THE DESPOTISM OF DEMOCRACY. 499 



despotisms, is selfish and sordid. The truth is exploited in every 

 work of history and politics. "The love^of exercising power/' 

 says Buckle, drawing upon his vast knowledge, "has been found 

 to be so universal that no class of men who have possessed au- 

 thority have been able to avoid abusing it." * Madison, who was 

 a friend of democracy, thought the same. " Where there is an 

 interest and a power to do wrong," he says, " wrong will generally 

 be done, and not less readily by a powerful and interested party 

 than by a powerful and interested prince." \ Maine, who was 

 quite as friendly toward aristocracy, agrees with him. " Under 

 the shelter of one government as of the other," he says, "all sorts 

 of selfish interests breed and multiply, speculating on its weak- 

 nesses and pretending to be its servants, agents, and delegates." J 

 Even one of the most distinguished high priests of democracy 

 does not pretend that it will be more unselfish than any other 

 despotism. " Having forged an instrument for democratic legis- 

 lation," says Mr. Labouchere, alluding to the establishment of 

 universal suffrage, "we shall use it."* To be sure, democracy 

 does not propose to create hereditary privileges. It will continue 

 to wage, as it has waged, relentless war against them, and will 

 not cease until it has crushed them. But it creates privileges of 

 its own not less odious nor less violative of the laws of political 

 science and the rights of individuals. It permits its subjects to 

 plunder one another as pitilessly as the barons of the Rhine. 

 With the aid of duties and bounties, defended with the logic of 

 philanthropy, manufacturers grow rich "beyond the dreams of 

 avarice." Appealing to the same feudal argument, trades and 

 professions gain possession of monopolies as despotic and intol- 

 erable as the mediaeval corporations. Commissions, created to 

 provide politicians with place and pelf, and duplicating the in- 

 tendants of the old regime, threaten the destruction of that insti- 

 tution so famous in history and so dear to the American heart 

 local self-government. || Even philanthropists, under the spell of 

 a sympathy that eclipses their judgment, band themselves to- 

 gether to exercise an authority in the suppression of vivisection 

 that will eventually subvert the freedom of science as well as the 

 freedom of the community. 



* History of Civilization, vol. i, p. 280. 



f Quoted by F. N. Judson. Proceedings of the American Bar Association, 1891, 

 p. 239. 



\ Popular Government, p. 87. 



* Quoted by Maine, pp. 43 and 44, from Fortnightly Review of March 1, 1883. 



| For no other purpose than the one indicated in the text, the New York State Legisla- 

 ture added a fourth member to the Railroad Commission. Other commissions were pro- 

 posed, but the public criticism was so severe that they were abandoned. 



