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REESE f TRRARY

rVERSITY OF CALIIiQRNIA, j

MAR 16 1893

5o(i(5:

C7ii3s Wo

■^g ^-^ ^ f m M ^ ^ wm k

DEMOCRATIC GOTERNMENT

A STUD T OF POLITICS

BT

ALBERT STICKNET

UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK

HARPEB & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE

1885

I

5^

v^

A-

6^o(.ii6

Entered according to Act of Congress^ in the year 1885, by

ALBERT SnCKNEY,

In the OiSce of the Librarian of Congrea^ at Washington.

Aarigkt$

1

en

CONTENTS.

Page
Inteoductory 1

CHAPTEB L

DEFnanoN of Democratic Qoyebjxmekt. .... 11

CHAPTER n.

Principlbs op Democratic 6over2!MEnt 32

CHAPTER m.

Wherein oxtr Government is not Democratic . . 125

CHAPTER rV.

Form of a Democratic Government 183

CHAPTER y.

WoREiNa OF A Democratic Government .... 137

CHAPTER VI.
How TO MaEB 0T7R GOVERNMENT DEMOCRATIC ... 150

Conclusion 160

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT.

INTBODUCTORT.

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 DEMOCBATIC OOTEENUENT*

it is necessary that the people of these United
States should again assemble in its National Con-
stitntional 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
onr 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 what im-
patient men might have wished. But the outlook

INTBODTJCTOBY. 3

is fnll of promise. The growth of democratic
government is not yet a finished growth. But
the framers of onr national constitution bad 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 DEMOCBATIO CK)YEBNMENT.

tliinking free people can live through many po-
litical mistakes, and endure 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 dbtaining 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

INTEODUOTOBT. 5

in certain single points. They 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 DEMOCBATIO GOVERTTMKNT*

people is a BtroDger 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.
Kot the least important of the facts that have been

INTKODITOTOSY. 7

established by onr political experience is the one
great fact, that democratic government does not
consist merely in allowing the individual citizen
the nominal right, nnder 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 tiling, that a people may have too
much election work, that 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 ailairs. 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

S DEMOCBATIO QOYERNILENT,

the people, by the people, for the people — ^not a
tyranny, of the people, by the election machine,
for the election machine.

But snch a result we can never have under our
present political system, if it is to be called a
system. If this seething political canldron of ours
were really democratic government, I, for one,
shonld have great doubts as to our political future.
Most thinking men will now agree, that, whatever
may be the reason, our public afiairs 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 with
honesty, eflSciency, 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 oflScers, 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

INTEODUOTOaY, 9

the citizen, or the people, real political freedom.
Nor does it secure the supremacy of the people's
will and judgment.

Let us realize the truth. The men of 1787
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. J^ut
it has now developed features, good and bad, that
its f ramers 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 DEMOCBATIO GOYEBNMEirr.

tion, where 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
fitndj 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.

IV. The Form of a Democratic Government.

V. The Working of a Democratic Govern-
ment.

VI. How our Government is to bo Made
Democratic.

CHAPTER I.
THE DEFINITION OF A DEMOOEATIO GOVEENMEin.

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, who 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,

13 DEMOCBATIO OOVEENMENT.

or of a great nation. In the scale of political or-
ganismSy 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-

DEFINinOK. 18

nal requires that those matters be pat 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. Ilsea in^e smallest

' -^

14 DEMOCEATIO GOVEENMENT.

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 oflScials. 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

DEFINITlOir. 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 east 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.
Nor 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 individual.

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 society.

But the voice must be free.

2. His full weight.

16 DEMOCEATIO GOVEENMENT.

Men must be weighed as well as counted. All
men are not equal. They differ greatly, in honesty,
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

DEJblNlTIOK* 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 frotn 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-govemnient
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 DEMOCBATIO GOYEBNHENT.

est action, and the supremacy of its own will in
the administration of its own public afEairs.

m. 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 jbrain. It
must enable each people to manage its^wn public
afEairs, with the least possible waste of^its strength,
in accordance with its own wisest judgment.

To those ends the system must be so constituted
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 diflEer-
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 well,
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

DBFmrnoN. 19

body politic, for each people, the best organiza-
tion.

