The lesson of popular government

Front matter

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Preface

Books, other than those for amusement, may be divided into didactic, historical, and argumentative. It is hardly necessary to say to which class the present work belongs. More than thirty years ago, in studies connected mainly with financial questions, my attention was attracted towards certain peculiarities in the political working of our institutions. Continued study and observation have greatly strengthened and extended the impressions then received.

For those whose idea of patriotism is to boast unceasingly that ours are the only human institutions which have attained perfection, that any public expression of doubt or criticism is little less than treason, and that all shortcomings and misdeeds must be charged to the perversity and wickedness, or, at the very least, ignorance and folly, of the people, this book can have no meaning. To those, on the other hand, whose admiration and reverence for the Federal Constitution and the organization of our governments, for the wonderful combination of unified strength with local independence, are only increased by a consciousness of the strain to which they are exposed; who, taking note of the facts that the three

millions of population have expanded to over seventy, to

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PREFACE a large extent of foreign importation, the thirteen states to forty-five, and the territory from a strip of seaboard on the Atlantic to the breadth of a continent bounded by two oceans, feel strongly that, while the principles of the government and the character of the people are still sound and reliable, some modifications and readjustments of the machinery must take place, unless we are to drift through practical anarchy and increasing corruption to military despotism ; — to such the most searching study and unsparing criticism will be welcome as furnishing light and guidance for the future.

Such works as Mr. Bryce's "American Commonwealth " and Professor Woodrow Wilson's " Congressional Government " may well be said to mark an epoch, and are supported by a host of lesser studies, though it is an anxious question whether they will be able to make any headway against the opposing forces.

A large use has been made of extracts from other writers : first, in the hope of giving greater interest from variety of style, and secondly, because, since they are summoned as witnesses and experts, their testimony and arguments are much more forcible in their own words than in abstracts which might be suspected of prejudice.

The modern history of France has been reviewed at some length from the point of view of the whole book, because of the profound instruction which it offers in relation to that of the United States, but those who do not care to follow the former may conveniently pass from Chapter VI. to Chapter XVI., or, indeed, from Chapter IV., containing an analogous view of English history.

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It may be hoped, however, that the interest of the later portion will induce them to recur to the comparative view.

If the work shall furnish any stimulus to practical study and effort for the amelioration of our politics, the devotion by the author of half the allotted term of human life will have been repaid.

The Austerfibld, Boston, Mass., October, 1898.

Table Of Contents

Vol. I

CHAPTER I Universal Suffrage PAGE

A new force in the world 1

Its representation unknown till this century .... 1

Proof from the example of Great Britain 2

Proof from the example of France 3

From Switzerland and Germany . . . . ... . . 5

From Spain 6

From Italy and Dutch Republic 7

From United States, Central and South America ... 9

From British colonies in the Pacific Ocean 9

No evidence of value before this century 10

Three forms of political bodies 10

Use of the term in this work defined i . . . 12

Woman suffrage 13

CHAPTER H

Some Criticisms of Democracy

President Woolsey on political science ...... 15

Francis Parkman . . 16

Sir Henry Maine . . . . . . . . . .18

Evidence of a century \ 24

In Great Britain 25^

In France <J1

In Spain 32

In Italy and the German Empire . 33

In the United States 34

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Contents

CHAPTER in Organization in Democracy '

Universal suffrage inevitable Success a question of machinery .

Nature of the force

Chapter II Some Criticisms Of Democracy

rriHOSE persons, who look with foreboding upon the -*- future of popular government and the dangers of the increasing tendency towards basing political power upon universal suffrage, may be said to take their departure from one proposition, — that as the great mass of a people are and must be poor and ignorant, they cannot understand political questions, and that the narrowness of their lives and the want of control over their passions must make their political action both unreliable and unsafe. It may be doubted, however, whether observation and experience of men on a wide scale in civilized countries do not show that those who are well-to-do, and even those who have enjoyed a higher education, are on the average quite as ignorant in political matters as the ordinary laborer, while their greater social needs and the constant struggle to maintain their position make them quite as selfish and grasping, as prejudiced and unjust, as those who have little hope of obtaining more than a precarious subsistence.

President Woolsey, in his work on " Political Science," * says : —

We have felt ourselves obliged to maintain that universal suffrage does not secure the government of the wisest, nor even secures the liberties of a country placed under such a democratic constitution, much less secures its order and stability.

