able at once to proceed to discuss the practical plan by which these objects might be effected: but in deference to a party which has some zealous adherents, and to principles which in an indistinct shape are widely diffused, we must devote a few remarks to the consideration of the ultra-democratic theory; and as we have to do so, it will be convenient to discuss in connection with it one or two of the schemes which the opponents of that theory have proposed for testing political intelligence.

As is well known, the democratic theory requires that parliamentary representation should be proportioned to mere numbers. This is not, indeed, the proposition which is at this moment put forward. The most important section of democratic reformers now advocate a rate-paying or household franchise; but this is either avowedly as a step to something farther, or because from considerations of convenience it is considered better to give the franchise only to those whose residences can be identified. But it is easy to show that the rate-paying franchise is almost equally liable with the manhood suffrage to a most important objection; that objection of course is, that the adoption of the scheme would give entire superiority to the lower part of the community. Nothing is easier than to show that a rate-paying franchise would have that effect. In England and Wales

The number of houses assessed at £10 and above is
computed to be
The number of houses assessed at £6 and under £10,
66 under £6, .

66

990,000 572,000

1,713,000

3,275,000

More than half the persons who would be admitted by the rate-paying franchise are therefore of a very low order, living in houses under £6 rent, and twothirds are below £10, the lowest qualification admitted by the present law. It therefore seems quite certain that the effect of the proposed innovation must be

very favorable to ignorance and poverty, and very unfavorable to cultivation and intelligence.

There used to be much argument in favor of the democratic theory on the ground of its supposed conformity with the abstract rights of man; this has passed away, but we cannot say that the reasons by which it has been replaced are more distinct, we think that they are less distinct. We can understand that an enthusiast should maintain on fancied grounds of immutable morality, or from an imaginary conformity with a supernatural decree, that the ignorant should govern the instructed; but we do not comprehend how any one can maintain the proposition on grounds of expediency. We might believe it was right to submit to the results of such a polity; but those results, it would seem, must be beyond controversy pernicious. The arguments from expediency which are supposed to establish the proposition are never set forth very clearly, and we do not think them worth confuting; we are indeed disposed to believe, in spite of much direct assertion to the contrary, that the democratic theory still rests not so much on reason as on a kind of sentiment, — on an obscure conception of abstract rights. The animation of its advocates is an indication of it: they think they are contending for the "rights" of the people, and they endeavor to induce the people to believe so too. We hold this opinion the more strongly, because we believe that there is such a thing, after all, as abstract right in political organizations. We find it impossible to believe that all the struggles of men for liberty, all the enthusiasm it has called forth, all the passionate emotions it has caused in the very highest minds, all the glow of thought and rustle of obscure feeling which the very name excites in the whole mass of men, have their origin in calculations of advantage and a belief that such and such arrangements would be beneficial. The masses of men are very difficult to excite on bare grounds of self-interest; most easy,

if a bold orator tells them confidently they are wronged. The foundation of government upon simple utility is but the fiction of philosophers; it has never been acceptable to the natural feelings of mankind: there is far greater truth in the formula of the French writers that "le droit dérive de la capacité."* Some sort of feeling akin to this lurks, we believe, in the minds of our reformers: they think they can show that some classes now unenfranchised are as capable of properly exercising the franchise as some who have possessed it formerly or some who have it now. The £5 householder of to-day is, they tell us, in education and standing but what the £10 householder was in 1832. The opponents of the theory are pressed with the argument that every fit person should have the franchise, and that many who are excluded are as fit as some who exercise it and from whom no one proposes to take it away.

The answer to the argument is plain. Fitness to govern for that is the real meaning of exercising the franchise which elects a ruling assembly is not an absolute quality of any individual; that fitness is relative and comparative, -it must depend on the community to be governed and on the merits of other persons who may be capable of governing that community. A savage chief may be capable of governing a savage tribe; he may have the right of governing it, for he may be the sole person capable of so doing: but he would have no right to govern England. We must look likewise to the competitors for the sovereignty. Whatever may be your capacity for rule, you have no right to obtain the opportunity of exercising it by dethroning a person who is more capable: you are wronging the community if you do, for you are depriving it of a better government than that which you can give to it; you are wronging also the ruler you supersede, for you are depriving him of the appropriate exercise of his faculties: two wrongs are

"Right arises from capacity."

thus committed from a fancied idea that abstract capacity gives a right to rule, irrespective of comparative relations. The true principle is, that every person has a right to so much political power as he can exercise without impeding any other person who would more fitly exercise such power. If we apply this to the lower orders of society, we see the reason why, notwithstanding their numbers, they must always be subject,― always at least be comparatively uninfluential: whatever their capacity may be, it must be less than that of the higher classes, whose occupations are more instructive and whose education is more prolonged. Any such measure for enfranchising the lower orders as would overpower and consequently disfranchise the higher should be resisted on the ground of "abstract right": you are proposing to take power from those who have the superior capacity, and to vest it in those who have but an inferior capacity, or in many cases no capacity at all. If we probe the subject to the bottom, we shall find that justice is on the side of a graduated rule, in which all persons should have an influence proportioned to their political capacity: and it is at this graduation that the true maxims of representative government really aim; they wish that the fairly intelligent persons, who create public opinion (as we call it) in society, should rule in the state, which is the authorized means of carrying that opinion into action. This is the body which has the greater right to rule; this is the felt intelligence of the nation, "la légitime aristocratie, celle qu'acceptent librement les masses, sur qui elle doit exercer son pouvoir. ""*

It is impossible to deny that this authority, in matters of political opinion, belongs by right, and is felt to belong in fact, to the higher orders of society rather than to the lower. The advantages of leisure, of education, of more instructive pursuits, of more

*"The legitimate aristocracy, that which is voluntarily accepted by the masses, whom it ought to rule." (Guizot, "Essai sur les Origines du Gouvernement réprésentatif.")

a ben

instructive society, must and do produce an effect. A writer of very democratic leanings has observed that "There is an unconquerable and to a certain extent eficial proneness in man to rely on the judgment and authority of those who are elevated above himself in rank and riches. From the irresistible associations of the human mind, a feeling of respect and deference is entertained for a superior in station which enhances and exalts all his good qualities, gives more grace to his movements, more force to his expressions, more beauty to his thoughts, more wisdom to his opinions, more weight to his judgment, more excellence to his virtues. . . . Hence the elevated men of society will always maintain an ascendency which, without any direct exertion of influence, will affect the result of popular elections; and when to this are added the capabilities which they possess, or ought to possess, from their superior intelligence, of impressing their own opinions on other classes, it will be seen that if any sort of control were justifiable, it would be superfluous for any good purpose. There are individual exceptions, but in questions of this magnitude we must speak broadly: and we may say that political intelligence will in general exist rather in the educated classes than in the less educated, rather in the rich than the poor; and not only that it will exist, but that it will in the absence of misleading feelings be felt by both parties to exist.

We have quoted the above passage for more reasons than one. It not only gives an appropriate description of the popular association of superiority in judgment with superiority in station, but it draws from the fact of that association an inference which would be very important if it were correct. It says in substance that as the higher orders are felt by the lower to be more capable of governing, they will be chosen by the lower if the latter are left free to choose; that therefore no matter how democratic the government-in fact, the more democratic the government the surer are the upper orders to lead. But experience shows that this is an error. If the acquisition of power is left to the unconscious working of

Bayley on Representative Government; quoted in Sir G. C. Lewis's "Essay on the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion," p. 228. — B. [Meant for Samuel Bailey's "Rationale of Political Representation."- ED.]