2. The best selection of individuals for its dif-
ferent organs and members.

We mnst 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 counsellor. Throughout
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,

8. The best securities for the harmonious effi-

20 DEMOOBATIO OOYESNMENT.

cient working, of each body politic, and its differ-
ent organs and members.

Throngliont 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. EflSciency 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 affairs 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.

But does human experience, thus far, give ns
any light as to the principles on which such a sys-
tem should be framed ?

That is the question next to be considered.

CHAPTER n.
THE FBIKCIPLES OF DEMOOBATIO OOYEBNMENT.

The political experience of the liuman race, and
especially of the people of these TJnited 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 op the People's Will.

B. The Oeoanization of the Goveenment.

C. The Selection of its Oboans and Membees.

D. Its SEOUBmEs.

The principles will be considered in the order
here given.

We are first to consider the principles which re-
late to

A. The Obgan 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

PBINOIPLES. 2a

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 :

PfimcIFLE I.~Ihe Public Keetiiig is the Organ of a People's
. Thongbt 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
five 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 DEMOCRA.TIO GOYEBNMENT.

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 true 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 pubh'c 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

PSmOIFLES. 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
o£Scers 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

20 DEVOCBATIO GOYXRBMEHT.

which should chooee the public ot&cers. 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 hjan-
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 :

PEIN0IPLE8. 27

1. It is essential in order to secnre 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
connt, 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 oflBicials by the people
of a large cifcy, or a state, or a nation. If the citi-
zens vote separately, directly for the public oflBcer
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 DEMOCRAnO GOYEENMSHT.

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, natn-
rally, necessarily, and snrely, falls into the hands
of men who make the work of carrying elections
their regnlar profession. With those profession-
als the ordinary citizen can never compete. The
experiment has been often tried, and has always
failed. The practical resnlt 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

FEmCIPLEB. 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 DEMOCEATIO GOVBENMKNT,

say that the result will be the best possible result.
Bat 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. Bear 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

PBIN0IPLE8. 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,

S3 PEMOCRAHO GOYEBNHEin'*

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

PBINQIPLES. 88

to spare; in the 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 aind 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 pmrpose
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

34 DEMOGBATIO OOTEBinfENT*

had in the public meeting. It cannot be fnUy
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 teast some opportunity to take part in, the
free public discusfiion of public questions of many
kinds. When he is to take part in the election of
a representative or a public o£Scer, 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 very 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 which 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

PEINOIPLES, d5

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 nse 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 bemoobaho goyebnment.

in order to enable a people to form and ntter its
own will.

"Wherever common action is to be taken by 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 mnst 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. Sefore any
common action can be taken by a people, the in-
dividuals who compose the people must in some
way come to an agreement.

By what method, then, can a people most easily
and quickly agree ?

The public meeting is nature's own method,
simple, old, easy, land 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

PBIKCSPLE8. Z7

amend them, they will, if they are reasonable men,
in dae 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 niobs and armies, and
fight, until one mob or army is beaten or destroyed.
But if the citizens of a people be in the main rca^
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 opinr
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 New 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

88 DEMOOBATIO OOYEBIOiBNT.

believe that it has ever failed. No 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 woald bo pnt 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 bo 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-

PBINOIPLES. 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
^owth, of this forming and uttering of the will
of a people, through the meeting of individual
minds, is to bo found in the proceedings of the
Convention of 1787 that framed our National 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 BEHOGBATIO GOYSBNIIENT.

— 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-
federatioa. 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

PBINaPLSS. 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 f iBw days in which they were wait-
ing for a quorum were enough to bring them to a

42 DEHOOS^TIO OOYESNMEirr.

sense that they xnnst go far beyond the scope of
the resolutions which brought. them together and
defined their duties. The convention was origi-^
nally called for the 14th of May. Its first meeting
was held on the 25th. The first day of its formal
deliberations was the SOth. On that day the con-
vention passed a resolution in these words: '^That
^^ a national government ought to bo established,
^' consisting of a stipreme legislative executive and
^^ Judiciary J^ 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 Eandolph says : " Before my
" departure for, the convention, I believed that the
" confederation was not so eminently defective as
^4t had been supposed. But after I had entered
" into a free communication with those who were
^^hest informed of the condition and interest of
^' each state, after I had compared the inteUigence
"derived from them with the properties which
"ought to characterize the government of our
"Union, I became persuaded that the confedera-
" tion was destitute of every energy which a C07isti-
" iution 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

FBINOIPLES. 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. Tet 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, eannot be
made, they roust grow. This one ^rew 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 DEHOOBATIO GOYEBNMENT.

of the speeches of different men — ^when the con-
stitution was finally adopted.

