proofs may be gathered. The cnielties of the old Koman rulers were fully paralleled by those over which the populace gloated ill their arenas. During the servile wars of the middle ages, barons tortured rebels, and rebels tortured barons, with equally diabolical ferocity. Those massacres which took place a few years since in Galhcia covered with infamy both the people who committed them and the government who paid for them at per head. The Assam chiefs, to whom the East India Company have allowed compensation for abandoning their established right of plunder, are neither better nor worse than the mass of the people, amongst whom joint-stock robbing companies are common. A similar sameness is exliibited in Eussia, where all are alike swindlers, from the Prince Marshal who cheats the troops out of their rations, the ofBtcers who rob the Emperor of his stores, the magistrates who require bribing before they will act, the police who have secret treaties with the thieves, the shopkeepers who boast of their successful trickeries, down to tlie postmasters and dhrosky- drivers with their endless imposi- tions. In Ireland, during the last century, wliilst the people had their faction fights and secret revenge societies, duelling formed the amusement of the gentry, and was carried to such a pitch that the barrister was bound to give satisfaction to the wit- ness he had bullied, or to the client who was dissatisfied with him*. And let us not forget how completely this unity of character is exhibited by the Irish of to-day, amongst wbom Orangemen and Catholics display the same truculent bigotry; amongst whom magistrates and people join in party riots; and amongst whom the improvidence of the peasantry is only to be paralleled by that of the landlords. Our own histoiy furnishes like illustrations in plenty. The time when England swarmed with highwaymen and outlaws, and when the populace had that sneaking kindness for a bold robber still shown in some parts " It is time," said a veteran of this school, " to retire from the bar, since this new-fengled special pleading has superseded the use of gunpowder." — Sketches of Jrdand Sixtij Years Ago.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 231 of the Continent, was the time when kings also played the bandit; when they cheated their creditors by debasing the coinage; when they impressed labourers to build their palaces (Windsor Castle, for instance), obUging them under pain of imprisonment to take the wages offered; and when they seized and sold men's goods, paying the owners less than a third of what the goods realized. During the age of religious persecu- tion, Papists martyred Protestants, and Protestants mart^Tcd Papists, with equal cruelty; and Cavaliers and Eoundheads treated each other with the same rancour. In the present day dishonesty shows itself not less in the falsification of dockyard accounts, or the " cooking" of railway-reports, than in burglai-y or sheep -stealing; whilst those who see heartlessuess in the dealings of slop-tailors and their sweaters, may also find it in the conduct of rich landlords, who get double rent from poor allotment holders ^, and in that of respectable ladies who under- pay half-starved seamstresses'". Changes in tastes and amuse- ments are similarly common to all. The contrast between the Squire Westerns and their descendants has its analogy amongst the people. As in Spain a bull fight is stiU the favourite pas- time of both the Queen and her subjects, so in England fifty ^ " Allotments are generally given on poor and useless pieces of land, but the thorough cultivation they receive soon raises them to a high pitch of fertility. The more fertile they become the more the rent of each portion is increased, and we were informed that there are at present allotments on the Duke's property which, under the influence of the same competition which exists with reference to farms, bring his Grace a rent of 11., V.., and even U. an acre." — Times AgricvUural Commissiontn- on the Blenheim Estates.
^ See Letters on " Labour and the Poor." An officer's widow says: — " Generally, the ladies are much harder as to their terms than the tradespeople; oh, yes, the trades- people usually show more lenity towards the needlewomen than the ladies. I know the mistress of an institution who refused some chemises of a lady who wanted to have them made at Sd. She said she would not impose upon the poor workpeople so much as to get them made at that price."— J/o™i«^ Chronicle, November 1 6, 1 849. A vendor of groundsel and turfi for singing birds says:— " The ladies are very hard with a body. They tries to beat me down, and particular in the matter of turfs. They tell me they can buy half-a-dozen for Id., so I 'm obligated to let'em have three or iom:."—MorKing Chronicle, November 20, 1849.
