subdivisions of slavery, and delegated to his inferior ministers the same unlimited authority which he himself had so violently assumed."" What was it which the French were passionately desirous of obtaining, when, in 1789, they installed, amidst shouts whch made the world resound, the Peers and Commons in one chamber-thereby destroying the veto of the Upper House, and realizing in full perfection our Liberal dreams of Peerage Reform? Was it that the whole liberties of the nation were to be extinguished by the iron grasp of the Convention, or buried under the sordid cupidity of the Directory, or crushed under the conquering chariot of Napoleon? Was it, that after fifty years of bloodshed, confiscation, and suffering, they were to sink down into a hopeless despotism, heavy as the leaden yoke of the Byzantine empire, immovable as the institutions of the Chinese government? They expected none of these things: they looked for the regeneration of the human race- -for a renewal of the golden age for the termination of the tithes of aristocratic injustice, and the commencement of the bright dawn of democratic freedom. Yet all these things came-and came in spite of their utmost efforts to avert them-swift as the hour of punishment-certain as the approach of death. We are told by physical philosophers, that although a few detached fires on the crust of the globe may be explained by partial combustion, yet the simultaneous appearance of earthquakes at places far distant from each other, points, with the certainty of demonstration, to some common cause operating in the regions of central heat. The complete coincidence and identity of the effects consequent on democratic ascendency-in Rome, through the strife of Marius and Sylla, following on the transports of Gracchus, to the despotism of the Cæsarsin England, through the fervour of the Long Parliament to the massacre of the King and the military government of Cromwell-in France, through the warm aspirations of the Constituent Assembly, the blood of the Convention, the despotism of Napoleon, the discontent of the Restoration, to the leaden yoke of LouisPhilippe-and, in England, through the transports of Reform and the fires of Bristol to the degrading despotism of O'Connell's Tail, and the centrali zing policy of a time-serving Democracy-points to some general and common cause, deep seated in the recesses of the human heart, to which they are_referable. The cause is, indeed, deep seated; it is, indeed, universal in its operation; it is, indeed, irresistible in its effects. It is explained in the earliest record of human existence; it is referred to in every part of Holy Writ; it is confirmed in every page of profane history-that cause is the ORIGINAL CORRUPTION OF THE HUMAN HEART; and till we close this great fountain of wickedness, or dilute the streams of depravity which it is incessantly pouring out upon the human race, all attempts to correct the evils of Government by a larger infusion of popular influence will be as vain as striving to extinguish a conflagration by heaping fuel upon the flames. As this point of the original, inhe rent and irremediable save by Christianity, depravity of the human heart is the vital basis of revelation, so it lies at the root of the instant and total failure of democratic institutions to Hume, vii. 241. Observe the picture of France under the Directory, drawn by a French contemporary Republican writer:-" Merit was generally persecuted; all men of honour chased from pulic situations; political robbers every where assembled in their infernal points of rendezvous; the wicked in power; the apologists of the system of terror thundering in the tribune; spoliation established under the name of forced loans; assassination prepared; thousands of victims already designed under the name of hostages; the signal for plunder, murder, and conflagration anxiously looked for, and couched under the words, the country is in danger.' The same cries, the same shouts, were heard as in 1793; the same executioners, the same victims; liberty, property, could no longer be said to exist; the citizens had no security for their lives the state for its finances."-Prem. Ann du Cons. p. 7. administer relief to the social state in every age and country of the world, and the woful results which have everywhere arisen from trusting the remedying of abuses to the profane and corrupt hands of the mass of the people. How could it be otherwise? Worn out or disgusted with the oppressions and abuses of the great, we intrusted the great work of reform to inferior hands, and hoped that by changing the seat of power from the higher to the lower orders, we would succeed in eradicating the social evils under which society had so long laboured. Abuses and injustice, it was thought, did not originate in human nature in general, but in the peculiarity of power being vested in a few hands; if this error was corrected, and the popular voice allowed to be heard in all the branches of Government, the reign of oppression must cease, because the interest of the majority, then rendered predominant, is to check the abuses of the few, and obtain for themselves the blessings of good and cheap government. Vain conceit! Granting that in this way you may effectually put an end to the abuses or corruptions of the minority who formerly ruled, how are you to guard against the vastly multiplied abuses of the majority who are now installed in power? