same in the subject of civil legislation. The more numerous the citizens and ample the territory of a republic, the more systematic, and even scientific, will be its legislation; and also, other things being equal, the more enduring its existence. This was the reason of supposing the number of savages so large in the above hypothesis. The principle would furnish a useful hint to our citizens at the present moment, both those who talk insanely of separating the Union, and those, on the other hand, who foster the insulating spirit of "States' rights." The present purpose, however, was to point out, that human intelligence, hitherto at least, has been less competent, and has had less part, for good or evil, in the art of government, than is commonly thought. The exclamation of the Swedish chancellor-" with how little wisdom the world is governed," might have point as a satire upon the prevailing pretensions, but was very superficial as a philosophical reflection. Society, on the contrary, is governed with infinite wisdom. But it is the wisdom of nature, not of man. The latter does but commit folly as soon as he deviates from the wisdom of nature, and devises with his And he is liable to deviate in proportion as he is able to devise, until the presumptuous illusions of his ignorance be finally dispelled by the systematized experience termed science. With this happy advent, the governmental intelligence would be the humble disciple, the obedient prophet of nature, and it matters not whether an aristocracy or a single sage were to be constituted its depository. But pending this social millenium, the best security against the divagations of its "wisdom," or against the despotism of its power, is to be found in decentralizing the one and the other, and diffusing them through the mass of the community. And of course the security against abuse will augment, and the positive results be wiser, as above explained, in proportion to the multitude of the citizens and the diversification of their interests. Of this double deduction the whole history of governments is a confirmation. Why were the several scores of republics, enumerated by Aristotle as having passed away before his time, all in general so short lived? For the very reason which shallow writers continue to assign for the possibility of their existence at all, namely: that they were so small. See Rome, on the other hand, all imperfect as had been her political organization, yet holding together for some fifteen centuries, against almost every species of disorder and despotism. The effect upon the legislation is equally attested. Few would say that the legislative or scientific intelligence of England at the present day is inferior to that of ancient Rome. Yet the jurisprudence of the latter-though comparatively a barbarian people-remains a model to civilized Europe, while the former is a standing satire upon the human intellect. Again, it can not be honestly pretended, that our own law-makers are more intelligent than the English; indeed, there are few countries where, unfortunately, less attention is paid to principles in the formation of the laws. Yet we have already licked the common law cub into tolerable shape, and the general body of our positive legislation is not destitute of soundness and even system. The solution is, that Rome was, like ourselves, a republic, and a republic composed of many and different populations, covering a territory proportionably ample and diversified. England, an aristocracy, cooped up within. a narrow island, and ruling her thousand colonies by the elect and insular "wisdom of the nation." It was this that caused the difference of result, not the difference or degree of intelligence, which went for nothing in the circumstances. Rome, in extending her citizenship and laws to her subject communities, as we do to our new States, had no more design of any philosophic symmetry than the bee has a notion of geometry in the construction of its hexagonal cells. But in order to gain uniformity, the differences of circumstance were progressively discarded, and the mechanical result was an approximation in the civil code to the comprehensiveness and congruity of science. The process of England was quite the reverse. Instead of stretching and straightening her legislation to embrace the provinces; instead of propagating it by the layers of representation, she sought to graft her dependencies, however exotic, on the indigenous stock of the metropolitan system, and this system, moreover, the production of a mere oligarchy of what M. Guizot styles, in one of his axioms, les autorites legitimes. It is against the principle of this axiom, the political system of its author, that this long exposition has been chiefly directed; the reader will judge with what effect. M. Guizot concludes against the Democrats, by calling their "sufficiency of Liberty" tenet, an error of pride." From the preceding may not we in turn conclude against the Doctrinarians, that their "sufficiency of Intellect involves more pride and no less error. But all in refuting its assailant, we can not side, the reader sees, with the democratic theory, at least as generally understood. Indeed, the principles that served to condemn or correct the one extravagance, will apply alike to the correction of the other, although opposite. An amplitude of explanation. which is no bad test of their truth. And as the rectification of the democratic error seems to touch our own politics, more immediately and vitally, it will be well worth a few moment's attention. In remonstrating against the regulative arrogance of intellect it is above remarked, that the degree of wisdom or intelligence in a representative government is