22 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE Hi^O 



ings of the poets, the philosophers, and jurists of England, 

 Germany, France, Spain and Italy.'" 



The final evolution of English and American Democracy 

 in theory and practice owes much to writers like Milton 

 and Harrington. Milton differs from the sixteenth century 

 anti-monarchists in so far as he bases his argument on 

 rational instead of on scriptural support. "All men natur- 

 ally were born free" and were endowed with right and 

 power of self-defense.'" " Kings and magistrates, thus, are 

 but the agents of the people ; they possess no power save 

 what is originally in every man and is delegated to them, 

 and they exercise no power save under the restriction of 

 the laws."" Harrington believes that government must be 

 either "the empire of laws and not of men" or "the empire 

 of men and not of laws."*^ To quote Dunning : 



These two conceptions he regards as characteristic respectively of 

 ancient and of modern philosophy, represented typically by Aristotle 

 and Hobbes. . . . Adopting the idea of the ancients as the sound 

 one, Harrington proceeds to investigate the principles which must 

 underlie a government aiming at the common welfare. . . . Har- 

 rington expatiates upon the peculiar importance of the secret ballot, 

 which he conceives to be of the very essence of just popular govern- 

 ment. The devices through which he seeks to insure absolute free- 

 dom of the voter from all constraint upon his choice are not the 

 least striking of the ideas which bring Harrington in very close 

 touch with tiie politics of the nineteenth century.*^ 



It would seem then that Harrington thus leads us back 

 not only to the principle of popular sovereignty of the 

 ancients but also to their method of giving voice and life 

 to this principle by the employment of the plebiscite or 

 referendum with individual expression of the will of the 

 voter. However, this ancient method could no longer be 



** A detailed account of the development of the theory of popular 

 sovereignty is given in Dunning's two books, A History of Political 

 Theories, Ancient and Mediaeval, New York, London, 1916; and A 

 History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu ; see also 

 O. Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Age, translated by F. 

 W. Maitland, Cambridge, 1913. 



^° Dunning, A History of Political Theories from Luther to 

 Montesquieu, p. 242. 



*" Ibid. 



"•' Ibid., p. 249. 



*^ Ibid., pp. 249, 252. 