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? That is the rock on which democratic institutions ever and ever must immediately be shipwrecked. It is the inherent corruption and depravity of our nature, appearing only more clearly and deplorably by every successive addition which we make to the multitude of our governors, which is the real, universal, eternal, and deepseated cause of the utter impossibility, in an advanced and artificial state of society, of democratic institutions either existing for any time, or producing any thing but misery and evil during the brief period of their endurance. "The necessity," says Coleridge, "for external government to man is in the inverse ratio of the vigour of his self-government. Where the last is most complete, the first is least wanted. Hence the more virtue the more liberty.' This is one of those precious thoughts, the simplicity of which disguises its profound truth, but which, when duly meditated on, throws a flood of light on the seemingly contradictory and inexplicable difference in the stability of, and effect produced by, similar forms of government in different countries and ages of the world. What, say the Republicans, can be so absurd as to refer to human corruption the failure of democratic institutions, when history has recorded the virtues of Sparta, the simple heroism of Switzerland, the flourishing commonwealth of America? Softly: before these examples are considered decisive on the subject, consider well whether they do not establish a conclusion directly adverse to that for which the Revolutionists refer to these celebrated States. It is not mere power which proves fatal to democratic institutions; it is power which confers the means of increasing selfish enjoyment and gratifying human passion; it is power coinciding with or falling into the hands of persons alive to the luxuries and corruptions of life which is the fatal poison. Lycurgus showed a deep knowledge of human nature when he prohibited any money but iron coin in his commonwealth. If the citizens of a Republic are shepherds, who assemble once a-year under the canopy of heaven, as in the canton of Underwalden, to deliberate on their simple political wants, which do not exceed the concerns of a tolerablysized English parish; or if they are warriors, chained by severe laws and severer customs, as in Sparta, to a frugal and simple life, eating black broth, drinking water, and knowing no distinction but in warlike celebrity; or if they are retained by extraordinary circumstances in a rude state of agriculture, as in America, and have two hundred millions of uncultivated acres always ready to afford a refuge to the poverty or drain off the discontented multitudes of their country, they may go on for a considerable time without society being shattered by the unruly passions of the majority of mankind. Now, however, the inherent depravity of the human heart is evincing its tyrannic propensities even in that simple and religious land, where rural labour generally induces simplicity of manners, and the general presence of com * Table-Talk, ii. 193, fort, equally with the absence of wealth, moderates the most violent passions of our nature. The dreadful spectacle of a human being recently burnt to death by a slow fire by a savage mob in the southern states, proves that the inhuman passions of our nature are shared alike by the authors of a Castilian auto da fe and the liberal electors of Transatlantic independence. The frightful and now almost daily occurrence of persons of all descriptions being seized by the people in the southern states of the Union, and hung up in the streets, without either trial or sentence, merely because they entertain opinions disagreeable to the tyrant majority, is but an unhappy illustration of the power of the human heart, as society advances and important interests come into collision, to withstand the temptations consequent on the lust of power. They seem resolved to realize the celebrated saying of the French Republicans-" Is this the freedom which was promised us? we can no longer hang whom we please." That we may not be suspected of European exaggeration on this subject, we subjoin the following extract from one of the most enlightened and moderate of the American newspapers, the Philadelphia Gazette: "The most ravenous appetite must have been glutted and destroyed by a perusal of the columns of any late newspaper. Revenge, riot, and intemperance seem to have their perfect work in every section of the country. Exhibitions are every day made of lawless excess, of infernal jealousy, of cold-blooded malignity, of most debasing sensuality, of utter recklessness of life, and entire disregard, if not disbelief, of a futurity, which would have been considered honourable by the most brutal of the red-capped friends of the human race' of the French Revolution. And the signs of the times have for a long time past given full promise of such a state of things. The preparation for it has been long and thorough. The pernicious doctrines, that any measures however dishonest, and men however unprincipled, may be made use of, in order to accomplish a political object-that the laws are inadequate, or too tardy in their operations, to enforce rights and redress wrongs, and must give place to the inconsiderate judgments and sanguinary executions of the mob that self-gratification, in its broadest sense, is the chief end and aim of manand that the requisitions of morality and religion are to be considered as burden some exactions which are to be avoided by