The Rise of the Democracy

s of the M

and seventeenth centuries, but it is not till the eighteenth century that France, aflame to realise a political ideal, pro

t Dominican doctor, became the chief exponent of political theory, and maintained that sovereignty expressed in legislative power should be exercised f

asant Revolt. But communism was the goal of the peasant leaders in 1381, and freedom from actual oppression the des

and roused the countryside to stop the enclosures by armed revolt. And again the popular ri

al Contra

n of political writers from the sixteenth century onward, and it was this theory that Rousseau popula

m the government if the authority is abused, and the contract which conferred sovereignty violated. It was not maintained that the contract was an actually written document; it was supposed to be a tacit agreement. The whole theory seems to have sprung from the study of Roman law and the constitutions of Athens and Sparta. Nothing was known of primitive man or of the beginnings of civilisation till the nineteenth century. The Bib

ave given him." Suarez, too, insists that all men are born equal, and that "no one has a political jurisdiction over another." Milton, in his "Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" (1649), had taken a similar line: the people had vested in kings and magistrates the authority and power of self-defence and preservation. "The power of kings and magistrates is nothing else but what is only derivative, transferred, and committed to them in trust from the people to the common good of all, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them without a violation of their natural birthright." Hooker, fifty years earlier (1592-3), in his "Ecclesiastical Polity," Book I., had affirmed the sovereignty or legislati

of popular representatives on a democratic franchise. Cromwell rejected all Lilburne's proposals; for him affairs of State were too serious for experiments in democracy; and Lilburne himself was cast into prison by the Commonwealth Government. Lilburne's pamphlets were exceedingly numerous, and his popularity, in London particularly, enormous. He was the voice of the unrepresented, powerless citizens in whom the republican theorists saw the centre of authority. The one effort to persuade the Commonwealth Republic to give power to the people was made by John Lilburne, and it was defeated. The Whig theo

has been the argument f

obbes (1

ural rights to a sovereign-either one man, or an assembly of men-and in return civil rights were guaranteed. But the sovereignty once established was supreme, and to injure it was to injure oneself, since it was composed of "every particular man." The sovereign power was unlimited, and was not to be questioned. Whether monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy was the form of government was u

ind proceeds experimentally in forms of government. To Hobbes and his followers, security of life and property was the one essential thing for mankind-disorder and social insecurity the things to be prevented at all cost. Now, this might be all very well but for evolution. Mankind cannot rest quietly under

Stuarts, and equally of the rule of Cromwell. Every k

overnment, and generally the leaders of the Tory party have been its ad

cke (16

e truth. Locke's primitive men have a natural right to personal property-"as much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property"-but they are as worried and as fearful as Hobb

sible justification for changing it-save national peril; and a bad gov

w in the break-up of a particular government the dissolution of society. Locke made a great advance on this, for he saw that a change of government could be accomplished without any very serious disturbance in

s, and the social-contract fiction, does the real value of his democratic

the only purpose of government is to secure mutual protection, mankind must obey this government, or the purpose for which government exists will be defeated. But the powers of government must be strictl

nt political changes, and as far as England was concerned Locke was right. The average Englishman grumbles, but only under great provocation is he moved to violent political activity. As a nation, we have acknowledged the right of the majority to make the political changes that have brought in democracy, and we have accepted the changes loyally. Occasionally, since Locke, the

overnment; but there is a general feeling that it is not so much participation in politics as the quiet enjoyment of the privileges of citizenship that obliges submission to the laws. The extension of the franchise was necessary whenever a body of

inions; they have done nothing to incur the charge of "theorist," but the influence of Locke can be seen all the same-chiefly in the loyal acceptance of political change, in the refusal to be shocked or alarmed at a "leap in the dark," and by a willingness to adjust the machinery of government to the needs of the time. In England Locke's influence has been less dynamic than static; it has helped us to preserve a moderation in politics; to be content with piecemeal legislation, because to attempt to

reluctance to make any reform until public opinion has pronounced loudly and often in favour of reform, and an emphatic assurance that every reform en

d the Frenc

al rights alleged to have been lost: these were the articles of faith Rousseau preached with passionate conviction in his "Discourses" and in the "Social Contract." Individual man was born naturally "free," and had become debased and enslaved by laws and civilisation. "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," is the opening sentence of the "Social Contract." This liberty and equality of primitive man was acclaimed as a law of nature by eighteenth century write

