FIRST PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY: SELF- GOVERNMENT
So many false ideas have insensibly attached themselves to the term “democracy,” as
connected with our party politics, that we deem it necessary here, at the outset,
to make a full and free profession of the cardinal principles of political
faith on which we take our stand; principles to which we are devoted with an
unwavering force of conviction and earnestness of enthusiasm which, ever since
they were first presented to our minds, have constantly grown and strengthened
by contemplation of them and of the incalculable capabilities of social improvement
of which they contain the germs.
We believe, then, in the principle of democratic republicanism, in its strongest
and purest sense. We have an abiding confidence in the virtue, intelligence,
and full capacity for self-government, of the great mass of our people, our
industrious, honest, manly, intelligent millions of freemen.
We are opposed to all self-styled “wholesome restraints” on the
free action of the popular opinion and will, other than those which have for
their sole object the prevention of precipitate legislation. This latter object
is to be attained by the expedient of the division of power, and by causing
all legislation to pass through the ordeal of successive forms; to be sifted
through the discussions of co”rdinate legislative branches with mutual
suspensive veto powers. Yet all should be dependent with equal directness and
promptness on the influence of public opinion; the popular will should be equally
the animating and moving spirit of them all, and ought never to find in any
of its own creatures a self-imposed power, capable, when misused either by
corrupt ambition or honest error, of resisting itself and defeating its own
determined object. We cannot, therefore, look with an eye of favor on any such
forms of representation as, by length of tenure of delegated power, tend to
weaken that universal and unre laxing responsibility to the vigilance of public
opinion which is the true conservative principle of our institutions…
STRONG GOVERNMENT A DANGER TO LIBERTY
It is under the word government that the subtle danger lurks. Understood as
a central consolidated power, managing and directing the various general interests
of the society, all government is evil, and the parent of evil.) A strong and
active democratic government, in the common sense of the term, is an evil,
differing only in degree and mode of operation, and not in nature, from a strong
despotism. This difference is certainly vast, yet, inasmuch as these strong
governmental powers must be wielded by human agents, even as the powers of
the despotism, it is, after all, only a difference in degree; and the tendency
to demoralization and tyranny is the same, though the development of the evil
results is much more gradual and slow in the one case than in the other. Hence
the demagogue; hence the faction; hence the mob; hence the violence, licentiousness,
and instability; hence the ambitious struggles of parties and their leaders
for power; hence the abuses of that power by majorities and their leaders;
hence the indirect oppressions of the general by partial interests; hence (fearful
symptom) the demoralization of the great men of the nation, and of the nation
itself, proceeding, unless checked in time by the more healthy and patriotic
portion of the mind of the nation rallying itself to reform the principles
and sources of the evil, gradually to that point of maturity at which relief
from the tumult of moral and physical confusion is to be found only under the
shelter of an energetic armed despotism.
The best government is that which governs least. No human depositories can,
with safety, be trusted with the power of legislation upon the general interests
of society so as to operate directly or indirectly on the industry and property
of the community. Such power must be perpetually liable to the most pernicious
abuse, from the natural imperfection, both in wisdom of judgment and purity
of purpose, of all human legislation, exposed constantly to the pressure of
partial interests; interests which, at the same time that they are essentially
selfish and tyrannical, are ever vigilant, persevering, and subtle in all the
arts of deception and corruption. In fact, the whole history of human society
and government may be safely appealed to, in evidence that the abuse of such
power a thousandfold more than overbalances its beneficial use. Legislation
has been the fruitful parent of nine-tenths of all the evil, moral and physical,
by which mankind has been afflicted since the creation of the world, and by
which human nature has been self-degraded, fettered, and oppressed. Government
should have as little as possible to do with the general business and interests
of the people. If it once undertake these functions as its rightful province
of action, it is impossible to say to it “Thus far shalt thou go, and
no farther.” It will be impossible to confine it to the public interests
of the com~nonwealth. It will be perpetually tampering with private interests,
and sending forth seeds of corruption which will result in the demoralization
of the society. Its domestic action should be confined to the administration
of justice, for the protection of the natural equal rights of the citizen and
the preservation of social order.
