THE DESPOTISM OF DEMOCRACY. 503 



a kindred nation that has their own institutions and their own 

 love of freedom ; that show contempt for the law of nations in 

 their reckless clamor for the recognition of insurgents that have 

 no status as belligerents ; that lust after the territory of a primi- 

 tive people and applaud the conspirators that rob them of their 

 rights ; that join with others to crush the native government of 

 harmless tribes of South Sea islanders ; that hide behind the 

 dazzling shield of "manifest destiny" colossal schemes of ag- 

 gression all over the world, and prepare for them with lavish 

 expenditures upon a powerful navy and a vast system of coast 

 fortifications.* Yet it is supposed that a people thus tainted 

 from top to bottom with the ethics of feudal barbarism may be 

 trusted with their brother's keeping that he can have no pos- 

 sible need of the kindly attention of a good Samaritan. 



From democracy as a form of political government no more 

 need be expected than from any other despotism, f Like the gov- 

 ernment of the one and of the few, the government of the many 

 tends to crystallize society and to thwart its growth. Every law 

 to restrict freedom and every official appointed to enforce it are 

 steps toward a fixity of structure that will cramp and deform 

 social life and divest it of variety or interest, t Already this 



husband to slay the man who has invaded his family," the Atlanta Constitution said two 

 years before to a month, " We know it is a bad thing for one man to kill another, but it is 

 worse to permit men to violate the sanctity of a home, and go free upon paying a fine or 

 damages." With an extension of this law of revenge society would soon be reduced to a 

 state of anarchy. 



* In a review of one of Captain Mahan's laudations of naval barbarism, in the Political 

 Science Quarterly, vol. ix, p. 1*72, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, a brilliant representative of the 

 spirit of modern barbarism, says : " We need to heve the lesson taught again and again and 

 yet again, that we must have a great fighting navy, in order to hold our proper position 

 among the nations of the earth, and to do the work to which our destiny points." As though 

 our "proper work " did not consist of strict attention to our own affairs, to the suppression 

 of crime and the better enforcement of justice, to the reclamation of our cities from mis- 

 rule and to the protection of our liberty from threatened destruction ; as though " a gi-eat 

 fighting navy " as well as a great fighting army could point to any other " destiny " than 

 the indefinite postponement of this important work of civilization. 



f M. Edmond Scherer's study of French democracy has brought him to a similar con- 

 clusion. " Je me persuade," he says, in Democratic et la France, p. 2, " que la nature 

 humaiue restera eternellement assez seniblable k elle-meme, et dans tous les cas, que ce 

 ne sont pas des formes de gouvernement ou des mesures d'economie sociale qui la modi- 

 fieront." 



1 " It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in ourselves by cul- 

 tivating it and calling it forth within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of 

 others," says Mill (On Liberty, Ticknor & Fields edition, p. 121), "that human beings be- 

 come a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works partake of the char- 

 acter of those who do them, by the same process human life also becomes rich, diversified, 



