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 IVIAR 16 1893 
 
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DEMOCRATIC GOYERMENT 
 
 A STUD T OF POLITICS 
 
 BT 
 
 ALBERT STICKNEY 
 
 ^E 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 1885 
 

 bobit> 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by 
 
 ALBERT STICKNEY, 
 
 la the OfQce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 AU right$ rttcrved. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Intkoductory 1 
 
 chapter i. 
 Definition op Democratic Goternment 11 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 Principles of Democratic Government 22 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 Wherein our Government is not Democratic . . 125 
 
 CHAPTER rv. 
 Form of a Democratic Governtient 133 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 "Working op a Democratic Government .... 137 
 
 chapter vi. 
 How TO Make our Government Democratic . . . 150 
 
 Conclusion 160 
 
VEKSITY 
 
 DEMOCEATIC GOYERNMENT. 
 
 INTBODUGTORT, 
 
 The cliief immediate purpose in writing this 
 book is to convince its reader that the most press- 
 ing present political need of the people of the 
 United States is the calling of a National Consti- 
 tutional Convention, in accordance with the pro- 
 visions of our national Constitution, to consider 
 the question of constitutional amendment. 
 
 What amendments shall be made, after that 
 convention shall be called, is a question on which 
 individuals will differ. On that question I shall 
 develop with some detail my individual opinions. 
 But it will not be necessary for the reader to agree 
 with me as to every detail, or even as to the gen- 
 eral features, of the scheme of constitutional re- 
 organization which is here presented. It will be 
 sufficient for my immediate purpose if he shall be 
 convinced that we must have constitutional re- 
 organization of some kind, and that, to that end, 
 
 1 
 
2 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 it is necessary that the people of these United 
 States should again assemble in its I^ational Con- 
 stitutional Convention. 
 
 Such a convention is, to my mind, the only 
 means by which we can take the next step in the 
 great work in which this people is engaged, the 
 development of democratic government. For the 
 last one hundred years we have been engaged in 
 a great political experiment. The territory of the 
 United States has been a great political laboratory. 
 "We have been making the world's first experiment, 
 on a large scale, in democratic government. Before 
 our time, single cities and single small districts had 
 made rough rudimentary attempts in fashioning 
 governments that have been called democratic. 
 There have been, too, in the governments of some 
 great nations other than our own, some single 
 democratic features. But under our national con- 
 stitution of 1787, for the first time in the world's 
 history, so far as I am aware, the experiment has 
 been made of a single government, for a great 
 nation, which was, in its fundamental principles 
 and in the purpose of its founders, intended to be 
 thoroughly democratic. 
 
 The experiment has been a great success. The 
 results have not been in all respects w^liat im- 
 patient men might have wished. But the outlook 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 is full of promise. The growth of democratic 
 government is not yet a finished growth. But 
 the framers of our national constitution had no 
 idea that their work was done for all time. The 
 most sanguine among them expected no great suc- 
 cess from the scheme of government which they 
 had devised. The greater number of them looked 
 forward to the coming years with fear and fore- 
 boding. George Mason of Virginia wrote : " This 
 " government will commence in a moderate aris- 
 "tocracy; it is at present impossible to foresee 
 " whether it will, in its operation, produce a mon- 
 " archy, or a corrupt, oppressive aristocracy ; it 
 " will most probably vibrate some years between 
 " the two, and then terminate in the one or the 
 " other." That is only a fair specimen of the feel- 
 ings with which the beginning of our experiment 
 was watched by a large number of the ablest men 
 in the country. Events have shown that fears of 
 that nature were groundless. There never was 
 any real danger of a corrupt aristocracy, or of a 
 monarchy. Experience has shown that when any 
 people once reaches such a degree of intelligence 
 that it thinks for itself, when it once determines to 
 ask the control of its own public affairs, it will, in 
 the end, unless overpowered by superior external 
 forces, get that control. Experience shows that a 
 
4 DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 tliinking free people can live througli many po- 
 litical mistakes, and eudm'e many great political 
 trials. Actual events have shown that there was 
 no real danger to the liberties of the people from 
 the establishment of a single powerful national 
 government. We have found that it is as possible, 
 and as necessary, to have one strong government 
 for the nation, as for a single village, or town, or 
 city, or state. We have demonstrated, for all time, 
 the fact that a stable, vigorous government for a 
 great people can be framed on democratic prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 But we must go on with the experiment. We 
 must continue the growth. We must enter on its 
 next stage. 
 
 I am a believer in democratic government, not 
 from any vague faith in sounding and glittering 
 generalities ; not only from a conviction that dem- 
 ocratic government rests on the broad principles 
 of giving justice and equal rights under the law 
 to all men ; but also from the conviction that 
 it is, for the obtaining mere practical results, for 
 the efficient administration of public affairs, the 
 best government in all respects that can now be 
 devised. Many men among the believers in demo- 
 cratic institutions are willing to concede, that other 
 political systems may be superior to a democracy 
 
INTEODUCTOEY. 5 
 
 in certain single points. Tliey are willing to con- 
 cede, that a despotism may give greater vigor of 
 administration, that a limited constitutional mon- 
 archy, as it is termed, may give a wiser and more 
 stable general policy. Few men hold the opinion 
 that a democratic government is, in all respects, 
 the best of all political systems. 
 
 My individual belief is, however, that a demo- 
 cratic government, if it really deserve the name, 
 will be, in all respects, the best political system 
 that can be devised, for any people that has 
 reached that stage of political growth where it 
 demands for itself the control of its own public 
 affairs. "We may safely assume that no people will 
 ever get that control until it shall make that de- 
 mand. "When, however, any people has once 
 become a thinking people, when it has once de- 
 cided that it will not submit its will to the will of 
 any one man or class of men, then, in my belief, 
 a democratic government is, in all respects, the best 
 government under which that people can live. 
 Then, in my belief, a democratic government, if it 
 deserve the name, will give to that people a wiser, 
 more flexible, and more stable public policy, a 
 more honest and vigorous administration of public 
 affairs, than any other political system. The hand 
 of the people is a mightier hand, the will of the 
 
6 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 people is a stronger will, the judgment of the 
 people is a wiser judgment, than the hand, or the 
 will, or the judgment, of any one man, or class of 
 men. 
 
 But it must be a government that is really demo- 
 cratic ; a government that is democratic, not merely 
 in form and on paper, but in its essence, and its 
 practical working. Any government that deserves 
 the name of democratic must give to the citizen 
 something more than the right to deposit in a box, 
 once in each year, a printed list of names, placed 
 in his hands by one or another set of professional 
 politicians. The citizen must have real power, he 
 must have a real voice, in the selection of public 
 men, and public measures. 
 
 Any system of government that deserves the 
 name of democratic must give to the people, too, 
 something more than the right of periodical revo- 
 lution, something more than the power of turning 
 out one set of professional politicians, and putting 
 in another, once in one, two, four, or ten years. 
 Democratic government must be something more 
 than a great election mill, with its upper and nether 
 millstones, even if the people is to have the great 
 political privilege once in four years of making 
 the upper and nether millstones change places. 
 Not the least important of the facts that have been 
 
rNTEODUCTORY. 7 
 
 established by our political experience is the one 
 great fact, that democratic government does not 
 consist merely in allowing the individual citizen 
 the nominal right, under the law, of voting, at 
 frequent elections, for large numbers of public 
 officials. There may be such a thing as an over 
 use, or a mis-use, of the process of popular election. 
 It is a possible thing, that a people may have too 
 much election work, tliat a people may do so much 
 electing that it can do little or nothing else. It is 
 possible, that the work of carrying elections may 
 become so great and so intricate, as to develop a 
 class of professional electioneering agents, who will 
 virtually disfranchise the ordinary citizen. 
 
 Moreover, any government that deserves the 
 name of democratic must provide some simple and 
 easy process, whereby the people can form and 
 utter its will and judgment. It must so organize 
 the body politic, that the people shall be able to 
 select, freely, the men of its own deliberate choice, 
 for the highest places in the state. It must secure 
 to those men time and opportunity to get skill and 
 training in public affairs. It must keep them 
 thoroughly under the control, not of professional 
 politicians, but of the people. It must secure a 
 wise, stable public policy, and a vigorous adminis- 
 tration of that policy. It must be government, of 
 
8 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 the people, by the people, for the people — not a 
 tyranny, of the people, by the election machine, 
 for the election machine. 
 
 But such a result we can never have under our 
 present political system, if it is to be called a 
 system. If this seething political cauldron of ours 
 were really democratic government, I, for one, 
 should have great doubts as to our political future. 
 Most thinking men will now agree, that, whatever 
 may be the reason, our public affairs are not ad- 
 ministered, in all respects, in full accordance with 
 the will of the people. It is the will of the people, 
 that public affairs should be administered wuth 
 honesty, efficiency, and wisdom. It is the will of 
 the people, that the administration of public affairs 
 should be in the hands of their best men. But as 
 our political affairs are now ordered, or disordered, 
 we do not get those results. For some reason, the 
 people is practically powerless in carrying out its 
 wishes. We turn and struggle. But we do not 
 accomplish substantial or lasting improvement. 
 We do not get the public officers, or the public 
 measures, for which we strive. 
 
 "What is the reason ? 
 
 The reason is that our government is not really 
 democratic. It has some democratic features. 
 But it is not such a system as secures to either 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 the citizen, or the people, real political freedom. 
 "Nor does it secure the supremacy of the people's 
 will and judgment. 
 
 Let lis realize the truth. The men of 1Y87 
 "were remarkable men. That Constitutional Con- 
 vention did a great work. It framed a National 
 Constitution under which, with no substantial 
 change, we have grown to be a great nation. But 
 it has now developed features, good and bad, that 
 its framers never foresaw, the possibility of which 
 no man then imagined. 
 
 The necessity of a thorough reorganization of 
 our whole political system, if we are to secure a 
 wise, honest, and efficient administration of public 
 affairs, is a thing of which I hope to convince 
 my reader. That I shall convince one single 
 person that the particular scheme of reorganiza- 
 tion here set forth is, in all its points, the one to 
 be adopted, I have no great expectation. What 
 I have here written is only the contribution of 
 one individual to the people's thought, on the 
 people's great problem — the development of dem- 
 ocratic government. The problem can be worked 
 out only by the simple, natural process, always 
 used by this American people, and by every think- 
 ing people, the bringing together of many minds, 
 for common deliberation, in the popular conven- 
 
10 DEMOCKATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 tion, wliere the people can hear all sides of all 
 questions, can think, and form its common judg- 
 ment. What I hope to establish in this political 
 study is that the meeting of the people in its 
 national convention is now a pressing need. 
 
 Merely, therefore, as an individual contribu- 
 tion to public political discussion, merely for the 
 purpose of showing that constitutional reorgan- 
 ization of some kind is needed, that there is some- 
 thing on which the people needs to think, and 
 act — I have written this book. 
 
 In it I propose to consider — 
 
 I. The Definition of Democratic Government. 
 
 II. The Principles of Democratic Government. 
 
 III. Wherein our Government is not Demo- 
 cratic. 
 
 lY. The Form of a Democratic Government. 
 
 V. The Working of a Democratic Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 YI. How our Government is to be Made 
 Democratic. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 THE DEFINITION OF A DEMOCKATIC GOVEEN^IENT. 
 
 "What is a democratic government ? 
 
 Before attempting to answer this question, it 
 will be well to begin with some political defini- 
 tions, and political axioms. 
 
 " A people," as I define the term, is any collec- 
 tion of individuals, it may be at the same time 
 of smaller peoples, w4io have in some way grown 
 to have common public interests, and a common 
 public life. Every people, taken by itself, may 
 be considered as a complete political organism ; it 
 may contain within itself many smaller peoples; 
 at the same time it and its citizens may be part of 
 a larger people. It may be an organism of the 
 simplest form, as the people of a village or small 
 town, composed of only individuals and families, 
 comprising within itself no smaller political or- 
 ganism. Or it may be an organism of more com- 
 plex form, composed not merely of individuals 
 and families, but of smaller peoples — as the peo- 
 ple of one of our large cities, or counties, or states, 
 
12 DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 or of a great nation. In the scale of political or- 
 ganisms, the individual may be considered, as it 
 were, the single cell ; and each people, with its 
 different organs and members is a distinct body 
 politic. As many individuals combine to form 
 the small people of a village, town, or city, so 
 many individuals and smaller peoples may com- 
 bine, almost without limit, to form one greater peo- 
 ple, a nation. 
 
 Every people, whether it be the people of a vil- 
 lage, a town, a city, a state, or a great nation, has 
 its own public affairs, in which all its different 
 members have a common interest, and as to which 
 there must be some kind of common administra- 
 tion. The administration of justice, popular edu- 
 cation, the protection of the community against 
 crime and pauperism, the construction and regula- 
 tion of the public highways of thought and matter, 
 are, as most reasonable men will agree, public affairs. 
 Public affairs differ, with different peoples at the 
 same time, and at different times with the same peo- 
 ple. For instance, drainage, the supply of water, 
 light, and air, the public health, in thinly populated 
 rural districts may be often safely left to the pri- 
 vate management of individuals. When, how- 
 ever, population becomes more dense, as in the 
 larger towns and cities, the safety of each Individ- 
 
DEFINITION. 13 
 
 ual requires that those matters be put under a 
 common public control; in other words, those 
 matters then become properly public affairs. As 
 to what particular matters are, at any one time, 
 and with any one people, properly public affairs, 
 individuals will always differ. That there are, 
 with all peoples, and at all times, public affairs, 
 thinking men will agree. Each people, too, the 
 people of each village, town, city, county, state, 
 and nation, has its own public affairs, which 
 chiefly concern itself, and which should have, as a 
 rule, a distinct, independent administration. 
 
 Each people, for the administration of its own 
 public affairs, must have a government. By this 
 term "government" I mean a special body of 
 men, selected in some way, organized in some 
 way, controlled in some way, who shall be spe- 
 cially charged with the actual administration of 
 public affairs. The phrase "government by the 
 people," taken in its broadest sense, does not mean 
 that all the individuals, who taken together make 
 up a people, are indiscriminately to have a hand 
 in the actual administration of that people's pub- 
 lic affairs. It means, at most, that each individual 
 is to have one voice, in the selection and control 
 of the body of men who are specially charged 
 with that administration.^JljLea iijtiie smallest 
 
 UNIVEESITT 
 
14 DEMOCEATIC GOYEENMENT. 
 
 village, if public work is to be well done, it must 
 be in the hands of some one man, or body of men, 
 specially selected for the doing of that work. In 
 other words, every people must have a "govern- 
 ment." 
 
 The common idea of a "democratic" govern- 
 ment has generally rested on features of form 
 rather than substance. In times past* a govern- 
 ment has generally been called "democratic," if 
 only every man had the right, under the letter of 
 the law, to cast a ballot, at short intervals of time, 
 for a considerable number of public officials. The 
 so-called democratic governments thus far framed 
 have generally come into existence as the reac- 
 tionary results of a revolution against the evils of 
 some hereditary system. At one time and an- 
 other in the history of the world, peoples who 
 have suffered from the tyranny of hereditary kings 
 have hastily assumed that if they had, under the 
 letter of the law, the right to select their chief 
 public servants, for short periods of service, by 
 popular vote, they thereby secured a democratic 
 government. They have regarded form, and not 
 substance ; the letter of the law, and not its actual 
 working results. 
 
 Actual working results must constitute the 
 standard by which we are to decide whether any 
 
DEFnOTION. 15 
 
 system of government is or is not truly democrat- 
 ic. It is not enough that the letter of the law 
 gives the citizen the right to cast a ballot, if, in 
 practice, the ballot is prepared for him by profes- 
 sional politicians. It is not enough that the peo- 
 ple should have the possibility, at fixed periods of 
 time, of changing the body of professional politi- 
 cians who manage its so-called popular elections, 
 l^or is a government made democratic by a de- 
 claratory resolution that all men are born free and 
 equal. Actual working results must be the test. 
 
 A democratic government, then, as I shall define 
 the term, is that political system which will best 
 tend to secure, as far as any political system can, 
 the following working results : 
 
 I. It must secure the most free and healthy po- 
 litical action of each individuah 
 
 That means, it must secure, as to each individual 
 man, on every public question — 
 
 1. His one free voice. 
 
 One voice to every man, on every public ques- 
 tion, is, as I believe, a point imperatively demand- 
 ed by the highest interests of every highly devel- 
 oped societ3\ 
 
 But the voice must be free. 
 
 2. His full weight. 
 
16 DEMOCKATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 Men must be weighed as well as counted. All 
 men are not equal. They differ greatly, in honest}^, 
 in natural capacity, in training. The able and 
 honest men ought to have more weight in the 
 decision of public questions than the ignorant 
 and dishonest. Each man. must have his full 
 weight. 
 
 3. His wisest action. 
 
 Individuals often act hastily, on insufficient in- 
 formation, and in passion. A political system 
 which is to be a working success should not only 
 give each man a voice in public affairs, but it must 
 educate him. It must secure the wisest action of 
 which the individual is capable. 
 
 As to the individual, then, a democratic govern- 
 ment must secure three things — his one free voice, 
 his full weight, and his wisest action. 
 
 II. It must secure the most free and healthy 
 political action of each people. 
 
 That means, it must secure, as to each people — 
 
 1. Freedom. 
 
 Freedom of political action, for peoples, as well 
 as individuals, is the first essential to a healthy po- 
 litical life. Every people that is to take political 
 action, as to either measures or men, must be so 
 organized, that it can form and utter its own 
 
DEFINITION". 17 
 
 judgment and will. And in forming and utter- 
 ing its judgment and will it must have free- 
 dom. 
 
 2. Its wisest action. 
 
 Peoples as well as individuals have feelings. 
 Their feelings must be subordinated to their judg- 
 ments. Those judgments will not always be wise. 
 But a democratic system of government must se- 
 cure from each people the wisest judgment of 
 which that people is capable. 
 
 3. The will of each people in the administration 
 of its own public affairs, must be supreme. 
 
 Peoples, as well as individuals, will at times act 
 unwisely. They will have to bear the penalties 
 which unwise action will, in the natural course of 
 events, bring upon them. But, if their political 
 organization is such as to allow them to think, and 
 to use their own best judgment, their public ac- 
 tion on their own public affairs will be, in general, 
 wiser than the action of any outside authority. 
 We must take our chance of having at times un- 
 wise action even at the hands of a people. But, 
 with peoples, as with individuals, self-government 
 is, in the long run, the only government that will 
 give good results. 
 
 As to peoples, then, a democratic government 
 must secure, for each people, its free action, its wis- 
 2 
 
18 DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 est action, and the supremacy of its own will in 
 the aduainistration of its own public affairs. 
 
 III. It must be the best government. 
 
 That is, it must make each people, the people of 
 each town, city, state, and of the whole nation, 
 one vigorous healthy working body for the doing 
 its own public work, having its own organs and 
 members — especially having its own] brain. It 
 must enable each people to manage its^wn public 
 affairs, with the least possible waste of its strength, 
 in accordance with its own wisest judgment. 
 
 To those ends the system must be so constitufed 
 as to secure, for each single people — 
 
 1. The best organization. 
 
 Organization, that is to say, the distribution of 
 functions, the division of labor, among the differ- 
 ent organs and members of the body politic, is the 
 first essential to a wise, honest, and efficient admin- 
 istration of public affairs, and a healthy political 
 life. With all bodies of men, great or small, if 
 work of any kind is to be done quickly and w^ell, 
 there must be organization. Without organiza- 
 tion, the best men can do little. With organiza- 
 tion, comparatively inferior men can do much. 
 The first requisite, then, in framing a successful, 
 practical, political system is to secure for each 
 
DEFmrnoN. 19 
 
 body politic, for each people, the best organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 2. The best selection of individuals for its dif- 
 ferent organs and members. 
 
 We must not only have the different duties in 
 the state rightly distributed, but we must secure 
 the selection of the right individuals for the per- 
 formance of those different duties. The right 
 man in the right place is a maxim in politics, as in 
 all other human affairs. For administration, we 
 must have able administrators. For legislation, 
 and the decision of questions of general public pol- 
 icy, we must have wise counsellors. Thronghout 
 the whole government, we must have fit men — 
 that is, each man must be, as far as may be, fit for 
 his special work. 
 
 Especially is tliis true as to the men at the head 
 of each people's public service. All organizations 
 of men depend for their working success mainly 
 on the men at the head. Able and honest subor- 
 dinates, of themselves, are of comparatively little 
 value. If we have able, honest, and experienced 
 men at the head of the public service, they will 
 see to it that we have good subordinates. If the 
 men at the head are not fit for their work, it mat- 
 ters little who the subordinates may be. 
 
 3. The best securities for the harmonious effi- 
 
20 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 cient working, of each body politic, and its differ- 
 ent organs and members. 
 
 Throngliout each body politic each organ and 
 member must be made to do well its own work, 
 and the different organs and members must all 
 work well together. Efficiency of each part, and 
 the harmonious co-operation of all the parts, are 
 essential to the accomplishing of results, with a 
 people, as with any smaller organization of human 
 beings. 
 
 A system of government, then, which is to be 
 called democratic, must give, as to each people or 
 body politic, the best organization of the body 
 politic, the best selection of individuals for its dif- 
 ferent organs and members, and the best securities 
 for the healthy action of each organ and member, 
 and of the whole body. 
 
 If, now, any political system can be devised, 
 that will secure, as to each individual, his one free 
 voice, his full weight, and his wisest action, on ev- 
 ery public question — as to each people, the suprem- 
 acy in its own public affaii-s of its own will and 
 wisest judgment — if at the same time the system 
 will give to each people, or body politic, the best 
 organization, the best selection of its different or- 
 gans and members, and the best securities for the 
 healthy vigorous action of all those organs and 
 
DEFINrnON. 21 
 
 members and of the whole body, such a system 
 we might safely call a system of Democratic Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Eut does human experience, thus far, give us 
 any light as to the principles on which such a sys- 
 tem should be framed ? 
 
 That is the question next to be considered. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 THE PEINCIPLES OF DEMOCEATIO GOVEENMENT. 
 
 The political experience of the human race, and 
 especially of the people of these United States, has 
 now established, as it seems to me, the soundness 
 of certain principles of democratic government. 
 
 These principles may be classified into princi- 
 ples relating to — 
 
 A. The Oegan of the People's Will. 
 
 B. The Oegaotzation of the Goyeenment. 
 
 C. The Selection of its Oegans and Membees. 
 
 D. Its Secltiities. 
 
 The principles will be considered in the order 
 here given. 
 
 We are first to consider the principles which re- 
 late to 
 
 A. The Oegan of the People's Will. 
 
 How is a people to think, and form its judgment? 
 How is a people to form and utter its will ? 
 
