popular government requires that the citizen's interest in public affairs be sustained, and that his watchfulness shall never be relaxed. Eternal vigilance is the price of democracy as well as of many other good things. A people who are habitually indifferent to the affairs of government are not fit to rule themselves.

(2) The Demagogue. A demagogue is a leader who seeks to gain political power for his own selfish purposes, and not for his country's good. The demagogue flatters the people and confirms them in their prejudices and wrong-thinking and, if necessary, lies to them. He would rather lead the people to their destruction than fail in his designs. We must always have leaders, and as long as there are men who prefer their private gain to the public welfare, so long will the false leader, the demagogue, be with us. We ought, therefore, to keep a sharp lookout for this arch enemy of democracy and deal him a blow whenever he shows his baleful head.

(3) Tyranny. We are accustomed to associate the idea of tyranny with kings, but what tyranny? It is an exercise of power without regard to justice; it is an exercise of brute force. Now if the majority ruthlessly trample upon the rights of the minority, the minority feels the tyranny as keenly as if it were inflicted by a despot. Tyranny in popular government is worse than the tyranny of monarchies. A tyrannical king can be overthrown, but when a majority is tyrannical its tyranny cannot be successfully resisted.

The danger of tyranny in popular government will be avoided if the majority will remember justice and right. But justice and right are not always identical with the popular will. "To say that the will of the majority makes a thing right or wrong is a palpable absurdity. Right and wrong are what they are by their own nature. They can as little be made by man as can the properties of the triangle. No man, no number of men, can do more than declare them. The will of the majority ought to prevail if it is in

accordance with right. For the sole ought is an ethical ought." (W. S. Lilly.)

Democracy and the Individual. We learn in physics that a body acted upon by a number of forces applied from different directions yields something to each force and moves in a line that is the resultant of all the forces. So it is in the political world. In a democracy a number of wills exert themselves upon government to make it go this way and that; it yields something to each and moves in a direction that is the resultant of all the wills. Plainly, then, the responsibility for the course of public affairs must be sought in the doings of individuals. Just as one's personal conduct affects the government of the home for good or for evil, or the government of the school for good or for evil, so does personal conduct affect the larger civil government for good or for evil. This is another way of saying that good government begins with one's self, not with one's neighbor. When I grasp the idea of personal responsibility in political matters, when I understand that the greatest contribution I can make to the cause of good government is to order my own life aright, I am beginning to understand the duty that rests upon me as a citizen of a democracy. The first fact of a democracy is the power of the people; the first fact of citizenship in a democracy is the responsibility of the individual.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT

1. What is a democracy? Why may we call the United States a democracy?

2. What is meant by majority rule?

3. In what countries did democracy flourish in early times?

4. What is a pure democracy?

5. How did feudalism affect popular government?

6. In what way have cities advanced the cause of democracy?

7. In what way have kings retarded the cause of democracy?

8. What was the French Revolution? What have been the results of that Revolution?

9. Give an account of the growth of democracy in America?

10. Give three good reasons why popular government should be maintained.

11. Point out three great dangers of popular government.

12. How can it be shown that responsibility for good government in a democracy rests upon the individual?

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. (Plurality.) If in a contest for office A receives 5000 votes, B 4000, and C 3000 there is no majority, but A receives a plurality. Should the will of the plurality rule?

2. (Second Election.) "In a democracy no one ought to be declared elected to an office unless he has received a majority of all the votes cast. If there are three or more candidates and no person receives a majority of the votes there should be a second election, the candidates being the two persons who received the greatest number of votes at the first election." Discuss the above proposition.

3. In England practically all the male citizens of voting age have the right to vote. Is England a democracy?

4. What is ochlocracy? plutocracy?

5. "As distinguished from the other nations of the earth America is distinctly democratic. That is, she has distinctly a spirit of good will toward all men, hope for all men, faith in all men.' (Lyman Abbott.) Which is more important, the form or spirit of democracy?

66

6. Describe a demagogue. (Abbott, Rights of Man,'' 302-303.) 7. Can democracy be strengthened by permitting women to vote? In what way may a non-voter influence government?

8. In the average school would the majority express its will in favor of order and industry? If so, would the minority acquiesce?

9. In olden times it was said that the voice of the king was the voice of God; in these days it is sometimes said that the voice of the people is the voice of God. In which statement is there more truth?

10. Prepare a five minutes' paper on "The Faults of American Democracy, Real and Supposed.'" (Bryce, "American Commonwealth,'' Vol. II, 563-606.)

11. Which is better, self-government or good government? 12. Why should Civics be taught in the public school?

Hints on Reading.-For the growth of democracy read Abbott's "Rights of Man,'' 33-61, and Cleveland's "Growth of Democracy."

III

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

Representative Democracy. A representative government is a popular government in which power is exercised by chosen agents (representatives) of the people, instead of being exercised directly by the people assembled as a pure democracy. A country which is governed by representatives elected by the people is a representative democracy or republic. In a representative democracy the people rule no less than in a pure democracy, but they rule indirectly.

Growth of Representative Government. We have seen that popular government in ancient times was a simple affair. At stated times all the freemen assembled at the meetingplace and disposed of public questions by a direct vote, the majority of votes ruling. When the body of freemen was small democracy in this pure form was practicable; but how was the principle of popular rule to be applied to large bodies? How was the will of a state consisting of millions of people to be ascertained or expressed, and how was the government of such a state to be conducted? The ancient Greeks and Romans never answered this question successfully. They never discovered a method by which very large bodies of people might knit themselves together and live under one government and at the same time enjoy self-government and civil liberty. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, however, solved this question in a very ingenious manner. When they invaded England (449 A.D.) they settled down in villages, but they united the villages into larger political associations

known as hundreds. This union was effected in the following way: In each village four discreet men were chosen to attend the hundred moot, or meeting-place of the hundred, where they met other discreet men from the other villages of the hundred. The four men sent to the hundred moot spoke and voted for the village from whence they came. "Their voice was its voice, their doings its doings, their pledge its pledge." At the hundred moot were done only those things that the village could not do for itself. Strife between village and village was allayed; appeals were heard; judgment in the weightier cases of law were rendered. All matters that were purely local were still in the hands of the little home government, the village moot. The central authority did not destroy local self-government.

The union of villages under the government of the hundred pointed the way to the formation of larger unions. The villages also sent their representatives to a shiremoot, where public business was transacted in the name of the shire, the parent of the modern county. The organization of the shiremoot was the model for a national moot, and in 1265 the nation through its representatives met in a council at Westminster, two representatives from each shire attending. Thirty years later, in addition to the two representatives of the shire, two citizens from each city and two burgesses from each borough were elected to the national council. This council, consisting of representatives of the whole body of the English people, was the first English Parliament. With this body the sovereign power of the people was lodged, and England has been a representative government, as far as its law-making body is concerned, ever since.

Representative government developed in the other countries of Europe, but not so rapidly, or with such unbroken success, as in England. Throughout the last century, just as democracy gained strength everywhere, so did representative government gain strength everywhere. At the present time in all the free governments of the world the people govern, in part at least, through chosen representatives.