The Forgotten Man, and Other Essays

by William Graham Sumner

It is no wonder that these men abandoned public life, and that their examples deterred others, unless they were men born to it, who could not live out of the public arena; but it is true now, as it was then, that men of true culture, high character, and correct training can abandon public political effort only by the surrender of some of the best interests of themselves and their posterity. The pursuit of wealth, which is the natural alternative, has always absorbed far too much of the ambition of the nation, and under such circumstances there could be no other result than that a wealthy class should arise, to whom wealth offers no honorable social power, in whom it awakens no intellectual or political ambition, to whom it brings no sense of responsibility, but for whom it means simply the ability to buy what they want, men or measures, and to enjoy sensual luxury. A class of men is produced which mocks at the accepted notions while it uses them, and scorns the rest of us with a scorn which is so insulting only because it is so just. It is based on the fact that we will not undergo the sacrifices necessary to self-defense. This pursuit of wealth was almost the only pursuit attractive to able men who turned their backs on the public service in the early days. In later years professional careers and scientific and literary pursuits have disputed to a great and greater extent the dominion of wealth over the energies of the nation; but politics have not yet won back their due attraction for able and ambitious men.

The Federalists also held a defective political philosophy. They did not see that the strength of a constitutional republic such as they desired must be in the intelligent approval and confidence of the citizens. Adams and Hamilton agreed in supposing that some artificial bond must be constructed to give strength to the system. Hamilton looked for it in the interest of the wealthy class, which he wanted to bind up in the system—a theory which would have changed it into a plutocracy. Adams sought the bond in ambition for social eminence, and did not see that, where such eminence sprang only from wealth or official rank, the very principle of human nature which he invoked would, under the form of envy, counteract his effort.

The presidential election of 1801 having been thrown into the House of Representatives, the Federalists added to their former blunder another far more grave. Abandoning their claims to principle and character, they took to political intrigue and bargaining, in the attempt to elect Burr over Jefferson. Their exit from power might otherwise have been honorable, and they might, as an opposition party, have made a stand for inflexible principle and political integrity; but it was hard for them after this to talk of those things, especially as Burr went on to develop the character which Hamilton had warned them that he possessed. They fell into the position of “independent voters,” throwing their aid now with one and now with the other faction of the majority; but history does not show that they ever forced either one or the other to “adopt good measures,” for the obvious reason that the majority possessed the initiative. The purchase of Louisiana seemed to them to transfer the power of the Union to the southern and frontier states, the seat of the political theories which they regarded as reckless and lawless. They feared that the power of the Union would be used to sacrifice commerce and to put in operation wild theories by which the interests of the northern and eastern states would be imperiled, and the inherited institutions of constitutional liberty, which they valued as their best possessions, would be overthrown. The Embargo and Non-intercourse Acts seemed only the fulfillment of these fears. The recourse of a minority has always been to invoke the Constitution and to insist upon the unconstitutionality of what they could not resist by votes, each party in turn thereby bearing witness to the truth that the Constitution is the real safeguard of rights and liberty. In the last resort also the minority, if it has been local, and has seen the majority threatening to use the tremendous power of the Confederation to make the interests of the minority subservient to the interests of the rest, has felt its loyalty to the Union decline. How far the Federalists went in this direction it is difficult to say, but they certainly went farther than they were afterwards willing to confess or remember. They gradually faded out of view as a political power after the second war and in the twenties “Federalist” became a term of reproach.

The opposite party, called by themselves Republicans after 1792, took definite form in opposition to Washington’s administration on the question of ratifying Jay’s Treaty. They were first called Democrats in 1798, the name being opprobrious. They adopted it, however, first in connection with the former name; and the joint appellation, Democratic Republicans, or either separately, was used indifferently down to the middle of this century. Jefferson was the leader of this party. He did not write any political disquisitions or aid in the attempts which have been mentioned to form public opinion; but his expressions in letters and fugitive writings struck in with the tide of Democracy so aptly and exactly that he seemed to have put into people’s mouths just the expression for the vague notions which they had not yet themselves been able to get into words. Jefferson, in fact, was no thinker. He was a good specimen of the a priori political philosopher. He did not reason or deduce; he dogmatized on the widest and most rash assumptions, which were laid down as self-evident truths. He did not borrow from the contemporaneous French schools, for his democracy is of a different type; but both sprang from the same germs and pursued the same methods of speculation. Freneau, Bache, Callender, and Duane wrought continually upon public opinion, and Jefferson entered into the leadership of the party they created, by virtue of a certain skill in giving watchwords and dogmatic expressions for the ideas which they disseminated.