Franklin said :

^^ Thus I consent, sir, to the constitution hecauae
^^ I expect no hetter^ 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 bom, and here they shall
"die."

Gouvemeur Morris said :

" . . that he too had objections, but consider-
" ing the present plan as the hesb that was to he at-
" tamedy he should take it with all itsfavUe. The
" majority had determined in its favor, and hy 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.

PBINOIPLES. 45

^^ ynkion, on one side, and the 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. Bnt each will doubtless consider, that, had
^^her interest alone been consulted, the conse-
^^ quences might have been particularly disagreea-
^^ bio and injurious to others. That it is liable to
" as few exceptions as could reasonably have been
" expected, we hope 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 DEMOGBATIO GOYBBKHBHrr.

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

PAXNOIFLSS. 47

to an agreement, on a constitntion. 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.

5. 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 discuis-
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 DEMOCBATIO OOTEBKMENT.

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 talies 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 bo 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 that 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.

I am speaking now of a people that is fit for
democratic government, that is capable of think-
ing. As to any people that has riot 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^nyijjiethod which

50 DEMOGBATIO OOVSBITHENT.

will more probably secure that people's wisest
action ?

If the considerations thns 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 difEer, 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
agreement tends to eliminate the errors of individ-
ual judgment. The result of the agreement is, in
general, wiser than would be the action of any one
individaal, 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-

PEIN0IPLE8. 51

naiy popular bodies. The men so selected will, in
genera], be men who have been snecessf ul, men
who have made their success by 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.

52 BEMOOBATIO OOYEBNMElTr.

But 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 aflEairs. 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-

PEIKCIPLE0. 53

ment should have, then there appeared diflferences.
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 thosfe 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 DEMOOBATIO GOYEBNMBNT.

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-

PSINCIFLSS. 65

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 oflScers 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 oflScials are to be chosen, a repre-
sentative will be elected to an electoral body for
choosing state oflScials. 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-

56 democbaho govbbnmekt.

ceed to take action on local affairs, whatever they
may be; it will choose local oflScials, pass local
laws and ordinances, hear oflScial 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

PBINCdTLES. 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 BEMOOBATIO GOYSBNMENT.

tion of the citizens and a call of the register, vot-
ing by any persons not entitled to vote wonid 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 the 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 ofiScials, 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, tliat this organ of the popular assem-
bly, used at every stage of popular action, for the

PBINGIPLES. 59

Belection of men as well as measures, is the one
best fitted to secure, for the individual citizen, liis
one free voice, his full weight, and his 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 !

7BIKCIFLB n. —Ill the Pablio Xeeting Every Xan mutt 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 sufficient cause, to deprive any
individual of his voice in public affairs. But,
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 repr^entative, 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 DEMOCBATIO GOYERNMENT.

can imagine no influence so strong and so health-
ful as the habit of taking part, regnlarlj 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 bo 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

PBXNGIPXiES. 61

people '' in this connection, I mean all the men
who collectively make np that people. This se-
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 BEMOCBATIO GOYEBNHEITT.

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. No 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. Restricting the right to vote by

PBINOIPLEB. 68

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 the 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 inflaence 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 the 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. l?hose representatives
will be selected men. Those selected men will

64 BEMOOBATIO GOTEBinCENT.

be, in the large majority of instances, better men
than can be selected by any other method.

Bat the voice of the individual citizen mnst be
an open voice, and not a secret ballot. Besponsi-
bility in government should begin with 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
secrecy 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-

PBINOIPLES. 65

ters are not the only men in the state wlio 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,

Ko 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 efficient 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 DEMOCSATIO GOYESNMENT.

Can any other system be devised that will be so
certain to prodace this result !

FBINCIPLE m— In the Public Keeting Action mnit be Taken
on only One Han or One Ueaiore at One Time.

This means especially, that there should be no
snch 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.

TVe come, then, to the principles which relate to
B. The Oeganization op the Government.