 For it will be found that the political action of 
 any people must necessarily be limited to the 
 
PEINCIPLES. 23 
 
 forming its judgment, and uttering its will. Ac- 
 tion, the carrying that will into effect, a people 
 must always intrust to its hand, to single men, spe- 
 cially selected, by the people, for administration. 
 
 The principles relating to the forming of a peo- 
 ple's judgment and will, to such political action 
 as can ever be taken by a people, are as follows : 
 
 PEINCIPLE I.— The Public Meeting is tlie Organ of a People's 
 Thought and Will. 
 
 The meaning of this principle is this : 
 Every people that is to take common action, as 
 to either men or measures, must meet in one body, 
 and act as one body, in the persons, either of its 
 own individual citizens, or of their elected repre- 
 sentatives. If the numbers of the people be not 
 too large, its individual citizens must all meet and 
 act in one body. That would be the case with the 
 small peoples, which have a population of not more 
 than twenty-five hundred or thereabouts, which 
 would make the number of voting citizens about 
 Rve hundred. If, however, the numbers of a peo- 
 ple be too large to allow its individual citizens all 
 to meet and act in one body in their own persons, 
 then they must meet and act in the persons of 
 their elected representatives ; and, in the election 
 of those representatives, the individual citizens in 
 
24 DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the small primary districts must meet and act in 
 one body, at the time, and in the act, of electing 
 the representatives. At each stage of a people's 
 action, from the primary action by the individual 
 citizens, in the primary districts, to the final action 
 by the representative body which is to meet and 
 act for the whole people, the organ used for any 
 action by a people, must be the popular assembly. 
 This principle, especially in its application to 
 the process of popular election, to popular action 
 in the selection of men, I believe to be essential 
 to the existence of tnie democratic government. 
 As to action on measures, the soundness of the 
 principle is, in practice, generally conceded. Pop- 
 ular action on measures, most men will agree, must 
 be taken in a public meeting, of only a reasonably 
 large number of men, where discussion can be had, 
 where principles and details can be carefully con- 
 sidered, where new measures can be brought for- 
 ward, and amended, at the time when action is to 
 be taken. But the principle is equally sound as 
 to action on men. And it is as to action on men, 
 that the principle has its chief practical impor- 
 tance. For the functions of the individual citizen, 
 and the direct action of the people, under any sys- 
 tem of democratic government that can possibly 
 be framed, are mainly limited to the selection of 
 
PEINCIPLES. 25 
 
 men, by the process of popular election. If, then, 
 the principle has any value at all, its chief value 
 is to be found in its application to the process of 
 popular election. 
 
 The consideration of the principle will be easier, 
 if we first take an illustration of what would be 
 its working in this process of popular election. 
 Take first the case of the election of the public 
 officers of a village or small town, with a popula- 
 tion of about two thousand, which would give 
 about four hundred voting citizens. The individ- 
 ual citizens would meet in their own persons, and 
 vote directly for the officials to be chosen. Take 
 the case of a large city, with a population of half a 
 million, which would mean about one hundred 
 thousand voting citizens. If the city were divided 
 into primary election districts of two hundred and 
 fifty voters each, there would be four hundred pri- 
 mary districts. The citizens in each primary district 
 would meet in one body, and elect their one repre- 
 sentative. The four hundred representatives thus 
 elected would meet in one body, and elect the pub- 
 lic officers. In cases where the number of citizens 
 who were to vote was very large, it would at times 
 be necessary to have another grade of intermediate 
 electoral bodies (or possibly even more than one), 
 to elect the members of the final electoral body 
 
^ DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 which should choose the public officers. To illus- 
 trate: Suppose the officer to be chosen were a 
 President of the United States. Suppose, for 
 mere arithmetical convenience, that the entire 
 population was fifty millions, which would give, 
 under a system of universal manhood suffrage, 
 about ten millions of voting citizens. Suppose 
 the number of members of the final electoral body 
 which was to choose the President to be four hun- 
 dred. That would give one member of this final 
 electoral body to each twenty-five thousand voters. 
 Suppose, then, the number of individual voting 
 citizens in each primary district to be on the av- 
 erage two hundred and fifty. That would give one 
 hundred primary districts to each larger district 
 which was to elect one' member of the final electo- 
 ral body. The practical working of such an elec- 
 tion, then, would be this : The individual citizens 
 in each primary district would meet in one body 
 and elect their one representative ; the one hun- 
 dred representatives thus chosen, in each large dis- 
 trict, would meet in one body, and elect one mem- 
 ber of the final electoral body ; the four hundred 
 members of that final electoral body would then 
 meet in one body, and choose the President. 
 
 The grounds on which the soundness of this 
 principle rests are these : 
 
PRINCIPLES. 27 
 
 1. It is essential in order to secure to each indi- 
 vidual citizen his free voice. 
 
 Even in the case of the smallest people, the peo- 
 ple of a small town or village, if the citizens do 
 not meet, if they cast their votes separately, then 
 every citizen is compelled, in practice, if he does 
 not wish to vote in the air, if he wishes his vote to 
 count, to cast his vote for a man or measure that 
 is put forward and supported beforehand by some 
 strong existing organization. The larger the people, 
 the less free will be the citizen's action. Take the 
 case of the election of public officials by the people 
 of a large city, or a state, or a nation. If the citi- 
 zens vote separately, directly for the public officer 
 to be chosen, the citizen in one town must not only 
 vote with other citizens in the same town, but with 
 citizens in other towns, in other cities, and in oth- 
 er states. The larger the district through which 
 the election is to be had, the larger and more thor- 
 ough must be the organization for naming and 
 supporting candidates. The work of these great 
 state and national election organizations, which are 
 formed for the purpose of carrying elections, be- 
 comes very large and costly. It requires large 
 amounts of time, labor, and money. It becomes 
 very intricate. It requires great skill and experi- 
 ence. The time, labor, and money are far greater 
 
28 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 than the ordinary citizen can afford to give. The 
 skill and experience are far greater than the ordi- 
 nary citizen can hope to gain. The work, natu- 
 rally, necessarily, and surely, falls into the hands 
 of men who make the work of carrying elections 
 their regular profession. With those profession- 
 als the ordinary citizen can never compete. The 
 experiment has been often tried, and has always 
 failed. The practical result is, whatever be the 
 letter of the law, that the individual citizen is sub- 
 stantially compelled to cast his vote for some man 
 nominated beforehand by some powerful organiza- 
 tion of professional politicians. His action is not 
 free. 
 
 If, however, the citizens meet, at the time when 
 the people is to act, then the individual citizen 
 will have something that can be correctly called 
 freedom of political action. Take the instance of 
 an election by the people of a small town. All 
 individuals, who are to take common action, must 
 combine. If all the citizens meet, when they 
 are to act, then they will at least have a fair op- 
 portunity, at the time when they act, to combine 
 freely. I assume that, whenever action is to be 
 taken by any people, there will always be some 
 individuals who may wish to shape that action 
 to serve their own personal ends. I assume that 
 
PEIKCIPLES. 29 
 
 those individuals will combine beforehand, to con- 
 trol the action of the people. If, however, all the 
 citizens meet in one body, at the time when their 
 common action is to be taken, ordinary citizens 
 will have at least the best opportunity they can 
 have, to meet combinations made beforehand for 
 personal ends with combinations made at the time 
 for public ends. Every citizen will have the best 
 opportunity he can have, at the time when the peo- 
 ple is to act, to bring forward new names and 
 new measures. And every citizen will have his 
 free choice from a reasonable number of those 
 names and measures. But take the case of a larger 
 people. If the citizens in the small primary dis- 
 trict meet in one body to elect a representative, 
 then every citizen will have the best opportunity 
 he can have, to propose any one he may wish to be 
 that representative. Every citizen will have at 
 least a free choice from all those men then pro- 
 posed. In the choice of the representative, then, 
 each citizen will have a substantially free voice. If, 
 afterwards, the representatives so chosen meet in 
 one body to elect the public official, then, up to 
 the last moment, any number of candidates for 
 the office to be filled by election can be proposed. 
 Each single representative will have what may be 
 correctly called freedom of action. I do not yet 
 
80 DEMOCKATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 say that the result will be the best possible result. 
 But whatever other results may or may not be ac- 
 complished, at least this one result will be accom- 
 plished; every individual citizen will have had 
 something more than a choice between the men 
 or measures proposed beforehand by two or three 
 powerful organizations. His action will have been 
 comparatively free. 
 
 Can any system be devised under which it will 
 be more free ? 
 
 2. It is essential in order to secure to each indi- 
 vidual his full weight. 
 
 Under a free democratic government the indi- 
 vidual citizen is entitled to something more than 
 the right to cast his own vote. He must have the 
 opportunity to influence, by free, fair, public argu- 
 ment, the votes of other men. 
 
 If we have the public meeting of citizens, at the 
 time when the citizens are to vote, then each man 
 can, not only cast his own vote, and propose his 
 own men and measures, but he can have a hearing 
 with his fellow-men. He can have this hearing, at 
 the time when the people is to act, on the precise 
 question on which action is to be taken. Eear in 
 mind that the men in each primary district will meet 
 together time after time, year after year. They will 
 come to know one another. Character and ability 
 
PRINCIPLES. 81 
 
 will, in time, tell. Men of strong minds, who have 
 sound ideas, who can speak, to the point, forcibly, 
 and clearly, will come to have influence with their 
 fellows. The able and honest men will, in time, as 
 a rule, control the action of the primary meeting of 
 citizens. Dishonest men will become known, and 
 will not have power. Here is the solution of the 
 point so often raised as to giving ignorant men the 
 same weight in public affairs with men of intelli- 
 gence. I do not advocate democratic government 
 on any high-sounding declaration that all men are 
 born free and equal. Men are not born equal. Men 
 do not become equal after they are born. Men are 
 very unequal, in natural power, in acquired capacity, 
 and in honesty. The man who is honest and able 
 should have greater weight in public affairs than the 
 man who is dishonest and ignorant. He will get 
 it, if citizens habitually meet for common political 
 action. It is mainly in order to enable able and 
 honest men to have their full weight in public 
 affairs that it is necessary to have the popular 
 assembly as the organ for all popular action. 
 The able and honest men in every society are, 
 as a rule, busy men. They are busy for the 
 reason that their services are in demand. They 
 cannot give large amounts of time to the discharge 
 of the ordinary public duties of the citizen. If, 
 
83 DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 however, all the citizens meet, when they are to 
 take public action, then every man will have a fair 
 opportunity to influence the action of his fellow- 
 citizens, by the expenditure of only a reasonable 
 amount of time, in a fair, open, honest way, in the 
 public discussion of public men and public meas- 
 ures. It is not necessary that men should be skilled 
 or experienced orators. In the meeting of ordi- 
 nary citizens, nothing weighs like the clear common- 
 sense of successful, practical men. And the men 
 who are successful, are, in the long run, the men 
 who are able and honest. These men, if we use 
 the public meeting, of all the citizens, at all times, 
 for all popular action, on men and measures, will 
 control popular action. They will be the control- 
 ling power in forming and uttering the people's will. 
 
 If this be not so, then the whole theory of dem- 
 ocratic government is false, and we had best aban- 
 don it. 
 
 But without the public meeting, the best men in 
 the community lose their due weight, and the worst 
 elements of society gain an undue weight. The 
 management of these great organizations for carry- 
 ing elections naturally, necessarily, and surely, falls 
 into the hands of the worse class of citizens. The 
 time which is required for doing the work of those 
 organizations is given by the men who have time 
 
PRINCIPLES. 83 
 
 to spare ; in tlie main, by men who are unemployed 
 for the reason that they have not shown them- 
 selves to be honest and industrious. The men 
 who do this great mass of election work are 
 largely recruited from the adventurers and crim- 
 inal classes of society. As a rule, capable men 
 are too busy. Their time is too valuable. There 
 are, no doubt, many very respectable and honest 
 men in the ranks of the professional politicians. 
 But in all the large cities the professional crimi- 
 nals are nearly all professional politicians. In the 
 practical work of making nominations and carry- 
 ing elections in the city of New York, it is a fact 
 that the keepers of grog-shops and gambling- 
 houses have more real power than respectable busi- 
 ness and professional men. So it will necessarily 
 be under any political system which compels the 
 use of large standing organizations for the purpose 
 of carrying elections, and which therefore makes 
 demands on the time of the busy individual citi- 
 zen which are greater than he can afford to give. 
 
 3. It is essential in order to secure from each 
 individual his wisest action. 
 
 The education of the individual citizen must be 
 
 secured, as far as may be, on every public question 
 
 on which he is to act as one of the people. This 
 
 education of the individual citizen can best be 
 
 3 
 
84 DEMOCEATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 had in the public meeting. It cannot be fully 
 attained without the public meeting. Let it be 
 again borne in mind, that the individual citizen 
 will in the public meeting continually hear, and 
 have at least some opportunity to take part in, the 
 free public discussion of public questions of many 
 kinds. When he is to take part in the election of 
 a representative or a public officer, there will be, at 
 the time, public discussion as to the fitness for the 
 office of the very man on whom he is to vote. 
 "When he is to vote on public measures, there will 
 be free public discussion on the precise measure 
 on which he is to give his voice. He will have 
 something veiy different from glowing histories of 
 the brilliant past records of great election organi- 
 zations. The discussion will be on the fitness of 
 present individual men, and individual measures. 
 Under any political system that deserves the name 
 of democratic government, the individual citizen 
 should do something more than surrender his judg- 
 ment to professional politicians. He should use it 
 himself — on the precise question on wliich he acts. 
 He should use it after it is enlightened by hearing 
 the views of other men — of men of other ways of 
 thinking than his own. It will be possible for 
 him to do that, if he has the opportunity to confer 
 with his fellow-citizens, at the time when he is to 
 
PEINCIPLES. 35 
 
 cast his vote. The public meeting of the citi- 
 zens in the primary district will be, in short, the 
 primary school in politics. It will be a school 
 where the citizen will do something more than in- 
 quire who has in former times been loyal to some 
 great election organization. 
 
 If, however, we do not use this organ of the 
 public meeting, all individual citizens who wish to 
 vote at all, will in practice, as a rule, habitually fol- 
 low some election organization, instead of educat- 
 ing and using their own individual judgments. 
 Most men will, unless under great provocation, ad- 
 here loyally to one election organization. That is 
 human nature. Indeed it is an open question how 
 far any individual has the right to take part in the 
 preliminary action of these great organizations in 
 selecting candidates, and afterwards vote against 
 those candidates. Whatever may be the right or the 
 wrong of that question, it is certain that most men 
 will in practice uniformly act with their one or- 
 ganization, and substantially surrender their indi- 
 vidual freedom of judgment. 
 
 Can there be a doubt that the public meeting 
 of citizens is indispensable to secure from each in- 
 dividual citizen his wisest action on public ques- 
 tions ? 
 
 4. The public meeting, thus used, is essential 
 
86 DEMOCEATIO GOVEENMENT. 
 
 in order to enable a people to form and utter its 
 own will. 
 
 Wherever common action is to be taken bj any 
 number of individuals greater than one, the first 
 step to be taken is for them to agree, as to the thing 
 to be done, and the man or men to do it. In other 
 words, they must agree, as to measures and men. 
 It is the same with peoples and public questions, as 
 with individuals and private questions. I assume, 
 that, as to all public questions individuals will dif- 
 fer. Each individual man will have his own indi- 
 vidual opinion, as to what work is to be done, and 
 as to the best way to do it. But in order that a 
 people can do anything, it will be necessary that 
 individuals should make concessions, should har- 
 monize their differences of opinion. Eefore any 
 common action can be taken by a people, the in- 
 dividuals who compose the people must in some 
 way come to an agreement. 
 
 Ey what method, then, can a people most easily 
 and quickly agree ? 
 
 The public meeting is nature's own method, 
 simple, old, easy, and speedy. If individuals who 
 have common interests, can only meet, face to face, 
 if they can have a full and free opportunity to 
 confer, to hear one another's views, to change their 
 Own views, to propose new measures, and to 
 
PEmCIPLES. 37 
 
 amend them, they will, if they are reasonable men, 
 in due time, come to an agreement. If they are 
 not reasonable men, if they still belong to the 
 savage stage of existence, they will have to use 
 savage methods, separate into mobs and armies, and 
 fight, until one mob or army is beaten or destroyed. 
 But if the citizens of a people be in the main rea- 
 sonable beings, they will, by the process of the 
 public meeting, be enabled almost always to come 
 to an agreement, on any public question. They 
 may and often will keep their individual opinions. 
 But they will agree, on some common course of 
 action. 
 
 This is not a theory, or a mere individual opin- 
 ion. It has been well proved in all the practical 
 affairs of human life. This old organ, the public 
 meeting, the parliament, the convention, which we 
 find in the old Hebrew records, in Homer, in old 
 England, in IN'ew England, which we find among 
 all reasoning races, in all reasoning ages, is the 
 organ which has always been used, and is the 
 only organ which can be used, for the purpose 
 of enabling any large number of individuals to 
 come to a common decision, as to any common 
 course of action. It seldom fails to accomplish its 
 end. Wherever individual citizens have only the 
 ordinary diversities of individual interest, I do not 
 
38 DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 believe that it lias ever failed. ISTo doubt, if the 
 political system of any people is such as to divide 
 its citizens into two great armies, who engage ev- 
 ery year in a struggle for political mastery, the ma- 
 chinery would be put to a severe strain. Even 
 then, however, if men can only have time, if they 
 can only have the opportunity to allow a certain 
 amount of angry feeling to find vent in words, 
 they will seldom fail, in the end, to agree on prac- 
 tical measures. 
 
 The will of a people can be formed only through 
 this organ of the public meeting. The will of a 
 people is a thing by itself, a thing different from 
 the will of any individual, or class of individuals 
 — it is a new growth, brought into existence by 
 conference, by the meeting of minds. In general, 
 the single individual will not, of himself, see all 
 sides of a question. In the public meeting he can 
 at least hear all sides. He goes through, at the 
 time, a process of education. He finds out, if he 
 be intelligent and reasonable, his own ignorance. 
 He soon learns, if not his own errors, that it is nec- 
 essary for him to make concessions, if any practical 
 results are to be accomplished. Concessions are 
 made. The practical men, the men of broad, many- 
 sided views, suggest measures which generally, 
 in time, command the assent of the greater num- 
 
PRINCIPLES. 89 
 
 ber. The result in the end is agreement. Often- 
 times the measure on which the meeting will 
 agree, is a measure which in the beginning would 
 have commanded the assent of but few individu- 
 als. But most of the individuals understand the 
 necessity of agreeing on something, and they agree 
 as they best can. The final outcome is, not the 
 will of any one man, or class of men ; it is a new 
 growth — something that can be correctly called 
 the will of that assembly of men. That is what 
 always happens, whenever any body of individuals 
 meets, to decide on a common course of action. 
 The wisdom of the action will, of course, depend 
 on the wisdom of the individuals. But the action, 
 when taken, is the action, not of the individuals, 
 but of the meeting. 
 
 The most signal recorded instance, of which I 
 am aware in all political history, of this process of 
 growth, of this forming and uttering of the will 
 of a people, through the meeting of individual 
 minds, is to be found in the proceedings of the 
 Convention of 1787 that framed our E'ational Con- 
 stitution. It is a most remarkable instance of the 
 process of agreement, on a new thing, which was, 
 at the beginning, in the mind of no one man, 
 which was, at the end, what no one man wished 
 — to which however that assembly of men agreed 
 
40 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 — not because any one of them thought their 
 common action in all respects wise, but for the 
 reason that they could agree on nothing else. 
 That result was accomplished by conference. The 
 men who met in that convention were men whose 
 individual opinions were as different as men's 
 opinions well could be, not only as to matters of 
 detail, but as to matters of general principle. They 
 met. They had their differences of opinion. They 
 conferred. They made concessions. They came 
 to an agreement. 
 
 The recorded evidence of the quickness of the 
 growth which took place in that convention is 
 most interesting. When that body of men first 
 came together, it is safe to say, that no one of 
 them had in his mind even a dim conception of 
 the Constitution which the convention finally 
 framed. Single men had no doubt thought that 
 it was necessary to have some kind of a common 
 government for all the thirteen States. But few 
 men had advanced even so far as that. The reso- 
 lutions for calling the convention contemplated 
 nothing but a revision of the old Articles of Con- 
 federation. The resolutions said, in so many 
 words, that the convention was to meet "for the 
 "sole and express purpose of revising the Articles 
 "of Confederation." But the old Confederation 
 
PRINCIPLES. 41 
 
 lacked every essential feature of a government. 
 There was under it no power which could make 
 or enforce a law, or which could raise a man or a 
 dollar for any public service. There was, indeed, 
 a body called a Congress, which had, on paper, the 
 power to appoint a commander-in-chief for an army 
 which it could not raise, to spend money from 
 a treasury which it could not fill, to create a debt 
 which it could not pay, and to make requests for 
 men and money which it could not enforce. In 
 fact, the only substantial power it had was the 
 power to manufacture a paper currency. The old 
 Continental Congress was a grumbling club, which 
 spent its time in talk, in moaning over evils which 
 it had no power to heal, and in well-meaning, mis- 
 chievous interference with the commander of the 
 army, whom it had no power to help. It was al- 
 ways asking questions, and passing resolutions. 
 And it was " to revise the Articles of Confedera- 
 tion," to mend a rope of sand, that that convention 
 was called. Most of its members had in the be- 
 ginning no higher idea of the work it was to 
 do. 
 
 That idea they outgrew before the convention 
 began its formal deliberations. The informal con- 
 ferences of the few days in which they were wait- 
 ing for a quorum were enough to bring them to a 
 
43 DEMOCKATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 sense that they must go far beyond the scope of 
 the resolutions which brought them together and 
 defined their duties. The convention was origi- 
 nally called for the 14:th of May. Its first meeting 
 was held on the 25tli. The first day of its formal 
 deliberations was the 30th. On that day the con- 
 vention passed a resolution in these words: " That 
 " a national government ought to be established, 
 " consisting of a supreme legislative executive and 
 ^'' judiciary. ^^ That was the growth of the infor- 
 mal conversations of only a few days. As to one 
 individual we have an actual record of the change 
 of his ideas. Edmund Randolph says : " Before my 
 " departure for the convention, I believed that the 
 " confederation was not so eminently defective as 
 "it had been supposed. But after I had entered 
 " into a free communication with those who were 
 ^^hest ivfoi'med of the condition and interest of 
 " each state, after I had compared the intelligence 
 "derived from them with the properties which 
 "ought to characterize the government of our 
 " Union, I hecame persuaded that the confedera- 
 " tion was destitute of every energy which a consti- 
 " tution of the United States ought to possess" 
 
 Agreement as to this one general point, that 
 there should be a "supreme" national govern- 
 ment, was, as we have seen, a result very quickly 
 
PRINCIPLES. 43 
 
 reached. The working out of details was the 
 thing that took time. The practical application 
 of what men call general principles is always the 
 thing of difficulty. Yet even this result was soon 
 accomplished. Four months — for framing a com- 
 prehensive, harmonious system of national govern- 
 ment, for thirteen independent states, under which 
 a great people should come into existence, and 
 carry on their national growth for one hundred 
 years — can all recorded history show anything 
 equal to it? Constitutions^ they say, cannot be 
 made, they must grow. Thi& one grew in a single 
 summer. No doubt the soil was ready for the seed. 
 