282 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE.
vears ago, the cock-pit and the prize-ring were patronized alike by peer and pauper; and a reference to the sporting papers ■will show that the Ungering instincts of the savage are at this moment exhibited by about an equal percentage of all classes.
Thus the alleged homogeneity of national character is abund- antly exemphfied. And so long as the assimilating influences productive of it continue at work, it is folly to suppose any one gi-ade of a community can be morally different from the rest. In wliichever rank you see corruption, be assured it equally pervades all ranks — be assui'ed it is the symptom of a bad social diathesis. Whilst the virus of depravity exists in one pait of the body politic, no other part can remain healthy.
When it is urged that the working classes ought not to be admitted within the pale of the constitution because they are ignorant, it is tacitly assumed that the existing electors are en- lightened. And, quietly making this assumption, the opponents of popular enfranchisement argue, at their ease, that it would be extremely impolitic to swamp intelligent ten-pound house- holders, freeholders, and tenants at will, by letting in upon them the masses lying in outer darkness.
Painful as it may be, the pleasing illusion that our present constituency is thus honourably distinguished, must be dis- pelled. If by ignorance is meant want of information on matters which, for the due perfoiTnance of liis function, the citizen should understand (and no other definition is to the point), then it is a great error to suppose that ignorance is pecuhar to the unenfranchised. Were there no other illustra- tions, sufficient proof that this ignorance is shared by those on the register, might be gathered from their conduct at elections. Much might be infeiTed fi-om the tuft-hunting spirit exhibited in the choice of aristocratic representatives. It might be asked THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 233 whether those are intelUgent voters whose ears are tickled by the euphony of a title, whose eyes are attracted by heraldic emblazonry, or whose votes are determined by the acreage of a candidate's estates. Some doubts might be cast on the pene- tration of men who, whilst they complain of the pressure of taxation, send to parliament hordes of military and naval officers, who have an interest in making that taxation still greater. Or the pretensions of the present monopohsts of political power might be tested by quotations from the debates of a fanner's market-ordinary, and from those of the assembly into which electoral wisdom is distilled. But without dilating upon these general considerations, let us examine a few of the opinions entertained by the mercantile classes upon state ques- tions, and see how far these opinions entitle them to a reputation for enhghtenment.
"Money is wealth," was the dogma universally held by legislators and economists before the days of Adam Smith, as a self-evident truth; and in conformity with it acts of parhament were, by general consent, framed to attract and retain in the country as much coin as possible. Mr. Mill, in the introduc- tion to his recent elaborate work, assumes that this belief is now extinct. It may be so amongst philosophers, but it is still prevalent in the trading world. We continue to hear acts praised as tending to " circulate money; " and on analyzing the alarm periodically raised that " the money is going out of the country," we find such an occurrence regarded as a disaster in itself, and not simply as indicating that the country is poor in some essential commodity. Is there not occasion for a little " enlightenment" here?
Again; no small number of respectable people seeing thut increased consumption always accompanies prosperity, infer that consumption is in itself beneficial— is the cause of pros- perity, instead of its collateral efi"ect; and hence, on witnessing a fire, or the mad extravagance of some spendthrift, they console themselves with the reflection that such things are " good for 234 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE.
trade." Dangerous voters these, if sound political knowledge is a needful qualification.
Similarly diffused amongst the middle ranks, is a notion that the withdrawal of a large pai-t of the funds of the community ty the non-producing classes is no real detriment to the rest; for that as the money thus abstracted is subsequently spent amongst the rest, it eventually comes to the same thing as though it had not been abstracted at all. Even a professed political economist — Doctor Chalmers— maintains that the revenues of landowners form no deduction from the means of society, seeing that the expenditure of such revenues consists "in a transference to the industrious of sustenance and support for their services: " which proposition amounts to this — that it matters not iu the end whether A and his servants B, C, and D, live on the produce of their own industry, or on the produce of other men's industry "!
