Delusions of democracy

Preface

To My Countrymen :

In a secluded place in the mountains of Kentucky, I conceived the design of writing this volume, that occupied and amused many of my leisure hours.

While I am not a Pessimist or a Cynic, it is my purpose to sound a note of warning and to arouse my countrymen to a realization of the grave dangers that menace our free institutions — the prevalence of political venality and the reign of corrupt political bosses and predatory interests.

If this book shall serve in the least to create a sound public sentiment and to stay political corruption, then I have not written in vain.

M. WELDON SOWARDS.

Versailles, Kentucky, June 17, 1912.

Chapter I

Democracy as Exemplified in Athens and Rome. The Mother of Arts and the Eternal City in Reality Aristocracies.

For over two thousand years philosophers and sages have speculated on the relative merits of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, with widely divergent opinions as to which is best suited to men's government.

The political dogma of the " divine right of kings to govern wrong" long ago was exploded. The tyrant has no place in governmental economy and by no argument can arbitrary power be sustained. But, as between the despotism of a tyrant and the despotism of democracy as exemplified in the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, the former should be preferred.

We are not championing the cause of monarchy, though we frankly confess that the monarchy of Great Britain is superior to several so-called republics. As indicated by the title of this book, it is our purpose to expose the shams of democracy.

The advocates of popular government are wont to cite ancient Athens as the most illustrious example of democracy. But that short-lived and ephemeral nation, that blushed on the plain of Attica, was in reality an aristocracy; for two-thirds of the people of Attica were slaves. The

Parthenon, "the Glory of Greece," and all the noblest architectural monnments of Athens were constructed from the tribute cruelly wrung from a hundred dependencies. And, while it is true that all the citizens had an equal voice in its government, they- were generally led by demagogues. The State was almost constantly rent with internal dissensions and political rivalries and kept in almost perpetual turmoil.

As philosophy and oratory were cultivated almost to perfection at Athens, it has caused the advocates of democracy to boast of the advantages the free Athenians enjoyed in the cultivation of those arts. While we would not in the least seek to disparage the use of those arts, yet it is an undoubted fact that often cunning and unprincipled politicians gifted with eloquence by the seductive power of oratory would excite the prejudices and passions of the people and by their demagogic and impassioned appeals would delude them and incite them to approve measures detrimental to the State. There also flourished at Athens a species of philosophers called sophists, whose subtlety could convince the people of almost anything. And demagogues utilized such specious pleas to mislead the credulous multitudes. Thus in our own tongue we have the words demagogue and sophistry, derived directly from the Greek, both terms being used in an odious sense, the opprobrium attaching to them because of the pernicious influence of the demagogues and sophists on the politics of Athens.

Thus, while all the citizens of Athens were vested with the elective franchise, they were under the domineering influence of a few ambitious spirits, who controlled the destinies of the State.

That the glory of Athens is not to be attributed to democracy is evident when we consider that the age of Pericles was the Golden Age of Greece. It was during his administration as archon that the Parthenon was constructed and Athens reached the zenith of her splendor.

But, while Pericles professed to be a democrat, he so swayed the people by his wonderful eloquence that party lines vanished, all opposition disappeared and aristocrats and democrats alike vied in doing him homage. No monarch ever possessed power more absolute. He was the Louis XIV. of Athens, dictator, the master of the State, the undisputed arbiter of his country's destinies. It was not the democracy of Athens, but Pericles, that ruled that classic city. It was not public opinion that dictated his policies, but he dictated public opinion. It was not democracy, but the genius of Pericles, that made Athens glorious.

The Athenians were probably the best educated people in all the world of either ancient or modern times. They devoted their whole attention to learning, philosophy, eloquence, and the fine arts, in all of which they excelled. The architectural monuments of Greece are to-day the wonder and admiration of the world, and modern skill has in vain tried to equal them. Praxiteles had no rival then, and no one since has disputed his claim to preeminence among artists.

