Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/63

CONSTITUTIONAL MORALITY. 44 of positive imposture and mischief. Accordingly, he causes all the popular orators to be successively assassinated, so that no man dares to open his mouth on that side ; while on the other hand, the anti-popular speakers are all loud and confident, cheer- ing one another on, and seeming to represent all the feeling of the persons present. By thus silencing each individual leader, and intimidating every opponent from standing forward as spokesman, he extorts the formal sanction of the assembly and the senate to measures which the large majority of the citizens detest. That majority, however, are bound by their own consti- tutional forms ; and when the decision of these, by whatever means obtained, is against them, they have neither the inclination nor the courage to resist. In no part of the world has this senti- ment of constitutional duty, and submission to the vote of a legal majority, been more keenly and universally felt, than it was among the citizens of democratical Athens. 1 Antiphon thus finds means to employ the constitutional sentiment of Athens aa a means of killing the constitution : the mere empty form, after its vital and protective efficacy has been abstracted, remains simply as a cheat to paralyze individual patriotism. It was this cheat which rendered the Athenians indisposed to stand forward with arms in defence of that democracy to which they were attached. Accustomed as they were to unlimited pacific contention within the bounds of their constitution, they were in the highest degree averse to anything like armed intes- tine contention. This is the natural effect of an established free and equal polity, to substitute the contests of the tongue for those of the sword, and sometimes, even to create so extreme a disinclination to the latter, that if liberty be energetically assailed, the counter-energy necessary for its defence may probably be found wanting. So difficult is it for the same people to have both the qualities requisite for making a free constitution work well in ordinary times, together with those very different qualities requisite for upholding it against exceptional dangers and under trying emergencies. None but an Athenian of extraordinary ability, 1 This striking and deep-seated regard of the Athenians for all the forms of an established constitution, makes itsdf felt even by Mr. Mitford (Hist Gr. ch. xix. sect v vol. ir, p 235)