 The process was nature's process — the process 
 of natural selection, by the agreement of minds, 
 from the ideas of single individuals, and the com- 
 bining the results of that selection, by the same 
 process of agreement, into a new, complete form. 
 It was precisely the same process that goes on in 
 every meeting of individuals, in every committee- 
 room, in the deliberations of every jury, in every 
 town meeting, in every assembly where individu- 
 als come together to decide on a common course 
 of action. 
 
 I have said that in the end, the result reached 
 was not one which any one individual wholly ap- 
 proved. That is shown most clearly by the record 
 
44 DEMOCBATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of the speeches of different men — when the con- 
 stitution was finally adopted. 
 
 Franklin said : 
 
 " Thus I consent, sir, to the constitution lecause 
 ^^ I expect 710 letter,'^ and because I am not sure it 
 " is not the best. The opinions I have had of its 
 "errors I sacrifice to the public good. I have 
 " never whispered a syllable of them abroad. With- 
 " in these walls they were born, and here they shall 
 "die." 
 
 Gouverneur Morris said : 
 
 " . . that he too had objections, but consider- 
 " ing the present plan as the hest that was to he at- 
 " tained, he should taJce it with all its faults. The 
 " majority had determined in its favor, and by that 
 ^^determination he should abide. The moment 
 " this plan goes forth, all other considerations will 
 " be laid aside, and the great question will be, shall 
 "there be a national government, or not? And 
 " this must take place, or a general anarchy will 
 " be the alternative." 
 
 Hamilton said : 
 
 "No man's ideas were more remote from the 
 " plan than his own were known to be ; but is it 
 " possible to deliberate between anarchy, and con- 
 
 * The italics in these extracts are mine. 
 
PRINCIPLES. 45 
 
 " vulsion, on one side, and tlie chance of good to 
 " be expected from the plan, on the other ?" 
 
 The letter to Congress which accompanied the 
 Constitution said, among other things : 
 
 " That it will meet the full and entire approba- 
 " tion of every state is not, perhaps, to be expect- 
 " ed. But each will doubtless consider, that, had 
 "her interest alone been consulted, the conse- 
 " quences might have been particularly disagreea- 
 "blo and injurious to others. That it is liable to 
 " as few exceptions as could reasonably have been 
 " expected, we hcype and believe ; that it may pro- 
 " mote the lasting welfare of that country so dear 
 " to us all, and secure her freedom and happiness 
 " is our most ardent wish." 
 
 Three of the members who attended the meet- 
 ings of the convention throughout were so strong- 
 ly opposed to the Constitution, even after the con- 
 vention had adopted it, that they refused to sign 
 their names to it. 
 
 But it may be said, that was a very exceptional 
 body of men; they met under very exceptional 
 circumstances; we cannot deduce principles for 
 general political action from the action of that 
 body of men at that time. 
 
 On the contrary, that was not an exceptional 
 body of men, viewed as a body of men chosen by 
 
46 DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the free will of a free people. It was just such a 
 body of men as the people of these United States 
 would choose to represent them to-day, if its choice 
 were free, if it were not split up into factions, and 
 barred from taking free action ; if it were only so 
 organized that it could form and utter its own 
 judgment, and its own will, in the simple natural 
 method. As to this present point, this point of 
 agreement, those men in that convention did only 
 what reasonable men have done in all ages, when 
 they have come together in an ordinarily reasona- 
 ble frame of mind. I concede, that, if the whole 
 community, by the overpowering pressure of a 
 continual struggle for political power, is divided 
 into two great factions, with, each of which the 
 chief article of faith is fear and distrust of the 
 other, agreement on a common course of action 
 becomes a difficult, and at times an almost impos- 
 sible, thing. If, at the time when that convention 
 met, there had been two great national organiza- 
 tions, who were each year engaged in a struggle 
 for office, I much doubt if the constitution could 
 have been framed. But, as to this point, affairs 
 were then in a comparatively normal condition. 
 Some men wished a strong national government. 
 Others feared it. Individuals had their differences 
 of opinion, and in spite of those differences came 
 
PEINCIPLES. : 47 
 
 to an agreement, on a constitution. If men are 
 firmly bound in the fetters of old political creeds, 
 no doubt the growth of a common will, which 
 must always be free in order to be quick and 
 healthy, takes place under disadvantages. But if 
 we have the right organ to make that growth, the 
 growth will come. It came then. It would come 
 now, under normal conditions. 
 
 This free conference, in the public meeting, is 
 the only process by which this forming of the will 
 of a people can be had. If citizens do not meet, 
 the people will simply in one way or another ap- 
 prove the will of the leaders of some great fac- 
 tion. It will not form a will of its own. 
 
 6. The public meeting is the only organ by 
 which a people can form and utter its own judg- 
 ment. 
 
 In order that a people should form its own 
 judgment it must have the opportunity for its 
 own free thought. 
 
 Free public discussion is the only process by 
 which a people can think. And free public discus- 
 sion can be had only in the public meeting. Let 
 any man devise any other organ, or any other pro- 
 cess, if he can. The process of thought, in a peo- 
 ple, differs from the process of thought in an indi- 
 vidual mainly in this : When a people thinks, in 
 
48 DEMOCEATIC GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 its public meeting, it is pretty certain to see all 
 sides of a question. One man brings up one point, 
 another another. If the meeting only takes time, 
 it is nearly certain that all the most important 
 considerations bearing on the subject under dis- 
 cussion will be brought forward, and weighed. If 
 the matter on which the people is to act be the 
 selection of a measure, all the important bearings 
 of the measure, as far as ordinary human intelli- 
 gence can see them, will pretty certainly be seen. 
 If the question before the people be the selection 
 of a man for some public service, all matters which 
 have any proper connection with the fitness of 
 that particular man for tliat particular service will 
 pretty certainly be debated. Debate will be open. 
 As a rule, it will be orderly and decorous. In the 
 end, the people will form a judgment. That judg- 
 ment may not be the wisest possible judgment. 
 It will, however, be the judgment of that people. 
 If, however, the people does not meet, the people 
 cannot think. Its individual citizens may express 
 their individual preferences for the men or the 
 policy of a faction. But we shall not get the judg- 
 ment of that people. 
 
 6. The public meeting is the organ which will 
 best enable a people to form and utter its wisest 
 judgment. 
 
PKmCIPLES. 49 
 
 I am speaking now of a people that is fit for 
 democratic government, tliat is capable of think- 
 ing. As to any people that has not yet reached 
 that stage of growth when it can think for itself, 
 when it will demand for itself the control of its 
 own affairs, the question of democratic govern- 
 ment is not a question of practical politics. 
 
 Assuming, then, that a people has grown to be 
 a thinking people, and is capable of forming its 
 own judgment, by some process, then I say the 
 public meeting is the organ which it must use to 
 form its wisest judgment. I do not say that the 
 judgment which any people will form by means 
 of the public meeting will always be the wisest 
 judgment that can possibly be formed. But it 
 will be the wisest judgment that can be formed 
 by that people. 
 
 Let us consider : 
 
 If the process of forming the judgment of the 
 people be one which will give to each individual 
 a reasonably free selection from a reasonably large 
 number of men and measures ; if it will give to 
 each individual his full weight, and will secure 
 from each individual his wisest action ; if, at the 
 same time, it will secure to the people as full 
 freedom as is, practicable in thinking, in coming 
 to an agreement, can there be any: method which 
 
 SITT 
 
50 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 will more probably secure that people's wisest 
 action ? 
 
 If the considerations thus far brought forward 
 be sound, then the public meeting -is the organ 
 most certain to accomplish that result. Can there 
 be any reasonable doubt that it is more certain to 
 accomplish that result than the system of sepa- 
 rate voting by individuals, without the opportunity 
 of common conference and common thought ? 
 
 The fundamental reason why the public meet- 
 ing tends to secure wise action is that it brings to- 
 gether men of all degrees of diversity of opinion, 
 and that it requires concession, and agreement, be- 
 fore they can come to a decision. Truth, when 
 men differ, as a rule, lies at neither extreme. In 
 such cases the necessity of conference, and of 
 agreement, tends to secure, in the large majority 
 of cases, the wisest results. This necessity of 
 aojreement tends to eliminate the errors of individ- 
 ual judgment. The result of the agreement is, in 
 general, wiser than would be the action of an}'' one 
 individual, or of any single class of individuals. 
 
 Especially is this the case where the single indi- 
 viduals who meet for common action are carefully 
 selected men, as will ordinarily be the case with 
 the members of any popular assembly who have 
 been selected by the agreement of other prelimi- 
 
PEmCIPLES. 51 
 
 naiy popular bodies. The men so selected will, in 
 general, be men who have been successful, men 
 who have made their success bj their ability and 
 their honesty, and their capacity for working well 
 with other men. When an assembly of such men 
 meets for common action, the process of agree- 
 ment is comparatively easy, and comparatively 
 certain to bring good results. The thought of 
 each individual will be stimulated by the contact 
 with other minds. The certainty of criticism 
 from other men will make the individual cautious 
 in weighing his own thoughts before he utters 
 them. The judgment of other men as to the 
 soundness of the thought of each individual Will 
 generally be wiser than his own. Individual in- 
 terests will neutralize one another. In the end 
 the common judgment, after common conference, 
 reached by the process of agreement, will be, al- 
 most certainly, a wiser judgment than the judg- 
 ment of any individual, or of any class. 
 
 The common judgment of any such representa- 
 tive body will be the selected thought of selected 
 men. It will be, as nearly as human organization 
 can make it so, the people's wisest judgment, the 
 result of organized co-operative thought, a result 
 evolved by the process of natural selection, the 
 survival of the fittest from the struggle of ideas. 
 
53 DEMOCBATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Eut it may be said, many men are ignorant and 
 easily influenced, and are more easily influenced 
 by designing demagogues than they are by men 
 who are wise and honest. I have not yet said 
 that men who are ignorant or unwise should be 
 allowed a voice in public affairs. Thus far I have 
 spoken only of citizens — of those who have the 
 right under the laws to take part in popular ac- 
 tion. Thus far the position is nothing but this, 
 that the citizens, those who are allowed a voice in 
 forming and uttering the will of the people, will 
 be better able to form the people's wisest judg- 
 ment by using the organ of the public meeting 
 than by any other process. 
 
 Let me again call attention to the actual working 
 of this principle in the Constitutional Convention 
 of 1787. The debates of the convention show 
 the widest diversity of individual views, and a 
 great deal of very crude thought. The final result 
 was reached in this way : although a majority of 
 the members early came to the conclusion that 
 the States needed a national government of some 
 kind, yet no two of them were then agreed as to 
 what kind of a government that national govern- 
 ment should be. When they came to decide that 
 question, when they came to take action on de- 
 tails, as to what specific powers this new govern- 
 
PEINCIPLES. 53 
 
 ment should have, then there appeared differences. 
 of opinion that it seemed hopeless to attempt to 
 harmonize. The members proceeded to discuss and 
 decide single points. Some men were in favor of 
 establishing a government with very large pow- 
 ers ; others were in favor of limiting those powers 
 very narrowly. Action was taken separately as 
 to each specific clause of the Constitution. The 
 dividing line between the members was not al- 
 ways the same : men who would vote in favor of 
 giving the new government one power would 
 vote against giving it some other power. In the 
 end each specific clause had been carried by the 
 vote of a majority. But that majority had not 
 been always the same. Each member found in 
 the finished instrument many clauses to which he 
 was strongly opposed. Such was the condition of 
 members' minds that, even at the end, it was with 
 great diflSculty that a majority vote was obtained 
 in favor of the whole paper, although there had 
 been a majority vote in favor of each single sec- 
 tion of it. In the end the Constitution was 
 adopted only because a majority of the members 
 believed that it was necessary that they should 
 agree on something, and they found it possible to 
 agree on nothing else. Now, can any reasonable 
 man doubt that that final result was a wise one? 
 
54 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 And why was it so wise ? 
 
 The popular assembly, nature's own organ for 
 popular action, gave the natural product — the peo- 
 ple's wisest judgment — wiser than the wisdom of 
 its wisest single men. 
 
 7. But is this system of the public meeting a 
 practical system ? 
 
 Is it. anything more than a scheme on paper ? 
 
 Let us examine it. 
 
 Every scheme of political organization, even 
 the drawing of an ordinary statute, must, in its 
 first stage, be a scheme on paper, if it be carefully 
 considered. All that we can possibly do, in the 
 first instance, is to draft a scheme on paper, turn 
 it around, look as far as we can on all its bearings, 
 make it as perfect as we can, and then — try it. 
 We are here engaged in the first stage. Let us 
 see, as far as we can, what will be the practical 
 working of this system of the public meeting. 
 And let us examine it mainly in the light of po- 
 litical history. 
 
 . The system has been tried, tried for ages. It 
 has, whenever it has been tried by ordinarily hon- 
 est and reasonable men, worked well. 
 
 Only two systems, be it noted, are possible for 
 this process of forming and uttering the will of a 
 people : the one is the system of having the indi- 
 
PRINCIPLES. 55 
 
 vidual citizens vote, without the public meeting, 
 in their own persons, directly on the man or meas- 
 ure on which the people is to act ; the other is 
 the system of having the citizens meet, either in 
 their own persons, or in the persons of their repre- 
 sentatives, and act as a body. 
 
 Any system of political organization which is 
 to be practical must be simple. 
 
 Which of the two systems is the more simple ? 
 
 Compare them. 
 
 With the system of the public meeting, all the 
 citizens in each primary district, once in each year 
 (oftener, if there be need), will meet in one body. 
 The citizens will be enrolled. The roll will be 
 called. After the meeting is organized, if any na- 
 tional officers are to be chosen, nominations will be 
 made, on the spot, by any citizen who sees fit to 
 make them, for a representative, to attend an elec- 
 toral convention, and cast the vote of that primary 
 district in that convention ; and a representative 
 will be elected, for that purpose. In the same 
 way, if any state officials are to be chosen, a repre- 
 sentative will be elected to an electoral body for 
 choosing state officials. In the same way, a repre- 
 sentative will be chosen to represent that district 
 in a representative body, to act on county or city 
 men and measures. The meeting will then pro- 
 
66 DEMOCKATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ceed to take action on local affairs, whatever they 
 may be; it will choose local officials, pass local 
 laws and ordinances, hear official reports as to local 
 public work done, and vote the local taxes and ap- 
 propriations. The day for holding the primary 
 assemblies will be, as election day now is, a legal 
 holiday. The citizens will meet in the morning ; 
 take the whole day for doing their work, if the 
 whole day is needed ; more than one day, if more 
 be needed. Ordinarily, one day, or less, will do 
 the work of the citizen. The different electoral 
 conventions will then do their work of electing 
 officers. 
 
 Now, consider the working of the system under 
 which the citizens vote separately, in their own 
 persons, through large districts, without the ma- 
 chinery of the representative public meeting, cast- 
 ing their votes directly for the public officers to 
 be chosen. Bear in mind, too, that the evils of 
 great elections by large numbers of unorganized 
 citizens have not yet been fully felt. With a citi- 
 zenship of only about ten millions in these United 
 States, and the magnitude of election organization 
 which necessarily results therefrom, the evils are 
 great enough. But they have not, even now, fully 
 developed. A large number of conventions must 
 be held beforehand to make nominations; there 
 
PEINCIPLES. 57 
 
 must be district conventions, town conventions, 
 city conventions, county conventions, state con- 
 ventions, and national conventions. There must 
 be a separate series of conventions for each election 
 organization ; else there can be no concerted action, 
 and no result. Candidates must be nominated. 
 There will then be a great campaign, political meet- 
 ings, bands of music, processions, circulars, election 
 committees, and millions of ballots to be printed. 
 After all that is over, then will come the distribu- 
 tion of ballots, requiring the services of thousands 
 of men, and the counting and declaring of the 
 vote. 
 
 Is there any comparison between the two sys- 
 tems for simplicity and ease of working? This 
 machinery of the public meeting is nothing but 
 an adaptation of the system of representation to 
 the old simple machinery of the town meeting — 
 which men have used at all times, and in all 
 lands. 
 
 It is to be noted, that with this system of the 
 representative public meeting, the security against 
 fraudulent voting, or fraudulent counting of the 
 vote, is made, by the simplicity of the system, as 
 thorough as it well can be. Men in the same 
 neighborhood would regularly meet together, and 
 be well known to one another. "With a registra- 
 
58 DEMOCEATIO GOVEENMENT. 
 
 tion of the citizens and a call of the register, vot- 
 ing bj any persons not entitled to vote would be 
 made as difficult as it could well be made. The 
 voting will, when desired, be done on a call of the 
 roll. The voting, the counting of the vote, and 
 the declaration of the vote, would be done at one 
 and the same time, in the presence of the whole 
 meeting. Every citizen would be, in his own per- 
 son, an inspector of election. He would, at one 
 meeting, take part in all tlie processes, of nomina- 
 tion, election, and the declaration of the result. 
 
 The system would be, too, much less costly than 
 the one of separate voting. The citizens them- 
 selves would meet only once. There would be 
 one series of meetings of representatives to elect 
 national officials, one for state officials, one for 
 county officials, and one for the officials of large 
 cities or towns. 
 
 Is it possible to devise any system for popular 
 action, which will afford so thorough security 
 against fraud, which will be so inexpensive, which 
 will put the ordinary citizen so nearly on a fair 
 footing with the men who give especial attention 
 to shaping popular action, and which would be so 
 simple ? 
 
 I say, then, that this organ of the popular assem- 
 bly, used at every stage of popular action, for the 
 
PRINCIPLES. 59 
 
 selection of men as well as measures, is tlie one 
 best fitted to secure, for the individual citizen, bis 
 one free voice, bis full weight, and bis wisest ac- 
 tion ; it is also the one best fitted to secure, as to 
 the people, the forming and uttering of its own 
 will and wisest judgment ; it is, too, simple and 
 practical. 
 
 Can as much be said for any other method of 
 obtaining a declaration of the people's judgment 
 and will ? 
 
 PBINCIPLE n. — In the Public Meeting Every Man must have 
 One Voice. 
 
 Universal manhood suffrage is, in my belief, an 
 essential to democratic government. 
 
 It needs not to be said that every people should 
 have the power, for sufiicient cause, to deprive any 
 individual of his voice in public affairs. Eut, 
 subject to the exercise of that power, it is my be- 
 lief, that each adult male should have, on every 
 public question, in his own person, or in the per- 
 son of his representative, his one voice. 
 
 The grounds on which this proposition rests are 
 the following : 
 
 1. It is necessary for the healthy political life 
 of the individual. 
 
 For the political education of the individual, I 
 
60 DEMOCKATIC GOYEENMENT. 
 
 can imagine no influence so strong and so liealtli- 
 ful as the habit of taking part, regularly and 
 often, in the free, open consideration of public 
 questions. It is not necessary that each individ- 
 ual should himself speak. If he is able to speak 
 fitly, other men will wish to hear him, and they 
 will generally make him speak. If he cannot 
 himself speak fitly, he will be able at least to hear 
 other men who can. As a rule, the men whom 
 he will hear will be the men who can say some- 
 thing worth the hearing. Can any scheme be de- 
 vised which will have so valuable an influence as 
 a political educator of the individual as the giving 
 him the right to be present, and to take his own 
 part, whatever that part may be, in the action of 
 the people's meeting ? 
 
 2. It is necessary to secure the wisest action of 
 the people. 
 
 Every people, especially the people of the small 
 primary districts, under any political system, will 
 be greatly influenced in their public action, and 
 will be often controlled, by leaders. 
 
 For the wise selection of those leaders, I know 
 of no system so certain, in the long run, to secure 
 good results, as that of selection by the whole peo- 
 ple, provided always that that selection be made 
 by proper methods. By the term "the whole 
 
PRINCIPLES. 61 
 
 people " in this connection, I mean all the men 
 who collectively make up that people. This so- 
 lection of leaders, if it be made by all the men of 
 a community, will generally be made, not wholly, 
 or mainly, on the knowledge that each individual 
 has as to the real character of the men for whom 
 he gives his vote, but on reputations. Those rep- 
 utations will, in general, be true indices of men's 
 real characters. In order to have those reputa- 
 tions and characters correctly weighed, I know of 
 no method so certain as the agreement of a major- 
 ity of all the men in the community, provided 
 that agreement be free, with due opportunity for 
 public consideration. Bear in mind that the func- 
 tion of the individual citizen in the state is, in the 
 main, limited to the selection of men. It is al- 
 most certain that no man can succeed in getting a 
 majority of voices in a free public meeting where 
 public discussion can be had, unless he be a man 
 well known. In other words, he will, in general, 
 be a man who has achieved some kind of success. 
 It will, moreover, be seldom that any free public 
 meeting will vote for a man who is not believed 
 to be honest and public -spirited; and as to the 
 real fact, whether he is honest and public-spirited, 
 I know of no test so sure as his being able to com- 
 mand the free support of a large number of the 
 
63 DEMOCBATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 members of the community in which he lives. As 
 to these points of ability, honesty, and public 
 spirit, my belief is that the best security in select- 
 ing men for high public place is to be found in 
 the process of universal manhood suffrage, always 
 provided that this process is used within its natu- 
 ral limits. Those limits will be considered here- 
 after. 
 
 Especially, in the securing to each man his full 
 weight in the people's councils, is universal man- 
 hood suffrage, in my belief, the best security we 
 can have. It is often said that the voice of the 
 intelligent man should count for more than the 
 voice of the ignorant man, and that for that reason 
 ignorant men should not be allowed to vote. I 
 submit, on the contrary, that the voice of the in- 
 telligent man should not count for more, but it 
 should have the greater weight. The surest meth- 
 od for giving it greater weight is, in my belief, to 
 give him the opportunity to influence other men 
 who are not so intelligent as he is. This opportu- 
 nity he will best secure by giving every man a 
 vote. !N"o plan, as I believe, can be devised that 
 is so sure in the end to give due weight in public 
 affairs to the men who best deserve it, provided 
 our political organization is rightly framed in 
 other respects. Kestricting the right to vote by 
 
PBINCIPLES. 63 
 
 a property qualification I do not believe to be for 
 the best interests either of the poor or the rich. 
 The rich and strong will, under any political sys- 
 tem, have great power. If we limit the suffrage 
 by a property qualification, their power will be too 
 great, for the good of the state, or of themselves. 
 It is not for tlie best interest of any class of men 
 that they should have an undue weight in public 
 affairs. If we give every man one voice in public 
 affairs, the influence of the rich and strong, that 
 is, of the best men among them, will still be the 
 controlling interest in the state. I do not say 
 that the giving every man a voice in public affairs 
 will, in every single instance, secure a people's 
 wisest action. I do say that no other general 
 rule will be so certain, in the long run, to secure 
 the wisest selection of a people's leaders, and thus 
 to secure tlie wisest action of that people. 
 