all who would obtain power or wealth in the community, have been inculcated every where and in every possible way. What matter of surprise, then, is it, that, having sown the wind, we now begin to reap the whirlwind? that murders, robberies, gambling in all its varieties, suicides, mob outrages of every kind, have become so frightfully frequent? But the fact of the unquestionable, and the evils of it perexistence of such a state of things being fectly apparent, the question naturally suggests itself, what measures of prevention or cure can be taken by those who prize the blessings of order and law, and are desirous to preserve their property and save their lives? Let every good man and true in the community put this question to himself in sober earnest, and let the answer which suggests itself to the wise man, the learned man, and the good man, be made known and acted upon. Let the lessons of wisdom, of experience, of truth, be put forth boldly. This is no time for timidity. He who, having the power to do something to increase knowledge, to proclaim truth, to confute error, and thus to advance the cause of order, morality, religion, law, and liberty, is too timid, or calculating, or desponding to do all that he can do, by speech, or writing, or action, is false to himself and to the Being who gave him powers to be used for the benefit of his fellow-men." Even in the northern states and best regulated parts of the Union, the possession of power, as society advances, and important interests come into collision, appears to be producing its usual effect upon the human heart. The tyrant majority" is even more unrelenting in his oppression than the tyrant oligarchy or the tyrant despot. Hear what the able and dispassionate Tocqueville says on this subject:"In America the European ladder of power being inverted, the rich find themselves in a situation similar to that of the poor in Europe; it is they who have often too much reason to dread the law. The real advantage of democracy is not that it protects the interests of all classes in the state, but that it accords with the wishes of the majority. In the United States the poor are the real rulers, and the rich have constantly reason to dread an abuse of their power. Omnipotence is universally dangerous; to resist its seductions is beyond the human strength; God alone can exercise it without injustice. To Wherever power, practically supreme, is intrusted to any class, be it an aristocracy or a democracy, tyranny is at hand, and I for one would seek an asylum elsewhere. In America there is no security whatever against the tyranny of the majority. A striking instance of this occurred at Baltimore during the war of 1812, at which period the war was popular in that city. A journal which espoused the opposite side excited the indignation of the inhabitants. The people assembled, broke to pieces its printing presses, and attacked the houses of the editors. The militia was called out, but no one obeyed the summons. save the unhappy wretches who were menaced with instant death, they fell upon the plan of leading them to prison as criminals. This precaution was in vain; during the night the people rose, forced the prison doors, murdered one of the journalists, and left the others for dead on the spot. The guilty were brought to justice, but instantly acquitted by the jury."* Such was an example of that infamous system of Lynch Law, which has now become so common in the United States, which led the people lately to attempt to murder a judge who had pronounced an unpopular sentence, and has in the last year consigned no less than one hundred and twentyfive persons to a violent and disgraceful death in the three states of Carolina, New Orleans, and Virginia alone. But even if these terrible examples did not exist to warn the people of this country that democracy, even in the eminently favourable circumstances under which it arose in the United States, cannot withstand the strain arising from the collision of opposite interests, and the emerging of fierce passions in the later stages of society, it is evident that the instance of North America is no proof that the impossibility of democratic institutions, co-existing with public welfare, arises not from the universal and inherent principles of our nature. If the North American Union were the most orderly and peaceable country in the world, Lynch Law unknown, and popular tyranny unheard of, still that would leave untouched the inference deducible from all other nations and countries where VOL. XLI. NO. CCLV, No similar institutions have been attempted. It would only have shown that they had not arrived at the age when strong passions lead to great delinquencies. It is no difficult matter to keep infancy and childhood from serious offences; the difficulty is to preserve the heart immaculate, and the conduct irreproachable, from fifteen to twenty-five; the age of the passions, the desires, and the pleasures. one doubts that a police, bridewells, and jails are a necessary part of government in every great city; but yet they are hardly required in purely agricultural districts, or amidst the simplicity of pastoral life. As long as the Americans have the great outlet of the back settlements to draw off their turbulent spirits, and afford employment to their clamorous millions, the dangers of democracy will be scarcely felt. But let us suppose these states, with their vast western territory fully peopled; with great cities and manufactures teeming in