not an addition of the aggregate items of intelligence in the represented; it is only a classification of them, to which the numerical majority imparts the type. No one intelligence, the sentiments of no particular individual or class of individuals, is admitted entirely, and none is entirely excluded. All are represented, but in their points of common contact express or implied; the discrepancies of individuality being eliminated by the process of suffrage. Now this is precisely the theory, too, of what we term the "sovereign will," which is the idol of American democracy, as democracy is, according to M. Guizot, the idol of hitherto monarchical France. As the individual intelligences do not tell directly or integrally in the deliberation of government, so neither can the individual wills in its determination. In the first place, the sovereign will is not the will of the majority, it is the will of the whole people, generalized upon the simplest criterion of number. And here we see the real guaranty of the rights of minorities, who, though out-voted, are not the less represented, to the extent of their common interests and substantial agreement, with the majority. But so far from this general will being made up of the wills of all or a majority of the citizens individually, it is only, we see, by rejection of all that is individual in each of the popular wills, that the "sovereign" will can have effect or even existence. This is the profound process which has been provided in the order of nature for the government of society, as well as the development of science. There is only one thing which the people can-and do in fact-will in this aggregate capacity, and this, because the enactment is artificial. It is, that a certain number and quality of persons (who, by hypothesis, are placed above the individuating influences of selfishness), be taken as the exponents, the representatives, not of the popular will, but of that abstract or induction of it in which the sovereign right to rule is pretended to reside. That is to say, they can adopt a constitution. We use the word pretended purposely, for the thing is, even in this form, but a pretension, a fiction. The right of government resides no more in the will of the multitude, general or collective, than it does in the intelligence of an aristocracy, or the brute force of the despot. These have all been but the transitive substitutes and practical signs, more or less imperfect, of the right, which consisted itself, throughout, in the natural laws of the social system. The end of these laws being the aggregate happiness of the society, and the means of happiness being the gratification of wants and desires, according to the provisions of nature for that purpose, the problem of all government was to ascertain what these provisions are, and its legitimacy was proportionate to its superior competency for that task. First came the priests, who knew all about these provisions from the lips of God himself, and who conveyed in process of time, for execution, to a single despot, this their commission, ander the well known title of the "divine right" of kings. In opposition to the test of Revelation was, long after, set up the right of Reason, which assumes, however, in the hands of the doctrinarians, the character rather of dictator than of director. The principle of representation takes an intermediate course. Like the others, this, too, has had its idle pretensions, which have been just exposed. But its into a hideous and brutally depraving scramble for bread. The explanation would also solve some knots in our own politics, past, present, and prospective. Postponing the latter two, we take a single instance from the past, where the principle may be confronted with experience. It will be the most recent and remarkable one of the famous Dorr rebellion. real import stamps it as the first step of humanity in the inductive exploration of the science of government, of the laws of society. For as human happiness is the effect of these laws, and human feelings a constituent element of happiness, and every man the best witness to the state of his own feelings if not interests; it follows necessarily, that a universal suffrage, when sifted of its discrepancies by generalization, is the best attainable evidence of the laws of society, pending their absolute establishment into a science. Intellect, indeed, might, in the latter consummation, pretend to the prerogative of having learned the science of government more thoroughly than the multitude. But as long as it can only divine, or deduce, its doctrines from insufficient premises, it will be sounder and safer to have recource to the facts themselves, that is to say, to the feelings of the governed, which are so many positive elements of the problem. Nor is the representative form of government to be preferred for its provisional superiority alone, but especially for its procreative tendency to the elaboration of social science. A ten-gery of a mere act of volition. This was dency which has now acquired an irresistible impetus in the revolutionary spirit of Europe. An elaboration which is already far advanced in our own country, and which we may have the unexampled glory of consummating, if we only learn to comprehend the peculiarity of our own advantages and situation. These last reflections will suggest our motive for dwelling so long upon them, which is besides the principal topic of the book. The line of distinction established would, if understood upon both hands, reduce the European contest between Order and Progress to a positive and pacific formula. Prescriptive pretensions of all sorts, divine or dynastic, being put aside, and all the parties agreed