“With all my heart I repel that letter as false. My first answer is this: No man who has not lived among us can understand one thing about our institutions; no man who has been born and reared under monarchical governments can understand the vast difference between theirs and ours. How is it in monarchical governments? Their society is one series of caste upon caste. Down at the bottom, like the granite rocks in the crust of the earth, lie the great body of laboring men. An Englishman told me not long ago that in twenty-five years of careful study of the agricultural class of England, he had never known one who was born and reared in the ranks of farm laborers that rose above his class and became a well-to-do citizen. That is a most terrible sentence, that three millions of people should lie at the bottom of society, with no power to rise. Above them the gentry, the hereditary capitalist; above them, the nobility; above them, the royalty; and, crowning all, the sovereign—all impassable barriers of caste.
“No man born under such institutions can understand the mighty difference between them and us in this country. Thank God, and thank the fathers of the Republic who made, and the men who carried out the promises of the Declaration, that in this country there are no classes, fixed and impassable. Here society is not fixed in horizontal layers, like the crust of the earth, but as a great New England man said, years ago, it is rather like the ocean, broad, deep, grand, open, and so free in all its parts that every drop that mingles with the yellow sand at the bottom may rise through all the waters, till it gleams in the sunshine on the crest of the highest waves. So it is here in our free society, permeated with the light of American freedom. There is no American boy, however poor, however humble, orphan though he may be, that, if he have a clear head, a true heart, a strong arm, he may not rise through all the grades of society, and become the crown, the glory, the pillar of the State.
“Again, in depicting the dangers of universal suffrage, Macaulay leaves wholly out of the account the great counterbalancing force of universal education. He contemplates the government delivered over to a vast multitude of ignorant, vicious men, who have learned no self-control, who have never comprehended the national life, and who will wield the ballot solely for personal and selfish ends. If this were indeed the necessary condition of Democratic communities, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to escape the logic of Macaulay’s letter. And here is a real peril—the danger that we shall rely upon the mere extent of the suffrage as a national safeguard. We can not safely, even for a moment, lose sight of the quality of the suffrage, which is more important than its quantity.
“Our faith in the Democratic principle rests upon the belief that intelligent men will see that their highest political good is in liberty, regulated by just and equal laws; and that in the distribution of political power it is safe to follow the maxim, ‘Each for all, and all for each.’ We confront the dangers of the suffrage by the blessings of universal education.”
We present next a brief extract from an address delivered February 11, 1879,
ON THE RELATION OF THE GOVERNMENT TO SCIENCE.
“What ought to be the relation of the National Government to science? What, if any thing, ought we to do in the way of promoting science? For example, if we have the power, would it be wise for Congress to appropriate money out of the Treasury to employ naturalists to find out all that is to be known of our American birds. Ornithology is a delightful and useful study; but would it be wise for Congress to make an appropriation for the advancement of that science? In my judgment manifestly not. We would thereby make one favored class of men the rivals of all the ornithologists who in their private way, following the bent of their genius, may be working out the results of science in that field. I have no doubt that an appropriation out of our Treasury for that purpose would be a positive injury to the advancement of science, just as an appropriation to establish a church would work injury to religion.
“Generally the desire of our scientific men is to be let alone to work in free competition with all the scientific men of the world; to develop their own results, and get the credit of them, each for himself; not to have the Government enter the lists as a rival of private enterprise.
“As a general principle, therefore, the United States ought not to interfere in matters of science, but should leave its development to the free, voluntary action of our great third estate, the people themselves.