 Especially in the administration of the affairs of 
 the larger peoples, the peoples of large cities, of 
 states, and of the nation, I am unable to see how 
 any system will so certainly secure wise action as 
 the system of universal suffrage — if the whole 
 people can only meet, and act freely and deliber- 
 ately. In all such cases the citizens will act in the 
 persons of representatives. Those representatives 
 will be selected men. Those selected men will 
 
64 DEMOCEATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 be, in the large majority of instances, better men 
 than can be selected by any other method. 
 
 But the voice of the individual citizen must be 
 an open voice, and not a secret ballot. Eesponsi- 
 bility in government should begin Avith the re- 
 sponsibility of the individual citizen. His action, 
 as well as that of public servants, should be open 
 and above-board. Star-chamber methods have no 
 place in democratic government, at any of its 
 stages, in any of its processes. The action of the 
 individual citizen should be public, taken in the 
 face of his fellows. It is said that men who are 
 poor and weak, unless they can be protected by 
 seci'ccy of voting, will not dare to vote on their 
 own convictions, but will vote on the dictates of 
 their employers, and of men on whom they are de- 
 pendent for their work and food. If that be so, 
 then the best way to correct the evil is to have 
 the people know who are the men who yield to 
 such influences, and who are the men who use 
 them. We must give to the poor and weak the 
 means of finding out their own strength, the 
 strength of numbers. We must give to men who 
 are able and honest the means of finding out who 
 are the public enemies, who are the men who use 
 improper public influences. Open voting is the best 
 security for honest voting. Parliamentary minis- 
 
PEINCIPLBS. 65 
 
 ters are not the only men in the state who should 
 be compelled to defend their public conduct. The 
 ordinary citizen, in his individual action, must be, 
 at the time he is to act, open to free public criti- 
 cism. He must be responsible, to the public opin- 
 ion of the community, for his public action. 
 
 3. Universal suffrage is necessary in order to 
 secure the healthy action of the body politic. 
 
 Xo state can long be at peace, or can secure the 
 cordial co-operation of the whole people, where any 
 considerable number of men are deprived of their 
 voice in public affairs. 
 
 In order to have government a practical success, 
 it is necessary, not only that public men should be 
 wise men, and that public measures should be wise 
 measures, but those men and measures must com- 
 mand public confidence, and be backed by the 
 hearty good-will of the whole people. 
 
 To secure this public confidence, and this good- 
 will of the people, no system can be efiBcient other 
 than the giving every man his one voice in the 
 public meeting. Whatever may be the policy of 
 a government, that policy will have the greatest 
 certainty it can have for commanding the cordial 
 support of a people, if every man in that people is 
 conscious that he has had his one free voice in de- 
 ciding that policy. 
 
 5 
 
66 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 Can any other system be devised that will be so 
 certain to produce this result ? 
 
 PEINCIPLE m.— In the Public Meeting Action must te Taken 
 on only One Man or One Measure at One Time. 
 
 This means especially, that there should be no 
 such thing as a " general ticket " in the process of 
 popular election of public officials. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to do more than state this 
 principle to establish it. Most men will agree, 
 that, if a people is really to form a judgment, on 
 the merits, as to any man or measure, it must con- 
 sider that man or measure separately, by itself. 
 A judgment by one vote on many men or meas- 
 ures is a judgment on none. 
 
 "We come, then, to the principles which relate to 
 B. The Oeganization of the Government. 
 
 PaiKCIPLE IV. — Each Man and Each Body of Men must have One 
 Function. 
 
 The practical meaning of this principle is this — 
 1. Each people must have its own distinct gov- 
 ernment. 
 There must be a distinct government, a distinct 
 
PEINCIPLES. 67 
 
 body of public servants, for eacli town, city, and 
 state, for each body politic. 
 
 It is quite clear tliat local, and state, and na- 
 tional affairs should be administered by wholly 
 distinct organizations of men. 
 
 2. Deliberative and administrative functions 
 must be kept distinct. 
 
 If there be any fact that is established by hu- 
 man experience, it is that, in all human affairs, we 
 must have, for administration, the will of one 
 man ; and for deliberation, for the decision of ques- 
 tions of general policy, for general supervision 
 and control, we must have the wisdom of many 
 men. The two duties demand essentially differ- 
 ent men. The one calls for great vigor and en- 
 ergy, the personal power of commanding. The 
 other demands calm thought — wisdom. Some 
 exceptional individuals have the fitness for both 
 duties. As a rule, however, the men who are pre- 
 eminently fit for the one are not pre-eminently 
 fit for the other. The men who are best for coun- 
 sel are not always best for execution. The men 
 who are best for execution are not always best for 
 counsel. 
 
 But another reason is this : Unity of function 
 is the natural law of the higher political organ- 
 isms. This may sound like mere theorizing. It 
 
68 DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 is, in truth, the teaching of all scientific observa- 
 tion. Examine it in the light of experience. The 
 working success of any large organization of men, 
 as every man who has had any considerable ex- 
 perience in practical affairs is well aware, depends 
 above all things on giving to each man his one 
 work, and giving him time to learn that work, and 
 to do it well. To have men continually shifting 
 from one work to another makes it impossible 
 that they should be thorough in either. The larg- 
 er the affairs, and the larger the organization, the 
 more essential is this point. In the affairs of a 
 small town or village we can endure a certain 
 amount of confusion and roughness of method, 
 without any very disastrous results. The small 
 town, among political organisms, is the plant of 
 one organ. But take the affairs of a great people, 
 of ten, or twenty, or fifty millions. Can any man 
 do his work thoroughly, or well, who gives a few 
 hours to naval affairs, a few hours to army af- 
 fairs, and a few others to the post-office and other 
 branches of administration? Especially, is it a 
 possible thing that any man can take an active 
 part in the deliberations of the most important 
 popular assembly, which is to act on all the most 
 important questions of public policy, and, in addi- 
 tion, bo the efficient head of an administrative de- 
 
PRINCIPLES. 69 
 
 partment? To state the question is, with every 
 practical man of affairs, to answer it. Xo one 
 man can have the capacity, or the knowledge, or 
 the physical strength, or the time, for any such 
 undertaking. That is the teaching of all human 
 experience. 
 
 3. The popular assemblies for action on meas- 
 ures, or, to use the ordinary nomenclature, the leg- 
 islatures, should not be the popular assemblies to 
 take action on men ; in other words, they should 
 not act as electoral bodies in the process of popu- 
 lar election. 
 
 Especially is this so, if they have the power of 
 removing administrative officials. 
 
 This is, however, a point on which many men 
 will differ, and on which any lengthy consideration 
 here would be fruitless. 
 
 PEINCIPLS v.— The Supreme Control of each People's Public 
 Affairs must be in One Body. 
 
 In every body politic there must be some au- 
 thority, some one man, or one body of men, or 
 some combination of different men and bodies of 
 men, whose judgment and will on all questions of 
 general public policy shall be supreme. Else we 
 have confusion and anarchy. 
 
 The one man system, autocracy, has been thor- 
 
70 DEMOCEATIC GOYEENMENT. 
 
 ouglily tried, and found wanting. 'No one man 
 can have the knowledge, or the strength, or the 
 time, to decide wisely the great questions of gen- 
 eral policy for any people. It needs the wisdom 
 of many men. The supreme mind in any people 
 must be many sided, it must be, as far as is possi- 
 ble, all Bided ; all interests must be represented, 
 all shades of opinion must combine, to shape the 
 general policy of any great people. There must 
 be the co-operative thought of many minds. Only 
 one way is possible to secure a wise general con- 
 trol of any people's public affairs. That is, to se- 
 cure the widest possible representation of all inter- 
 ests and all men in the state, in a deliberative 
 assembly. IIow that assembly is to be selected 
 need not yet be stated. But if we are to have a 
 wise policy, it is essential that we should have such 
 an assembly. 
 
 But if we have such an assembly, shall its judg- 
 ment be subject to revision or a veto, at the hands 
 of a second assembly, or of the head of the execu- 
 tive administration, or of a committee or council ? 
 
 Many wise men in times past have held the 
 opinion that it was not safe to vest the supreme 
 control of all questions of general public policy in 
 any one body of men — that it was necessary in or- 
 der to secure wise action that there should be a 
 
PEINCIPLES. 71 
 
 second consideration of laws and public measures 
 by a second deliberative body. Especially where 
 one house, as it is called, of the legislature has 
 been chosen for short terms of office, it lias been 
 deemed necessary that there should be a second 
 house of some kind, holding office by a longer 
 tenure, which should secure wiser action on ill- 
 considered measures. It has also been by some 
 men thought wise to give the head of the executive 
 administration a veto, under some restrictions, on 
 the action of the legislature, for the purpose of 
 securing the executive against what is termed leg- 
 islative encroachment or usurpation. In short, it 
 has been the belief of a large school of political 
 students that it was necessary, under a democratic 
 or popular government, to have what is termed a 
 system of checks and balances : the legislature, it 
 has been thought, must have a voice in the ap- 
 pointments of the executive ; the executive must 
 have a voice in the work of the legislature ; and 
 the two together must control the judiciary. In 
 other words, no one man or body of men should 
 be trusted with the whole of one power, and held 
 to one work ; but power must be divided, and each 
 man and body of men must do a little of every- 
 thing. Men of this school of thought are general- 
 ly in favor of boards and commissions for admin- 
 
72 DEMOCEATIC GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 istration, on tlie idea that great power, in the 
 hands of single men or single bodies of men, is a 
 thing capable of abuse, and dangerous. In the 
 same way they say the legislature must have tv/o 
 houses, and the executive must have a veto ; because 
 the administration cannot be safely trusted to one 
 man, and the supreme control of public affairs 
 cannot be safely trusted to one body of men. 
 
 The ideas of this school of thinkers are, as it 
 seems to me, now well established to be unsound, 
 by both reason and experience. 
 
 Tlie true security for wise action on the part of 
 the legislature, to use the ordinary term, must be 
 found in the number of its members, their qual- 
 ity, and the necessity of agreement by a majority 
 before they can take any action at all. If we can 
 secure the selection of a body of men who shall 
 fairly represent the greatest diversity of interests, 
 "wlio shall be able and honest, who shall have train- 
 ing and experience, who shall become a well-or- 
 ganized and efficient working body, and if we can 
 also secure that this body of men shall be at all 
 times responsible to the wisest public opinion, we 
 shall have as thorough security as we can w^ell get 
 for a wise general policy. If we can get such a 
 body of men, and can have such security for their 
 wise action, most men would agree that it would 
 
PRINCIPLES. 73 
 
 not be reasonable that the judgment of such a 
 body should be open to reversal or question at 
 the hands of any one man, or of any one class of 
 men. 
 
 Or wonld it then be wise that we should have 
 another body of men, representing equally diver- 
 sified interests, men of equal capacity, honesty, and 
 experience, with equally good organization, and 
 Tinder the same responsibilities, which should have 
 a concurrent voice in deciding these questions of 
 general public policy ? I am unable to see how 
 such a system would be w^isc. It might, indeed, 
 sometimes be the case that a body of men such as 
 has been described would make its mistakes. That 
 is a possibility that we cannot avoid. But the 
 evils of two houses with equal concurrent powers 
 are greater than the benefits. The existence of 
 two houses always creates jealousy and contest. 
 It always makes necessary bargains and compro- 
 mises. Duality of control is incompatible with 
 vigor and efficiency. I agree that we must have 
 the greatest possible security for the thorough and 
 wise consideration of public questions. But we 
 must get that security in the quality of the mem- 
 bers of the popular assemblies. Those members 
 must have the fullest opportunity to get training 
 and experience. They must be put under the 
 
74 DEMOCEATKJ GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 most tliorougli responsibility to the people. But 
 if the members of the popular assembly are the 
 ablest men in the community, and are under such 
 responsibility, then we must be content, for the 
 time being, for better or for worse, to trust that 
 body of men. The use of two organs to do the 
 same work twice does not rest on sound prin- 
 ciple. 'No doubt, in the gradual growth from the 
 hereditary to the democratic system, and in the 
 growth from federal to national systems, it is at 
 times necessary, as a measure of temporary com- 
 promise, to use a combination of two legislative 
 houses. But the progress of political development, 
 here as elsewhere, is towards unity. 
 
 This question is, however, one on which think- 
 ing men still differ, the solution of which must, in 
 any people, and at any time, be made by the lawful 
 authorities. 
 
 PHUTCIPLE VI.— Executive Administration must be under One 
 Head. 
 
 This principle is one that has now become es- 
 tablished, as to political as well as industrial organ- 
 ization. It is fundamental as to all organisms that 
 are made up of human beings. To secure efficiency 
 of administration, we must have the will of one man. 
 To secure responsibility in administration, we must 
 
PKINCIPLES. 75 
 
 have the responsibility of one man. The division 
 of responsibility is its destruction. From the low- 
 est administrative official to the highest, in order 
 to secure efficiency and responsibility, we must 
 have the one-man system. 
 
 We come then to the principles which relate to 
 
 C. The Selection of the Okgans and Mem- 
 bees OF the Government. 
 
 PEUTCIPLE VII.— The Body having tho Supreme Control cf each 
 People's Public Affairs must be that People. 
 
 That is, the legislature, the body of men which 
 is to make the laws, raise the revenues, appropriate 
 the money, and have the supreme control of each 
 people's public affairs, must be that people itself ; 
 acting, as has already been stated, in its own pub- 
 lic meeting ; its citizens meeting in their own per- 
 sons, if their numbers will allow, if not, then in 
 the persons of their elected representatives. 
 
 This is the fundamental idea of democratic gov- 
 ernment. To the believers in democratic govern- 
 ment it needs no argument. 
 
 In practice, its meaning is, that the supreme 
 general control of the public affairs, whatever they 
 
76 DEMOCEATIO GOVEENMENT. 
 
 may be, of the small towns and other primary dis- 
 tricts shall be directly in the hands of the popular 
 assembly of citizens — meeting and acting in one 
 body, in their own persons. In the case of larger 
 peoples, as in the case of large towns, cities, and 
 states, the supreme control of each people's public 
 affairs, the making of its laws, the raising and 
 spending of its public revenues, will be in the 
 hands of one popular assembly of representatives, 
 chosen by the primary assemblies of the citizens, 
 or by electoral assemblies of representatives. 
 
 If the considerations thus far made be sound, 
 the practical working of this principle would se- 
 cure for each people the selection of a body of 
 men for the supreme control of its public affairs, 
 who would be, as a rule, the best men that could 
 be selected. They would almost certainly be men 
 of ability and integrity. Their common judgment, 
 if they have time to gain experience, if they are 
 kept under thorough responsibility, and if they 
 are free, would be more certain than any other 
 judgment, in the vast majority of instances, to be 
 the wisest judgment that could be formed. It is 
 no doubt conceivable, that a body of men might 
 be selected by some intelligence higher than hu- 
 man, who would be wiser than the men selected 
 on the principle here indicated. But so long as 
 
PKINCIPLES. 77 
 
 we use in political organization merely liuman 
 methods and human wisdom, I am unable to see 
 any means whereby a body of men can be better 
 selected to be the supreme body in the state. 
 
 This principle is essential in the framing of any 
 government that can properly be called democrat- 
 ic. Even if we should concede that there was 
 some sound, practicable method for selecting a' 
 wiser body of men for its purpose than the elect- 
 ed popular assembly (which I do not believe), yet 
 any system of government wherein the supremo 
 control of affairs is vested in any one man, or in 
 any body of men other than the popular assembly, 
 could not be called democratic. By no other sys- 
 tem can we secure the free voice of each individual 
 citizen, or the supremacy of the will of the people. 
 
 But in order that this popular assembly should 
 do the work of which it is capable, the action of 
 this assembly of men, after they are selected, must 
 be free. Eepresentatives must be free as well as 
 the citizen. 
 
 How that result is to be obtained depends on 
 points yet to be considered. 
 
 PBINCIFLE vm.— The Head of Each People's Executive Adnia- 
 istration must bo Selected by that People. 
 
 Here, too, each people will act in its own popu- 
 
78 DEMOCEATIO GOVEKKMENT. 
 
 lar assembly, of citizens or their elected repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 If the considerations heretofore advanced be 
 Bonnd, this principle will secure the best selection, 
 as a rule, of the one man who is to be the head of 
 each people's executive administration. The prin- 
 ciple is simply the statement of the principle of 
 popular election in its simplest natural form. 
 
 PEIKCIPLE IX.— Subordinates in tlie Ezecutive Administration 
 must be Selected by their Head. 
 
 The chief executive of each people must have 
 the sole power of selecting his heads of depart- 
 ments, or his immediate subordinates, whoever 
 they may be. And throughout the executive ad- 
 ministration of each people, every head of a de- 
 partment or office must have the selection of his 
 own subordinates. For the wisdom of his selec- 
 tions he must be under thorough responsibility. 
 But the selection must be his. And in his selec- 
 tion he must have absolute freedom. 
 
 This is a point well established by experience 
 and common-sense. If any man is to accomplish 
 results, he must select his own tools. In any of- 
 fice or department, public or private, no man oth- 
 er than the head of that office or department can 
 know what men are needed in its different posi- 
 
PKINCIPLES. 79 
 
 tions. He, too, is the only man who can select 
 men who will work well under himself. Other 
 men may possibly select better men for themselves. 
 !N"o one but himself can make good selections for 
 him. He may not always make wise or honest se- 
 lections. If he does not, time will show that fact 
 in working results, and then the remedy will be 
 to remove him. But so long as he is at the 
 head of the office, he alone is the one man who 
 can properly make the selection of the men un- 
 der him. 
 
 This is made more clear when we consider the 
 fact familiar to all men of experience in practical 
 affairs, that the fitness of men for working places 
 can be ascertained only by trying them at their 
 special work in those places. Test them as care- 
 fully as we can beforehand, the test of actual work 
 in the service is the only test that is decisive. That 
 test can be made by no one but the head of the 
 department or office. The fitness or unfitness of 
 some men will be ascertained at the end of an hour 
 or a day. With others it may take a month or a 
 year. But there is only one man who can make 
 the test or the selection fitly. 
 
 Justice to every head of a department or office 
 requires, too, that he should have this power. We 
 cannot justly hold any man responsible for results, 
 
8a DEMOCKATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 unless we give him the selection of his subordi- 
 naties. And to insure the efficiency of public ad- 
 ministration we must hold men responsible for 
 special working results, and not for fidelity to 
 great general principles. 
 
 Especially is it very pernicious to give to tlie 
 legislature any voice in making or confirming ex- 
 ecutive appointments. It is certain to destroy 
 executive responsibility. It is certain to destroy 
 executive efficiency. It is impossible that mem- 
 bers of the legislature should be able to form a 
 wise judgment as to the fitness of executive offi- 
 cials, other than the one head of the whole execu- 
 tive administration. The work of the one man at 
 the head, in its general results, they can see and 
 judge. But the work of subordinates will neces- 
 sarily be beyond the range of their vision. In the 
 selection of subordinates the legislature should not 
 be allowed a voice. 
 
 We come then to the principles relating to 
 
 D. The Secueities of the Government. 
 
 In one sense the securities of the public service 
 
 are to be found mainly in its provisions for the 
 
 wise selection of those public servants who are at 
 
 the head of each people's government. If the men 
 
PRINCIPLES. 81 
 
 at the head of a public service, the body of men 
 who control a people's general policy, and the one 
 man who superintends its executive administra- 
 tion, are its best men, then the security which that 
 people has for an honest, wise, and vigorous admin- 
 istration of its public affairs is as thorough as it 
 can well be. If the men at the head of a people's 
 government are the wisest and most honest men 
 in the community, if they are only free to use 
 their own best judgment — and if they are given 
 time — they will be very certain to find and reme- 
 dy existing evils, either in the form or the work- 
 ing of that people's political system. 
 
 Aside, however, from this point, in addition to 
 the principles which relate to the organization of 
 the state, and the selection of individuals for its 
 different functions, there are certain other princi- 
 ples which may be especially said to relate to its 
 securities, strictly so called, that is, to the constitu- 
 tional provisions for securing the most healthy 
 vigorous action of every organ and member in the 
 body politic, and of the whole body. 
 
 In order to secure this healthy, vigorous action, 
 it is clear that every man in the state, every indi- 
 vidual citizen, and every public official, so far as 
 concerns the exercise of his public functions, shall 
 be at all times under the direct supervision and 
 
 6 
 
82 DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 control of some one man or body of men, the best 
 fitted to that duty. In each body politic, in each 
 town, city, state, and nation, every subordinate in 
 the executive administration, each head of a de- 
 partment or office, each head of a people's whole 
 executive administration, and each member of its 
 popular assembly, must be at all times under the 
 direct supervision and control of some one man or 
 body of men, the best that can be found for that 
 purpose, who shall be specially charged with that 
 supervision, who shall punish or remove him, not 
 after a trial in a criminal court, not at the end of 
 a term of years, not merely for crimes and miscon- 
 duct, but at any time, for any reason that may ren- 
 der his further continuance in the public service 
 at that particular time inconsistent with the high- 
 est public interests. Public offices are not prop- 
 erty, of which no man should be deprived but by 
 due process of law. They are trusts, to be held and 
 used only for the interests of the people, which 
 should be taken away whenever required by the 
 people's interests. The interests of the servant 
 are not to be weighed for an instant in opposition 
 to the interests of the people. 
 
 What securities then can we find for such super- 
 vision and control ? 
 
 The principles relating to these securities, as 
 
PRINCIPLES. 83 
 
 they seem now to be established by a long politi- 
 cal experience, are the following : 
 
 PEINCIPLE X.— Each People must Control the Members of its 
 . own Public Meeting. 
 
