CHAPTER III.

DEMOCRACY.

AMERICAN nationality has two hearth-stones-democracy and self-government. The origin of all other nations and states, past or present, was different from that of the American commonwealth. America was evolved from a fruitful social element and principle. The authority of one exercised over the many, acquired by traditional influences, by superior physical or mental force, or by voluntary submission of individuals, forming one and the same race, family or tribe-such in all ages was the beginning of societies. Nimrod, Zohack, Saturn, Japhet, Danaus, Cadmus, Theseus, Romulus, Odin, Pharamond, and all those heroic legendary founders of nations and states, bore the same character, acted under similar circumstances and conditions. Conquest and the individual authority of one over all, or afterwards of few over many, begat classes and castes. And so to the present day, whatever may have been the changes and modifications, European society, like that of the ancient world, is composed of three principal elements. The one, which under different names rules and legislates; the second, which shares in the power, in the spoils, prominently executes the laws,

defends, fights and upholds the privileged state; the third, on whose shoulders reposes and presses the whole struc

ture.

Not one of these elements existed at the outset of American communities. No hero or chief, implanting his sword or banner, marked out around the foundations of the city the boundaries of an empire. No submissive companions or subjects were the pillars of the genuine American structure, nor was it cemented by any authoritative will. Democracy was the vital essence of this new society, and democracy was cradled and nursed by the combination of events which brought it into existence. And not one of the facts, axioms and theorems, which for ages ruled the old world, had any bearing on the new one.

Identical convictions, aims and purposes, attracted and united the primitive settlers. Therein was encompassed social equality. Those among them who might have belonged in the mother country to a superior or privileged class, at the start gave up all such distinctions, doing it either by conviction, or by force of circumstances. The first administrators or directors among the settlers, were freely elected by them. Their fitness, their mental superiority were the qualities which influenced the choice, and not any recognition of privileged aristocratic superiority. Besides, no social supremacy or distinction can be transfused from an anterior condition, or built up in colonies, with such beginnings as those on this northern continent, and above all those of New England. However socially mixed might have been the first body of settlers, necessity would bring them at once under the rule of equality in rights and duties. Each colonist was to carve out his own path, to work for himself. Mutual assistance could only have been accorded by the principle of association, and not by that of any obligation deriving from social inferior

ity. The first commune or village was composed of equals, socially and politically. From such a germ the whole society was developed. No masters nor lords obliged others to work for them and obey. Neither the functions in the community, nor the economic occupations, pursuits, labors, separated its members into different classes or stamped them with inferiority or superiority. All were equally necessary, useful, and therefore honorable; pulpit, office, trade, artisan, workman, daily laborer, were equal, closely interwoven and connected with each other. A log cabin was their original abode, was the common cradle.

The old and the new society are as two streams issuing from two wholly different sources. And in their whole course the original difference maintains itself and prevails.

The states of antiquity all began, as Cicero justly says, under the kingly form of government. The king or hero founded and ruled a city; the city was the state; time, events, revolutions, transformed cities into republics. America began in settlements, in cottages, in townships and villages, and when cities were formed, no social or political privilege elevated their inhabitants above their brethren in the country. Modern Europe at the outset bristled with menacing towers, strongholds and castles, overawing the ancient cities, the ancient civilization. Shadowed by the banner of the all-powerful lord, the boroughs, the villages and hamlets filled with serfs and slaves, crawled timorously before him. The church, the curate, the parish, leaned against the walls and battlements of the stronghold, and the helmeted lord was the founder and protector of the house of God. A school for master or serfs was not thought of.

A church or meeting-house, a school, a common hall, formed the hearthstones of the first American settlements, cementing, enlivening the log cabin, the cottage, the vil

lage, the township. In all this there was no germ, no ba sis, no fuel for an aristocracy. No special privileges or liberties to localities or cities, no corporations, guilds, handicrafts, or any such subdivisions, classified the population, creating interests opposed and hostile to each other. The embryo of the future State and nation was unadulterated by any of the antiquated elements which prevailed in the social and political composition of Europe. Not a tradition, but a broad principle was sown in the American soil.

Charters were granted by English kings. But they did not create any special privileges for special localities, or bestow certain rights upon a small number of inhabitants; they related to the colony at large, embraced its whole population. The proprietors of certain large grants, as Baltimore, for example, followed by conviction or necessity the general impulse-as they would not have found settlers if privilege for some of them had been substituted for general democratic equality. Penn realized the purest conception of spiritual and social fraternity, and not out of such germs could grow and unfold the creeds of privilege.

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All aristocracies have germinated under royalties, which they have subsequently overthrown, stepping into their place. Such was the origin of almost all the republics of the old world. Warfare has been the life-giving element of all societies; it was the source, the nursery aristocracies. The better armed man, the possessor of a horse, were the principal founders in Greece and Rome. Not for war and conquest, but for peace, agriculture, industry and commerce, did the primitive settlers, the colonists, provide themselves with arms. War and strifes with Indians, or the warring in the interests of the mother country, were accidental and accessory events, and not in view of them were founded and organized the various colonial communities. After the cities of Europe had be

come successively chartered, enfranchised, or had fought out their liberties, the mass of the people still remained in fetters. The immense majority of the European population was deprived of rights, deprived of every pulsation of political existence. So the burghers formed a third or a middle class between the nobility or aristocracy, and the villeins or the rural populations. Here in America, there was no above and no below, and thus no distinct invested or innate rights of one above the other. And for the same reasons that America at the start had not the germs of an aristocracy, there did not exist any elements to constitute a genuine political middle class, burghers or bourgeoisie; a class so preponderating and influential in the historical throes of Europe. On the contrary, if an eminence could in any way have been given to a special pursuit or to a special position in the community, it must have been to that of the agriculturists, the farmers, who constituted the villages, those cradles of American society, and whose axe and plough hewed out its solid foundations. Even the temporary bondmen, after having served out their time, became equal to the other colonists in the en: joyment of political rights.

The ancient monarchies and republics, as well as those of modern Europe generally, received their organization, their laws from one, either a hero, a founder, a king, or a lawgiver. Historians, political philosophers, with remarkable obstinacy draw therefrom the conclusion, that no spontaneity can be ascribed to the masses at large, to humanity itself. If a whole nation gives up its former settlements in search for new lands, in the opinion of annalists, of philosophers and poets, it is some hero, who, to illustrate his race, starts and founds a new empire. If new manners, new customs are established, it is some legislator who initiates them; his fellow-citizens forming only more