If ever any people were qualified to exercise the elective franchise to the best advantage, surely it was the Athenians; for it was an intelligent and, on the whole, a patriotic suffrage. But, though Plato, Aristotle, Pericles and Demosthenes with others, a splendid galaxy of illustrious men, shed immortal glory on the Grecian name, and the history of Athens is glorious, yet, as already mentioned, since the government was almost constantly rent with internal dissensions caused by ambitious rivalries; since ambitious political animosities prevailed, Athens was in an almost constant state of political agitation and turmoil and when not engaged in internecine strife, was generally at war with some foreign foe. With all their learning, with all their wisdom, no statesman could pilot the ship of state through so tempestuous a sea. If he escaped Scylla, he should be wrecked on Charybdis. Often, too, the siren voice of ambition would lure the statesman-mariner to destruction on some "Reef of Norman's Woe."

Two thousand years ago flourished the Roman republic. Like her illustrious prototype, Athens, Rome was almost perpetually torn with internal dissensions and with ambitious rivalries, frequently culminating in the greatest atrocities. The proscriptions of Marius and Sulla, rivals for power in the Roman republic, are among the most revolting in the whole history of the world. True, Rome grew and waxed strong and great. Her vast and rich conquests had augmented her wealth and she had become opulent and powerful. But there followed in the wake of all that wealth an excessive indulgence in luxuries, the enervating effect of which sapped her vital strength and caused a rapid decline in virtue and patriotism. Therefore Rome became corrupt. The bestowal of largesses was prevalent and the saying was current that "everything was venal at .Rome." The struggles of Brutus and Cassius were the expiring agonies of the republic. Augustus Caesar had triumphed and was sole master of the Roman world.

The advocates of democracy can find nothing to console them in the history of Rome. Grandeur and glory alone do not constitute true national greatness. Rome was a republic in name only. Though she clung with idolatrous devotion to constitutional forms ; though the Roman standard bore the pompous initials, S. P. Q. R., the Senate and People of Rome, those terms were in reality but bitter irony. For, like Athens, two-thirds of the people of Rome herself were slaves and, like Athens, but on a much larger scale, she ruled a thousand conquered provinces with consuls and pro-consuls, millions of subjects, whom she cruelly oppressed and plundered to gratify her ambition, vanity and love of power. The Fornm, the Colosseum and other stupendous works, whose remains testify to Rome's magnificence and grandeur, were constructed from the tribute cruelly wrung from a world of toiling and suffering humanity ; and, while they stand as lasting monuments of the greatness and grandeur of Rome, they, likewise, are perpetual memorials of the vanity of human greatness and oppression and rapine and of the degradation of men.

One of the most fatal defects of democracy as illustrated in the cases of Athens and Rome is its instability. For, though they were pseudodemocracies, as we have shown, yet, as they are held up as admired examples of democracy by the advocates of popular government, it is proper to point out their inherent defects and to prove what a delusion democracy is. And we propose to prove that a real democracy does not, and never did, exist. Therefore, when we use the term democracy, we mean so-called democracy.

Thus two salient examples have been produced, showing the instability of republics. History is replete with examples proving their ephemeral character. As for our own republic, though over a century old, it is still in its infancy, and is too young to be cited as an example of democratic stability.

While numerous examples prove the instability of republics, still more numerous ones demonstrate the stability, or, at least the comparative stability, of monarchies.

Almost from time immemorial China has existed as a nation. It is the only nation of antiquity that has continued to exist without intermission from ancient down to modern times. When our ancestors were savages on the Rhine; when they were steeped in ignorance and barbarism; when the Druids were practicing their superstitious and bloody rites on the soil of our mother country, the Chinese had a history and a literature and were versed in many of the arts of civilization.

The Nile was the home of the earliest civilization of the world. Its fertile valley, vegetation being almost spontaneous, could support millions of people with little cultivation. Therefore, naturally it was chosen as the seat of a great empire. Egypt is the name of this cradle of civilization, the earliest accounts of which are recorded in the Sacred Book. History, both sacred and profane, agrees in according that nation high rank among the powerful and opulent empires of antiquity. It was a martial nation, and history records many brilliant military exploits and conquests of the Pharaohs.