PRINCIPLE IV.— Eaob Han and Eacb Body of Ken moat bave One
Fnnction.

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

FSINCIFLES. 67

body of public servants, for each town, city, and
state, for each body politic.

It is quite clear that 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 democsaho ooyernment.

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 o^rgan. 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, be the efficient head of an administrative de-

FBINCjri4ES. 69

partment? To state the qnestion is, with every
practical man of affairs, to answer it. No 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 oa which many men
will differ, and on which any lengthy consideration
here would be fruitless.

PBINCIFLS v.— The Supreme Control of eaoh People's Fnblio
AfClEiirfl mnst be in One Body.

In every body politic there must be some au^
thority, some one man, or one body of men, or
fiom^ 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 DEMOCBATIO OOYEBNMENT.

ougbly 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 sided ; 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 afiairs. That is, to se-
cure the widest possible representation of all inter-
ests and all men in the state, in a deliberative
assembly. How 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

PRINCIPLES. 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 has 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 DEMOCEATIO GOVERNMENT.

istration, on the 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 two
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 thinkei*s 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,
who shall be able and honest, who shall have train-
ing and experience, who shall become a well-or-
ganized and efBcient 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 well 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

PRINCIPL'KS. 73

not be reasonable that tlie judgment of such a
body fihonld be open to reversal or question at
the hands of any one man, or of any one class of
men.

Or would 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
under 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 wise. 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 DEMOCBATIO GOYEBNMSNT.

most thorougli respoDsibility to the people. Bat
if the members of the popular assembly are the
ablest men in the commanitj, and are under sach
responsibility, then wo mnst 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.

VBnrcXFIiB yi— Sxeentlve Admialitratlon matt 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

FBINOIPLES. 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.

TVe come then to the principles which relate to

0. The Selection op the Organs and Mem-
BEss of the Govebnment.

PBINGIPLE vn.— The Body baTiiig the Supreme Control of eaoh
People's Fnblio Affidn mnst be tliat 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 afEairs, 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 DEMOCSATIO 60VEBNMENT.

may be, of the email towxis and other primary dia-
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 cpntrol 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

PRINCIPLES. 77

we use in political organization merely human
methods and human wisdom, I am unable to see
any means whereby a body of men can be belter
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.

FBIHGIFI2 vm.— The Head of Eaoh People's Ezecnlive Adoin-
ittration moat be Selected by tliat People.

Here, too, each people will act in its own popu-

78 DEMOCBATIO OOYEBNMEKT.

lar assembly, of citizens or their elected repre-
sentatives.

If the considerations heretofore advanced be
sound, 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.

FBIKCIFLE IZ.— Subordinates in the Ezecntlve Admixiistration
most 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 diflEerent posi-

FBINCIPLES. 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.
Ko one but himself can make good selections for
him. Ho 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. TVith 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 resxdts,

so DEMOCSATIO OOYEENMEin?.

unless we give him the selection of his subordi-
naties. And to insure the efBciencj 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 the
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 SECumriES of the Goyeenment.

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

—-

PBINOIPLES. 81

at the head of a public service, the body of men
who control a people's general policy, and the one
man who snperintendB its execative administra-
tion, are its best men, then the security which that
people has for an honest, wise, and vigorons 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 ofiScial, so far as
concerns the exercise of his public functions, shall
be at all times under the direct supervision and

6

83 DEMOCBATIO GOYEBNMEirT.

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 it&
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

PMNCIPLES. 83

they seem now to be established by a long politi-
cal experience, are the following :

FBINdFLE Z.— Eaeli People must Control the Kembers of its
. own Pnblio Keeting^.

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 l^hose 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. Ko

84 DEMOCBATIO OOYEBNHENT.

member of a popular representative assembly is to
be required) as a condition of remaining in tbat
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.

PEDTOIPLES. 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 DEMOCSATIO GOVERNMENT.

healthy growth, possihly even to the existence, of
free democratic government.

Let ns examine the considerations on which the
principle rests :

1. It is essential in order to secnre the free,
healthy action of the individual citizen.

It is a belief very widely held by the friends of
democratic institntions, 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 the 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

PBP^CIFLES. 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 oiBces 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 DEMOCBATIO OOYEBJEOIENT.

erf ul organizations. On the other hand, the worst
elements in the commnnity come to have an nndne
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 public 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 we 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 eX 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

PBINOIPL^S. 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 nn-
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 tendencj/y 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 DEMOCBATIO GOYSBNMENT.

one can foresee, at least one step wonld 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.