It may well be asked whether any degree of restriction of the suffrage has in history produced these results, and whether even order and stability have not sometimes, as under the two Napoleons, been purchased at too high a cost.

The persons best qualified to choose will, in the long run, choose the best officers ;

which, apparently an axiom, is open to question, first, as to the definition of the major premise, and, second, whether the clause does not require the addition of two words; namely, u for themselves."

If the classes of the community in question (that is, the poorer) are entirely honest, their situation in life prevents them from taking large views of public policy, and thus they will cast their votes for small men ; they will misjudge the character of candidates for office.

If one were to assert, on the other hand, that this is no more true of the poor and numerous class than of the comparatively small number who are favored with wealth or culture' or both, the difference is not to be settled by logic or metaphysics, but, as in other sciences, by an appeal to facts, for which, as has been shown, history previous to this century does not furnish adequate material.

Let us call two witnesses as a sample of all the writers in the direction indicated by President Woolsey. The late Mr. Francis Parkman, of Boston, whose position as a man and a historian entitles everything he has said to respect, published an article in the North American Review for 1878, upon "The Failure of Universal Suffrage," from which the following extracts are taken: —

Crowded cities, where the irresponsible and ignorant were numerically equal, or more than equal, to the rest, and where the weakest and most worthless was a match by his vote for the wisest and the best ; bloated wealth and envious poverty ; a tinselled civilization above and a discontented proletariat beneath, — all these have broken rudely upon the dreams of equal brotherhood, once cherished by those who made their wish the father of the thought, and fancied that this favored land formed an exception to the universal laws of human nature. They cried out for elevating the masses, but the masses have sunk lower. They called for the diffusion of wealth, but wealth has gathered into more numerous and portentous accumulations.

It remains an open question whether the facts justify all these assertions 5 whether the course of events is any worse, or not better, than in countries with more restricted suffrage ; or whether they show that there would be any gain from restricting the suffrage here.

Mountains and mole hills, deserts and fertile valleys, and all the universal inequality of Nature are but types of inequality in men. To level the outward world would turn it into barrenness, and to level human minds to one stature would make them barren as well. The masses left to themselves are hardly capable of any progress, except material progress and even that imperfectly.

If there is one word in the language which excites hostility in the opponents of popular government, it is Equality. They insist that men are not and cannot be equal, either physically, intellectually, or socially, which may be granted in full without its disproving either the justice or expediency of giving a vote to all. Surely the poorest and meanest has the right to express his approval of, or dissatisfaction with, the government under which he lives. Whether he makes such bad use of this right as to justify the depriving him of it, is a question of fact and not of the meaning of the word 'Equality.'

The highest man may comprehend the lowest, but the lowest can no more comprehend the highest than if he belonged to another order of beings, as for some purposes he practically does. Demos, in his vague way, fancies that aggregated ignorance and weakness will bear the fruits of wisdom. Shall we look for an ideal security in that which tends to a barren average and a weary uniformity, treats men like cattle, counts them by the head, and gives them a vote apiece without asking them whether or not they have the sense to use it, — or in that which recognizes the inherent differences between man and man, gives the preponderance of power to character and intelligence, yet removes artificial barriers, keeps circulation free through all its parts, and rewards merit when it appears with added influence ?

Mr. Parkman admits that this last is an imaginary state of things, and the language is that of one who has hardly set himself to think out calmly the full import of what he is saying. To express bitter dissatisfaction with the condition in which one is placed is to convey an impression that any change may be for the better, and though the intention may be only to awaken so much of discontent as to create a demand for better things, yet the tendency is to reconcile the mass of unthinking minds to grasping at desperate and uncertain remedies. It is open to us, therefore, to demand of those who indulge in these tirades against democracy, to state what form of government they would have us live under and the steps by which they propose to attain to it.

Sir Henry Maine, from his well-known work on " Ancient Institutions," may be set down as a lover of the past, and from his high position and experience in British India as a believer in benevolent despotism. When, therefore, he writes upon " Popular Government " we may expect the severest criticism of which the case admits. The fallacy which seems to underlie his whole book is the very common one that because a limited number of educated men are best fitted to understand the principles of government, therefore they are more likely to govern for the general' benefit. That is hardly the lesson of history. It may well be interpreted to show that the greed, the passion, the short-sighted selfishness, are just as great among the highest as the lowest.

In arguing that because few persons foresaw the first French Revolution therefore Great Britain may be on the eve of a similar one, Sir Henry Maine is led into something very like enthusiasm for the old French monarchy.