But the Egyptians were famed in the arts and sciences as well' as in war. They cultivated astronomy with wonderful success. They reared many stupendous structures. Egyptian genius built the Pyramids. In the ruins of the ancient and magnificent city of Memphis are the remains of massive and imposing structures that amaze the world.

The antiquity of Egypt rivals that of China. Over it the Pharaohs reigned till the kingdom was subverted by Alexander the Great and the dynasty of the Ptolemies was established, at least, over 4,000 years — surely an ancient and venerable nation, that makes the oldest republics look like babies in swaddling clothes.

Another ancient nation that endured the storms of several centuries was Babylon. The Babylonian empire, celebrated in both secular and sacred history, existed about 500 years. Babylon its capital was a city of great magnificence and power, held in awe by neighboring nations.

Assyria, its capital Nineveh, one of the greatest and grandest cities of antiquity, was an empire of wonderful power, that had subdued many nations. It lasted about 400 years.

All those monarchies existed for centuries, some far beyond any period covered by the most favored republics. In fact in all Oriental governments a republic was never dreamed of, and the people did not in all the Orient have the most remote conception of constitutional government. It was foreign to the Oriental genius, that despised simplicity and delighted in gorgeous display and magnificence, base and servile races, content to serve a despotic master.

Rome was at first a kingdom and remained so till the expulsion of the Tar quins, after which the name of king became odious to the Romans and they established a republic with two consuls as chief -magistrates. This government continued till Julius Caesar made himself master of Rome. Though the republic existed in name several years longer, the real power was exercised by one man. True, the Senate remained, but its members were mere puppets of Caesar. The venerable forms of the constitution still lingered, but the constitution itself was a dead letter.

The Roman empire lasted about five hundred years, or till its subversion by the Goths. Comparing the length of the republic with the lengths of the kingdom and the empire, you find a great disparity not in favor of the republic — a thousand to two hundred years in favor of monarchy. Moreover, the disparity is much greater when we remember that the Eastern Roman empire with its capital at Constantinople survived the Western Roman empire a thousand years, or till Constantinople was taken by the Turks in 1452.

While we think of the glory that was Greece's and the grandeur that was Rome's, we should remember that the duration of the Roman republic and that of the Athenian democracy were comparatively brief, the liberties of Greece having been subverted by Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, over three hundred years before the Christian era.

Chapter II

A Review of the Medieval, and Modern Nations of Eukope. The Ephemeeal Character of Democracy.

After the curtain has fallen on ancient times the mediaeval nations come into view. All those nations of any importance were monarchical. In all the Oriental countries despotism has prevailed to the present time, though recently the Persians have established a parliament with some semblance of constitutional government. In Europe most of the governments are limited monarchies ; in fact all of them, at least theoretically ; for Russia now has her duma, and still more recently the young Turks have established a constitutional government in lieu of the former despotism of the Sublime Porte. But they are still monarchies. Russia, founded by the Northman Ruric in the ninth century, has existed over one thousand years. England, too, has lasted about the same length of time as a monarchy, save only the insignificant interval of the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell and his son. France from the time of Charlemagne, over twelve hundred years, was a monarchy. It reached the zenith of its power under Louis XIV., the Grande Monarch, when it was the most powerful nation of Europe. Spain and Turkey have existed about the same length of time, Spain from the conquest of Granada and the expulsion of the Moors and the Ottoman empire from the conquest of Constantinople, both events having occurred about the middle of the fifteenth century.

Thus we have presented some historic facts proving the brevity of the lives of republics and the longevity of monarchies. Monarchies generally die of the infirmities incident to old age and in nearly every case are succeeded by sturdy sons of the same faith; but republics "in the morn and liquid dew of youth,' ' are struck down, "no sons of theirs succeeding. ' '

In France in the last century and a quarter we have had, first, the republic, then the empire of Napoleon, then a tapering off into a kind of mongrel government, half republic and half monarchy, the Citizen King, Napoleon III. and finally we have the republic again with its noblesse.