that the scientific laws of society ought to govern, the question would be: What are these laws in general? and then, what is the best practical criterion by which to determine their applicability in particular cases? Let us discuss?" And thus would the zeal of the combatants, literary and legislative, expend itself in the lofty competition of reason; instead of hounding on the multitude,-the one party by denying it all citizenship, and the other by claiming for it the sole sovereignity The Constitution set up by Dorr, had been voted by a majority of the citizens of the State. The fact was not controverted, nor was the bill-principle of right called in question. With the premises thus both allowed, how refuse the conclusion, how reject the Constitution? In truth the thing was logically impossible. But then the conclusion was seen to involve the absurdity of admitting, that the right to govern, which existed, by investiture of the whole people, a moment before in the established authorities, was at once transformed into a wrong in them, and the right appropriated against their consent, by a numerical plurality professing quite opposite politics; and all this by means of the thimble-rig the dilemma which occasioned the long hesitations and dissenting "opinions" of the Supreme Court Judges on the appellate trials which resulted from this movement. It was also no doubt the cause of the apparent inconsistency which some of the papers pointed out at the time, in the great argument of Mr. Webster, the chief counsel opposed to Dorr. His clear and solid understanding could not fail to be shocked at the profligate consequence alluded to in the conclusion. But instead of tracing the vice to the premises, instead of exposing the misconception above explained respecting the nature of the sovereign Will and Right, he fell back (lawyer-like enough) upon a question of form. Conceiving that Dorr may have the majority, he denied it to be valid, as not having been taken according to certain forms prescribed in the previous constitution; but was abundant to reply: "You admit that the majority does effectually exist, and that the majority may, by willing it, change the government to what form and when they please; by what paramount authority do you pretend to regulate the how? It cannot be by anything in the old constitution, which, by the hypothesis, was already superseded down to its most fundamental prescriptions. | though considerably posterior in origin. Or would you have the form to be more ir- From either of the cases there is, therefore, reversible than the substance? The acno argument to the present condition of cessory not to follow the principal? The things in France; where political swindlers, greater not to imply the incalculably less?" served by philosophic pedants, have taught In fact this position of Mr. Webster was the people to distinguish between a repubutterly untenable. The true one would lie in name, and a democracy, and even have been, that there was not a majority between a democracy in form and a desuch as to constitute the general will; the mocracy in reality. We are not to despair minority in this case not having voted at then, but quite the contrary, of men who all. This would have answered the tech- learn from experience, and who are carenical purposes of the cause. But there ful as they progress, to throw up the enwas still behind a stronger barrier to op- trenchment of a term, to the end of depose to those wild pretensions. It was, fending or demarkating the remotest limits that the general will itself is not a princi- of their acquisition. ple, but instrument; does not constitute the right to govern, but only the provisional test or title. In fine, as this right is seen to consist neither in the superior intelligence of the doctrinarian, nor in the sovereign will of the democrats, we would probably be excused from going on to prove the like errors respecting the organization of the socialists. But as this is well disposed of hereafter by Guizot himself, we hasten to the following chapter. The Democratic Republic.-For this form of government the author avows great respect. But will it be able in France to establish that which he conceives the supreme want of society, namely, "social peace," governmental "order?" He thinks not. And this augury is drawn in large part from the solicitude of his countrymen to baptize the new republic with the addition of "democratic" so that to M. Guizot there is something in a name. The United States, he alleges, are the model of democracy; yet they do not dream of styling themselves "democratic republicans." M. Guizot knows that epithets are not employed by men of sense without something to designate. At the foundation of the American government, there were as yet no specific shades of republic, democratic, social, or others. To the minds of that day, the term imported the largest development of liberty; just as it did even in antiquity to the Romans and Greeks, though then including neither universal suffrage nor the representative system. The title of democratic would then have been nonsense in the American republic of 76. For the same cause it was not employed by the French in their first republic, But this, says Guizot, is a state of strife between aristocracy and democracy, and there was nothing of the kind in the United States. It is true, there were no class divisions among the American colonists, and also true that this may account for their omission of the title "democratic." But this explanation of the author himself does completely away with his inference of condemnation drawn from the American, against the French republic. For if the cause of the democratic animus be absent in the