164 Wisconsin state agricultural society . 
friends, replied, “As we should like to have our friends treat us.” 
All these authorities lead to the Christian precept, “ All things 
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them.” Kant, according to Lieber, expressed the idea in a scien¬ 
tific form thus: “ Act always in such a manner that the immedi¬ 
ate motive or maxim of thy will may become a universal rule in 
an obligatory legislation for all intelligent beings.” You will no¬ 
tice that only a government which declares and makes all men 
equal in their rights, personal and political, would render it possi¬ 
ble for the citizen to obey these dictates of the Higher law. 
3. Now the citizen in a democracy, bound by the Higher law, 
must carry its precepts into his public action as elector or official. 
He can do so, of course, but imperfectly. His own imperfect na¬ 
ture will prevent him from always being able or desiring to discern 
his duty with entire clearness and accuracy. Besides, he must act 
with others who may have a different intellectual and moral pre- 
ception from himself. “ Though the statesman,” says Whewell, 
thinks and reasons, and discovers and adopts truths, he will often 
be compelled to adopt truths on the part of the state much more 
slowly and more imperfectly than he himself acquires and professes 
them in his own mind.” Then there is the difficulty of imperfect 
expression. Our conviction must often be expressed by support¬ 
ing one of two parties, neither of which has our entire approval; 
by voting for one of two men, neither of whom is our choice ; by 
voting for or against a given proposition when we think the best 
policy is not subserved by doing either. But these qualifications, 
which alike affect the voter at the polls and the representative in 
the legislature, everyone may and should carry into public life, 
with the same moral convictions, the same earnest reverence for 
the divine law that should control him in private life. 
4. But the citizen in a democracy alone has the opportunity to 
do all this. No other form of government, even in theory, pro¬ 
vides for the expression, in a mass as it were, of the moral con¬ 
victions of all its people in constitution and statutes. The consti¬ 
tution and laws even of a limited monarchy, are the expression 
of only a part of the people, and cannot entirely express the views 
of those who are disfranchised. 
5. But in a democracy where all vote, the chances are that in 
