What Social Classes Owe to Each Other | Page 7

constant
use among us. They are employed as watchwords as soon as any social
questions come into discussion. It is right that they should be so used.
They ought to contain the broadest convictions and most positive faiths
of the nation, and so they ought to be available for the decision of
questions of detail.

In order, however, that they may be so employed successfully and
correctly it is essential that the terms should be correctly defined, and
that their popular use should conform to correct definitions. No doubt it
is generally believed that the terms are easily understood, and present
no difficulty. Probably the popular notion is, that liberty means doing
as one has a mind to, and that it is a metaphysical or sentimental good.
A little observation shows that there is no such thing in this world as
doing as one has a mind to. There is no man, from the tramp up to the
President, the Pope, or the Czar, who can do as he has a mind to. There
never has been any man, from the primitive barbarian up to a Humboldt
or a Darwin, who could do as he had a mind to. The "Bohemian" who
determines to realize some sort of liberty of this kind accomplishes his
purpose only by sacrificing most of the rights and turning his back on
most of the duties of a civilized man, while filching as much as he can
of the advantages of living in a civilized state. Moreover, liberty is not
a metaphysical or sentimental thing at all. It is positive, practical, and
actual. It is produced and maintained by law and institutions, and is,
therefore, concrete and historical. Sometimes we speak distinctively of
civil liberty; but if there be any liberty other than civil liberty--that is,
liberty under law--it is a mere fiction of the schoolmen, which they
may be left to discuss.
Even as I write, however, I find in a leading review the following
definition of liberty: Civil liberty is "the result of the restraint exercised
by the sovereign people on the more powerful individuals and classes
of the community, preventing them from availing themselves of the
excess of their power to the detriment of the other classes." This
definition lays the foundation for the result which it is apparently
desired to reach, that "a government by the people can in no case
become a paternal government, since its law-makers are its mandatories
and servants carrying out its will, and not its fathers or its masters."
Here we have the most mischievous fallacy under the general topic
which I am discussing distinctly formulated. In the definition of liberty
it will be noticed that liberty is construed as the act of the sovereign
people against somebody who must, of course, be differentiated from
the sovereign people. Whenever "people" is used in this sense for
anything less than the total population, man, woman, child, and baby,

and whenever the great dogmas which contain the word "people" are
construed under the limited definition of "people," there is always
fallacy.
History is only a tiresome repetition of one story. Persons and classes
have sought to win possession of the power of the State in order to live
luxuriously out of the earnings of others. Autocracies, aristocracies,
theocracies, and all other organizations for holding political power,
have exhibited only the same line of action. It is the extreme of political
error to say that if political power is only taken away from generals,
nobles, priests, millionaires, and scholars, and given to artisans and
peasants, these latter may be trusted to do only right and justice, and
never to abuse the power; that they will repress all excess in others, and
commit none themselves. They will commit abuse, if they can and dare,
just as others have done. The reason for the excesses of the old
governing classes lies in the vices and passions of human
nature--cupidity, lust, vindictiveness, ambition, and vanity. These vices
are confined to no nation, class, or age. They appear in the church, the
academy, the workshop, and the hovel, as well as in the army or the
palace. They have appeared in autocracies, aristocracies, theocracies,
democracies, and ochlocracies, all alike. The only thing which has ever
restrained these vices of human nature in those who had political power
is law sustained by impersonal institutions. If political power be given
to the masses who have not hitherto had it, nothing will stop them from
abusing it but laws and institutions. To say that a popular government
cannot be paternal is to give it a charter that it can do no wrong. The
trouble is that a democratic government is in greater danger than any
other of becoming paternal, for it is sure of itself, and ready to