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 authority have been able to avoid abusing it."[1] 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."[2] 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 weaknesses and pretending to be its servants, agents, and delegates."[3] 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 legislation," says Mr. Labouchere, alluding to the establishment of universal suffrage, "we shall use it."[4] 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 intolerable as the mediæval corporations. Commissions, created to provide politicians with place and pelf, and duplicating the intendants of the old régime, threaten the destruction of that institution so famous in history and so dear to the American heart—local self-government.[5] Even philanthropists, under the spell of a sympathy that eclipses their judgment, band themselves together 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.
- ↑ 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 Legislature added a fourth member to the Railroad Commission. Other commissions were proposed, but the public criticism was so severe that they were abandoned.
