it has raised; and, as I may comment upon hereafter, it appears as if this ambition of the people, individually checked by the nature of their institutions, becomes, as it were, concentrated and collected into a focus in upholding and contemplating the success and increase of power in the federal government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is our business to lay down certain principles and propositions of policy, and we have to present to the suffrage of the people, men for the highest offices of the Republic, who, if elected, are to carry those principles and propositions into a living reality. ”

“ Have we, however, as yet produced political methods under democratic-republican government which afford us any guarantees that fit persons alone will obtain power? It is very certain that we have not done this. We do not fear for the stability of the civil organization. ”

“ And you still call yourselves Democrats, and claim the confidence of the people by your fidelity to the great principle that popular liberty and free institutions must be secured by a strict limitation of the powers of government! ”

“ A new man with a new political method had entered the arena and had boldly offered an election bill which, if passed and enforced, would create a State-wide revolution, for it would rob the people of local self-government and centralize power in the hands of a triumvirate that would be the creature of his government and, under the control of no court or jury, the supreme master of the State and absolute master of the people. ”

“ In general, every change in the constitution of a free State makes it more democratic; every [Pg 238] change in local law is for democracy, not against it. We have broken with the old feudal tradition,—broken forever with that. ”

“ If the balance incline towards a more liberal form of government, towards democratic institutions, and therefore towards self-government, and the participation of the many rather than of the few in the affairs of the State, I am not to blame, nor is it my ordinance, but that of History and of Providence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And they may make a part in a constitution of government more lasting than any of those in which the people, possessing or pretending to the entire legislature, are, when assembled, the tyrants, and, when dispersed, the slaves of a distempered state. In governments properly mixed, the popular interest, finding a counterpoise in that of the prince or of the nobles, a balance is actually established between them, in which the public freedom and the public order are made to consist. ”

“ All constitutional governments, of whatever class they may be, take the sense of the community by its parts — each through its appropriate organ; and regard the sense of all its parts, as the sense of the whole. They all rest on the right of suffrage, and the responsibility of rulers, directly or indirectly. On the contrary, all absolute governments, of whatever form, concentrate power in one uncontrolled and irresponsible individual or body, whose will is regarded as the sense of the community. ”

“ Again, among a people who had deviated less from a state of nature, and between whose fortune or talents there was less disproportion, the supreme administration was retained in common, and a democracy was formed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It should seem a natural deduction, that whatever has a tendency to identify the two must also in the same degree promote the general welfare. As the magnitude of almost all States prevents the possibility of their enjoying a pure democracy, philosophers—from a wish, as far as is in their power, to make the governors and the governed one—will turn their thoughts to the system of universal representation, and will annex an equal importance to the suffrage of every individual. ”

“ Open to all men equally, within the limits of prudence, the avenue to political influence, and let them use, as they can and will, in combined or isolated action, the opportunities thus liberally bestowed. That is the key-note of the policy which I have consistently adopted from my entrance into public life, and which I am prepared to prosecute to the end, though that end should be the universal suffrage so dreaded by the last speaker. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Liberal declares that human beings exist before the State, and control it, that their opinion determines in what way the State, like the Church, the industrial system, and the home, shall be constructed, that opinion varies in different countries and in different ages, and will at one time and in one place acquiesce in despotism and at another time and in another place require adult suffrage, but that always, first and last, the subjects are masters of the State. ”

“ But if unwise counsels prevail-if we become divided-if schisms arise-if dissensions spring up-if factions are engendered-if party spirit, nourished by unholy personal ambition shall rear its hydra head, I have no good to prophesy for you. Without intelligence, virtue, integrity, and patriotism on the part of the people, no republic or representative government can be durable or stable. ”

“ With us the governing class is always saying to itself, "What laws shall we make?" In a purely democratic state it would be always saying, "What laws can we obey?" A purely democratic state perhaps there has never been. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Where the whole machinery of government is capable of being changed or modified by the will of the people while the written constitution remains, and where hereditary and territorial differences of opinion exist on very important subjects, is not surprising that party spirit should run very high. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Office-seekers are full of tricks and intrigues of every kind to get an office, and then the people may—and be damned.
The progress of revolution is quite considerable in every government of the world. But is the revolution for the constitutional rights of the people in progress? ”

“ If the voters of the party were in truth the source of authority within the party, then a means had to be devised of ascertaining their will. The democratic principle, in short, had to be applied to party. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ But the Democratic party should be the last to do so, if it is to deserve the name it bears; for civil service reform is, in its field, the perfect realization of the true democratic principle.
The truest definition of democratic government is furnished by Abraham Lincoln's famous saying that it is “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people”: of the people, for the people constitute the sovereignty from which it springs; by the people, for the people through their chosen representatives and servants conduct it ”

“ The people were to guide their leaders, not their leaders the people; and any intellectual or moral independence and initiative on the part of the leaders in a democracy was to be condemned as undemocratic. ”

“ The people will, if the Democratic leaders do not, appreciate the greatness and beneficence of the idea upon which the new order of things, the settlement we propose, rests—true and general self-government exercised in and through the States ”

“ Does it mean that they must be open only to those who have influence themselves, or who have the influence of powerful politicians behind them? No; according to true democratic principle it means that the offices must be open to all citizens according to their fitness to fill them; that they must be most open to those who are most fit to fill them; that free and equal opportunity must be furnished to all for showing who are the most fit, whether they be rich or poor, politicians or no politicians, backed by influence or not backed. ”

“ For this reason, the true ends of democracy are not achieved by state socialism or by any system which places great power in the hands of men subject to no popular control except that which is more or less indirectly exercised through parliament. ”