PBINCIPLES. 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 contulsions 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-
icitement, 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 fun^a-
mentalljr 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 such powerful or-

univebsity)

92 DEMOOBATIO GOYEBNHENT.

ganizations of skilled professionals, that tlie 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 throtigh 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 something 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

PBIKOIPLBS. 93

would not bo 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 affairs, 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

04 DEMDCBATIO GOYSRNHENT*

may be^ shall be allowed to pass his iDdividnal
jndgment 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,

PBINOIPLES. 95

responsibility either to the individual citizens, or to
the people ? My answer is — no. The thing that
we secnre 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 DEMOC&ATIO OOTSBHICEST.

sufficient cause, removably wheneyer the whole
people, by its judgment, uttered in its own pnUic
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

PBINOIPLES. 97

fed with its richest blood, continually renewing
its single cells. The conditions mnst 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 dovmwarda 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 PEMOOBATIO GOySBNMENT.

large cities, states, or of a great nation, then we
have larger problems. For the handling of these
larger problems we mnst have larger men. These
men who are to supervise the affairs of large cities
and states, and of the nation, mnst be not only
men of large nataral capacity, and large general
experience, bat they most get thorough knowledge
for the daties of the bodies of which they are to
be members. Especially they mnst 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 leani, 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?

PBIKGIFLES. 99

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 wish 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 iexperience 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 are once selected,
they must be free. The idea that the people's

100 DEMOOBATIO QGTESSWSNT,

representatives mnst bo kept at all times under
the terrors of an impending re-election is a mis-'
taken idea. It rests on the assamption 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, taJcen 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

102 DEMOCBATIO GOVERNHENT.

Becuring 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 govemment 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. They 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

PBINCIFLES« 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 slight 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 systeni 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 DEICOCBATIO GOYEBmiEHT.

and public meetings, the procuring of nomina-
tions, the printing of ballots, the parade work of
politics, is not work which thej 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 dean 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 yenture 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

PBINOIPLSS. 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 aflEairs, 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 DEMOCBATIO OOVEBiniEHT.

with them ? Tliey, of all men, must have time,
and opportunity — and freedom — to study, think,
and experiment, on the great qaestions 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 five 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

PBINOIPLSS. 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 officials, 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 pnblio 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 DEICOOSATIO GOYEBHHENT.

of tho greatest nnmber. The practice is, that he
serves the rich and strong, or, rather, only tho&e of
the rich and strong who are willing to spend mon-
ey to inflnence 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 the
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 ai*e all against simple, honest ser-

FBINOIFLES. 109

vice to the people. Every one of these men is
engaged in a continued straggle 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 gi'eater difficulty lies in the fact that, with
short terms 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. No
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. No doubt it is necessary that a
representative in a legislative body should have

110 PSMOCBATIO GOVEBIOIENT.

the power of clear, compact statement ; and he
should, as a rule, be a man who can speak, forcibly,
and to the point. But the great popnlar 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 rnle, 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.

But 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.

PMNOIPLES, 111

Last of ally 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 ai 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

Hd DEMOCBATIO OOYEBNMEKT.

tliej 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
nnder 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

PBUffOIPLES. 118

training and experience/tlie 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 DEHOOBATIQ QOVJBBNJCSirr*

control of public afiEain, and can those men so
selected be trusted with that control t

To my 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

PBmCIFLES. 115

those men, let the selection be made by the people.
If not, then let ns 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. Wo 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 afiEairs 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

115 DEMOCBATIO GOTEBNICENT*

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.

But 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 bo in the habit of looking up to this
body of men, selected by themselves, as ithe 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

PBINOIPLES. 117.

that there must be an aristocracy, in every well-or-
ganized state. It is an absolute necessity. Bnt 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 something 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. No
such body can be had except under a pure demo-
cratic government. The believers in hereditary

lis DEMOCSATIO GOVEBNMElTr.

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 publia 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

PBINOIFL£S. 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.

12Q DEMOCBATIO OOYEBNICENT.

