426
THE GREEN BAG
rank in life, and the colonial governments recognized them as equal, save as authority might be conferred by appointment or elec tion. There were no titles of distinction in the colonies. Primogeniture was practically not recognized. There was no considerable class of bondmen, although bondage did ex ist to a greater or less extent in all of the colonies. And such rights of suffrage as were conferred, while they were made de pendent in many cases on property qualifi cations, were not beyond the possible reach of every male inhabitant. As a consequence the institutions of our government estab lished during the colonial period and at the beginning of our national independence, much more nearly resembled the early type of English institutions than the type which existed in Great Britain at the time inde pendence was declared. We may claim that in local self-government, in manhood representation, and in limitations upon the powers of those acting in an official capacity, our institutions are directly derived from, and strictly analogous to, those of the AngloSaxons before the Norman conquerors had brought with them the Feudal system in its most rigorous form, and had saddled upon England the whole category of titles and class distinctions to which the Feudal system led. The dangers peculiarly threatening the stability of our institutions are dangers re sulting from losing sight of the fundamental principle of equality of all men before the law; equal rights to all, equal duties upon all. A highly developed civilization brings about differences and distinctions, financial, social, and political, which are very great and strongly marked as compared with the distinctions found in a more primitive con dition. We need not stop to argue whether mankind is happier under a complex civili zation than in a simple, bucolic life. The desire to develop every faculty and every capacity, and to enjoy every power possible to the human being, is too deeply implanted in the constitution of mankind to be rea soned about, combated or condemned. It
is simply a social and economic fact. "We must recognize it and anticipate the conse quences which may flow from it; and in the natural desire of the body of mankind to maintain a position of equilibrium, we must strive to counteract any evils likely to re sult. The tendency to maintain a position of equilibrium is a factor of the human con stitution, the effect of a force of gravity, as it were, holding in check the erratic impulses of human activity, which would otherwise get beyond control and become destructive of the social fabric. That distinctions of rank or wealth or power need not interfere with the practical application of the prin ciples of equality before the law, is demon strated by the actual fact that, as a working principle, it has survived the political, social, and economic changes which have taken place among the English people from prim itive times to the present. Our political economists who are constantly seeking to discover new remedies for supposed new dangers to the body politic, would do well to recognize the fact that none of the dan gers which they assume to discover are either new or strange. Neither are they local nor peculiar. They are the common, ordinary dangers arising out of the constitu tion of the human individual, assuming new aspects under changed conditions, but avoid able, so far as social and political and eco nomic dangers inherent in the very exis tence of humanity are avoidable, by a resort to restraints and remedies as old as the common law itself. And the political economist would do well, before exploiting his peculiar theories and advertising his peculiar nostrums, to look into the remedies which have long been known and applied for these very same ills under other forms and manifestations. I venture the assertion that no remedy for the fashionable new diseases, called com binations, trusts, and unions will be found more effectual than the old and well-known remedy of holding every individual account able under the ordinary rules regulating in