From the accession of Hugh Capet to the French Revolution, there had been as nearly as possible eight hundred years. During all this time the French Royal House had steadily gained in power. It had wearied out and beaten back the victorious armies of England. It had grown in strength, authority, and splendor till it dazzled all eyes. It had become the model of all princes. Nor had its government and its relation to its subjects struck all men as they seem to have struck Chesterfield.

If any one regards, to go no further back, the last half of the reign of Louis XIV., the Regency, and the reign of Louis XV. as models of government, it can only be said that judgments differ , It may well be maintained that there is little to choose between them and the Reign of Terror with the Committee of Public Safety. In fact, the one was the direct cause of the other. M. Taine is certainly no friend of the Revolution, but any one who will read his " Ancien Regime 7> may well feel that the seed of the harvest had been sown broadcast in advance.

Again, Germany for the corresponding eight hundred years was under the rule of an aristocracy. Is there a more wretched history, as far as the people are concerned, anywhere on this side of Asia ? No doubt it produced a Goethe and a Beethoven, as Italy in the thirteenth century — another instance of the blessings of aristocratic government — produced a Dante and England in the seventeenth a Milton. With those who regard such men as an offset to infinite and unspeakable misery of the nameless millions there can, of course, be no argument.

Sir Henry, in approving " the greatest happiness of the greatest number " as a standard of legislation, says : —

It is inconceivable that any legislator should deliberately propose, or pass, a measure intended to diminish the happiness of the majority of the citizens.

Philip II. of Spain was probably as conscientious a legislator as ever lived, which did not prevent him from ranking almost with Genghis Khan as a scourge of mankind. It is not what the legislator intends, but what he does, that characterizes his government. Sir Henry proceeds : —

But when this multitudinous majority is called to the government, there is no security that this multitude will know what its own happiness is, or how it can be promoted.

Perhaps not, but it will make very poor work indeed if it does not do as much for its own happiness as is done by a Louis XIV. or a Philip II. , or even a Frederic II. or a William I of Germany,

One of the principal charges brought by Sir Henry against popular government is this : —

Experience rather tends to show that it is characterized oy great fragility, and that since its appearance all forms of government have become more insecure than they were before. . . . The sooer student of history will note it as a fact, to be considered in the most serious spirit, that since the century during which the Roman emperors were at the mercy of the Praetorian soldiery, there has been no such insecurity of government as the world has seen since rulers became delegates of the community.

It may be argued that there is something even more important than the stability of government, and that is its capacity for change without revolution. It is certainly not an exaggeration to say that the government of France to-day does not differ more from that of Louis XIV. than the government of Great Britain does from that of George I. But what has it not cost France to accomplish the change, while there has been nothing worse than a riot on English soil for a century and a half? Thirty years ago the United States, from a condition of profound peace, was plunged into a tremendous civil war. One half of the states was arrayed against the other half. A million of men sprang to arms. Generals of the first rank worked their way to the front. Congress practically abdicated its functions. The Constitution was in abeyance. For four years we lived under a military despotism, almost as complete as that of the Committee of Public Safety, though less cruel.

Yet no sooner was the war closed than all this passed away. Congress and the Constitution resumed their work ; the army vanished ; the generals disappeared into civil life, and within five years it became hardly possible to detect any signs of the great struggle. Are there many political systems which have shown greater toughness and elasticity than that ? Probably Sir Henry Maine would regard the extension of the suffrage to the negroes after the war as the most reckless and dangerous political experiment that could be imagined. Yet the result has been that though the armed force of the general government was in a few years wholly withdrawn, the two races have lived side by side, with the exception of a few local riots, in perfect peace. The fact that both parties are bidding for the negro vote has compelled them not only to conciliate him, but to try to elevate his condition. 1

One of the critics 2 who at first replied to Sir Henry's book thought it necessary to disclaim enthusiasm for popular or any other form of government. There need be no hesitation in confessing such enthusiasm — not, indeed, on the ground imputed by Sir Henry Maine to the advocates of popular government, a supposed accordance with certain inherent rights of man, or with some original and imagined state of nature, but simply because from observation of what it has already accomplished in its brief history, and from what may be held as a fair inference

1 The efforts of the whites to defeat and suppress the negro vote without attempting an educational qualification, and the increasing outbreaks of violence between the races, may fairly be charged to the weakness of the state governments, as hereinafter portrayed, unable to preserve order and enforce justice between classes. The explanation is fully adequate without resorting to a wholesale condemnation of negro suffrage.

