The monarchial conception is that a few are born booted and spurred to ride, and that the many are born saddled and bridled to be ridden. The republican theory is that "Everybody is cleverer than anybody," to quote the epigram attributed to Talleyrand; and that government, in Lincoln's phrase, should be "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
The United States is the only nation in history which has dared to base itself upon an absolute trust in the people.
There have been republics (so-called) ad infinitum and ad nauseam. "Greece," cries one of the foremost of our orators, "had her republics, but they were the republics of one freeman and ten slaves; and the battle of Marathon was fought by slaves unchained from the doorposts of their master's houses. Italy had her republics; they were the republics of wealth and skill and family, limited and aristocratic. Holland had her republic, the republic of guilds and landholders, trusting the helm of state to property and education. The Swiss republics were groups of cousins. And all these which, at their best, held but a million or two within their narrow limits, have gone down in the ocean of time."
The Spanish-American Republics are nondescripts. They owe their existence to pronunciamientos. They are the puppets of successful soldiers, and are administered by generals who follow one another like the ghosts that walked in the vision of "Richard Third," and do not hold office long enough to be photographed. They are based on mongrel races, steeped in ignorance, cramped by superstition, and physically rotten before they get ripe.
Our fathers built a commonwealth on the foundation of manhood. They recognized no other qualification, save for a period of inconsistency, color; which, happily, is now wiped out of the fundamental law, though not entirely out of popular prejudice.
The faith in the people which Jefferson, Sam Adams, and the men of '76 cherished as the distinctive tenet of their political creed, has been justified by results. Their gigantic creation launches into the second decade of its second century, belted with power, aggrandized with El Dorados, the amazement of the world, the "Arabian Nights" translated into every-day reality.
Unfortunately, however, in the face of this unprecedented record of prosperity, certain un-republican tendencies begin to exhibit themselves among us. These may well give thoughtful patriots startled concern.
Half a century ago, before time had been annihilated by the telegraph, and distance abolished by steam, nations were comparatively isolated; and the American most of all. Europe was three thousand miles away. Now-a-days, the old world is next-door neighbor to the new. Saint John's apocalyptic vision is realized; there is "no more sea." It is bridged by steamers, and flashed out of existence by the electric cable. What is the consequence? The consequence is that while Europe borrows many of our ideas, America borrows more of hers. With the increase of travel, the growth of wealth, the enlargement of our leisurely class, there is an aping of English and German habits of thought and modes of life which are utterly repugnant to republican institutions. While Europe should seem to be almost ready to discard baby-house distinctions and the embroidered rags of aristocracy, America, strange to say, appears willing to put on and wear the disreputable finery. We are becoming disagreeably familiar with what Mr. Gladstone characterizes in an inspired phrase, as the classes in contrast with the masses.