one case and present in the other, it is not logical to compare them, to the reproach of the latter for exhibiting the effect, for adopting the appellation. But faulty logic is not often among the errors of M. Guizot. In this instance, accordingly, his real meaning-but which is insinuated rather than expressed-is this: That the existence of the cause, of the class strife in question, precludes the practicability of the republic; and that the success of this form of government in the United States, is but what the Russian Alexander described a beneficent despot An merely a "fortunate accident." other example of what we have above alleged respecting his conception of government and society. It is not necessary, after what has been already shown of that strange wrong-headedness of this conception, to stop to discuss it in the present manifestation. Every tyro in history knows that, on the contrary, this internal contention of classes has been, all the world over, the beneficent means of progressively adapting the form of government to the civic growth of the governed; even as the exterior strife among nations has been the propagator of civiliza tion for the principle,-shall we not say the providence?-has been the same in both the cases, only expanded into larger circles of operation. Even in our own country, which the author deems a model republic, the progress of civility is fast developing the every sentiments and symbols which he regards as so ominous to France. For it is, after all, not true, that the "Americans have never thought of calling themselves democratic republicans." They only had not done so officially, and at the outset, for the reason explained. But subsequently the contrary has come, our readers know, to be the truth. Of one of the two great parties, the term in question is the appropriate designation. And the other, or rather a certain section of it, was seen not long since to usurp this very catchword which M. Guizot gives us the credit of disclaiming, by surnaming themselves not merely democratic republicans, but the odder amalgam of "Democratic Whigs." Socialist Republic.-The reformers of this class are introduced as pleading for their peculiar idea on the ground of its being alone untried and new. The author denies it to be either. It is as old, he says, as the world, and has been tested by the fanatics of all sorts, religious, social, philosophical, Oriental, Hellenic, Medieval. But the comparison is grossly dishonest or superficial. At none of the epochs, in none of the forms, has fanatic, or philosopher, or christian, ever hitherto conceived the idea which is the distinctive characteristic of the Socialists, namely, the idea of social organization upon the basis of natural laws. What the Hussites of Germany, and the Roundheads of England, the Adamites of the middle ages, and even the early christians, all contemplated, was a mere negation of the public authorities and general modes of life, and the privilege of living, and of regulating their community after their own more or less whimsical fancies. What the Socialists profess to seek is quite the opposite of this ascetic frenzy. They do not fly society; they only refuse it in its present form, and to the end of reconstructing it upon a better; and above all, this reconstruction they do not pretend to fashion after the suggestions of a crazy conscience, or the indecent perversions of the Bible, but simply to conform to the experimental laws of the subject. This con formation of political institutions to the physiology of the social system is the import of their rallying-word of "organization," and certainly this is an idea both new and untried. It is in fact the true idea of a science of society. So far indeed from being a repetition of the licentious ebullitions referred to by Guizot, socialism is the result-the aggregate because the latest result of all the public reformers of the past. For these reforms have always proceeded in a consequential series. The evil to be remedied was ascribed to a succession of agencies progressively less obvious and more real-to adverse gods, to tyrannical rulers, to obnoxious names, to governmental forms, to civil institutions, &c. : it was only through the elimination of these partial or imaginary causes that the human mind could have reached the conception of looking at last for the remedy, the social panacea, in the most fundamental and complex term of the reformatory progression, the organic constitution of society. So necessary indeed, was this orderly development, in the midst of apparent disorder, that we take no credit to ourselves in having predicted the very result here in question, concerning the late revolution in France. Several months before that event was dreamt of, the present writer intimated in this Journal,* that the character, or at least the cry of the then ensuing republic, would infallibly be Socialist. To Guizot, however, the event is as lawless as a comet to an ancient astronomer. Another proof that he misapprehends the history of humanity, as well as the ideas of the Socialists. Indeed, it is quite ludicrous to hear him betray his own speculation upon the latter. Confounding them still with the follies above mentioned, "these ideas, he proceeds, had hitherto presented themselves but upon a small scale, obscurely, bashfully, and hooted almost as soon as seen. Now they mount the public stage, and display themselves in the full latitude of their pretensions." So much for the recognition of the fact: hear now the speculation: "Whether this has come to pass through the native force of these ideas, or through the fault of the public, or from causes in October, 1847. Art.: The Inductive Theory of Civilization. |