The dogmas which Jefferson taught, or of which he was the exponent, were not without truth. Their fallacy consisted in embracing much falsehood, and also in excluding the vast amount of truth which lay outside of them. For instance, the dogma that the voice of the people is the voice of God is not without truth, if it means that the enlightened and mature judgment of mankind is the highest verdict on earth as to what is true or wise. This is the truth which is sought to be expressed in the ecclesiastical dogma of Catholicity, but the political and the ecclesiastical dogma have the same limitation. This verdict of mankind cannot be obtained in any formal and concrete expression, and is absolutely unattainable on grounds of speculation antecedent to experiment. It is in history only; or, rather, it constitutes history. In Jefferson’s doctrine and practice it resolved itself simply into this practical rule: the test of wisdom for the statesman and of truth for the philosopher is popularity. When the statesman has a difficult practical question before him as to what to do, according to this theory he puts forward what seems to him best as a proposition. If, then, the return wave of popular sympathy comes back to him with promptitude and with the intensity to which he is accustomed, he infers that he has proposed wisely, and goes forward. If there is delay or uncertainty in the response, he draws back. The actual operation of this theory is that, if the statesman in question is the idol of a popular majority, the approving response is quick and sure, because the proposition comes from him, not because the tribunal of appeal has considered or can consider the question. If an unpopular man endeavors to use the same test, the answer is doubtful, feeble, hesitating, or impatient, because those to whom he appeals have not the necessary preparation, or time, or interest to judge in the matter. In general, the theory is popular, because it flatters men that they can decide anything offhand, by the light of nature, or by some prompt application of assumptions as to “natural rights,” or by applying the test of a popular dogma or prejudice. It tramples study and thought and culture under foot and turns their boasts to scorn. On the other hand, it makes statesmanship impossible. Study and thought go for nothing. There can be no authority derived from information or science or training, and no leadership won by virtue of these. If the decision is to come from a popular vote, why not abandon useless trouble and trust to that alone?

Such has been the outcome in history, as will appear further on, of the doctrines which are associated with the name of Jefferson, although they really had their origin in the great social tendencies of the time and in the circumstances of the American people. The love of philosophizing about government was a feature in the life of the second half of the eighteenth century. The method of philosophizing on assumptions was the only one employed. The Americans, with meager experience and high purposes, readily took refuge in abstractions. The habit of pursuing two or three occupations at once destroyed respect for special or technical knowledge. There seemed to be nothing unreasonable in referring a question of jurisprudence or international law to merchants, farmers, and mechanics, for them to give an opinion on it as a mere incident in their regular occupations. Jefferson himself could sit down and develop out of his own consciousness a plan for fortifications and a navy, for a nation in imminent danger of war, with no more misgivings, apparently, than if he was planning an alteration on his estate.

“The further democracy was pushed, first in theory, then in practice, the more completely was the belief in the equality of all [in rights and privileges] converted, in the minds of the masses, into the belief in the equal ability of all to decide political questions of every kind. The principle of mere numbers gradually supplanted the principle of reflection and study.” This tendency reaches its climax in the popular doctrines that every man has a right to his opinion and that one man’s opinion is as good as another’s. We have abundant illustration of the might which it gives to “the phrase.”

It has been well said that “men can reason only from what they know”—a doctrine which would reduce the amount of reasoning to be done by anybody to a very little. The common practice is to reason from what we do not know, which makes every man a philosopher.

Jefferson’s election was the first triumph of the tendency towards democracy—a triumph which has never yet been reversed. The old conservatism of the former administrations died out, and it is important to observe that, from this time on, we have in conflict not the same two parties as before, but only factions or subdivisions of the one party which, under Washington and Adams, was in opposition to the administration.

The event did not justify the fears which were entertained before the election. Jefferson did not surrender any of the power of the executive. He aggrandized it as neither of his predecessors would have dared to do. He did not surrender the central power in favor of states’ rights; and his foreign policy, governed by sympathy to France and hatred to England, was only too sharp and spirited. It seldom happens to an opposition party, coming into power, to have the same question proposed to it as to its predecessor, and to put its own policy to trial. This happened to Jefferson. Jay’s Treaty was hesitatingly signed by Washington, and it gave the country ten years of peace and neutrality. Pinckney and Monroe’s Treaty was rejected by Jefferson, and in six years the country was engaged in a fruitless war.