THE GREAT POLITICAL SUPERSTITION. 293 



Under whatever circumstance, or for whatever ends, a number of men co- 

 operate, it is held that if difference of opinion arises among them, justice requires 

 that the will of the greater number shall be executed rather than that of the 

 smaller number ; and this rule is supposed to be uniformly applicable, be the 

 question at issue what it may. So confirmed is this conviction, and so little 

 have the ethics of the matter been considered, that to most this mere suggestion 

 of a doubt will cause some astonishment. Yet it needs but a brief analysis to 

 show that the opinion is little better than a political superstition. Instances may 

 readily be selected, which prove, by reductio ad alsurdum, that the right of a 

 majority is a purely conditional right, valid only within specific limits. Let ns 

 take a few. Suppose that at the general meeting of some philanthropic associa- 

 tion it was resolved that, in addition to relieving distress, the association should 

 employ home missionaries to preach down popery. Might the subscriptions of 

 Catholics, who had joined the body with charitable views, be rightfully used for 

 this end ? Suppose that of the members of a book-club the greater number, 

 thinking that, under existing circumstances, rifle-practice was more important 

 than reading, should decide to change the purpose of their union, and to apply 

 the funds in hand for the purchase of powder, ball, and targets. Would the 

 rest be bound by this decision ? Suppose that, under the excitement of news 

 from Australia, the majority of a Freehold Land Society should determine, not 

 simply to start in a body for the gold-diggings, but to use their accumulated 

 capital to provide outfits. "Would this appropriation of property be just to the 

 minority ? and must these join the expedition ? Scarcely any one would vent- 

 ure an aflirmative answer even to the first of these questions, much less to the 

 others. And why? Because every one must perceive that by uniting himself 

 with others, no man can equitably be betrayed into acts utterly foreign to the 

 purpose for which he joined them. Each of these supposed minorities would 

 properly reply to those seeking to coerce them : •' We combined with yon for a 

 defined object ; we gave money and time for the furtherance of that object ; on 

 all questions thence arising we tacitly agreed to conform to the will of the 

 greater number ; but we did not agree to conform on any other questions. If 

 you induce us to join you by professing a certain end, and then undertake some 

 other end of which we were not apprised, you obtain our support under false 

 pretenses : you exceed the expressed or understood compact to which we com- 

 mitted ourselves ; and we are no longer bound by your decisions." Clearly this 

 is the only rational interpretation of the matter. The general principle under- 

 lying the right government of every incorporated body is, that its members con- 

 tract with each other severally to submit to the wiU of the majority in all mat- 

 ters concerning the fulfillment of the objects for which they are incorporated ; 

 but in no others. To this extent only can the contract hold. For as it is 

 implied in the very nature of a contract that those entering into it must know 

 what they contract to do, and as those who unite with others for a specified 

 object can not contemplate all the unspecified objects which it is hypothetically 

 possible for the union to undertake, it follows that the contract entered into 

 can not extend to such unspecified objects; and if there exists no expressed or 

 understood contract between the union and its members respecting unspecified 

 objects, then for the majority to coerce the minority into undertaking them is 

 nothing less than gross tyranny. 



Naturally, if such a confusion of ideas exists in respect of the pow- 

 ers of a majority where the deed of incorporation tacitly limits those 