Another mistake current alike amongst rich and poor is, that the speculations of corn-dealers are injurious to the public. So indignant are many well-meaning men at what they conceive to be a practice of intolerable cruelty, that it is scarcely possible to make them see how perfect freedom of trade is nationally advantageous in tliis, as in all other cases. Their anger bhnds them to the fact that were not the price raised immediately after a deficient harvest by the purchases of these large factors, there would be nothing to prevent the people from consuming food at their ordinary rate; which would end in the inadequate supply being eaten up long before the ripening of the next crop. They do not perceive that this mercantile operation is ' No doubt the belief which Dr. Chalmers combats, viz., that the landlord's revenue is wholly consumed by him, is an erroneous one; for, as he points out, the greater portion of it goes to maintain those who directly or indirectly minister to the landlord's wants: but Dr. Chalmers overlooks the fact that did the landlord not exist, the services which such now render to him in return for " sustenance and support," would be rendered to those producers from whom the landlord's revenue originally came; and that in the loss of these services society suffers.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 235 analogous in its effect to putting the crew of a vessel on diminished rations when the stock of provisions is found in- sufficient to last out the voyage. A somewhat serious error this, for electors to labour under; especially as many of them would prevent the buying up of com hy legal penalties!
What crude theories prevail also respecting the power of a legislature to encourage different branches of industry — " agri- cultural interests" and other "interests." It is not farmers only who labour under the mistake that their occupation can be made permanently more prosperous than the rest by act of parliament: educated towns people, too, participate in the delu- sion; quite forgetting that the greater profitableness artificially given to any particular trade, inevitably draws into that trade such an increased number of competitors as quickly to reduce its proffered advantages to the general level, and even for a time below that level. Is not the educator wanted behind the counter and on the farm, as well as in the workshop?
Note again the wild ideas entertained on currency questions. We smile at tlie simphcity which in times past led a famine- pinched populace to ascribe the high price of bread to the covetousness of bakers and millers; yet there is no Uttle analogy between such a theory and that which attributes national distress to bad monetary arrangements. Just as the poor man, when made to feel the scarcity of food by having to pay double the usual sum for a loaf, straightway taxed the seller of the loaf with the evil; so do many traders to whom commercial depression comes in the shape of a difficulty in getting advances from their bankers, or cash for their bills of exchange, conclude that the "circulating medium" is in fault; being ignorant, hke their hungry prototypes, that the primary cause of the mischief is a deficiency in the national stock of food or other commodities. To suppose that a state of general privation can be cm'ed by the issue of bank notes, is to err with the projector of perpetual motion, who hopes to make power •out of nothing.
Thus the tu quoque argument, which we found so completely 236 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE.
to neutralize the inference drawn from the alleged immorality of the labouring classes, is a not much less cogent answer to the objection urged against the extension of the suffrage on the ground of popular ignorance. If, because they are deficient in information, the people should continue unenfranchised, then for a like reason should the existing electoral body be dis- franchised. If the two classes are to have their relative degrees of competence to wield political power determined by comparing the amounts of their knowledge — their political knowledge, mind — then the advantage on the side of the present holders of such power is quite insufficient to give them an exclusive claim to it. As we have just seen, a great proportion of them are in error on the most important public questions — on the nature of wealth, on what things are "good for trade," on the relationship of producers and non-producers, on dealings in the people's food, on the "encouragement" of trade, on the influences of currency, and so forth. Where, then, is their great superiority over the non-electors? Have many artizans mistaken excessive competition for the cause of an evil, instead of taking it for what it is — the symptom of one? why tliey are countenanced in this error by not a few of the educated. I>o working men hold wrong opinions concerning machinery? so likewise do nearly all the farmers and no small number of tradesmen. Is the false impression that manufacturers can raise or lower wages at will, prevalent amongst the masses? it is widely enter- tained, too, by their richer neighbours. How, then, can the ignorance of the people be urged as a reason for refusing them votes?