On the contrary, if we have a stable sjBtem ; if
wo 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 trnsts 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

IBIHCIPLB XL— Eaeli People nmtt Control fho Head of its
own EzeeaUTO AdminiitraUon.

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-

PBINCIPLBS. 121

cient, the head of its own execative 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 DEMOGBATIO OOYEBNlIEirr.

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 ofiScials. 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 only 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.

FBIKOIFLES. 1^

PBHrcIPLE za.— Eaeh Head of an AdminiBtratiye Department
or Office moit Control Ids Own Subordinatei.

This is a point well established by experience.
It is gradually gaining general assent. No adnain-
istrative official 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 Organ of the People's "Will.

ntmciPLE L— The Fnblio Meeting ii the Organ of a People's

Thought and WiU.
FBOrcms n.— In the Pahlle Meeting every Man must have

One Voiee.

PBIXGIPLB m.— In the PnUio Meeting Action must be Taken

on only One Man or One Measore at One Sme.

124 DSaCOCBATIO OOTEBNHSNT.

B. Thb Obganization of the Qoyerskent.

PBOTGIFLB ITT.^EMh Xtn and eaeli Body of Hon must haye
Quo Fnnetioii.

FELNCIPLB v.— Tho Sapreme Control of each People*! PnUie
AfEhin most be in One Body.

mnCIFLS VX— EzeentiTe Administration must be nnder One
Head.

0. The Selection of the Obgans and Mem-
bers OF THE Gk)VEBNMENT.

PBIVGOPLB YIL^The Body having the Supreme Control of eaeh
People's Fnblie Allkirs most be that People.

PBIHGIPLB vm— The Head of each People^s EzeentlTe Ad-
ministration mnst be Selected by that People.

PBDTGIPLE IZ.— Subordinates in the Ezeentlye Administration
most be Selected by their Head.

D. The Seoueities of the Goveenment.

PBIVGIPLE Z.— Each People most Control the Xembers of its
Own Popular Assembly.

PSnrcIPLE ZL— Each People most Control the Head of its Own
EzecatiTe Administration.

PBHTGIFLE Zn.— Each Head of an AdministratlTe Department
or Office most Control his Own Subordinates.

CHAPTER m.
WHEBEIN OUB GOVEENMBNT IS NOT DEMOCBATIO.

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 :

L 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

12^ DEMOCSA.TIO QOYXBNHENT.

nnnBed in its f ree, natural form for the primary
action of the 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 DEMOOBATIO. 127

effect, by the direct vote of more than ten million
electors. Moreover, the number of elective offi-
cers nnder 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 attorneys, 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 DSKOORATIO OOTEENKSNT*

with as 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 "polities'' 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.
Very 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

WHEBEIN NOT DEMOCBATIO. 129

moral or political wrong. . Tet, in effect, nninten-
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 sei'vice 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 remai'kable 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 dskocsaho ooyesnment.

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.

in. 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.

WHEREIN NOT DEMOOEATIO. 181

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 by wrong
processes. Especially the men at the head of pub*
lie 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,

182 DSKOCSA.TI0 OOYEENMENT.

oar Presidents, our Members of Congress, our
Governors, our Members of State legislatures, the
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 rV.
THE FOBM OF A DEMOOBATIO 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

184 DSKOOBATIO QOTEBNICENT*

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 afEairs 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 :

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.

186 DSKOOSATIC OOTEENKSNT.

As to all the governmentB, local and national,
the principal changes from our present form of
government wonld 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 WOBEIKa OF A DSMOOBATIO GOYEBNMENT*

Necessabily the working of what I consider
wonld be a democratic government has been to a
great extent considered in the preceding discnssion
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.

188 DEHOCSATIO QOYEBNMESrT.

It is also well established — hj experienco— that
the popular assembly is an organ fitted only for
ontlining general policies ; and that, for execntion,
for administration, the one-man system is the only
one that has ever, thus far, sneceeded. 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 the afiEairs of
different political bodies must be distinct ; there
must be a distinct organization for local a£Eairs 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 aud 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-

woBKma. 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. "We 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 DEMOCSAHO OOYEBNICENT*

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 resalts of snch 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 bo 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.

WOEKINa. 141

All the citizens would meet. Tip 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 DElf OCRATIO OOYIEBKMENT.