 The meaning of this principle is, inasmuch as 
 the people can take action, either as to measures 
 or men, only in its popular assembly — that the 
 control of the individual members of each popular 
 assembly must be in that assembly itself ; that is, 
 the primary assembly of citizens shall have the 
 power, for sufficient cause, on a sufficient vote, to 
 punish, suspend, or remove any one of its mem- 
 bers; so, too, each representative popular assem- 
 bly, of a town, a city, a county, a state, or the 
 whole nation, shall have the power (as most of 
 them with us now have), for sufficient cause, on a 
 sufficient vote, to punish, suspend, or remove any 
 one of its members. It means, too, that this con- 
 trol of its own members, vested in each popular 
 assembly of citizens or representatives, shall be 
 the only control of those members ; that each mem- 
 ber of a popular assembly shall be responsible to 
 his whole people, thinking and acting in its own 
 public meeting, and not to any smaller part or por- 
 tion of that people. It means especially that there 
 is to be no such thing as tenure by election. No 
 
84 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 member of a popular representative assembly is to 
 be required, as a condition of remaining in that 
 popular assembly, to carry a popular election in 
 his special district, once in one year, or two years, 
 or any number of years. But each member of 
 each popular assembly is to continue in the ser- 
 vice of his people, until that people, the whole of 
 it, by its judgment, uttered in its popular assem- 
 bly, shall decide that his removal is required by 
 public interests. These removals by the judgment 
 of the whole people must be the only removals. 
 Elections would then be held only to fill vacancies, 
 when vacancies should occur, by removal, resigna- 
 tion, or death. Instead of having all the members 
 (or a large number of them) of all the popular as- 
 semblies in the land go out of office once in each 
 year, or once in any fixed term of years, instead of 
 having general elections of all or many represent- 
 atives at fixed periods, single members would go 
 out of office separately, and be elected separately. 
 Instead of having periodical revolutions in the 
 membership of the popular representative assem- 
 blies, there would be a steady and rapid change of 
 single members, in an easy, natural manner, by easy, 
 natural processes ; a steady outgoing of old mem- 
 bers, and a steady incoming of new ones, the new 
 ones chosen by free popular vote. Death alone, 
 
PKINCIPLES. 85 
 
 even if there were no removals or resignations, 
 would, within a short time, make a complete 
 change in the membership of every popular as- 
 sembly in the land, except the primary assemblies 
 of citizens. In these primary assemblies the 
 change of membership would be comparatively 
 slow; for men would become members when 
 young, and would generally remain members un- 
 til death. But in the representative assemblies 
 the change in membership would be much faster. 
 The men chosen to be the members of the repre- 
 sentative assemblies would generally be, at the 
 time of their election, well advanced in years. 
 The higher the assembly, the larger would be the 
 constituencies, and, as a rule, the greater the age of 
 its members. In such a body as the Congress of the 
 United States there would be a substantially com- 
 plete change in the membership in about twelve 
 or fifteen years. That change would come easily, 
 naturally, and gradually. The process of popular 
 election would be applied to its natural use, that 
 of selecting men — not that of enforcing responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 This principle will seem, to some minds, start- 
 ling, at first sight. On full thought, it will, as I 
 believe, commend itself to the judgments of most 
 thinking men. It is, as I believe, essential to the 
 
86 DEMOCEATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 healthy growth, possibly even to the existence, of 
 free democratic government. 
 
 Let us examine the considerations on which the 
 principle rests : 
 
 1. It is essential in order to secure the free, 
 healthy action of the individual citizen. 
 
 It is a belief very widely held by the friends of 
 democratic institutions, that each member of every 
 representative popular assembly should be required 
 to submit himself at reasonably short intervals of 
 time, for a re-election, to the whole body of indi- 
 vidual citizens who elected him. 
 
 The theory on which this belief rests is that 
 thereby each individual citizen has the opportunity, 
 at fitting times, to pass judgment, in his own per- 
 son, upon the conduct of his own representative ; 
 that thereby the individual citizen is given an op- 
 portunity to exercise a direct control over the ad- 
 ministration of public affairs. 
 
 This belief and this theory are, I submit, mis- 
 taken. The experience of tlie people of the 
 United States has now demonstrated that, in the 
 case of any people of large numbers, any system 
 of government under which general elections, for 
 the members of the popular representative as- 
 semblies, are held at regular intervals of time, 
 effectually deprives the individual citizen of his 
 
PK^NCIPLES. 87 
 
 rightful political power, and his political free- 
 dom. 
 
 This result has already been considered as one 
 which is caused necessarily, under any system where 
 the individual citizens are compelled to act sepa- 
 rately on public questions, without the organ of the 
 popular assembly; especially where election dis- 
 tricts are large, and large numbers of citizens are 
 therefore compelled to act separately, without be- 
 ing organized as a people, in the process of so- 
 called popular election. 
 
 But the same result comes as necessarily and cer- 
 tainly from any system of general periodical elec- 
 tions. The magnitude, intricacy, and permanence 
 of the work of carrying general elections, in any 
 large people, with large numbers of voters, for the 
 highest offices in the state, naturally and necessa- 
 rily take that work out of the hands of the ordi- 
 nary citizens, and put it into the hands of great 
 organizations of professionals. The regularity and 
 continuousness of the work make these organiza- 
 tions permanent and powerful. It becomes prac- 
 tically impossible for any man to be elected to any 
 public office without a nomination at their hands. 
 Sooner or later the time comes when the ordinary 
 citizen finds his political functions limited to a 
 mere choice between the candidates of these pow- 
 
88 DEMOCKATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 erful organizations. On the other hand, the worst 
 elements in the commnnitj come to have an undue 
 weight in public affairs. The men who furnish 
 the time and money, and who gain the skill, re- 
 quired for the work of these permanent powerful 
 organizations, are mainly men who work for money, 
 and men who need to influence and control the 
 action of piiblic officials to serve their own per- 
 sonal ends. Eich men, who wish only justice and 
 equal rights under the law, will not pay the cost 
 of this election work. Poor men cannot pay it. 
 The result is that the work is largely done and 
 paid for by adventurers and criminals. The ordi- 
 nary honest citizen finds himself unable to com- 
 pete with these skilled professionals, and becomes 
 comparatively powerless in public affairs. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we leave the control and 
 removal of the members of the popular assemblies 
 to the assemblies themselves, if w^e use the process 
 of election only for the purpose of selection, to fill 
 vacancies, when vacancies occur, then, whatever 
 other result may or may not be accomplished, we 
 shall at least greatly reduce the magnitude of this 
 work of carrying elections; and the tendency at least 
 will be to destroy the trade of the professional 
 politician, and give the ordinary citizen freedom, 
 and a fair field, in his political action. Especially 
 
PRmCIPLES. 89 
 
 "we shall take away the great prizes of election 
 work. "We shall decrease the enormous number 
 of vacancies in the highest offices in the state. 
 They will not come at fixed intervals of time. 
 The magnitude of the work will be diminished, 
 and its rewards will be made fewer and more un- 
 certain. The profession will cease to pay. As far 
 then as concerns our present point, the tendency 
 will be to destroy the profession of election work- 
 ers, and to put an end to the powerful organiza- 
 tions of professionals which exist merely to carry 
 elections. I do not now say that this provision 
 alone will completely destroy that profession, or 
 those great organizations. I do say that such 
 would be its tendency, and that without this pro- 
 vision, so long as any people continues to expose 
 its highest offices, as the regular prizes, to be won 
 at regular periods by carrying general elections 
 through large election districts with great numbers 
 of electors, so long this work of carrying elections 
 will certainly fall out of the hands of ordinary 
 citizens, and into the hands of great organizations 
 of professionals. If, however, a people uses, in 
 the selection of its highest public officers, the organ 
 of the public meeting at all stages ; if, too, vacan- 
 cies are uncertain ; if elections are held only to fill 
 vacancies, when vacancies occur, at times which no 
 
90 DEMOCKATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 one can foresee, at least one step would be taken 
 towards enabling honest and able citizens, with 
 only a reasonable expenditure of time, to take 
 part in the regular popular assemblies, primary 
 and representative, on a fair footing, and to have 
 their natural and legitimate influence in shaping 
 popular deliberations and popular action. This 
 would be at least one point towards securing for 
 the ordinary citizen something that could be prop- 
 erly called freedom of political action. 
 
 2. It is essential in order to secure the free and 
 healthy action of the people. 
 
 Frequent or regular general elections, for all the 
 members of the representative popular assemblies, 
 surely and necessarily become, in time, mere strug- 
 gles for power between great factions of profes- 
 sional electioneering agents. The idea that such 
 elections give a true declaration of the people's 
 judgment on the administration of public affairs 
 is a mistake. At such elections the people, as a 
 people, has no real opportunity to deliberate. In- 
 dividual citizens, even, cannot deliberate. Men 
 join in a great political campaign. They fall into 
 the ranks of one or another great election army. 
 Their passions become inflamed. Their fears are 
 aroused. The conditions are as unfavorable as 
 they well can be to the getting a calm judgment, 
 
PRINCIPLES. 91 
 
 even of individual citizens, as to men or measures. 
 No doubt it is a possible thing for a very intelli- 
 gent and law-abiding people, accustomed to demo- 
 cratic forms of procedure, to stand the strain to 
 which the body politic is subjected by these great 
 contests for political supremacy. But with a 
 people just beginning the experiment of demo- 
 cratic government, these periodical convulsions are 
 dangerous processes. If they really secured an 
 expression of the popular judgment, and that 
 judgment could be secured in no other way, it 
 might be necessary to endure them. But the most 
 that they give is a mere aggregation of individual 
 preferences, uttered in times of great popular ex- 
 jcitement, for one or another of different factions 
 of professional politicians. They give nothing that 
 can be correctly called a judgment of the people. 
 But this idea that the whole mass of individual 
 citizens should have the opportunity, at frequent 
 or infrequent intervals of time, to express their 
 individual approval or disapproval of the adminis- 
 tration of great public affairs, rests on a funda- 
 mentally erroneous theory of democratic govern- 
 ment. Such a thing is neither practicable nor 
 desirable. It is not practicable, for the reason that, 
 as has already been shown, these frequent general 
 elections bring into existence &uch powerful or- 
 
93 DEMOCKATIO GOVEENMENT. 
 
 ganizations of skilled professionals, that the mass 
 of individual citizens become mere puppets. Elec- 
 tions fail to give even a collection of individual 
 judgments. It is not a possible thing to devise 
 any political system which will enable the whole 
 body of citizens (except in the small primary dis- 
 tricts) to have a direct voice in the administration 
 of public affairs. As to all public affairs, other 
 than the local affairs of the small towns and vil- 
 lages, the people must always act through repre- 
 sentatives. The function of the individual citizen 
 cannot go beyond the having a voice in the selec- 
 tion of those representatives. Nothing more than 
 that is practicable. If the attempt is made to give 
 to each individual citizen somethinsj in the nature 
 of a direct voice on measures, by having the citi- 
 zens often elect men, the attempt defeats itself. 
 It is an unnatural political process. It necessarily 
 and certainly increases the volume of election 
 work to such a degree that elections cease to be 
 expressions of the popular judgment, the people 
 loses its political freedom, and what should be a 
 democratic government becomes a mere election 
 machine. 
 
 But if it were a possible thing to give to every 
 individual a direct voice on measures, other than in 
 the local affairs of the small primary districts, it 
 
PEINCIPLES. 93 
 
 would not be desirable. I believe in the expediency 
 of giving to the individual citizen the fullest part 
 that he can possibly take, under any political system 
 that can be devised, in the administration of public 
 affairs. But the function of the individual citizen 
 must be limited, as to all but local affaii*s, to his 
 voice in the selection of men. As to measures 
 other than local, the individual citizen never is, 
 and never can be, able to act wisely. I do not here 
 draw any distinction between rich men and poor 
 men, between men learned and unlearned. I say 
 that all individual citizens, rich and poor, learned 
 and unlearned, alike, are incapable of forming a 
 wise judgment on the great questions of state and 
 national policy. The large public questions of 
 large peoples, if they are to be decided wisely, must 
 be decided by men carefully selected, who can take 
 time to learn the special facts of special cases, who 
 can confer with men of other views, who can take 
 part in the common deliberations of men who rep- 
 resent diverse interests, and who can, after such 
 conference and deliberation, take part in the form- 
 ing and uttering of a calm, common judgment. The 
 judgment of single individuals, however learned 
 or skilled, on great public questions, has compara- 
 tively little value. That the individual citizen, 
 however intelligent he may be, however able he 
 
94 DEMOCEATIC GOYEENMENT. 
 
 may be, shall be allowed to pass his individual 
 judgment on great public questions to which he 
 cannot give special study, on which he cannot delib- 
 erate with other men, is not in accordance with any 
 sound theory of democratic government. Demo- 
 cratic government means, not that each individual 
 citizen shall have a separate individual voice on 
 every public measure in his own person, but that 
 every citizen shall, either in his own person or in 
 the person of his representative, have one voice in 
 the people's public meeting, by which all questions 
 of general public policy are decided. On mere 
 local questions he can have this voice in his own 
 person. On questions other than local he must 
 have this voice always in the person of his repre- 
 sentative, in whose selection he has had, with all 
 other citizens, his equal part. 
 
 This whole matter of the attempt, under the 
 form of periodical popular election, to give to the 
 individual citizens the control of their general 
 public policy, in the end, comes down to this: 
 With or without periodical elections of the repre- 
 sentatives in the popular assemblies, the actual de- 
 cision of actual questions is, and necessarily must 
 be, in the hands of representatives. The point 
 then, is this: Is it possible, by a system of periodi- 
 cal elections, to secure, as to the representatives, 
 
PEESrCIPLES. 95 
 
 responsibility either to the individual citizens, or to 
 the people ? My answer is — no. The thing that 
 we secure by such a system is, not responsibility 
 to the individual citizen, or to the people, but 
 responsibility to some oligarchy of professional 
 politicians. 
 
 If, however, we use the proper process of popu- 
 lar election, the process of the public meeting, 
 (for without that I do not believe that anything 
 that deserves the name of a judgment of the peo- 
 ple can be obtained) ; if, then, we give to the popu- 
 lar assemblies themselves the control and removal 
 of their own members ; if, too, we use the process 
 of election only for its proper use, the selection of 
 men, and not the enforcement of responsibility, 
 then at least the tendency will be to make popular 
 election something that can be fairly called a free 
 expression of the judgment of the people in the 
 selection of men. Beyond that the process of 
 popular election cannot be used. Any attempt to 
 use it for the purpose of enforcing responsibil- 
 ity violates the natural laws of political organi- 
 zation. 
 
 If, too, the control of the members of the popu- 
 lar assemblies be in the assemblies themselves, 
 then, whatever else may be said, each representa- 
 tive in each assembly will be, at all times, for any 
 
96 DEMOCUATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 sufficient cause, removable, whenever the whole 
 people, by its judgment, uttered in its own public 
 meeting, shall so decree. 
 
 Can we say as much as that for any system of 
 periodical general elections ? 
 
 3. This principle is essential in order to secure 
 good government. 
 
 In order to secure good government, these popu- 
 lar assemblies, of the large cities, and states, and 
 of the nation, must be efficient working organiza- 
 tions of efficient experienced men. I assume, 
 and believe, that the process of popular election, 
 used in its proper form, and for its proper uses, 
 will give us the best men that can be selected as 
 the members of those popular assemblies. But 
 after these members have been selected, then they 
 must have time, and opportunity, to get experi- 
 ence and training for their work. All their sur- 
 roundings must be such as to make each assembly 
 grow into a highly developed working organism, 
 with all its members co-operating vigorously and 
 harmoniously, as few human organizations have 
 thus far done, with unity of personal interest, and 
 unity of public purpose. On its popular assembly 
 each people must depend for the wise conduct of 
 its public affairs. The popular assembly must be 
 the people's brain, made of its finest fibre, steadily 
 
PEmCIPLES. 97 
 
 fed with its richest blood, continually renewing 
 its single cells. The conditions must be such as 
 to secure its most free, vigorous, healthy action, if 
 the life and action of the whole state are to be 
 vigorous and healthy. Especially, it will be nec- 
 essary, in the body politic, that this brain should 
 rule the trunk, and not the trunk rule the brain. 
 
 Let us examine these points with somewhat 
 more of detail. 
 
 Government by the people does not mean gov- 
 ernment by the collected voices of all the indi- 
 vidual citizens. It means government by the will 
 of the people, and especially by the people's judg- 
 ment. Wise measures cannot be framed by any 
 process of periodical popular election, or by any 
 public profession of faith in great political princi- 
 ples. Great questions of public policy must be 
 handled by no average minds. Those men who 
 think that democratic government is government 
 by the masses, that its public policies are to be lev- 
 elled downwards to the scale of ordinary intelli- 
 gences, are greatly deluded. For the general super- 
 vision of the local affairs, whatever they may be, of 
 the primary districts, the best body of men, taking 
 all things into consideration, is, as I have said, the 
 assembly of citizens. But when we come to the 
 public affairs of larger peoples, of the peoples of 
 7 
 
98 DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 large cities, states, or of a great nation, then we 
 have larger problems. For the handling of these 
 larger problems we must have larger men. These 
 men who are to supervise the affairs of large cities 
 and states, and of the nation, must be not only 
 men of large natural capacity, and large general 
 experience, but they must get thorough knowledge 
 for the duties of the bodies of which they are to 
 be members. Especially they must get that train- 
 ing that comes only from long experience in their 
 own line of public duty. The world has never 
 yet seen the work that can be done in a great 
 state by a popular assembly, of free men, freely se- 
 lected by a free people, who have had time to get 
 thorough training. The greatest single piece of 
 political work of which I find any record — the 
 framing of our National Constitution — was the 
 work of comparatively untrained men, I mean, of 
 men who were untrained for the special work 
 they then had in hand. "Who can imagine the re- 
 sults that would be accomplished by a body of 
 men who should have the political teachings of 
 the last hundred years from which to learn, who 
 could train themselves for their work as men 
 train themselves for private callings, and who 
 could have time to become an efficient organized 
 body? 
 
PRINCIPLES. 00 
 
 But above all things, if any popular assembly is 
 to be a thoroughly serviceable body of men, it is 
 absolutely essential that its members should be 
 free. They must be free to think and utter their 
 own thoughts, and to agree on the best results of 
 their own combined wisdom. The public meas- 
 ures of any wise and efficient government of any 
 large people must be the best work of its wisest 
 men. In private life reasonable men employ a 
 carpenter, or a lawyer, or a physician, because 
 they wish the use of his superior skill and knowl- 
 edge. They wash him to use his own knowledge, 
 and not theirs. In public affairs the people, when 
 they once come to think of the matter, will wish 
 the same thing. This American people has not 
 yet begun to think, as to the true principles of 
 democratic government. It has thus far accepted 
 the political machinery of its forefathers without 
 question. When it once comes to really consider 
 the matter, it will wish its public affairs man- 
 aged by wise men. It will wish those men to 
 gain knowledge and experience, and to use that 
 knowledge and experience in the people's service. 
 By all means, let us give every citizen his one 
 voice in the selection of the highest public ser- 
 vants. But when these servants arc once selected, 
 they must be free. The idea that the people's 
 
100 DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 representatives must be kept at all times under 
 the terrors of an impending re-election is a mis- 
 taken idea. It rests on the assumption that pub- 
 lic servants chosen by the people cannot be trusted. 
 That is a false assumption. I admit that there 
 will be single instances, where single men, who 
 have, to all outward appearances, long led honest 
 lives, will prove to be dishonest. No doubt, too, 
 honest men will at times yield to temptation, and 
 at times do dishonest acts. But if any people 
 that has freedom of thought and speech, with the 
 habit of regular common public deliberation, is 
 not able to select a body of representatives, the 
 honesty and capacity of which, taken as a whole, 
 can be safely trusted, then that people must, at 
 least for a time, give up the experiment of demo- 
 cratic government. It must have a further teach- 
 ing in the school of tyranny and distrust. All 
 private affairs are conducted on the basis of con- 
 fidence in men. Public affairs must be conducted 
 on the same basis. Most men can be trusted to 
 act honestly and efficiently, to the limits of their 
 understanding and capacity, provided only they 
 are free to follow their own best impulses. Free 
 democratic government means freedom for public 
 servants, as well as for their masters, the people. 
 Government by slaves is fit only for slaves. It 
 
PEINCIPLES. 101 
 
 never yet has been a success, and it never will be, 
 for men who have achieved their freedom. I 
 agree, and insist, that a people's servants, espe- 
 cially the highest, must be at all times under the 
 most thorough responsibility to the people, that 
 is, to the whole people. But if government is to 
 be wise and efficient, public servants must have, 
 with responsibility, freedom. 
 
 But there remains still another consideration. 
 In order to secure the healthy life and growth of 
 a people, as well as of any other organism, it is in- 
 dispensable that that people should be free from 
 great convulsions. Periodical revolutions, even 
 though they be conducted strictly under the forms 
 of law, with ballots for the weapons, make a 
 healthy national life and growth an impossible 
 thing. It is necessary, as I have said, that there 
 should be some simple, easy, and speedy means for 
 getting rid of single public officers, singly, when- 
 ever public interests require. But no society can 
 long endure a political system where any large 
 number of its higher public servants are com- 
 pelled to engage in frequent or periodical strug- 
 gles for political existence. Government by revo- 
 lution is not a good government. 
 
 What, then, will be the actual working of a sys- 
 tem of tenure by election, so far as concerns the 
 
103 DEMOCEATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 securing good government? We all well know 
 the ordinary theory on this point. But what will 
 be the actual working ? 
 
 I submit that any system of tenure by election 
 makes good government impossible. 
 
 Let us consider it. 
 
 In the first place, any system of tenure by elec- 
 tion for the highest public servants bars the best 
 men in the community from public life. The 
 best men in any people are busy men. Gener- 
 ally, they are men who are making, or have made, 
 their own fortunes. Often it is a matter of ne- 
 cessity with them to have the avails of their daily 
 labor. Tliey are certain, from one reason or an- 
 other, to be closely engaged in private affairs. 
 Such men cannot, in general, afford to give up 
 their private employments for one, two, or ten 
 years, and take the risk at the end of that time 
 of losing their positions in public life, when very 
 certainly their hold on their private callings will 
 be shaken or gone. On the ordinary condition, 
 ■ that of keeping their positions so long as they do 
 well their work, these men will be eager to enter 
 the people's service. But no man who has not an 
 independent fortune can afford to leave his busi- 
 ness or profession, and give his time faithfully to 
 the service of the people, for any considerable 
 
PEINCIPLES. 103 
 
 period, and depend at the end of that period for 
 his continuance in the public service on the chance 
 of carrying a popular election. If he serves the 
 people honestly, he will have sliglit chance of a 
 second nomination at the hands of the men who 
 will control nominations, unless he buys it, and 
 pays for it, in money or its equivalent. More- 
 over, the best men, the men whom the people 
 would select for high public trusts if the people 
 were free, the men who are able, honest, and in- 
 dependent, cannot generally get nominations un- 
 der any political system where the carrying of 
 elections necessarily falls into the hands of pro- 
 fessional politicians. The professionals will, in 
 general, give the people as good appointments as 
 they can. But even they are not free. They are 
 compelled, by the necessities of political warfare, 
 to use public offices to pay men who do the work 
 of the great organizations. They require pliant 
 men, men who will subordinate public to private 
 interests. They have no use for men who cannot 
 be made to serve their personal ends. Aside 
 from all these considerations, however, election 
 work, in the form which it ultimately takes under 
 any system of tenure by election, is not work which 
 able and respectable men are long willing to do. 
 The soliciting of votes, the organizing processions 
 
104 DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 and public meetings, the procuring of nomina- 
 tions, the printing of ballots, the parade work of 
 politics, is not work which they will consent to 
 do. It is not work that is attractive to men who 
 are able to earn an honest living in an honest call- 
 ing. The work of the professional politicians is 
 not clean work. Trading in public offices is not 
 a dignified profession. Under a system of tenure 
 by election it is no doubt the fact that men of 
 means, ability, and honesty, often will for a time 
 take a keen interest and an active part in election 
 work. They will do so from the best motives. 
 Sooner or later, however, they drop the work, or 
 the work drops them, unless they are willing, 
 either to do disreputable work themselves, or to 
 pay other men for doing it. The practical result 
 is that the best men in the community are barred 
 from the highest places in the state. Those places 
 are given to men who either do election work, or 
 pay for it. In short, I venture to lay down a 
 political axiom — tenure by election turns govern- 
 ment into an election machine. 
 