Now, all nations, whether despotisms, constitutional monarchies, or republics and whether in ancient, mediaeval, or modern times, have not measured up to the requirements of just and beneficent government. Of course, in despotism, when all was merged in the "divinely hedged about" monarch, whose will was law and who could "do no wrong," the whole people were exploited for the benefit of the sovereign, the masses for the benefit of the classes. An idle few, the nobility with exclusive privileges, with enormous revenues assigned them from the exchequer, were an intolerable burden on the oppressed people, on whose life blood they fattened and battened and whose ' ' substance they wasted in riotous living." Emperors and kings often squandered the people's money in ambitions wars "to gain the bubble reputation at the cannon's month." Sanguinary wars were waged by princes, ostensibly to uphold the honor of their country, but really to gratify their own ambition and love of aggrandizement. In those ancient and mediaeval times kings and princes were everything, the people, nothing. The emperors and the nobility were always in the limelight. From the tenor of history one would judge that the whole purpose of government was to promote the welfare and happiness of a few sovereigns and their hangerson only. The people received little or no consideration. When any matter of moment arose, the great question was, not whether this law or that law would benefit the people, but whether it would redound to the honor and glory of the king. Loyalty to the state was loyalty to the king. Patriotism consisted in faithfully serving his majesty.

Of course, as we have already observed, despotism can not be defended. Arbitrary power can not stand the light of intelligence. It can exist only in the sable night of ignorance and superstition. Before the dawn of enlightenment it dissolves like dew before the morning sun.

So that, in all enlightened monarchies the powers of the sovereign are restricted by constitutions. In England the king is shorn of nearly all power.

However, some despotisms have been beneficent. In the ancient Roman empire the people enjoyed freedom and happiness under the great and good Antonines. But Rome, that had her Antonines, also, had her Nero and her Caligula and a long succession of cruel and profligate tyrants, who oppressed the people and whose ambitious wars of conquest and aggrandizement exhausted the empire, entailed dire woe on the people and finally culminated in the downfall of the empire, on whose ruins rose the modern nations of Europe.

Of all the forms of government, democracy is the most transient, monarchy, the most enduring. And, while we are not advocating monarchy, as the best form of government, yet, just as in considering the character of any structure, it is proper to inquire as to its strength and stability, so in considering the forms of government, it is equally proper to determine which one in the most eminent degree possesses the elements of durability. In the light of history democracy in almost every instance has proved "a house built on the sand."

The history of the Italian republics during the Middle Ages, the brief commonwealth of the Cromwells in England, as well as all ancient republics, prove the ephemeral character of democracv.

Chapter III

The Rise of the Republic of the United States.

As ancient history had discredited democracy and mediaeval times proved it an ignominious failure, it was foreseen by its advocates that, unless some new experiment could demonstrate its success, it must be eternally doomed. Therefore, the triumph of the American arms over Great Britain and the establishment of the independence of the United States encouraged the advocates of popular government to hope for a realization of the dream of the ages. Then followed the French revolution with its bloody drama, the Reign of Terror, which proved that, when democracy was given full sway, it could be as arbitrary, tyrannical, and as guilty of the most atrocious crimes as the most heartless and cruel tyrants. It required nearly 2,000 years for the world to produce a Nero, a Caligula, an Ivan the Terrible, and a few other cruel tyrants; but in the brief space of a few months democracy in France produced such monsters as Robespierre and Danton, whose brutal and inhuman crimes would have made the most cruel tyrants of all the ages turn green with envy.

Democracy failed to secure peace, order, and happiness to the Gallic people, and it required the military power of the great Napoleon to give stability to France. Thus, democracy in that country proved an evanescent dream.

Still, the advocates of popular government, though realizing its miserable failure in France, reposed faith in the American republic, recognizing it as the only nation that promised any hope for republican government. While they surveyed the history of the world with its strewed wrecks of republics, only one solitary example remained that promised any hope of success to the friends of democracy. The United States were the crucible in which self-government was to be tried, and by that test it was to succeed, or fail.