THE PRINCIPLE OF FREEDOM
In all other respects, the voluntary principle, the principle of freedom, suggested
to us by the analogy of the divine government of the Creator, and already recognized
by us with perfect success in the great social interest of religion, affords
the true golden rule” which is alone abundantly competent to work out
the best possible general result of order and happiness from that chaos of
characters, ideas, motives, and interests: human society. Afford but the single
nucleus of a system of administration of justice between man and man and, under
the sure operation of this principle, the floating atoms will distribute and
combine themselves, as we see in the beautiful natural process of crystallization,
into a far more perfect and harmonious result than if the government, with
it's “fostering hand,” undertake to disturb, under the plea of
directing, the process. The natural laws which will establish themselves and
find their own level are the best walking hand in hand with the sister spirit
of laws. The same hand was the Author of the moral, as of the physical world;
and we feel clear and strong in the assurance that we cannot err in trusting,
in the former, to the same fundamental principles of spontaneous action and
self-regulation which produce the beautiful order of the latter…
This is all generalization, and therefore, though necessary, probably dull.
We have endeavored to state the theory of the Jeffersonian democracy, to which
we profess allegiance, in its abstract essence, however unpopular it appears
to be, in these latter days, to “theorize.” These are the original
ideas of American democracy; and we would not give much for that “practical
knowledge” which is ignorant of, and affects to disregard, the essential
and abstract principles which really constitute the animating soul of what
were else lifeless and naught. The application of these ideas to practice in
our political affairs is obvious and simple. Penetrated with a perfect faith
in their eternal truth, we can never hesitate as to the direction to which,
in every practical case arising, they must point with the certainty of the
magnetized needle; and we have no desire to shrink from the responsibility,
at the outset, of a frank avowal of them in the broadest general language.
EXPERIMENTALISM NOT RADICALISM
But having done so, we will not be further misunderstood, and we hope not misrepresented,
as to immediate practical views. We deem it scarcely necessary to say that
we are opposed to all precipitate radical changes in social institutions.
Adopting Nature as the best guide, we cannot disregard the lesson which she
teaches when she accomplishes her most mighty results of the good and beautiful
by the silent and slow operation of great principles, without the convulsions
of too rapid action…. We are not afraid of that much dreaded phrase, “untried
experiment,” which looms so fearfully before the eyes of some of our
most worthy and valued friends. The whole history of the progress hitherto
made by humanity, in every respect of social amelioration, but a series of
experiments. The American Revolution was the greatest of experiments, and
one of which it is not easy at this day to appreciate the gigantic boldness.
Every step in the onward march of improvement by the human race is an experiment;
and the present is most emphatically an age of experiments. The eye of man
looks forward; and as he is carried onward by the progress of time and truth,
he is far more likely to stumble and stray if he turn his face backward,
and keep his looks fixed on the thoughts and things of the past.
Such is, then, our democracy. It of course places us in the school of the strictest
construction of the Constitution; and in that appears to be involved a full
committal of opinion on all the great political questions which now agitate
the public mind, and to which we deem it unnecessary here to advert in detail.
One necessary inference from the views expressed above is that we consider
the preservation of the present ascendancy of the Democratic party as of great,
if not vital, importance to the future destinies of this holy cause….
The acquisition of the vast influence of the executive department by the present
opposition principles, we could not look upon but as a staggering blow to the
cause of democracy, and all the high interests committed with it; from which
it would take a long and indefinite period of years to recover, even if the
loss of time in national progress would not, in that event, have to be reckoned
by generations! We shall therefore, while devoting ourselves to preserve and
improve the purity of our democratic institutions, labor to sustain the present
Democratic administration, by fair appeal to argument, with all the earnestness
due to the gravity of the principles and interests involved.