 In the next place, any system of tenure by elec- 
 tion for the members of the popular representa- 
 tive assemblies makes it impossible for those mem- 
 bers to get training. To gain the knowledge and 
 experience needed to be an efficient member of 
 
PEINCIPLES. 105 
 
 the popular assembly of a large city, or a state, or 
 a great nation, takes time — and freedom. At the 
 end of one year or two years, a very able man, of 
 large experience in private affairs, if he give his 
 most earnest efforts to his public work, begins to 
 learn the alphabet of political science. Who are 
 these dreamers, who fancy that any man who has 
 read a few books on political economy, or on the 
 growth of parliamentary government, is fit to be a 
 legislator for a great people? In the science of 
 medicine, or the law, men toil all their lives to get 
 the beginnings of professional knowledge. This 
 science of politics — the largest of all human sci- 
 ences — where is the man who can master it in ten 
 years? It is a science yet to be discovered, by 
 men of learning, after lives of labor. It needs 
 time — all the time — of strong men. How is it a 
 possible thing for men who are compelled to give 
 their best energies to doing election work, or for 
 men who hold their places for a term of one, or 
 two, or ten years, to gain the training that is need- 
 ed in the members of the great popular assemblies? 
 Mere subordinates in administrative offices may 
 no doubt be able to give ns fairly good service af- 
 ter an experience of a few years. But the men at 
 the head of public affairs, in whose hands must be 
 the management of vast public interests, how is it 
 
106 DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 with tliem ? Tliey, of all men, must have time, 
 and opportunity — and freedom — to study, think, 
 and experiment, on the great questions of political 
 science. It is an idea simply ridiculous, that any 
 man, however great may be his natural capacity, 
 however wide may be his previous experience in 
 private affairs, can dispense with the training of a 
 long experience in public life, if he is to do the 
 people good public service. Take the ablest man 
 in the country, with the widest range of knowl- 
 edge, put him to-day in the United States Con- 
 gress, he will be at first almost useless for his 
 work in Congress. He must gain a thorough 
 knowledge of public affairs. He must learn the 
 working ways of other members, and of the body. 
 At the end of one or two years he will only begin 
 his apprenticeship. At the end of Rve years, if he 
 has been able to give his time without interrup- 
 tion to his legitimate duties, he may have learned 
 to be a valuable public servant. Some men will 
 never become very useful members of a legislative 
 body. But if a man is fitted to be such, every 
 year (so long as he keeps his health and strength) 
 makes him more valuable to the state. As far as 
 this point is concerned, the system of term elec- 
 tions for the men at the head of the government 
 is not a reasonable system. If it did really give 
 
PRINCIPLES. 107 
 
 to the people a real control over public affairs, that 
 would be one point in its favor. If it did really 
 make representatives responsible to the people, 
 that would be one point in its favor. It does not 
 accomplish either of those results. It gives the 
 control of public affairs to professional politicians. 
 It gives the selection of these representatives to 
 professional politicians. It makes these representa- 
 tives responsible to professional politicians. It 
 gradually and surely debases the quality of the 
 highest public oflScials, and through them of the 
 whole public service. 
 
 In the next place tenure by election for the 
 members of the popular representative assemblies 
 makes it impossible for those members to do their 
 best work. A system of tenure by election for 
 those members puts every single member of every 
 popular representative assembly under the strong- 
 est pressure to be faithless to his public trusts. 
 The tendency is to make all the highest public 
 officials in the nation sacrifice public to personal 
 interests. Every member is compelled to look out 
 for his re-election. He is compelled to conciliate 
 the rich and powerful interests that control nomi- 
 nations, and elections. The theory is that the ne- 
 cessity of carrying the next election compels the 
 representative to serve the interests of the people, 
 
108 DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of the greatest number. The practice is, that he 
 serves the rich and strong, or, rather, only those of 
 the rich and strong who are willing to spend mon- 
 ey to influence public officials. To the people the 
 representative gives a profession of faith in grand 
 old principles — so grand that they have little to 
 do with actual problems, so old that they are 
 often out of date. But to the professional politi- 
 cians, to the men who need to control and shape 
 legislation to serve their own private ends, he gives 
 solid work. I do not mean that this is done on 
 any express corrupt agreement, or that it is done 
 generally with any consciousness of wrong. The 
 intentions of the men who do it are generally fair- 
 ly good. But the men become blind to the true 
 bearings of their acts. They are compelled to 
 serve the interests that will secure to them re- 
 nomination, and re-election. If this were the con- 
 dition of only one member, or of only a few mem- 
 bers, the evil would be comparatively slight. But 
 consider what must be the practical working of af- 
 fairs when the thousands of men who have tlie 
 supreme control of all public affairs, of the making 
 of all public laws, and the spending of all public 
 moneys, are dependent, and are compelled, one and 
 all of them, to be looking out for a re-election. 
 The influences are all against simple, honest ser- 
 
PKINCIPLES. 109 
 
 vice to the people. Every one of tliese men is 
 engaged in a continued struggle for political ex- 
 istence. We might almost as well look for effi- 
 cient public service from men adrift in mid-ocean 
 fighting for a plank. 
 
 Moreover, the system of tenure by election for 
 members of the representative popular assemblies 
 makes it impossible for those members to be un- 
 der thorough supervision and control. The idea 
 that the mass of individual citizens can exercise 
 intelligent supervision over any public officials 
 other than local officials is a mistaken idea. The 
 ordinary citizen cannot get the necessary knowl- 
 edge. He cannot take the necessary time. But 
 a still greater difficulty lies in the fact that, with 
 short terras of office, and the consequent frequent 
 changes in the membership of legislative bodies, it 
 is impossible for any one, citizens or public offi- 
 cials, to get that thorough knowledge of public 
 men that is necessary to judge them rightly. I\o 
 doubt it is possible for a man, in one month, or 
 one day, to show himself to be a great orator, or 
 an accomplished parliamentary debater. But we 
 are beginning to learn that in legislative assem- 
 blies, as elsewhere, the useful men are, in general, 
 not the talkers. N"o doubt it is necessary that a 
 representative in a legislative body should have 
 
110 DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the power of clear, compact statement ; and lie 
 should, as a rule, be a man who can speak, forcibly, 
 and to the point. But the great popular orator is, 
 in general, not a serviceable man in the delibera- 
 tions of a well - organized body of well -trained 
 men. Great orators, as a rule, use much time to 
 small purpose. The serviceable men are the work- 
 ing men. The men needed in real working bod- 
 ies, public as well as private, are not the great 
 speech-makers. They must be men of thorough 
 knowledge, of skill in affairs, who will work. 
 Those men will in time become known. They 
 must first become known by the men who work 
 with them. They will not generally quickly gain 
 a brilliant reputation with the people at large. In 
 short, the only men in the whole community who 
 will be able to form a wise judgment as to the 
 usefulness of any member of a popular assembly 
 will be his fellow-members. 
 
 Ent how is it on the question of freedom for 
 the members of the popular assemblies? What 
 will be the practical working of a system of tenure 
 by election as far as concerns that point ? I ven- 
 ture to lay down another political axiom. Tenure 
 by election makes public servants the slaves of the 
 election machine. And we all well know, that 
 it is useless to hope for efficient work from slaves. 
 
PEINCIPLES. Ill 
 
 Last of all, it is impossible, with a system of 
 term elections for the members of the representa- 
 tive popular assemblies, that any people should 
 have a healthy political life. Let me take as an 
 illustration the position of affairs at this time in 
 these United States. The members of our na- 
 tional Congress and of our state legislatures alone, 
 not including the members of representative pop- 
 ular boards and councils in counties, cities, towns, 
 and villages, number nearly six thousand. Every 
 general election becomes in effect a general revo- 
 lution. In any large people, if all the members 
 of all the legislative bodies hold office by the ten- 
 ure of election, the necessary and certain result is 
 that the political life of that people becomes a se- 
 ries of revolutions. 
 
 On the other hand, what would be the actual 
 working results of a system where the members of 
 each popular assembly were wholly under the con- 
 trol of the assemblies themselves ? 
 
 In the first place, such a system would draw to 
 the popular assemblies the best men in the com- 
 munity, and would enable them to gain experience 
 and training for their public work. The people 
 wish to have in their service their best men. 
 Those men, too, wish to enter the people's service, 
 provided they can enter it on honorable terms. If 
 
113 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 tliey can be selected by the deliberate choice of 
 the people, without working to get nominations; if 
 the office seeks them instead of their seeking the 
 office ; if they can be given time, to fit themselves 
 for good work, and to do it ; if they can be free to 
 do their best work; if their work can be done 
 under the supervision and control of men who are 
 able to rightly judge its value ; if they can stay in 
 the public service so long as they show themselves 
 honest and efficient ; if they can be well paid for 
 their service, only moderately in money, but very 
 liberally in reputation ; if, too, they can have a 
 reasonable certainty of rising in the service to the 
 highest places in the people's gift, when they show 
 themselves deserving — on those conditions the 
 working men of society, the useful men, the men 
 whom the people need and wish in their service, 
 will be always eager to enter that service. If, now, 
 the machinery of election be such as to make the 
 action of the people free ; if, too, the amount of 
 election work be brought within a reasonable com- 
 pass, so that the ordinary citizens and the people 
 can control popular elections, then, whatever other 
 results may or may not be accomplished, service 
 in those assemblies will at least command able 
 and honest men. So, too, it will then be a possible 
 thing for the members of those assemblies to gain 
 
PEINCIPLES. 113 
 
 training and experience, the same kind of training 
 and experience that men gain in private callings. 
 
 So, too, it will then be possible to secure from 
 the members of these assemblies their best work. 
 Each member would be under the supervision and 
 control of a body of men able to judge his work. 
 He would be under the control of men more inde- 
 pendent than any other body of men in the state, 
 and more certain than any other body of men, to 
 use wisely their power in controlling the members 
 of their own body. 
 
 But the chief consideration is, that then the 
 members of the popular representative assemblies 
 would be free — to give to the people their best 
 service. 
 
 But could men so placed, with no organized 
 power immediately above them, other than the 
 power vested in their own body, be trusted? 
 Would not a body of men so placed become torpid 
 and corrupt ? 
 
 That is the question that will occur to nearly 
 every mind, and the one that will at first bring to 
 nearly every mind a doubt. 
 
 Let us consider it. 
 
 The whole matter comes, in the end, to this. 
 Can the people, when they are free, be trusted to 
 select the men who are to have the supreme, direct 
 
 8 
 
114 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 control of public affairs, and can those men so 
 selected be trusted with that control ? 
 
 To mj mind the answers to both these questions 
 are free from doubt. We all know that there are 
 men in every community who can be trusted to 
 protect the interests of other men, placed by other 
 men in their hands, at the sacrifice, if need be, of 
 their own personal advantage. I, for one, have 
 the fullest confidence that these men will be the 
 men who will be selected for high public places by 
 the people, when the choice of the people is a free, 
 deliberate choice. I believe that these men will be 
 true to themselves, and to their trusts. 
 
 But if that be not so, if we cannot trust the 
 people to select their servants, and if we cannot 
 trust the servants whom the people select, then we 
 must give up the experiment of democratic gov- 
 ernment. Eotatory government, even under the 
 form of popular election, has been thoroughly tried, 
 and found wanting. The state must have stability. 
 An election machine, even of two parts, is not an 
 efficient organism for securing a wise and vigor- 
 ous administration of public affairs. The men at 
 the head of public affairs, after they are selected 
 with the utmost care, by a natural process, must 
 be trusted. That is a political necessity. If the 
 people can be trusted to make the selection of 
 
PRINCIPLES. 115 
 
 those men, let the selection be made by the people. 
 If not, then let us go back to the system of selec- 
 tion by birth and inheritance. But the rotatory sys- 
 tem, the system of revolution, will not serve our 
 needs, even if the revolutionary methods of the 
 present be somewhat of an advance on the revolu- 
 tionary methods of the past. Evolution and not 
 revolution, growth and not a series of political con- 
 vulsions, are the political methods of the future. 
 We must trust our public servants, and give them 
 time — to grow. We must give the state time — to 
 grow. We must trust men — and time. In these 
 United States we have very thoroughly tried the 
 system of distrust. We have assumed that men 
 could not be trusted with power. We have made 
 large numbers of public officials elective, and have 
 given them short terms of office, on the idea 
 that it was necessary to keep officials at all times 
 in a state of apprehension as to a re-election, and that 
 thereby we could keep public officials at all times 
 under the control of the people. That system has 
 failed. Our political experience shows that that 
 system turns government into an election machine, 
 and puts the administration of public affairs largely 
 into the hands of political adventurers. Political 
 systems, if they are to succeed, must harmonize 
 with the facts of human nature. It is safe to trust 
 
116 JDEMOCKATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 men — in public life, as we do in private life. The 
 people can be trusted — to choose their servants 
 wisely. The servants can be trusted — to serve the 
 people truly. 
 
 Ent the chief consideration of all is that the 
 abolition of tenure by election is necessary to se- 
 cure the stability and healthy growth of the body 
 politic. 
 
 It is essential in every well-ordered state that 
 there shall be some supreme authority, that shall 
 command the people's confidence and reverence. 
 That supreme authority cannot safely be select- 
 ed by the accidents of blood and inheritance. 
 For the supreme control of the affairs of a great 
 nation there must be a large assembly, of the 
 nation's wisest men. It must be stable. It must 
 be a body of men selected from the whole people, 
 by the people, the embodiment of the people's 
 wisdom, and of the people's majesty. The peo- 
 ple must be in the habit of looking up to this 
 body of men, selected by themselves, as the most 
 august body of men in the state. We hear much 
 said of the advantages, on the point of stability, of 
 an hereditary king and an hereditary class. These 
 things form, it is said, a conservative element in 
 the state. I admit, and insist, that there must be 
 a conservative element in the state. I maintain 
 
PEINCIPLES. 117 
 
 that there must be an aristocracy, in every well-or- 
 ganized state. It is an absolute necessity. But I 
 deny that it is possible to have a real aristocracy, 
 if its members are to be selected by birth. A true 
 aristocracy must be, not only a conservative ele- 
 ment in a state, but its most progressive element. 
 The men who are to make a real aristocracy must 
 be the brain and conscience of the people. There 
 is no practicable method of selecting those men 
 other than the process of popular election, by uni- 
 versal suffrage — provided the process be in its nor- 
 mal form, and be used only for its normal use. The 
 head of a free state must be somethiug wiser than 
 the head of one man. Monarchy is a system of 
 government practicable only for rude warring races. 
 The brain of a free, thinking people must be a high- 
 ly developed organ, made of selected fibre. It must 
 have time, to grow and develop. It must have a 
 peaceful, harmonious growth. It will never thrive 
 under a process of annual, or biennial, or decennial 
 decapitation. To leave the language of analogy — 
 it is, as I believe, necessary to have in every state 
 just such a body as some men have fancied could 
 be found in an hereditary nobility, It must be 
 strong, stable, conservative, and progressive. ]^o 
 such body can be had except under a pure demo- 
 cratic government. The believers in hereditary 
 
tl8 DEMOCBATIC GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 aristocracy have worshipped half a truth. The 
 believers in democracy have worshipped truth 
 mingled with error. A true democracy is a true 
 aristocracy — a government by a body of the peo- 
 ple's best men, selected by the people, growing into 
 one healthy organ, the single cells of which from 
 time to time perish and are renewed. Such a body, 
 of selected men, men of all shades of opinion, repre- 
 senting all diverse interests in the state, accumulat- 
 ing stores of political wisdom, continually strength- 
 ened by streams of new blood, will command the 
 confidence and reverence of the people — not for the 
 reason that the public policy of such a body of men 
 would of itself command the approval of a major- 
 ity of the individual citizens, but because all citi- 
 zens would know that the judgment of such a body 
 of men was the people's own wisest judgment. 
 Such men, so trained and so organized, would 
 solve the new, great social problems that are pre- 
 senting themselves from day to day. The public 
 policy of such a body of men would be as wise as 
 we can hope to secure by any human agencies. 
 
 This is what is now needed by any great civilized 
 people. The public affairs of a great nation can 
 no longer be administered on the principles of a 
 political prize-fight. Some men seem to think 
 that because politics in England and America for 
 
PKINCIPLES. 119 
 
 the last hundred years has been a series of strug- 
 gles for power between great factions, that that is 
 the ultimate stage of political development. They 
 seem to think that the proper way to administer 
 public affairs is to place one faction in power for a 
 time, until it ceases to command public confidence, 
 and then to place in control some other faction, 
 with different so-called political principles, until, in 
 its turn, it ceases to command public confidence. 
 Beating to windward served very well for the pur- 
 poses of political navigation in the days of political 
 sailing-vessels, and weaker political forces. Polit- 
 ical forces have grown with the growth of other 
 things. We now use political steam and elec- 
 tricity. "We must find new political methods. 
 Politics now demand trained men — and continu- 
 ity of control. The body of men at the head of 
 a nation's affairs must be a body of wise men, 
 with broad training and large political experience, 
 with the necessary provisions for bringing in, 
 gradually, new single men to take the place of old 
 men as they go out, and for selecting these new 
 men by the most careful possible tests. But to 
 have these men elected and re-elected every two 
 years, or four years, or ten years, to keep the po- 
 litical atoms in a state of continued revolution — is 
 to use in politics the methods of the kaleidoscope. 
 
120 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 On the contrary, if we have a stable system ; if 
 we have a democratic system ; if we have the people 
 free from the tyranny of the election machine, men 
 will be chosen on their merits, will first be selected 
 for local offices, will there be tried, put to the 
 competitive examination of actual service; they 
 will be winnowed ; they will have time to become 
 known; those of them who show themselves fit 
 for higher public trusts will be advanced to higher 
 public places ; and the men who are selected by a 
 great people, to serve the whole people, in the 
 people's highest council, will be men weighed in 
 the balance and not found wanting. They will 
 secure to the people a free, harmonious, healthy 
 national growth. 
 
 We come, then, to the consideration of 
 
 PBINCIFLE XL— Eacli People nmst Control the Head of its 
 own Ezecutive Administration. 
 
 This means that, in the government of the pri- 
 mary districts, the assembly of citizens will have 
 the full and free power of punishing, suspending, 
 or removing, the head of their executive adminis- 
 tration. So, too, the popular assembly of every 
 large town, city, county, state, and of the nation, 
 will have the power to suspend, punish, or remove, 
 at any time, for any reason in its judgment suffi- 
 
PEINCIPLES. 121 
 
 cient, the head of its own executive administra- 
 tion. 
 
 The evils of the system of tenure by election for 
 the chief administrative officer of a people are of 
 the same nature as for the members of the repre- 
 sentative popular assemblies. They hardly need 
 a separate consideration. 
 
 In order to secure efficient executive adminis- 
 tration it is necessary that the power to control 
 and remove the administrative head, at any time 
 when public interests demand it, should exist some- 
 where. The power should be full. It should not 
 be restricted by any requirement of a trial. It 
 should not be restricted to cases of high crimes and 
 misdemeanors. It should be vested in the wisest 
 hands. 
 
 How can it be in safer hands than in the supreme 
 popular assembly ? That body of men will be the 
 body who will have the fullest knowledge of the 
 daily work of the chief administrative head. That 
 body will be more certain than any other to be free 
 from disturbing influences, if it be itself free. The 
 power which would be thus given to the popular 
 assembly differs from the similar power that has in 
 practice been long vested in the British House of 
 Commons only in these respects. The British House 
 of Commons has the power, by custom, to remove 
 
123 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 the heads of all the chief administrative depart- 
 ments. It is here proposed to give to the popular 
 assembly the power only of removing the one head 
 of the whole executive administration. The British 
 House of Commons has the power, according to 
 custom, of also appointing the successors of the 
 removed officials. Its members are therefore un- 
 der the strongest temptation to intrigue against 
 the heads of the administrative departments, for 
 the reason that, whenever a combination can be 
 made in the House of a sufficiently large number 
 of discontented elements to make a majority, that 
 majority can not onl}^ put out the men who are in 
 office, but they can put themselves in the places 
 thus made vacant. Under the system here pro- 
 posed, except in the primary districts, the body 
 which removed the head of the executive adminis- 
 tration would not have the power of appointing 
 his successor, but that successor would be chosen 
 by a fresh popular election. The members of the 
 removing body would therefore be as free as pos- 
 sible from any hope of gaining any immediate 
 personal advantage from their own action. If the 
 considerations thus far advanced be sound, the con- 
 trol of the administrative head could not be in 
 wiser or safer hands. 
 
PEINCIPLES. 123 
 
 PBIKCIFLE xn. — Each Head of an Administrative Department 
 or Office must Control Ms Own Subordinates. 
 
 This is a point well established by experience. 
 It is gradually gaining general assent. !N"o admin- 
 istrative oflfieial can justly be held responsible for 
 results, unless he has the control, as well as the se- 
 lection, of his subordinates. 'Nor can he otherwise 
 accomplish results. No doubt the power will be 
 open to abuse. But the remedy for the abuse of 
 the power is to be found in punishing or remov- 
 ing the officer guilty of the abuse. The power 
 must exist, if administration is to be efficient. No 
 one can use the power wisely but the one man at 
 the head of the office, who has under his eyes from 
 day to day the work of the subordinates. 
 
 The different principles of democratic govern- 
 ment, then, as it seems to me, are these : 
 
 Principles relating to 
 
 A. The Okgait of the People's Will. 
 
 FBINCIFLE I.— The Public Meeting is the Organ of a People's 
 
 Thought and Will. 
 