The United States began their national existence with the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. Some members of the Constitutional Convention, including Hamilton and Adams, favored a strong government, while others like Jefferson firmly championed the State-rights doctrine. After many long and acrimonious debates their deliberations resulted in a compromise of the various conflicting views and the formation of the present Constitution.

The Declaration of Independence had affirmed that "all men are born equal.' ' And it was the earnest purpose of the majority of the Convention to establish a government "of the people, for the people, by the people.' ' But the Constitution to become effective must be ratified by three-fourths of the States; so that some provisions not in accord with the extreme views of Jefferson and others were adopted.

The advocates of monarchy in the Convention, while few, exercised an influence far out of proportion to their numerical strength; and to this day it is hard to tell who left the greater impress on the Constitution, Hamilton or Jefferson. But be that as it may, the judicial decisions of Chief Justice Marshall strengthened the powers of the National Government to a pitch not dreamed of by the framers of the Constitution, at least, by the State-rights advocates, and correspondingly diminished the powers of the various Commonwealths.

The opposite views touching the powers conferred by the Constitution on the Federal Government led to the formation of two great political parties, the Federal and the Republican parties, the former advocating a strong central government, the latter, a strict construction of the Constitution. Party feeling ran high ; crimination and recrimination were indulged in; partisan passions swayed men's minds, and blind, partisan devotion, against which Washington had solemnly warned his countrymen, warped their judgment and led them to espouse measures, not from a patriotic impulse, but from the party advantages they would confer. Even the lofty character of Washington himself in his time did not save him from the bitter reproaches and calumny of partisan rancor.

The divergent views touching the proper construction of the Constitution left open a delicate and momentous question that in subsequent years was to excite grave apprehensions for the safety of the Republic and to culminate in the awful Civil War that seriously menaced the dismemberment of the Union.

Thus, at the very threshold of our national existence germs of decay were injected into the Constitution. Fortunately, the Union, though shaken

DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY.

from center to circumference, was finally saved; but political prejudices and animosities, always so fatal to republics, have grown in intensity and become so deep-seated and universal, that the devotees of party, unmindful of their country, no longer worship, as their fathers did, at the shrine of patriotism and their country, but sacrilegiously prostrate themselves before the altars of Moloch and Mammon.

Never was a more false and pernicious political dogma proclaimed than "that all men are born equal." The inferences drawn from it in support of popular government are monstrous and totally at variance with all scientific principles and with common sense itself. From that dogma is inferred the pernicious political principle that universal suffrage for men is the best security for the people's liberties and the firmest basis for constitutional government.

It is not true that "all men are born equal." God never created all men alike. He made but one Shakespeare, one Napoleon, and one Lincoln. Men are very unequally endowed by nature. She has not been prodigal with her gifts, and her richest endowments she does not bestow in profusion. Among millions of people are only a few men of great talents, and genius is still more rare; while, as to the rest of mankind, many possess inferior gifts in great variety and in various degrees, but the residue is numbered with the common herd.

Now, nothing could be more preposterous than to proclaim, as the advocates of democracy do, that the best of mankind should be ruled by the worst. Yet, this is precisely the doctrine advocated by the adherents of popular government. For universal suffrage is the very essence of their creed, and faith in the multitude's wisdom and patriotism, its cardinal principle.

It can not be controverted that wisdom and virtue in the highest degree abide in the few — in the aristocracy — that is, in the best citizenship; not necessarily men of wealth, for riches alone do not constitute true aristocracy. Yet, according to the tenets of democracy, this class that possesses the most wisdom and the most virtue, so essential in every beneficent government, must be shorn of most of its power, and the fickle and servile multitude be clothed witli sovereignty.