Tliose who cut short the arguments in favour of democracy by saying that it has been tried and found wanting, would do well to consider whether the governments they refer to really were democratic ones — whether a true democracy has ever been known — whether such a thing can be found even now. Of arrangements simulating it, the world has seen not a few. But THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 237 that democracy itself has ever existed — existed, that is, for a sufficient length of time to admit of its fruits heing judged — or that it was possible for it so to have existed during the past condition of humanity, is denied. A return to definitions settles the matter at once. A democracy, properly so called, is a political organization modelled in accordance with the law of equal freedom. And if so, those cannot he called democracies under which, as under the Greek and Eoman governments, from four-fifths to eleven-twelfths of the people were slaves. Neither can tliose he called democracies, wliich, like the consti- tutions of medieeval Italy, conferred power on the burghers and nobles only. Nor can those even be -called democracies, which, like the Swiss states, have alwaj's treated a certain unincorpo- rated class as poUtical outlaws. Enlarged aristocracies these should be tei-med; not democracies. No matter whether they be a minority or a majority to whom power is denied; the exclusion of them is in spirit the same, and the definition of a democracy is equally broken. The man who steals a penny we call dishonest, as well as the man who steals a pound; and we do so because his act equally testifies to a certain defect of character. Similarly we must consider a government aristo- cratic, be the class it excludes large or small.
They, however, make the strangest mistake who, referring as they commonly do to the United States, urge the existence of slavery as itself an argument against democracy. Put in a definite form, this would aptly serve the logician as a specimen absurdity. A pseudo-democracy is found not democratic enough, and it is therefore inferred that democracy is a bad thing I Whilst some Autolycus is eulogizing honesty and quoting himself as a sample of it, he is detected in the act of picking his neighbour's pocket; whereupon it is argued that honesty ought forthwith to be repudiated! With his mouth fuU of "noble sentiments," and leading a seemingly moral life, a Joseph Surface deceives his friends; and, on its being discovered that he is a villain, there arises the exclamation — " What a shocking thing is this morality! " 238 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE.
But, passing over what might fuither he said concerning the alleged failure of democracies, let it he gi-anted that they have failed; let it he granted that there have from time to time heen forms of government approaching to the democratic — nay, that in die course of revolutions the thing itself has had a transient existence; let all this be granted, it still proves nothing. For which is it amongst the endeavours of man that does not at first fail? Is not perseverance through a series of defeats the natural history of success? Does not the process we pass through in learning to walk afford us a tjqoe of all human experiences? Though we see a child make hundreds of boot- less attempts to maintain its balance, we do not conclude that it is doomed to remain for ever upon all -fours. Nor do we, in the conduct of its education, cease telling it to " try again," because it has many times fallen short of a desired achieve- ment. Doubtless it would be unwise to base an argument upon the assumed analogy between the growth of the individual and of the state (though, both being governed by the same laws of human development, there is probably a genuine analogy between them); but the simile may fairly be employed to hint that the failure of past "^efforts made by society to preserve the erect attitude of democracy, by no means shows that such attitude is not the proper one.
And, in fact, our theory anticipates such failures. We have already seen that a high form of government is rendered prac- ticahle only by a high type of chai-acter — that freedom can increase only as fast as control becomes needless — that the perfect man alone can realize the perfect state. A democracy, therefore, being the highest form that a government can assume — indicative, if not of the ultimate phase of civihzation, stUl of the penultimate one — must of necessity fail in the hands of barbarous and semi-barbarous men.
Whilst, then, it is maintained that nearly all these alleged failures of democracy are not failures of democracy at all, but of something else, it is ai-gued that the fact of those comparatively genuine democracies set up during revolutions.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 239 lapsing rapidly back into pre-existing arrangements, is in nowise at variance with our position.