 PEINCrPLE n.— In the Public Meeting every Man must have 
 
 One Voice. 
 
 PKINCIPLE III.— In the Public Meeting Action must be Taken 
 on only One Man or One Measure at One Time. 
 
12^ DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 B. The Organization of the Government. 
 
 PEINCIPLE IV.— Eacli Man and each Body of Men must have 
 One Function. 
 
 PRINCIPLE v.— The Supreme Control of each People's Public 
 Affairs must be in One Body. 
 
 PBINCIPLE VI. — Executive Administration must be under One 
 Head. 
 
 C. The Selection of the Organs and Mem- 
 bees of the Government. 
 
 principle vn. — The Body having the Supreme Control of each 
 People's Public Affairs must be that People. 
 
 PRINCIPLE Vm.— The Head of each People's Executive Ad- 
 ministration must be Selected by that People. 
 
 PRINCIPLE IX. — Subordinates in the Executive Administration 
 must be Selected by their Head. 
 
 D. The Securities of the Government. 
 
 PRINCIPLE X.— Each People must Control the Members of its 
 Own Popular Assembly. 
 
 PRINCIPLE XI. — Each People must Control the Head of its Own 
 Executive Administration. 
 
 PRINCIPLE Xn. — Each Head of an Administrative Department 
 or Ofl&ce must Control his Own Subordinates. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 WHEEEIN OUR GOVEENMENT IS NOT DEMOCEATIO. 
 
 It has already been said that a government, in 
 order to be really democratic, must be democratic 
 in its actual working results, and not merely in 
 some points of form. 
 
 Judging our present system of government by 
 that standard, I think most men will, upon care- 
 ful consideration, agree that our present govern- 
 ment is not, in all respects, a democratic govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The points wherein our government is not dem- 
 ocratic, are, to my mind, the following : 
 
 I. It makes impossible the free healthy action 
 of the individual citizen. 
 
 The want of any organ established by law, 
 whereby all the individual citizens can combine 
 in one body, for common thought and common 
 action, is the first defect which fetters the action 
 of the individual citizen. Throughout our entire 
 political system the public meeting is almost wholly 
 
126 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 unused in its free, natural form for the primary 
 action of tlie citizens themselves. It is, as far as I 
 am aware, in no state established by law as the 
 regular organ, to enable the citizens to form and 
 utter their common thought and common action 
 on all subjects, to enable them to deliberate and 
 act on all questions, both of measures and men. 
 Especially, it is not regularly used in the process 
 of popular election. 
 
 In default of any organ provided in and by the 
 law, whereby all the citizens can combine in one 
 body, to form and utter the common judgment of 
 the whole people, citizens are compelled to organ- 
 ize factions, outside of the law, and to think and 
 act with factions. 
 
 But the most serious point is the magnitude 
 of the election work imposed on the people by 
 our present form of government, and the intricacy 
 of the processes of our so-called system of popu- 
 lar election. The magnitude of the election work 
 already required under our present political sys- 
 tem is something enormous. The Mayor of the 
 city of New York is chosen by the direct vote of 
 about two hundred thousand electors. The Gov- 
 ernor of the State of New York is chosen by the 
 direct vote of more than one million electors. 
 The President of the United States is chosen, in 
 
WHEREIN NOT DEMOCRATIC. 127 
 
 effect, by the direct vote of more than ten million 
 electors. Moreover, the number of elective offi- 
 cers under our government is very great. At a 
 general election in the State of New York at the 
 present day each citizen may cast his vote for the 
 following officials : Governor of the state. Judges 
 of the Court of Appeals, Justices of the Supreme 
 Court, Secretary of State, State Comptroller, State 
 Treasurer, Attorney-General, State Engineer and 
 Surveyor, district attorne3's, county judges, state sen- 
 ators, members of assembly, sheriffs, county clerks, 
 coroners, representatives to Congress, and in the 
 year of a presidential election for thirty-five presi- 
 dential electors. This is in addition to the large 
 number of elective town and city officers. Elec- 
 tions of these officials are all for short terms of 
 years. Many of them are elected each year. Few 
 of them have a term longer than three years. The 
 same condition of affairs exists in other states. 
 Throughout the country there is an immense num- 
 ber of vacancies in public offices, occurring at short 
 and certain intervals of time. The result is that in- 
 competent men, men who fail at the ordinary call- 
 ings of life, seeing this large supply of vacant public 
 offices to be won by election work, and having on 
 their hands large amounts of unused time, betake 
 themselves to what is called " politics," which now 
 
128 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 with US mainly consists of the work of manipulat- 
 ing nominating conventions, and trading in public 
 offices. Political life is a continual struggle for 
 office. The certainty that all the highest offices, 
 local, state, and national, are put up as the prizes 
 for election work at fixed periods, draws into this 
 profession of so-called " politics " many very able 
 men, who give their time and thought almost en- 
 tirely, in one form and another, to this work of 
 carrying elections. The large number of elective 
 offices, the large size of election districts, and the 
 frequency of the so-called popular elections, make 
 it impossible for busy men to compete at this 
 work with the professionals. The attempt has 
 been often made. It has always failed. It always 
 will fail, so long as our political system in its es- 
 sential features remains what it now is. Every 
 year there is a large number of nominating con- 
 ventions, to make nominations for thousands of 
 offices ; millions of ballots are to be printed ; 
 these ballots must be in the hands of trusted 
 agents at every voting place in every state. All 
 this work requires thorough organization, skill, 
 discipline, and large amounts of time and money. 
 Yery few of the leaders, or of the men who fill 
 the ranks, of these great organizations have any 
 intention of violating the law, or of doing any 
 
WHEREIN NOT DEMOCKATIC. 129 
 
 moral or political wrong. Yet, in effect, uninten- 
 tionally and unwittingly, these great election or- 
 ganizations constitute great standing armies that de- 
 stroy the political liberties of the people. The mem- 
 bers of these organizations are compelled, whether 
 they wish it or not, to make nominations and carry 
 elections, to serve personal ends. Fitness for pub- 
 lic service is a fact that many of them would wish, 
 were it in their power, to consider in making their 
 appointments to public offices. But what can they 
 do? The followers are in the hands of the lead- 
 ers. The leaders are in the hands of the follow- 
 ers. They are slaves, as thoroughly as the mass 
 of laymen citizens, to the necessities of continued 
 political war. In fact, the practical result of the 
 present political system in the United States, 
 which at first sight seems in form so thoroughly 
 democratic, has been to develop the most ingen- 
 ious and remarkable tyranny known in all political 
 history. The system is the more dangerous for 
 the reason that in form it seems at first sight dem- 
 ocratic. Thinking men well know that this form 
 is delusive. The system is not democratic. The 
 political life of the nation is a never-ending strug- 
 gle for political power between rival factions — all 
 of them brought into existence by the same cause, 
 obeying the same laws, using the same methods, 
 9 
 
180 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 compelled, whether they wish it or not, to prostitute 
 the power of public office to personal ends. The 
 result is a new kind of tyranny — the tyranny of 
 the election machine. Under this system political 
 freedom for the citizen cannot exist. 
 
 n. It makes impossible the free, healthy action 
 of the people. 
 
 Under a really democratic government the judg- 
 ment of the people must control its will, and the 
 will of the people must be the law of its existence. 
 
 Under our present system of government the 
 supreme control of public affairs falls into the 
 hands of the men who are for the time the leaders 
 of a dominant faction. What we call popular 
 elections become merely contests between great 
 standing armies. Freedom of popular action, in 
 any proper sense of the words, does not exist. No 
 doubt the citizens can make their own choice as to 
 which of these armies they shall join. But that 
 is not democratic government. The people does 
 not think. It does not form its own judgment. 
 
 III. It makes good government impossible. 
 
 The system of organization is essentially un- 
 sound. Functions are confused. The same offi- 
 cials have legislative and administrative functions. 
 
WHEKEIN NOT DEMOCRATIC. 131 
 
 The appointment of administrative officials is put 
 in the hands of legislative bodies. Administrative 
 functions are vested in boards and legislatures. 
 
 The selection of public officials is made bj wrong 
 processes. Especially the men at the head of pub- 
 lic affairs are, in effect, selected for their capacity 
 to do election work. In the middle ages the men 
 who had the control of public affairs were selected 
 by the tests of war. Under our present political 
 system the men at the head of public affairs are 
 still selected by the tests of war — war by election 
 and the ballot-box. The process of selection of 
 our highest public officials is an unnatural process. 
 It rests on unsound political principles. It selects 
 men by false tests. It brings into existence an 
 oligarchy of election workers instead of an aris- 
 tocracy selected by the natural process of free 
 popular election. 
 
 But the greatest defect in the system is its want 
 of proper securities. It is impossible to enforce 
 thorough official responsibility. In form we have 
 responsibility to the people. In fact we have re- 
 sponsibility to the election machine. That is not 
 a proper or sufficient responsibility for the needs 
 of a great people. Under our present system of 
 government the men at the head of our public 
 service, the members of our popular assemblies, 
 
132 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 our Presidents, our Members of Congress, our 
 Governors, our Members of State legislatures, tlie 
 Mayors of our cities, the members of our city and 
 town legislative bodies, are responsible only to 
 the election machine. They are its slaves. On it 
 they all alike depend for the continuance of their 
 political existence. 
 
 I venture to doubt, whether, so long as this sys- 
 tem of slavery exists, so long as the individual cit- 
 izens, and the people, and our highest public offi- 
 cials continue in this state of slavery, we shall suc- 
 cessfully solve any great political problems. And 
 if this be democratic government, I, for one, doubt 
 if it is any longer equal to the political needs of a 
 great people. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 THE FORM OF A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The form of a Democratic Government framed 
 on the principles here stated would be very simple. 
 
 Each people, the people of every village, town, 
 city, county, state, and of the whole nation, would 
 have its distinct political organization. 
 
 The small village or town would have its chief 
 administrative official, under any name, who would 
 have the appointment, removal, and control of all 
 his subordinates, the superintendence of, and the 
 responsibility for, all affairs of administration. 
 He would be elected, in the public meeting of cit- 
 izens, by the whole body of citizens. He would 
 be removable by vote of that same body, when- 
 ever in the judgment of that body his removal was 
 necessary. The popular assembly of citizens would 
 make all necessary laws and regulations for the 
 public affairs of that small people, and would raise 
 and appropriate its own public moneys. The whole 
 machinery would be as simple as it well could be. 
 
 This simplest form of municipal government 
 
134 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 would be practicable only for populations of not 
 above twenty-five hundred or thereabouts, giving 
 a number of voters of not more than about five 
 hundred. 
 
 In the larger towns and in the cities the organi- 
 zation would be still simple. Take the case of a 
 city with a population of a million. That would 
 give about two hundred thousand voters, or four 
 hundred primary districts of five hundred voters 
 each. Allotting one representative in the popular 
 assembly of the whole city to each of these primary 
 districts, we should have a popular assembly of five 
 hundred members. That would give probably on 
 an average about thirty new members each year. 
 This assembly would have the supreme control of 
 the public affairs of the city, and the control and 
 removal of the head of its executive administra- 
 tion. This head of the executive administration 
 would have the selection and control of his subor- 
 dinate heads of departments. He would be chosen, 
 whenever the office was vacant, by a representa- 
 tive electoral assembly, composed of members cho- 
 sen by the primary districts. 
 
 In the case of a still larger people — such as the 
 people of a single state, or of our United States, 
 the differences between a government framed on 
 the principles here developed and our present form 
 of national government would be these : 
 
FOBM. 135 
 
 1. Its supreme popular assembly would be com- 
 posed of one body instead of two. 
 
 2. Each member of that popular assembly would 
 be elected by an electoral body, composed of rep- 
 resentatives elected by the primary districts, in- 
 stead of being elected by a direct vote of citizens 
 through one large election district. 
 
 3. That popular assembly would have the con- 
 trol and removal of the head of the executive ad- 
 ministration, but would have no voice in adminis- 
 trative appointments or removals. 
 
 4. The head of the executive administration 
 would be chosen by a representative electoral col- 
 lege, the members of which would be chosen in 
 the same way as the members of the popular as- 
 sembly, who would, in the act of election, meet, 
 deliberate, and act, as one body. 
 
 5. The executive head would have no legislative 
 functions. 
 
 6. The executive head would have the superin- 
 tendence of all administration, and the full power 
 of selecting and removing his subordinates. 
 
 7. Heads of administrative departments and 
 offices throughout the executive administration 
 would have full power to select and remove their 
 own subordinates. 
 
 8. There would be no tenure by election. 
 
136 DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 As to all the governments, local and national, 
 the principal changes from our present form of 
 government would be these : 
 
 1. The introduction of the public meeting, as 
 the organ for all popular action, as to men as well 
 as measures. 
 
 2. The abolition of the system of tenure by elec- 
 tion, and the substitution therefor of the system 
 of tenure by the will of the people. 
 
 3. The separation of legislative and administra- 
 tive functions. 
 
 These changes would, no doubt, be fundamental. 
 They are certainly simple. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 THE WOEKINa OF A DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 JSTecessaeilt the working of what I consider 
 would be a democratic government has been to a 
 great extent considered in the preceding discussion 
 of principles. What is said in this chapter will nec- 
 essarily be largely in the nature of a summary and 
 regrouping of points that have been before made. 
 
 To a certain extent, too, what is here said as to 
 the working of a government framed on the prin- 
 ciples already stated will be matter of speculation. 
 But it will be not wholly such. There is no prin- 
 ciple here stated that has not already been fully 
 tested, and established by experience. The popu- 
 lar assembly is as old as the oldest historical rec- 
 ords. It is the only known, and as far as I can 
 see, the only possible, means whereby men of dif- 
 ferent ways of thinking can form a common judg- 
 ment. So long as human nature is constituted as 
 it now is, to accomplish that result easily and quick- 
 ly, it is necessary for men to meet and confer, 
 openly and harmoniously. Then they can agree. 
 
138 DEMOCRATIC GOYEENMENT. 
 
 It is also well established — by experience — that 
 the popular assembly is an organ fitted only for 
 outlining general policies ; and that, for execution, 
 for administration, the one-man system is the only 
 one that has ever, thus far, succeeded. And, as far 
 as we can see, this one-man system, for adminis- 
 tration, is the only one that ever will succeed, so 
 long as human nature continues to be constituted 
 as it now is. It is also well established — by expe- 
 rience — that in the more complex and highly de- 
 veloped political organisms, there must be unity of 
 organization; the organizations for tlie affairs of 
 different political bodies must be distinct; there 
 must be a distinct organization for local affairs of 
 the smallest bodies, others for the larger bodies, 
 and still another for the nation. It is also estab- 
 lished — by experience — that, though carefully se- 
 lected men, if they are free, can in general be 
 trusted to do their duty, yet all men need tlie pro- 
 tection and assistance of thorough and constant 
 supervision, at the hands of competent men, spe- 
 cially selected, of special fitness ; that it is there- 
 fore necessary to have a much more thorough su- 
 pervision for public servants than the supervision 
 of the mass of citizens, whose time and thought 
 are occupied with their own private affairs ; that 
 therefore the supervision and control of the mem- 
 
WORKING. 189 
 
 bers of the popular assemblies and of the head of 
 the executive administration must be vested in the 
 popular assemblies themselves; and the supervi- 
 sion and control of administrative officers must be 
 vested in their immediate superiors. It is also 
 well established — by experience — that for the se- 
 lection of the men at the head of governments, on 
 whom the working success of every political sys- 
 tem must always depend, no process is so safe, in 
 the large majority of cases, as the process of pop- 
 ular election, provided it is used in its natural 
 form, and is put to its natural use. 
 
 These principles are none of them new. They 
 are all simple. As I believe, they are all sound. 
 
 What I am here attempting is the application 
 of these principles. Thus far, we, the people of 
 the United States, have been too closely pressed 
 with other affairs to think carefully on political 
 questions. AVe have been clearing a wilderness, 
 uncovering the riches of a new continent, opening 
 the great highways of commerce and civilization. 
 "We have used nearly half a century, in a somewhat 
 costly, tumultuous, old-world fashion, in remodel- 
 ling our domestic institutions. We are now be- 
 ginning to give time and thought to our great 
 problem, the development of democratic govern- 
 ment. 
 
140 DEMOCEATIC GOYEKNMENT. 
 
 To consider the probable working, so far as we 
 can forecast it, of a political system framed on the 
 principles here developed — that is the next step in 
 this political study. 
 
 As nearly as I am able to discern, the probable 
 working results of such a system would be as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 1. Such a system would tend to secure a free, 
 healthy political life for the individual citizen. 
 
 First, and foremost, it would tend to give to the 
 citizen political freedom. It would tend to de- 
 stroy the great organizations of men who make 
 the carrying of elections their profession. The 
 amount of election work would be reduced to the 
 minimum. The only elective offices would be those 
 of the chief administrative heads of the different 
 bodies politic, and the representatives to the differ- 
 ent popular assemblies. Elections for those high- 
 est public offices, instead of being held at frequent 
 fixed intervals, would come only when there were 
 vacancies. The time of any such vacancies would 
 be uncertain. At any one meeting of citizens in 
 the primary popular assemblies it would seldom 
 be the case that citizens would have to do more 
 in the way of election work than elect one or two 
 delegates to popular electoral assemblies. The 
 process of election would be extremely simple. 
 
WOKKINa. 141 
 
 All the citizens would meet. Up to tlie last mo- 
 ment any man could nominate a candidate. Any 
 man could discuss the fitness of candidates. After 
 nominations had been made, and discussion had, 
 the citizens would make their selection, from 
 nominations made on the spot and at the time, of 
 public officials and delegates. Every man would 
 have his one free voice, not only in selecting from 
 nominations already made, but in making new 
 nominations. The carrying of an election would 
 be a matter at which ordinary citizens could ac- 
 complish some substantial result, by giving to it a 
 reasonable amount of time, by simple, natural 
 methods which all men understand, by attending 
 the public meeting of citizens established by the 
 law, where both the work of nomination and elec- 
 tion would be done at the same time, and by the 
 same body of men, the assembly of citizens them- 
 selves. The process used by the delegates who 
 were chosen by the primary meetings would be the 
 same. It would be the old, simple, rudimentary 
 process of the town meeting. Can we devise any- 
 thing simpler, or anything better ? 
 
 Moreover, with the abolition of the term sys- 
 tem, the certainty of large numbers of periodical 
 contemporaneous vacancies vanishes. The great 
 prizes of politics are made distant and uncertain. 
 
143 DEMOCKATIO GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 TVith the amount of election work so reduced, 
 with the process of election made so simple, and 
 the rewards of election work made so distant and 
 uncertain, the tendency would be to destroy the 
 profession of men who live by manipulating nom- 
 inating conventions. The ordinary citizen would 
 have something that could be properly called po- 
 litical freedom. Every citizen would liave the 
 opportunity to think, nominate, discuss, hear dis- 
 cussion, and vote, in his own person, on every lo- 
 cal measure, on the election of every local officer, 
 and on the selection of every delegate who was to 
 take action on state and national measures and 
 men. That would give the citizen at least a much 
 fuller and freer scope of political action than he 
 has under our present form of government, or 
 than he can have under any political system where 
 the popular assembly of citizens is not used, and 
 where, for lack of a scheme of organization pro- 
 vided by the law for voicing the action of the 
 whole people, citizens are compelled, outside of 
 the law, in order to get concerted action, to take 
 refuge in the organization of factions. 
 
 Under such a system, too, the tendency would 
 be to secure to each citizen, as far as constitutional 
 provisions can secure it, his full weight in public 
 affairs. The whole scheme now under considera- 
 
woEKnra. 143 
 
 tion provides not only for the nse of the public 
 meeting as the regular organ for popular action, 
 but for the restriction of the process of election to 
 the mere work of selecting men — and the conse- 
 quent decrease in the mass of election work. The 
 political work put upon the individual citizen 
 would thus be brought within reasonable and nat- 
 ural bounds. Citizens would be compelled to at- 
 tend primary meetings in order to regulate taxa- 
 tion, and protect their own property. They would 
 find it possible to accomplish some practical result 
 by fulfilling their ordinary civil functions. They 
 would in time learn that political advancement 
 would generally begin with careful and efficient 
 discharge of local public service. Men of prop- 
 erty and intelligence would be led to take part 
 in the deliberations of the primary assemblies. 
 The primary assembly would be the primary 
 school for political education, where the young 
 men could make their first political efforts and 
 their first political blunders — where they could be 
 judiciously suppressed for a time, until they should 
 show decided capacity for public work. These 
 primary assemblies would give the citizens a 
 knowledge of their fellows, and in the end would 
 enable them to form a just estimate of men's po- 
 litical characters. Is it possible to suggest a po- 
 
144 DEMOCEATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 litical machinery more certain to give to every 
 man — in time — his full weight in public affairs ? 
 
 It would, too, tend to secure from every man 
 his wisest political action. I well understand that 
 no political system can be framed that will work 
 impossibilities. But all men to some extent can 
 be educated. Can any system be suggested which 
 will, more certainly than this, tend to secure the 
 most thorough political education of the individ- 
 ual citizen ? In the United States, the old town 
 meeting has largely fallen into disuse, even in the 
 parts of the country where it was once the regular 
 organ for popular action. Outside of the large 
 towns and cities it is still in some parts of the 
 country used to some extent. But the necessity 
 of voting with the great factions, under which citi- 
 zens now are, gets men into the habit of largely gov- 
 erning their action even on local questions by mere 
 factious considerations. The town meeting as an 
 organ of free public thought has in a great meas- 
 ure fallen into disuse, even in districts where it is 
 still held. But if the primary meeting were used 
 as the organ for all popular action, we should 
 have, in the large majority of cases, after men 
 came to know one another, as great certainty as is 
 practicable that the large majority of citizens 
 would be influenced in their political action by 
 
woEKDsra. 145 
 
 the men who would naturally and rightly be the 
 popular leaders, by the men of sound political 
 sense, and honest public aims. Whether or not, 
 in the end, the action of any citizen would or would 
 not be always the wisest action, the influences of 
 the system at least would be such as would tend 
 to secure from each citizen the wisest action of 
 which that citizen was capable. 
 
 In short, this system, whereby we should secure 
 co-operative politics for the individual citizens, 
 whereby the work of the citizen would be brought 
 within reasonable bounds, would at least have a 
 tendency to secure, as to each individual citizen, 
 his one voice, his full weight, and his wisest ac- 
 tion, on every public question, whether of meas- 
 ures or men. 
 