2 E. L. Godkin, in The Nineteenth Century, February, 1886.

i from the past to the future, it seems to promise more of happiness for mankind than any other which the world has known.

In fact, Sir Henry Maine has fallen into certain inconsistencies, which would be surprising in such a writer, were it not apparent how strongly his judgment is influenced by fear and dislike. In stating his reason for the title of his work, he says, on page 67: —

What we are witnessing in West European politics is not so much the establishment of a definite system as the continuance, at varying rates, of a process. The states of Europe are now regulated by political institutions answering to the various stages of the transition from the old view that rulers are presumably wise and good, the rightful rulers and guides of the whole population, to the newer view that the ruler is the agent and servant, and the subject the wise and good master, who is obliged to delegate his power to the so-called ruler because, being a multitude, he cannot use it himself.

Now this is clearly the statement of a principle of government, which may be applied to an unlimited rule like that of Louis Napoleon, to a constitutional monarchy like Great Britain, or to a pure republic like the United States, and as a principle it is a legitimate cause of strong feeling or aversion. On page 57, however, all this is changed. There we read that —

Democracy is simply and solely a form of government.

And on page 64 —

On the whole the dispassionate student of politics, who has once got into his head that Democracy is only a form of government, has a right to be somewhat surprised at the feelings which the advent of Democracy excites.

The principle of Democracy is that the people choose their rulers instead of being governed by those as to whom they have no choice. To whom and how they shall delegate power is what makes the form ; the discussion of which is the object of the present work.

Again Sir Henry starts with arguing that popular government is unstable and fragile in character, and that

Irreconcilables are tending constantly to pull it to pieces ;

and yet that a wide suffrage

will in the long run produce a mischievous form of conservatism, and drug society with a potion, compared with which Eldonine would be a salutary draught.

In other words, popular government is to change constantly till it has destroyed existing institutions, and after that it will not change at all ; decidedly not a cheerful view of affairs. The most surprising result of this reasoning is to assume

that the process of stamping upon the law the average opinion of an entire community is directed to an identical end with that of the Roman Catholic Church, which attributes a similar sacredness to the average opinions of the Christian world.

In other words, a consensus of opinion arrived at through a free press and free public discussion is identical with that produced by a hierarchy which has steadily, and in a great degree successfully, suppressed free thought and imposed upon mankind the dicta of an infallible pope and a Jesuit college. The peaceful uniformity of life in Great Britain and the United States, and the equality of France, are of the same kind that was brought about by the Inquisition in Spain under Philip II.

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The principle of popular government was thus affirmed less than two centuries ago, and the practical application of that principle outside these islands and their dependencies is not quite a century old.

Per contra.

There had been more than two thousand years of tolerably wellascertained political history, and at its outset Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy were all plainly discernible. The result of a long experience was that some monarchies and some aristocracies had shown themselves extremely tenacious of life. But the democracies which had arisen and perished seemed to show that this form of government was of rare occurrence in political history, and was characterized by an extreme fragility.

Here, by his own showing, are two wholly distinct things. Popular government is to be judged only by its own experience, and in applying to it the tests of earlier history Sir Henry seems to be as illogical as are, in his view, Rousseau and Bentham. And when he adds, what is perhaps true, that, " of all forms of government Democracy is by far the most difficult," it seems as if a little charity towards partial failures would not be out of place.

Quitting now the ground of abstract and a 'priori argument, we will inquire what has been the practical result of popular government so far as it can be learned from a century of experience. At the outset it must be repeated, that with those who regard an upper class, limited in numbers but wealthy, cultured, and ornamental, placed securely beyond want and devoted to elegant leisure, as an offset to the unknown and uncared-for millions, who are left to live and perish like the beasts of the field, it is difficult to argue. The British House of Lords is no doubt a dignified and venerable institution, but if the average permanent welfare of the whole population of Great Britain could thereby be raised in even a small fractional degree, it might be permitted to regard the abolition of the House of Lords as a desirable event. Almost all accounts agree that social life among the higher classes in France before the first revolution was perhaps the most delightful in its charm which the world has ever seen. But if it involved the condition of the remainder of the population, its claim to existence could not, from the present point of view, stand for a moment. Everybody knows Burke's picture of a beautiful, virtuous, and innocent queen falling a victim to the mob. Even if we admit this favorable view of her character, she suffered, and with as much justice as a great many other virtuous and innocent women have suffered, for the sins of her race and class. In this discussion we shall have to assame as the objective point "the greatest good of the greatest number, " or rather the greatest average welfare of the whole, subject, no doubt, to demonstration of what that greatest good may really be.