Whether in any given case a democracy is practicable, is a question that ■will always find its own solution. The physio- logist shows us that in an animal organism, the soft parts deter- mine the forms of the hard ones; and it is equally true that in the social organism, the seemingly fixed framework of laws and institutions is moulded by the seemingly forceless thing — cha- racter. Social arrangements are the bones to that body, of which the national morality is the hfe; and they will grow into free, healthy shapes, or into sickly and cramped ones, according as that morality, that life, is vigorous or otherwise.
The vital principle of society we have seen to be the law of equal freedom: and we have further seen that in the compound faculty originating a moral sense, there exists an agent enabUng men to appreciate, to love, and to act up to this law (Chaps. IV. and v.). We have seen that to reaUze the Divine idea — greatest happiness — the human constitution must be such as that each man confining himself within his own sphere of ac- tivity, shall leave intact the similar spheres of activity of others (Chap. III.); and we have further seen that an instinct of our own fi-eedom, and a sympathy which makes us respect the Hke freedom of our fellows, compose a mechanism capable of esta- blishing this state of things. If these feeUngs are undeveloped, a people's beliefs, laws, customs, and manners, will be aggres- sive in their character: let them act with due force, and the organization of the community, equally with the conduct of its members, will be in harmony with the social law. Political forms indicate the degree of efiiciency with which this mental mechanism works; are in a manner supplementary to such mechanism; are bad and coercive if it is defective; become ameUorated in proportion as it acts well And thus demo- cracv, as one of the higher social forms, is of necessity identi- 240 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE.
fied, both in origin and practicability, with a dominant moral sense. This fact has been already more than once hinted; but it will be desirable now to examine more attentively than heretofore the grounds on which it is alleged.
Observe first, then, that in the earUer stages of civilization, before the process of adaptation has yet produced much efi'ect, the desire for political equahty does not exist. There were no agitations for representative government amongst the Egyp- tians, or the Persians, or the Assyrians; with them all disputes were as to who should be tyrant. By the Hindoos a similar state of things is exhibited to the present hour. The Eus- sians, too, are still under this phase; and, in their utter care- lessness of civil Uberty, shun any one who preaches justice and condemns tyranny, as a perverse malcontent. The like mental condition was sho\vn during the earUer stages of our own pro- gress. In the middle ages fealty to a feudal lord was accounted a duty, and the assertion of personal freedom a crime. Eights of man were not then dreamed of. Eevolutions were nothing but dynastic quarrels; not what they have been in later times • — attempts to make government more popular. And if, after glancing at the changes that have taken place between the far past and the present, we reflect upon the character of modern ideas and agitations, on declarations of rights, liberty of the press, slave emancipation, removal of religious disabilities, Eeform Bills, Chartism, &c., and consider how through all of them there runs a kindred spirit, and how this spuit is manifesting itself with constantly-increasing intensity and uni- versality, we shall see that these facts imply some moral change; and exphcable as they are by the growth of this compound faculty responding to the law of equal freedom, it is reasonable to consider them as showing the mode in which such faculty seeks to place social arrangements in harmony with that -law; or, in other words, as illustrating the efforts of the moral sense to realize the democratic state.
If a democracy is produced by this agency, so also is it ren- dered practicable by it. The popular fonn of government as THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 241 contrasted with the monarchical, is professedly one ■which places less restraint upon the individual. In speaking of it we use such terms as free institutions, civil liberty, self-govern- ment, all implying this. But the diminution of external re- straint can take place only at the same rate as the increase of internal restraint. Conduct has to he ruled either from with- out or from within. If the rule from within is not efficient, there must exist a supplementary rule from without. If, on the other hand, all men are properly ruled from within, govern- ment becomes needless, and all men are perfectly free. Now the chief faculty of self-rule heingthe moral sense (Chap. V.), the degree of freedom in their institutions which any given people can hear, will be proportionate to the diffiision of this moral sense amongst them. And only when its influence greatly predominates can so large an instalment of freedom as a democracy become possible.