When did the multitude ever display superior wisdom, or virtue? Every triumph of art, every great achievement augmenting the human happiness, and every crowning glory of national greatness was accomplished by individuals, was the handiwork of genius. The multitude did not discover America, nor did they disclose to the world the art of printing. To their credit are no great achievements in literature, the arts, or the sciences ; but all the improvements that have added to the comfort and happiness of mankind from the earliest inventions and discoveries down to the steam-engine, the powers of electricity, the telephone, wireless-telegraphy, and aeroplanes —were the achievements of genius. To imagine the world without its celebrated characters, without its great inventors and discoverers, and bereft of its brilliant lights in literature, the arts and the sciences, would be to picture to ourselves the period of the Stone Age, the age of paganism, degradation and savagery.

m DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY.

By what magic wand, then, are the multitudes in themselves incapable of progress and in all the ages opposed to it, to be converted into an oracle of political wisdom? When did they become endowed with the capacity and virtues that would qualify them to sway the destinies of a nation?

Of all the arts, that of government is one of the most abstruse, difficult and perplexing. It requires statesmen of consummate ability and often genius of the highest order to solve the weighty problems that confront the administration of government.

That this government, founded on universal suffrage, therefore, should have failed in the objects for which it was created, should excite no wonder in the minds of any intelligent persons. And that it has ignominiously failed, history presents ample evidence and each successive day but adds cumulative proof to the shameful record of lust of power, graft, corruption, political debauchery and public plunder. He who imagines that he is in the possession of those liberties intended for our enjoyment by our forefathers is but nourishing an hallucination — unless he be one of the privileged few whose self-constituted right it is to despoil the American people.

The reasons for the failure of the Constitution are numerous, the most salient of which we shall endeavor to present. The immediate and underlying cause of this failure was the attempt to level all ranks and to place all men on an equality. Such attempts have always failed and always will fail, because they are against the eternal laws of nature that are as immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians.

To sustain our position, we quote no less an authority than Sir Edmund Burke, who says : " Those who attempt to level never equalize. In all societies consisting- of various descriptions of citizens some descriptions must be uppermost. The levelers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of things; they load the edifice of society by setting up in the air what the solidity of the structure requires to be on the ground.''

Class distinctions are, therefore, natural distinctions that defy all attempts to change their relative positions in society. Of course, there are no iron-clad and fast rules, no inexorable laws to exclude the unworthy from coveted high political and social stations. For vicious qualities are often obscured by the glamour of wonderful talents displayed in various enterprises of human endeavor, brilliant forensic oratory, or the triumphs of military glory.

It is not only natural, but just and right that there be class distinctions. The lower orders of society instinctively recognize and are generally reconciled to them. The levelers are, as a rule, ambitious demagogues, who seek to advance their political fortunes by exciting the passions of the ignorant and credulous multitude and arraying them against the higher classes. If a man in the lowest ranks possesses the qualities that fit him for a position in the highest ranks, then those qualities should enable him to attain to it. But the barriers should not be removed; he should surmount them.

Of course, all should be equal before the law. The same punishment should be inflicted on all alike, whether princes or paupers, when guilty of the same offenses or crimes. No one's high rank, wealth, or social standing should screen him from just punishment under the laws of his country, to which all alike should be amenable. But, as shown by experience, in every age and in every nation, it is necessary to the happiness of all that the distinctions remain. The good breeding, learning, refinement and culture of the higher classes render them superior to the lower classes, and to destroy the distinction would be to degrade the former. Thrown together with diametrically opposing views and sentiments, there would be constant friction and no harmony among them; but discord and pandemonium would reign and peace and good will would be relegated to oblivion.

Now, what are the characteristics of the higher classes that distinguish them from the lower? Though the higher classes are generally rich or well-to-do, yet affluence alone does not constitute true aristocracy. For one may be very wealthy, but boorish, unrefined and vulgar, may lack the main qualifications. Wealth is not essential to it; it is only an incident to it. While wealth abounds in the upper classes, it is only because it affords advantages for acquiring those qualifications that constitute true aristocracy. It takes means to acquire a liberal education and the culture so essential in polite society.