the land; with a capital containing 1,500,000 inhabitants, and millions depending for their daily bread on the gossamer film of a paper currency; with wealth, the accumulation of ages, existing in some quarters, and indigence, the produce of centuries of improvidence, panting for spoliation in another, and say what could be the result of democratic institutions in SUCH A STATE? They would shiver society to atoms in a month. Tocqueville has told us, in memorable and warning words, what would be the result of attempting democratic institutions in such a state of society. "If absolute power," says he, "should reestablish itself, in whatever hands, in any of the democratic states of Europe, I have no doubt it would assume a new form unknown to our fathers. While the great families and the spirit of clanship prevailed, the individual who had to contend with tyranny never felt himself alone; he was supported by his clients, his relations, his friends. But when the estates are divided, and races are confounded, where will we find the spirit of family? What force will remain to the influence of habit among a people changing perpetually, where every act of tyranny will find a precedent in previous disorders, where the danger arises, we may refer to the contemporaneous instance of the fate of the southern states of that vast continent. We all remember the halcyon days of South American delusion; when Captain Hall captivated the world with the details of the regeneration of society to the south of the line, and fifty millions of British capital set out, trusting to the flood of prosperity which was to burst in upon the world with the exertions of these "healthy young Republics." Where are all these delusions now? Where are the hopes that were formed, the capital that was advanced, the dividends that were expected, the visions that were afloat? Perhaps there is not to be found in the whole history of the world, an example of such a deplorable succession of calamities as have befallen these "healthy young Republics" from their democratic institutions. Revolutions in all the states have been so frequent since the authority of the Spaniards was finally subverted, that history will seek in vain to trace them but in characters of fire throughout the whole extent of the South American Continent. We are preparing materials for some papers on the results of democratic ascendency in these once splendid colonies, and a more woful and at the same time instructive spectacle never was exhibited to the world, Suffice it to say at present, that in all the Republics population and commerce have declined in most to a frightful degree; that the population of Potosi has sunk in twenty years from 150,000 to 12,000 inhabitants; that the mines are generally abandoned, and the supplies of silver for the world obtained merely by raking up the refuse of former and pacific workings; and that the most experienced travellers and observers concur in declaring that centuries of tranquillity and peace will not restore what twenty years of democratic violence have destroyed. every crime can be justified by an example; where nothing exists of sufficient antiquity to render its destruction an object of dread, and nothing can be figured so new that men are afraid to engage in it? What resistance would manners afford which had already yielded to so many shocks? What could public opinion do, when twenty persons did not exist who were bound together by a common tie; when you can no where meet with a man, a family, a body corporate, nor a class in society which could represent or act upon that opinion? When each citizen is equally impotent, equally poor, equally isolated, and can only oppose his individual weakness to the organized strength of the central Government? To figure any thing analogous to the despotism which then would be established amongst us, we would require not to recur to our own annals: we would be forced to recur to the monuments of antiquity to interrogate the frightful periods of Roman tyranny, where manners being corrupted, old recollections effaced, habits destroyed, opinions wavering, liberty deprived of its asylum under the laws, could no longer find a place of refuge; where no guarantee existing for the citizens, and they having none for themselves, men in power made a sport of their people, and princes wore out the clemency of heaven, rather than the patience of their subjects. They are blind indeed who look after such democratic equality for the monarchy of Henry IV., Louis XIV. For my own part, when I reflect on the state to which many European nations have already arrived, and that to which others are fast tending, I am led to believe that soon there will be no place among them but for democratic equality, or the tyranny of the Cæsars."* It is not difficult to see of what nations this profound observer was thinking when he made these remarks, or which of the alternatives awaits in the end the European state which ventures on the perilous experi ment. or And for decisive proof that, if North America has not yet sunk under the despotism which invariably succeeds democratic equality, it is because she has not yet arrived at the age when Spain, too, was for long the favourite theme of the revolutionary school; and unbounded were the anticipations of the blessings which were to flow from the regeneration of the Peninsula by democratic ascendency. We now see what has been the end of these things. Attend to the picture of : Tocqueville, ii, 258, 259. |