Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

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Democracy and Liberty - William Edward Hartpole Lecky


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Industries and capital both emigrate to quarters where they are less burdened and more productive. The credit which a nation enjoys on the Stock Exchange is a deceptive test, for the finance of the market seldom looks beyond the prospect of a few years. A false security grows up, until the nation at last slowly finds that it has entered irretrievably on the path of decadence.

      Nations! Mot pompeux pour dire barbarie!

      L'amour s'arrête-t-il ou s'arrêtent vos pas?

      Déchirez ces drapeaux, une autre voix vous crie:

      L'égoïsme et la haine ont seuls une patrie,

      La Fraternité n'en a pas

      ‘La Marseillaise de la Paix’

      The conditions of American democracy are essentially different from those of democracy in France, and the effects of this great experiment in government must be profoundly interesting to every serious political inquirer. I have already referred briefly to its character. It would be impossible in a book like the present, it would be presumptuous on the part of a stranger, and after the great works which, in the present generation, have been written on the subject, to attempt to give a full account of the workings of American democracy, but a few salient facts may be gathered which will throw much light upon my present subject.

      One of the chief errors of English political writers of the last generation in dealing with this topic arose from their very superficial knowledge of American institutions, which led them to believe that the American Government was generically of the same kind as the Government of England, the chief difference being that a majority of the people could always carry out their will with more prompt, decisive, unrestrained efficiency. The English public have at last, it may be hoped, learned to perceive that this notion is radically false. In England, a simple majority of Parliament is capable, with the assent of the Crown, of carrying out any constitutional change, however revolutionary; and the House of Commons, in practice, has absorbed to itself all the main power in the Constitution. A chance majority, formed out of many different political fractions, acting through different motives, and with different objects, may change fundamentally the Constitution of the country. The Royal veto has become wholly obsolete. The Royal power under all normal circumstances is exercised at the dictation of a ministry which owes its being to the majority of the House of Commons, and if the Crown can occasionally exercise some independent political influence, it can only be in rare and exceptional circumstances, or in indirect and subordinate ways. The House of Lords has, it is true, greater power, and can still, by a suspensive veto, delay great changes until they are directly sanctioned by the constituencies at an election. But after such sanction it is scarcely possible that such changes should be resisted, however narrow may be the majorities in their favour, however doubtful may be the motives by which these majorities were obtained.


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