Another evil effect of this same foreign view is to lead the world to expect of us, the descendants of an old and polished civilization, more than is warranted by the facts of our history or even by the capabilities of human nature in its present stage. And this, too, arises from a false estimate of the difficulties which have beset us on every side, and from the paucity of the world's experience, and consequent knowledge, of such experiments as our own. The march of human advancement has but just begun in this its new path; and it is but little wonder that, excited by our past successes, and stimulated to an inordinate degree as their ideas of progress have become through the new truths which our efforts have brought to light, the friends of human freedom all over the world should expect from us more astonishing developments, more rapid progress, than is compatible with the frailties and fallibilities of our humanity. Hence in the light of this morbid view our greatest successes are looked upon as somewhat below the standard which our advantages demand.
With the foreign view we, as a nation, have nothing to do. We must be content to act entirely independently of the opinions of the outside world, being only careful steadfastly to pursue the path of right, leaving to future ages to vindicate our ideas and our motives. So only can we possess that true national independence which is the foundation of all national dignity and worth, and the source of all progress. We must free ourselves from all the hampering influences of old-time dogmas and worn-out theories of social life, content to submit to the aspersions of Old-World malice, confident that time will prove the correctness of our policy. So only can we throw wide open the doors of investigation, and give free scope to those truths which will not fail to follow the earnest strivings of a great people for the purest right and the highest good.
In estimating any civilization at its true value, the law of God is obviously the highest standard. Yet in these days of divided opinion and extended scepticism, when scarcely any two hold exactly the same religious views, and when all manner of beliefs are professedly founded on Holy Writ, such a comparison would only result in as many different estimates as there are reflecting minds, and the investigation would be in no degree advanced. Even the moral sense of our own community is so divided upon the distinctions of abstract right, that the application of such a standard to our civilization would only open endless fields of useless because interested and bigoted discussions.
There are two other and more feasible methods of conducting such an investigation; the first of which is that of comparing our own civilization with that of Europe; marking the differences, and judging of them according to our knowledge of human nature and the light of past experience and analogy. Yet such a course presents the serious objection of preventing an impartial judgment through the strong temptation to self-laudation, which is in itself the blinding of reason as well as the counteraction of all aspirations for a still higher good.
The third and last method is that which takes cognizance of the most obvious and deeply felt evils connected with our own system, and reasoning from universally conceded principles of abstract right, and from the highest moral standard of our own society, to study how they may best be remedied and errors most successfully combated. From such a course of investigation truth cannot fail to be evolved, and the moral appreciation of the thinker to be heightened. For such a method presents less danger of partiality from local prejudices, religious bias, or national antipathy. And such is the method which we shall endeavor to pursue.
Judging from mankind's sense of right, of justice, and of that moral nobility which each individual's spiritual worthiness seems to demand, a pure democracy is the highest and most perfect form of government. But such a system presupposes a perfect humanity as its basis, a humanity which no portion of the earth has yet attained or is likely to attain for many ages to come. Hence the vices as well as the weaknesses of human nature render certain restraints necessary, which are more or less severe according as the nation is advanced in moral excellence and intellectual cultivation, and which must gradually disappear as the race progresses, giving place to others newer and more appropriate to the changing times and conditions of men. Under this view that progress in the science of government is alone healthy which keeps exact pace with the moral progress of the nation, and tends toward a pure democracy in exactly the degree in which the people become fitted to appreciate, to rationally enjoy, and faithfully guard the blessings of perfect liberty. Too rapid progress leads to political anarchy by stimulating, to a degree unsustained by their acquirements and natural ability, the aspirations of the ambitious and the reckless, thereby begetting and nationalizing a spirit of lawlessness which grasps continually at unmerited honors, and strives to make all other and higher considerations bend to that of individual advancement and personal vanity. The truth of this position is seen in the utter failure of all attempted democratic systems in the past, which may be traced to this too eager haste in the march of human freedom, ending invariably in the blackest of despotism, as well as from the fact in our own history that every era of unusual political corruption and reckless strife for position and power, has followed close upon the moral abrogation of some one of those safeguards which the wisdom of our fathers threw around our political system.
On the other hand, advancement which does not keep pace with the expansion of thought, the intellectual development, and consequent capacity of the people for self-government, not only offers no encouragement to effort, but actually discourages all striving, and blunts the appetites of the searchers for truth. It fossilizes the people, retards the march of intellect by its reactionary force, and rolls backward the wheels of all progress, till the nation becomes a community of dull, contented plodders, fixed in the ruts of a bygone age, suffering all its energy and life to rust away, day by day, in inaction. Such we find to be the case with those nations of the Old World which are still ruled by the effete systems of a feudal age. The governmental policy and the intellectual status of the masses mutually react upon each other, effectually neutralizing all progress, whether moral or physical.