Appealing then to history, 1 we will begin with Great Britain. Blackstone, writing in the last century, stated that there were 160 offences liable under the law to capital punishment, 2 and even in the first years of this century petty offences, such as sheep-stealing and the like, were punished with death, while executions were conducted by wholesale, under the most revolting and demoralizing cir-

1 And in France that very equality which is by us so impetuously decried, while it has by no means improved (it is said) the upper classes of French society, has undoubtedly given to the lower classes, to the body of the common people, a self-respect, an enlargement of spirit, a consciousness of counting for something in their country's action, which has raised them in the scale of humanity.

To treat men as if they were better is the way to make them better. — Matthew Arnold, "Essay on Equality."

2 Legislators had endeavored to protect property by punishing with death those who stole a sum of money which in their time was considerable, and the penalty was retained when the change in the value of money had made that sum insignificant. . . . Previous to the Revolution the number of capital offences in the statute book is said not to have exceeded 50. During the reign of George II. 63 new ones were added. In 1770 the number was estimated in Parliament at 154, but by Blackstone at 160 ; and Romilly, in a pamphlet which he wrote in 1786, observed that in the sixteen years since the appearance of Blackstone's " Commentaries" it had considerably increased. . . . 467 persons were executed in London and Middlesex alone in the twelve years from December, 1771, to December, 1783. In 1778 not less than 96 persons were hanged at the Old Bailey. On the other hand, in the great city of Amsterdam, which was about a third of the size of London, Howard found that in the eight years before his arrival only 5 persons had been executed. — Lecky, "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," Vol. VI., Chap. XXni.

cumstances of publicity. To-day, treason and murder are the only crimes so punished, and those under conditions of privacy which prevent them from becoming a public scandal. Between 1840 and 1853 the punishment of transportation was also done away with and prison discipline immensely improved. Up to 1838 poor debtors languished in prison amid dreadful scenes of misery and injustice, till a bankrupt law in 1843 came to alleviate the condition of the less fortunate class of mankind. Among the first measures of the reformed Parliament of 1832 was the voting of one hundred millions of dollars to buy out slavery in Jamaica, which was shortly after followed by its abolition throughout the British dominions and the most earnest efforts for the suppression of the slave trade ; and also the first law for limiting the hours of labor in factories, especially for children. Before 1832 the poor laws, based upon the statutes of Elizabeth, of William and Mary, and the 9th of George I., had produced a state of things which to the present generation seems wholly incredible. In 1834 was passed the new poor law, the benefits of which have amounted to a social revolution. From 1837 to 1839 was worked out the change of the postal system from the old complicated and burdensome rates, with the abuse of the franking privilege, to the uniform penny rate. Those now living who wish to form some idea of the resultant benefit should read the memoirs of Sir Rowland Hill.

In 1843 Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, brought up in Parliament the subject of education, and showed that besides children educated at the cost of individuals, societies, and churches, there were still 1,014,- 193 children capable of instruction but receiving none, and that, while in Lancaster alone the punishment of crime cost £ 604,965, the annual vote for education for all England was only £ 30,000. In a publication of a time now past 1 it is stated that the number of scholars in England and Wales was —

1818 1833 1851

and the proportion to population —

In 1870 was passed Mr. Forster's Education Act, as a consequence of which there were in 1889, in the public primary schools of England, Scotland, and Wales, 3,682,625 children, or one in ten of the population, exclusive of voluntary private, church, and advanced schools, of which the statistics are not given.

In 1833 a parliamentary grant of £20,000 was for the first time made in England to assist two societies engaged in popular education. In 1838 the parliamentary grant was raised to £30,000 a year. In 1892 the total expenditure of school boards in England and Wales amounted to the enormous sum of £7,134,386. The number of free scholars was about 3,800,000 and the number of children paying fees or partial fees was about 1, 120,000. 2

In the reformed Parliament of 1832 a proposal for a ballot Act was introduced by Lord Gray, but rejected by a vote of 211 to 206. The object was to replace, by secret ballot, the open voting in which the vote of every tenant and laborer was known to his landlord or employer. After discussion at intervals this reform was finally carried in 1872.