With 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 bo 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 have 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*

woBEora. 143

tion provides not only for the use 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 eflicient
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 DEMOCSAnO OOTEBNHENT.

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

the men wlio 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 j
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

145 DEHOCRATIO OOTEBNHENT.

yidaal 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

WOBKINa. 147

getting good men at the head 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 a£Eairs. Under this system, tlie 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 DEICOORATIO OOYEBNlfEITr.

must be, somewhere in the body politic, as to eaich
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 a£Eairs. 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.

WOBKING. 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 descry o 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 VL
HOW TO MAKE OUB OOTEBNHENT DEMOCBATIO.

Let the whole people again meet in its national
convention^ think, and act, on ks own wisest judg-
ment

Emancipation, of the citizen, of the people, of
onr public servants, of the whole body politic, is
the chief and first resnlt to be accomplished. ,

If I am right in my conclasions 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 which 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
improvetnent 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 DEHOOBAnO CK)VTCBNlffENT.

tional reorganization that will destroy these great
political organizatioHB, as they now exisL That
result 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. Ko 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. 1$8

will.be, in eflEect, 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. No 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 efEect, 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 next step in the development of
democratic government ia 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 DEMOOBiLTIO OOTEBNHENT.

Still it may be fairly asked of any one who goes
80 far as to say that a large measure of change in
oar 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 National 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 Kepresentatives, the Presi-
dent, and all other officials of the national govern-
mont.

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 Kepresentatives 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

1Q5 DEMOCBATIO GOVEBNMENT.

men as sweeping and dangerous. It may not com-
mend itself, on full consideration, to the public
judgment. It may not bo tbo one adopted by the
National 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 powerful 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 office 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 bestbody 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. 15t

any reasonable hope of getting under the 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 oflSce 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 DEIiOOBATIO OOTEBKMENT.

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 bodj politic; or,
with the men who should, under a proper political
system, form the people's brain. TV"e 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 MAKE. 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 pnt its
action in snch form that it can be made the or-
ganic law of the nation, the anthoritative expres-
sion of the wisdom and will of the people.

CONCLUSIOir.

The one point on which 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 say. 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 National Convention,
provided by the Constitution itself.

This American people needs now to make a
thorough study of its system of government. It

00NCLXJ8I0N. 161

innst examine the defects of that system, in the
light of the experience of the last one hundred
years. It must devise the remedies for. those de-
fects. These 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 the 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 changes at
each successive stage of its growth. It began
making paper constitutions with the 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

113 DEMOCBATIO OOYEBNMENT.

well to recall the words of the instrument signed
on board the Mayflower on the 11th day of Novem-
ber, 1620. It reads: " Wo whoso names are under-
** written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign
" lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great
" Britain, Franco, 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 these presents, solemnly and
"mutually, in the presence of God and one of
" another, covenant and combine ourselves together
" into a civil body politic^ for our better ordering
" and preservation, and furtherance of the ends
" aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof, to enact, con-
"stitute, and frame such Jmt and equal lawsy
" ordinances, acts, constitutionSy 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 submission and
^'obedience. In witness whereof we have here-
" under subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the
" 11th day of November, in the year of the reign
" of our sovereign lord, King James, of England,
" France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scot-
"land the fif ty.fourth. Anno Domini, 1620."

OONCLTJSIOir. 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. Tho
Articles of Confederation were the work of a
popular convention. The National Constitution
was tho 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, servo 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 DEHOCSATIO OOYEBNMENT.

brought into existence great and powerful organi-
zationSy which fio 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. The 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 nominationsj 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, wo 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, 1C5

In this growth we are the leaders for all the
peoples of the world. Bat democratic govern-
ment has not yet reached a finished growth,
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
waste its time and substance in the never-ending
struggles of faction. It must wisely select the
men at the head of its government. It must

1C6 DEMOCBATIO OOTEBNMEZTT.

give them time — ^to gain knowledge and experi-
ence. It mnst 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 mnst 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 jast 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
Pboblem, to be solved in the People's Public

THE end/ ^ or TUf r

7ERS]

A TRUE REPUBLIC.

Bt ALBERT STICKNEY.

ISmOy Clotli, 01,o6.

"A Trae 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. — N. Y. Eventing 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.

PuDLiSHiD BT HARPER & BROTHERS, Nkw York.

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JULIO ^^

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