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COPYRIGHT, 1887

BY THE FORUM PUBLISHING CO.

Press of J. J. Little & Co.,

Astor Place, New York.

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The Forum.

MARCH, 1888.

OUR POLITICAL PROSPECTS.

THE two great parties which have of late largely divided the suffrages of the nation are now quietly preparing for another struggle. There is little noise or tumult, scarcely any excitement as yet appears, but the forces are, nevertheless, setting themselves in array, with clear indications of the coming conflict. Whatever doubt may attach to the immediate issue, the ultimate outcome need not be obscure. A battle may be doubtful, where the issue of a campaign admits of sure prediction.

It is obvious, from all our past history, that any party likely to gain permanent success among us must be the party of popular sovereignty. Our government rests upon the sovereignty of the people. The President does not rule; neither does the Congress nor the Supreme Court. The people are our only rulers, and the legislative, the judicial, and the executive departments of government are but the instruments through which the people express and execute their will. I believe this was never elsewhere true in any such sense as it is here. Other peoples have had leaders through whom they have been guided and whom they have obeyed, but the American people have followed their own instinct or inspiration, and have never been governed by their great men. Our great men have never made our great movements. Nor have they led them, except as they have been taken up and put in the van by the power of the movement

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itself, quite beyond their control. I might show this by copious illustrations, but the fact will hardly be doubted. We sometimes hear from public speakers desirous of public favor that they are the servants of the people; but this is truer than they have perhaps supposed, and perhaps also in a different sense than they have thought. The people are really sovereign, and all our great national movements are obedient to the people's will; or perhaps more accurately, they are the way in which the people have become conscious of their own will.

This did not come from any original purpose on our part that it should be so. Mr. Elbridge Gerry declared, in the convention which framed our Constitution, that, in his judgment, "democracy is the worst of all political evils."* "All our political evils in the United States," said Mr. Edmund Randolph, "are due to the turbulence and follies of democracy."† "The people," said Mr. Roger Sherman, "should have as little to do as may be with the government. They want information, and are constantly liable to be misled." It was largely owing to this distrust of the people-though other considerations also had weight-that the election of President was not committed to the people directly, but to a body of electors, themselves not necessarily chosen by the people, but appointed in each State in such manner as the legislature thereof might direct. In providing for the appointment of this body of electors, it was undoubtedly intended that they should act instead of the people, but the people have since altogether and directly assumed this responsibility for themselves. The election is by the people, and any interference with their choice would not now be tolerated, even if it were proposed. A presidential elector who should now fail to vote as his constituents have decreed, might not indeed subject himself to any judicial punishment, but the public condemnation would be sharper and sterner and more severely felt than judgments of courts could be. Such an elector would have falsified his trust and could not justify himself. The change thus brought about is a real revolution. It is a constitutional amendment secured without constitutional forms.

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