 2. Such a system would tend to secure the free, 
 healthy action of each people. 
 
 If the argument thus far be sound, if this sys- 
 tem would tend to secure the free, healthy action 
 of the individual, it follows, almost as a matter of 
 course, that the system would tend to secure the 
 free, healthy action of each people. Each people 
 would have its separate popular assembly. Each 
 popular assembly above the primary assemblies 
 would be an assembly of selected men. The men 
 
 would be more able than the average of the indi- 
 10 
 
146 DEMOCEATIC GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 vidual citizens. They would be more honest. 
 They would represent a wide variety of interests 
 and thought. Their matured action, after free, 
 common deliberation, could hardly fail to be of 
 an order much above anything that would be ac- 
 complished by ordinary men. The probability 
 would be that their action would be, in the large 
 majority of instances, the wisest that the particu- 
 lar people whom they represented could compass. 
 
 3. Such a system would tend to secure good 
 government. 
 
 The question here to be considered is what 
 would be the probable operation of the system 
 here examined, in the three essential points of a 
 good government, that is, as to the organization of 
 the government, the selection of individuals for its 
 different functions, and its securities. 
 
 The point of organization has been already con- 
 sidered as fully as it can be within the limits of 
 this book. Unity of function, for each man and 
 each body of men throughout the whole body 
 politic, is the main principle on which it rests. 
 
 As to the selection of individuals for the differ- 
 ent functions in the state, the main feature of the 
 whole system, and the one in which, if the scheme 
 of organization be sound, the strength of the sys- 
 tem lies, is the security that we should have for 
 
WORKING. 147 
 
 getting good men at the bead of the public ser- 
 vice. As has been said more than once, the se- 
 lection of subordinates in the administrative de- 
 partments can be safely left, and must be left, in 
 the hands of the men at the head of those admin- 
 istrative departments. The point of importance 
 is the selection of the members of the popular as- 
 semblies, and of the men at the head of the exec- 
 utive administration. Those men who believe in 
 democratic government at all must believe that the 
 people, when it has the organ for free thought and 
 free action, can safely be trusted with the selec- 
 tion of the men who are to be placed at the head 
 of public affairs. Under this system, the selection 
 of the head of each people's executive administra- 
 tion, and the selection of the representatives in 
 each popular assembly, is in the hands of the peo- 
 ple. And as to this point of the selection of in- 
 dividuals for the public service, the soundness of 
 the system rests on the position that the judgment 
 of the people, freely formed and uttered, through 
 its natural organ, by natural methods, is the safest 
 means for selecting the men who are to be at the 
 head of each people's government. 
 
 As to the securities of the government, the sys- 
 tem rests on these positions : that for the thorough 
 supervision and control of public servants, there 
 
148 DEMOCKATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 must be, somewhere in the bodj politic, as to each 
 public servant, some one man, or organized body 
 of men, who shall be specially charged with that 
 supervision and control; that as to subordinates 
 in administrative departments, the only man who 
 can properly exercise that supervision and control 
 is the subordinate's superior; that as to the head 
 of each people's executive administration, the only 
 body of men that can safely or wisely exercise 
 that supervision and control is the popular assem- 
 bly ; and that as to members of the popular as- 
 semblies, their supervision and control must also 
 be left in the assemblies themselves. 
 
 I believe that these methods are nature's meth- 
 ods ; and that they are the only ones that can be 
 safely used by any people that has reached that 
 point of development where it demands the con- 
 trol of its own affairs. As to peoples that have 
 not yet reached that point of growth, the consid- 
 eration of this problem has for the present only a 
 speculative interest. It is not with them yet a 
 question of practical politics. 
 
 To sum up, then, this branch of our study, the 
 system here outlined would tend to secure, to each 
 individual citizen, his one free voice, his full 
 weight, and his wisest action on every public 
 question. It would tend to secure the most free, 
 
WOEKING. 149 
 
 healthy, and wise action of each people. It would 
 tend to secure good government. It would tend 
 to secure a harmonious, healthy life of the whole 
 body politic, and of its every organ and member. 
 Such a system would, if the considerations here 
 made are sound, justly deserve the name of a 
 Democratic Government. 
 
 Whether or not these views are sound, that is 
 the question to be submitted to the test of public 
 discussion. What is here said is merely the ex- 
 pression of the ideas of a single individual, sub- 
 mitted for public consideration, to be winnowed, 
 remoulded. This American people is just begin- 
 ning to think on these things. They will now 
 soon evolve a sound political system — the gov- 
 ernment of the future. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW TO MAKE OUR GOVERNMENT DEMOCRATIC. 
 
 Let the whole people again meet in its national 
 convention, think, and act, on its own wisest judg- 
 ment. 
 
 Emancipation, of the citizen, of the people, of 
 our public servants, of the whole body politic, is 
 the chief and first result to be accomplished. 
 
 If I am right in my conclusions thus far, it is 
 necessary that we should have a thorough and 
 comprehensive reorganization of our whole politi- 
 cal system, of our town and city governments, of 
 our state governments, and of the national govern- 
 ment. If the principles here set forth are sound, 
 it is necessary that we should give greater unity to 
 our different systems of administration. We must 
 separate local affairs from state and national af- 
 fairs. Each people must have its distinct political 
 organization. The functions of administration 
 and of general control must be separated. The 
 general control of the affairs of each people, for 
 
HOW TO MAKE. 151 
 
 better or worse, must be put in the hands of that 
 people itself. 
 
 But where are we to begin ? And what is the 
 practical method by which the reorganization is to 
 be accomplished ? 
 
 To these questions I answer — the work of reor- 
 ganization must begin with the reorganization 
 of the national government. And the method 
 of accomplishing it will be the method estab- 
 lished by the National Constitution itself — the 
 natural method, the people's method, the method 
 by whicli the Constitution itself was framed, the 
 National Convention of the people of the United 
 States, meeting in the persons of its chosen repre- 
 sentatives. This is the only practicable method 
 whereby we can begin any substantial improvement 
 in the administration of our public affairs, local, 
 state, or national. Frequent attempts to bring 
 about improvements in the administration of local 
 affairs have thus far failed to accomplish any con- 
 siderable or lasting results, for the reason that the 
 great political organizations, all of them, are com- 
 pelled, by the law of their existence, to use public 
 offices for their private ends, and any substantial 
 improvement in even the administration of mere 
 local affairs will continue to be impossible, until 
 we can frame and carry out some scheme of na- 
 
152 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 tional reorganization that will destroy these great 
 political organizations, as they now exist That 
 resnlt cannot, in my judgment, be accomplished 
 without first having a thorough reorganization of 
 our national government. I do not say that the 
 scheme of reorganization to be adopted must or 
 will be the one here discussed. On the contrary, 
 the chief function of the National Convention will 
 be to consider and decide the scheme of reorganiza- 
 tion. No one man can pretend to say what scheme 
 will be the wisest. The wisest scheme in the end 
 may not turn out to be possible of complete im- 
 mediate accomplishment. But my belief is that a 
 National Convention will, as did the Convention of 
 1787, evolve a wise and comprehensive system, and 
 that the scheme that the convention shall adopt, 
 will be very certain of the fate that met the scheme 
 of 1787, adoption by the state legislatures or con- 
 ventions. Consider the changed conditions. That 
 Convention of 1787 was, in effect, only a conven- 
 tion of the individual men who were its members. 
 It had the assistance of no outside thought. Its 
 deliberations were ended, and its own work was 
 accomplished, almost before the fact of its meeting 
 was known to any large portion of the outside 
 world. But a National Constitutional Convention 
 of the people of the United States, held at this day, 
 
HOW TO MAKE. 153 
 
 will be, in effect, a convention of all the wisest po- 
 litical thinkers on the face of the earth. Its de- 
 liberations will each morning be reported to nearly 
 every intelligent man throughout the whole think- 
 ing world. Its thought will be thoroughly dis- 
 cussed in the public press of every free people. 
 Democrats, in every lettered country, will think 
 with that convention, and will utter their thought. 
 It will hear and heed their voices. Iso body of 
 men has ever yet met under conditions that could 
 at all compare with the conditions which will sur- 
 round that convention. It will be certain to have 
 in its membership many very able men. Most of 
 them will be men who have, to some extent, made 
 politics a profession. There will be a few mem- 
 bers who may be called laymen. But the mere 
 membership of that convention will be compara- 
 tively unimportant. It will be, in effect, the con- 
 vention of the democracy of the world. Its chief 
 function will be to voice the thought of that de- 
 mocracy. Its first result will be to decide what 
 shall be the nest step in the development of 
 democratic government in these United States. 
 That step, decided by that convention, will be 
 taken. It will be the greatest step yet taken 
 in the development of the government of great 
 nations. 
 
154 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Still it may be fairly asked of any one who goes 
 so far as to say that a large measure of change in 
 our political system is needed, and who undertakes 
 to develop a series of political principles that will 
 to some minds seem startling, that he should show 
 definitely how the transformation from our pres- 
 ent system to a system framed on those princi- 
 ples could be effected without a revolution. The 
 American mind is now very averse to revolu- 
 tions. It submits to great evils in politics from 
 its fear of the results of any great political 
 change. 
 
 I shall therefore now submit, for public discus- 
 sion only, a plan of reorganization which has at 
 least this one advantage : it is, though thorough 
 and sweeping, not revolutionary ; it is, in fact, a 
 plan for ending at once the series of periodical 
 revolutions under the pressure of which we now 
 endure political existence. 
 
 The plan is this — to begin the new system of 
 national government with the men now in office — 
 in other words, to try a new kind of reform ; to 
 make a change of system, instead of a change of 
 men. To go somewhat more into detail, I propose 
 that the amendments to the iNational Constitution 
 should have these main features : 
 
 1. The continuance in office, until removed, of 
 
HOW TO MAKE. 155 
 
 the present national officials, the members of the 
 Senate and House of Representatives, the Presi- 
 dent, and all other officials of the national govern- 
 ment. 
 
 2. The abolition of the system of term elec- 
 tions for members of Congress, and the Presi- 
 dent. 
 
 3. The adoption, for the filling of vacancies 
 hereafter occurring in Congress and in the office of 
 President, of a system of popular election, wherein 
 the popular assembly, of citizens and their repre- 
 sentatives, at every stage, shall be the fundamental 
 feature. 
 
 4. The conversion of the present Senate and 
 House of Representatives into one supreme legis- 
 lative body. 
 
 6. The giving to that body the control and re- 
 moval of its own members, and the control and 
 removal of the President. 
 
 6. The giving to the President the sole power 
 of appointment, control, and removal of his own 
 heads of departments. 
 
 7. The giving to each head of a department or 
 office throughout the executive administration the 
 appointment, control, and removal of his own sub- 
 ordinates. 
 
 This plan will, no doubt, be considered by many 
 
156 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 men as sweeping and dangerous. It may not com- 
 mend itself, on full consideration, to the public 
 judgment. It may not be the one adopted by the 
 JS'ational Convention. 
 
 It has, at least, these advantages : 
 
 1. It would command the support of all the 
 men now holding office under the national gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 In other words, it would command the support, 
 from motives of mere direct personal advantage, 
 of the most powerful men in both the two present 
 great political organizations. For, in its beginning, 
 it is a plan to continue the pow^erful leaders of 
 these organizations, and many of their followers, 
 in their present positions under the national gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 2. It would best promote the highest public in- 
 terests. 
 
 It would enable these men now in oiSce to give 
 their time and thought undisturbedly to public af- 
 fairs. Upon the whole, though these men have not 
 all been selected on sound tests, or by strictly demo- 
 cratic methods, they are the best body of men with 
 whom it is now practicable to begin a new system 
 of government. They have a larger experience in 
 public affairs than any body of men we can now 
 select. They are a better body of men than we have 
 
HOW TO MAKE. 157 
 
 any reasonable hope of getting under tlie continu- 
 ance of our present elective system, which is work- 
 ing a steady deterioration of political men and 
 political methods. It is only justice to these men 
 now in office that they should have the opportunity 
 to show their fitness for the places they now hold. 
 They have, for the time, under our authority, been 
 taken from other callings, and to a certain extent 
 disabled from following other occupations. In 
 time, and not in any very long time, the operation 
 of natural forces would weed out the useless men, 
 and bring in better ones. In time, the public ser- 
 vice would purify itself. In time, and as time 
 should show the need of it, new public men, but 
 especially new public methods, would supplant 
 those now in existence. 
 
 3. It would be simple and easy. 
 
 The adoption of a new system, in this way, 
 would be without shock, and without violent op- 
 position from existing vested interests and existing 
 powers. It would be as easy as switching a rail- 
 way train from a side track to the main line. 
 Everything would move smoothly. There would 
 be no immediate change of men. But a very great 
 change, in both men and methods, would come, 
 through natural causes, in easy, natural ways — in 
 time. 
 
158 DEMOCEATIC GOYEKNMENT. 
 
 4. It would be the first step in the process of 
 emancipation. 
 
 It would begin with the emancipation of the 
 men at the head of the national body politic; or, 
 with the men who should, under a proper political 
 system, form the people's brain. We should be- 
 gin with establishing for the people of the United 
 States freedom of thought. Freedom of popular 
 action would come later. All this vast army of 
 election workers would be taken out of the pro- 
 fession of carrying elections. The people would 
 then begin to breathe freely, think freely, and 
 act freely, on the matter of reorganizing the gov- 
 ernments of the states. "When that was accom- 
 plished, and state officials were taken out of the 
 electioneering profession, out of politics, as the 
 phrase is, then the peoples of the cities and towns 
 would be free to reorganize their local govern- 
 ment. 
 
 In time, the whole work of political reorganiza- 
 tion would be accomplished. 
 
 These are the reasons that I submit for public 
 consideration in favor of the calling a [National 
 Constitutional Convention, as the first step in work- 
 ing out the reorganization of our present political 
 system, the bringing about the next stage in the 
 growth of Democratic Government. The work is 
 
HOW TO MAXE. 159 
 
 a great work. It can be done only by organizing 
 the whole people in one body, established by law, 
 with full power to think, and to act, and to put its 
 action in such form that it can be made the or- 
 ganic law of the nation, the authoritative expres- 
 sion of the wisdom and will of tlie people. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 The one point on whicli I here insist is that it is 
 now time for the people of the United States to 
 meet in its National Convention, to deal with the 
 problem of national organization. More perfect 
 organization, the enlarging the power of the 
 people and of the individual citizen, the enlarg- 
 ing the securities for wise and efficient govern- 
 ment, these are the questions with which this peo- 
 ple has to deal. It is the time for action. What 
 action the people will take, or had best take, 
 when its convention shall be held, no one man 
 can saj. But it is necessary to take action of 
 some kind. These questions are too large, and 
 too weighty, for us to avoid them, or waste time 
 in fruitless discussion. The people must act. 
 There is only one machinery existing under the 
 law by which action can be taken. That machin- 
 ery is the machinery of the ]N"atioual Convention, 
 provided by the Constitution itself. 
 
 This American people needs now to make a 
 thorough study of its system of government. It 
 
CONCLUSION. IGl 
 
 must examine the defects of tliat system, in the 
 light of the experience of the last one hundred 
 years. It must devise the remedies for those de- 
 fects. TJiese remedies must be devised on a 
 careful study of actual working results. The 
 American people is not fond of political patch- 
 work. It makes governments and constitutions 
 on broad comprehensive principles, by broad 
 methods, not on the ideas of any one man or 
 class of men, but on the judgment of the whole 
 people. Free public conference, of tlie whole 
 people, in a popular convention, is the method 
 that this people has always used whenever it has 
 had a great work to do. 
 
 Paper constitutions, framed in popular con- 
 ventions, have been the means that this people 
 has used to accomplish constitutional clianges at 
 each successive stage of its growth. It began 
 making paper constitutions with tlie first day of 
 its existence, almost before its existence began. 
 Less than three hundred years ago, when we were 
 about to begin laying the foundations of demo- 
 cratic government on this new continent, we gave 
 to mankind the first example of the formation of 
 a written Constitution for a body politic by the 
 natural process of the free, formal, written assent 
 of the individuals who composed the body. It is 
 11 
 
163 DEMOCRATIC GOVEENMENT. 
 
 well to recall the words of the instrument signed 
 on board the Mayflower on the 11th day of Novem- 
 ber, 1620. It reads: " Wo whose names are under- 
 " written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign 
 " lord. King James, by the grace of God, of Great 
 "Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of 
 " the Faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory 
 " of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, 
 " and honor of our king and country, a voyage to 
 "plant the first colony in the northern parts of 
 "Virginia, do by tliese presents, solemnly and 
 "mutually, in the presence of God and one of 
 " another, covenant and coiribine ourselves together 
 " into a civil hody politic^ for our better ordering 
 "and preservation, and furtherance of the ends 
 "aforesaid; and by virtue hereof, to enact, con- 
 "stitute, and frame such just and equal laws, 
 " ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from 
 " time to time, as shall be thought most meet and 
 ^' convenient for the general good of the colony; 
 '^unto which we promise all due sulmission and 
 " obedience. In witness whereof we have here- 
 " under subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the 
 " 11th day of E'ovember, in the year of the reign 
 " of our sovereign lord. King James, of England, 
 " France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scot- 
 "land the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini, 1620." 
 
CONCLUSIOIT. 163 
 
 From that time the American people has been 
 using the popular convention, as its own peculiar 
 method of working out its own development. In 
 every state, a constitution has been framed by a 
 popular convention. When the colonies first felt 
 the need of common political action for the pro- 
 tection of common public interests, they called a 
 convention. The Declaration of Independence 
 was the work of a popular convention. The 
 Articles of Confederation were the work of a 
 popular convention. The !N'ational Constitution 
 was the work of a popular convention. 
 
 It is the machinery for us to use now. This 
 American people is now facing a new and great 
 problem in the development of democratic insti- 
 tutions. "What was intended to be a free demo- 
 cratic government has grown to be a tyranny — a 
 tyranny of a new kind — a tyranny, not of men, 
 but of a system. Our rulers have no wish or pur- 
 pose to enslave the people. They would, if it 
 were in their power, serve the people faithfully, 
 to the best of their abilities. But no man in this 
 country now has anything that deserves the name 
 of full political freedom. The magnitude of the 
 election work made necessary by our present sys- 
 tem of government, with the lack of the natural or- 
 gan for the thought and action of the people, has 
 
164 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 brought into existence great and powerful organi- 
 zations, which so fetter the action of the citizen, 
 of the people, and of all our public servants, that 
 an honest, efficient administration of public affairs 
 is an impossible thing. Tlie whole body politic 
 is in chains. Citizens can do nothing but cast a 
 ballot prepared for them by some great and pow- 
 erful election organization. The people cannot 
 freely form and utter its own judgment or will, 
 on either men or measures. Public servants are 
 compelled to use their public powers to serve the 
 personal ends of the great election organizations. 
 Those organizations control nominations, and 
 thereby substantially appoint and largely control 
 all of our highest public servants. The men who 
 hold the highest public places, on whom we must 
 necessarily depend for the efficient administration 
 of all public affairs, are not free men. They are en- 
 gaged in a perpetual struggle for political existence, 
 and, to a greater or less extent, serve the powers on 
 whom they depend for a continuance of their politi- 
 cal lives. So long as our present system of govern- 
 ment continues, we can expect no permanent im- 
 provement in the administration of our public affairs. 
 The growth of democratic government is the 
 distinctive feature of the political history of the 
 civilized world during the last hundred years. 
 
CONCLUSION". 1G5 
 
 In this growth we are tlie leaders for all the 
 peoples of the world. But democratic govern- 
 ment has not yet reached a finished grow^th. 
 Two political systems, the hereditary, and the 
 democratic, between which there is an irrepres- 
 sible conflict, long have been and still are engaged 
 in a struggle for existence. The fundamental 
 principle of the one is, that certain men inherit, 
 by virtue of their blood, from their ancestors, the 
 right to be a people's masters. The fundamental 
 principle of the other is, that certain men are se- 
 lected, for their fitness, by the will of the people, 
 to be the people's servants. The final result of 
 the conflict between the two systems is free from 
 doubt. The political, physical, and moral well-be- 
 ing of any civilized people is not a possible thing 
 under any system other than a free democratic 
 government. Under no other system is it possi- 
 ble to have, for any long time, a strong, stable, and 
 wise public policy. But the body politic must 
 be so organized that the supreme authority 
 in the state shall be the will of the people. The 
 people must be organized. It must save its 
 strength. It must use its wisdom. It must not 
 w^aste its time and substance in the never-endino: 
 struggles of faction. It must wisely select the 
 men at the head of its government. It must 
 
106 DEMOCEATIC GOVEENMEKT. 
 
 give them time — to gain knowledge and experi- 
 ence. It must make them responsible — not to 
 leaders of factions, but to the embodied will of 
 the whole people. And then, having so selected 
 them, having placed them under that responsi- 
 bility, it must make them free to serve the peo- 
 ple faithfully, and must not make them the slaves 
 of factions. 
 
 "We have gone through three successive eras of 
 political existence : the era of the struggle for ex- 
 istence, the era of confederation, and the era of 
 consolidation. "We have at last, after a great 
 civil war, become one powerful, compact nation. 
 
 "We have now to enter on the era of organiza- 
 tion. Thus far we have only grown to be one 
 people. "We have established the fact that the ex- 
 istence of one government, founded on free demo- 
 cratic principles, for one great nation composed of 
 many large states, is just as necessary, as natural, 
 and as free from danger to the liberties of the 
 people, as is the existence of one government for 
 a small village. But our body politic is not yet 
 well organized. 
 
 This work of organization is now the People's 
 Problem, to be solved in the People's Public 
 Meeting. .^^'^cT 
 
 THE Ein)>/v^ Of 
 
 tJNIVEBSITT 
 
A TRUE REPUBLIC. 
 
 By albert STICKNEY. 
 
 ISxxio, Clotli, Sl.OO. 
 
 "A True Republic" is worthy of the most careful 
 consideration of all those interested in the momentous 
 questions involved in a popular government. — The Na- 
 tional Quarterly Review. 
 
 Since De Tocqueville, in 1833, published his great 
 work on "Democracy in America," no treatise on the 
 nature and working of democratic government has ap- 
 peared which, in our opinion, can be at all compared 
 with Albert Stickney's "True Republic" in point of 
 penetration, profundity, and comprehensive grasp of all 
 the essential elements of the problem discussed, and in 
 many important respects Colonel Stickney has proved 
 himself De Tocqueville's superior. — The Index, Boston, 
 Mass. 
 
 Mr. Stickney writes well and forcibly, and some of his 
 propositions are undeniably true. * * * His elegantly 
 made and interesting book will be classed with the 
 " Utopia " of Sir Thomas More and the " Republic " of 
 Plato. — iV. Y. Evening Mail. 
 
 Mr. Stickney's book will be found very suggestive. 
 He sketches the different kinds of government people 
 have lived under, and reviews our own. Every thinking 
 American should read it. — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New Youk. 
 
 J^" TJie above work xcill he sent by mail^ postage prepaid, to any 
 part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
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