For these reasons that nicely graduated mean between political recklessness and national old fogyism, which alone guarantees an enduring progress, is the object of search to all disinterested political reformers. For only by following such a golden mean, in which political reform shall keep even pace with intellectual and moral advancement, can physical and mental progress be made mutually to sustain each other in the onward march. Yet this mean is extremely difficult to find, for though we be guided by all the experience of the past, and earnestly and sincerely endeavor to profit by the failures as well as the successes of those who have gone before us, the paths of experiment are so infinite and the combinations of method so boundless, that the wisest may easily be led astray. Hence the failures of the republics of the past, however pure the motives and lofty the aims of their founders, may be attributed to a leaning to one side or the other of this strait and narrow way, which lies so closely concealed amid the myriad ramifications of the paths of method. The slightest divergence, if it be not corrected, like the infinitesimal divergence of two straight lines, goes on increasing to all time, till that which was at first imperceptible, becomes at last a boundless ocean of intervening space, which no human effort can bridge.
To say that we, as a nation, are following closely this golden mean, that our wisdom has enabled us to discover that which for so many ages has remained hidden from men, were simply egotistical bombast; for it were to assert that with us human nature had lost its fallibility and human judgment become unerring. Yet we may safely assert that no system exists at the present day which so clearly tends toward the attainment of such a mean, and which contains within itself so many elements of reform, as our own. For ours is a system of extreme elasticity, a sort of compensation balance, constructed with a view to the changing climate of the political world, and capable of accommodating itself to the shifting condition of men and things. And this not by forcing or leading public sentiment, but by yielding to it. Thus while it is founded upon, and in its workings evolves, so many lofty and ennobling truths, keeping constantly before the eyes of the people lessons of purity and moral dignity, acting as a check upon the visionary and a safeguard to our liberties, it nevertheless yields quietly to the requirements of the times, and changes according to the necessities of the governed, thus being far from proving a hamper upon our intellectual advancement, but, on the contrary, leaving free and unimpeded the paths of national progress. And it is one of the most distinctive features of our institutions that, while few foreign Governments admit of much change without danger of revolution, with us the most thorough reforms may be consummated and the greatest changes effected without danger of ruffling the waves of our society. For with us change is effected so gradually and in such exact consonance with the necessities of the people as to be almost imperceptible, and to afford no handle to the turbulent and designing revolutionist. The gratification of legitimate ambition is guaranteed, but our system utterly revolts against the sacrifice of the public good to the inordinate cravings of personal ambition or aggrandizement. It is in recognition of this principle of gradual change that the politician of to-day hesitates not to avow and to advocate principles which twenty years ago he deemed the height of political absurdity. It is not abstract truth that has altered, but the necessary modification of theories resulting from the altered condition and exigencies of society. Were this truth not recognized, no statesman could for many years retain his hold upon the popular appreciation, for he would at once be branded with inconsistency and incontinently thrown aside as an unsafe counsellor. Hence the hackneyed phrase, 'ahead of the times,' contains within itself a deep and important meaning, since it is but a recognition of the fact that relative right and wrong may change with the condition of society, and that theories may be beneficial in a more advanced stage, which at present would be noxious in the extreme, and that, in consequence, he is an unsafe leader who grasps at some exalted good without making sure of the preliminary steps which alone can make such blessings durable—who would, at a single leap, place the nation far ahead in the race of improvement, without first subjecting it to that trial and discipline which are absolutely necessary to fit it for a new sphere. And the extreme disfavor with which such agitators are regarded by society is an evidence of the safeguard which our institutions contain within themselves, which, by moulding the minds of the people to a proper appreciation of the blessings of limited reform and of the inevitable and necessary stages and degrees of progress, as well as of the danger of too sudden and radical change, effectually counteract the evil influence of the unmethodical and empirical reformer.
Our Government, in its form, can in no sense of the word be called a democracy, however much its workings may tend toward such a result in some far-distant future. It is founded in a recognition of the fact that however equal all men may be in their civil and political rights—however the humblest and most ignorant member of the community may be entitled to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' all men are not equal either in intellectual endowments or personal acquirements, and consequently in their influence upon society, or equally fitted either to govern or to choose their rulers. Our ancestors recognized the fact that the people are not, in the democratic sense of the term, fitted to govern themselves. Hence they threw around their system a network of safeguards, and adopted and firmly established restraints to counteract this principle of democratic rule, without which our infant republic would soon have fallen to pieces by the force of its own internal convulsions. And time has proven the wisdom of their course, and we shall do well if we shall reflect long and deeply before we essay to remove the least of those restraints, remembering that when once the floodgate is opened to change, the eternal tide is set in motion, and a precedent established which will prove dangerous if it be not carefully restrained within the limits of the necessities of the times.