AN APOSTATE DEMOCRACY. 663 



does not name the despot that rivaled them in edicts for the regula- 

 tion of the conduct of his subjects. The enactments of some legis- 

 latures number more than a thousand in a single session, and the en- 

 actments of all of them more than ten thousand. Is it any wonder 

 that the accumulated mass of these experiments in legislation is fast 

 throwing the law into a state of confusion, defying the labors of 

 lawyers to master it, and of judges to interpret it, and that the 

 American people are beginning to grasp wildly for any scheme that 

 promises deliverance from the evil? 



Like the Federal Constitution, the State Constitutions exhibit 

 an anxious desire to rescue from destruction " the unalienable 

 rights." Nearly all of them contain a version of the famous clause 

 of the Magna Charta. "Were the fundamental principles of govern- 

 ment set forth in them rigidly observed, the political despotism that 

 now threatens to overthrow free institutions as completely as in 

 Italy at the close of the middle ages would not be possible. " Abso- 

 lute, arbitrary power over the lives, liberty, or property of freemen," 

 says the Constitution of Wyoming as well as that of Kentucky, 

 " exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority." 

 More specific, the Constitution of JSTorth Dakota declares that " all 

 men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain 

 inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending 

 life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property and 

 reputation, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness." 

 Nothing could be more admirable than the Constitution of Missouri. 

 It asserts that " all constitutional government is intended to promote 

 the general welfare of the people; that all persons have a natural 

 right to liberty and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry; 

 that to give security to these things is the principal office of gov- 

 ernment, and that when government does not confer this security, 

 it fails of its design." The indisputable implication is that the 

 functions of government should be limited to the preservation 

 of order and the enforcement of justice. Were it to undertake any- 

 thing else, it would not promote " the general welfare " ; it would 

 promote the welfare of some at the expense of others. Instead of 

 the system of distribution by private contract, the only equitable 

 one possible, it would introduce the system of distribution by force or 

 favor. Instead of insuring to people " the enjoyment of the gains 

 of their own industry," it would take the gains of some to bestow 

 upon others. 



But there is no such correspondence between principle and prac- 

 tice. More even than the acts of Congress do the acts of legisla- 

 tures illustrate the impotency of any political contrivance, however 

 ingenious, to curb the instincts of a degenerate democracy. Until 