ited knowledge of the history of man and his institutions had been learnt; before science, with patient research, had revealed a few incidents in the long story of man's ascent. Even the history of Greece and Rome, as Rousseau read it, was hopelessly inaccurate and incomplete. Therefore, while we can see the fallacy in all the eighteenth century teaching concerning the natural happiness of uncivilised man, we must at the same

sseau, in sublime disregard of facts. For man was not born free in the ancient republics of Greece and Rome that Rousseau revered; children were not born free in his

ll to work out political freedom or to consent to servitude. He is not born

r author, and Wesley's religious revival in the eighteenth century laid awful stress on man's imperfections. The sovereign people ruled in an

trines of a contract and the sovereignty of the people, suggested the way to end these miseries and corruptions. The "Social Contract" became the text-book of the men who made the French Revolution, and if the success of the Revolutio

aire Belloc is at pains to invite the English working class to seek illumination from Rousseau and to proceed to democracy guided by the speculative political doctrines of the eighteenth century rat

act and of citizenship from Spinoza; from the Huguenot Languet the doctrine of fraternity; and from Althusius the doctrine of the inalienability of citizenship. Where Locke was content to maintain that the people collectively had the right to change the form of government, Rousseau would

ion of representatives by an enfranchised people is the most satisfactory form of democracy, though we retain a healthy instinct of criticism of the Government in power. In France has happened what Locke's critics foretold: the sovereign people never wholeheartedly delegates its

torate. At the time of the European revolutions of 1848, when crowns were falling, and ministers flying before the rage of the sovereign people, Chartism never seriously threatened the stability of the British Government, and its great demonstrations were no real menace to the existing order. Nothing seems able to shake

is now forty years old, and at present there are no signs of dictatorship on the horizon, the Government of the Republic is never safe from a revolutionary rising of the sovereign people, and only by the strength of its army has revolution been kept at bay. If Louis XVI. had possessed the army of modern France he too might have kept the revolution at bay. All this revolution and reac

rrespective of the natures, faculties, and desires of those whom he wished to benefit; on the contrary, he exaggerates the passivity and plasticity of men and circumstances, and dreams that his model legislator, who apparently is to initiate the new society, will be able to repress all anti-social feelings. He aims at order and symmetry, oblivious that human nature does not easily and rapidly bend to such treatment. It is his inability to discover the true mode of investigation that accounts for much of Rousseau's sophistry. His truisms and verbal propositions, his dogmatic assertions and unreal demonstrations, savour more of theology than of political science, while his quasi-mathematical method of reasoning from abstract formul?, assumed to be axiomatic, gives a deceptive air of exactness and cogency which is a

ng of the civilized state by a social pact. (2) The theory of the sovereignty of the people. (3) and (4). The dif

l" of the community. How that "general will" finds expression and gets its way is of great importance to democracy. Even more important is the nature of that "general will." Individualist as Rou

n Indep

Locke's influence is to be seen both in the Declaration of Independence and in the American constitution. The colonists from the first had in many states a Puritanism that was hostile to the prerogatives of governors, and appeals to the British Government against the misuse of the prerogative were generally successful. The colo

nists, which is possible, it is quite certain that the establishment of the American Republic, and the p

inction between the British and American Constitution. The College of Electors is elected only to elect the President; that done, its work is over. Congress, consisting of members elected from each state, and the Senate, consisting of representatives from each state, need not c

ern slave-holding States, seeing slavery threatened, announced their secession from the United States. Abraham Lincoln, the newly-elected President, declared that the Government could not allow secession, and insisted that the war

minent in the making of the American Constitution in 1787, and Jefferson was the responsible author of the Declar

aine (17

ton's staff at the beginning of the War, and he ascribed independence in the fir

d, and to constitutional government in the French Revolution; and as mankind is generally, and naturally, more interested in religion than in politics, Paine

the value of his writings. For Paine's "Common Sense" pamphlet and his publication, "The Crisis," had enormous circulation, and were of the greatest value in keeping the spirit of independence alive in the dark years of the war. They were fiercely Republican; and though they were not entirely free from contemporary notions of government established on the ruins of a lost innoce

he Bastille won his applause, as it did the applause of Fox and the Whigs, but it was not till the publication of B

justified the republic. And now it was the political philosophy of Hobbes that Burke seemed to be contending fo

e as to give the English nation a constitution that Paine desired; for it seemed to the author of "Common Sense" that, America having renounced monarchy and set u

arliament, but by a general convention. Parliament in the sight of the Whigs was the sovereign assembly holding its authority from the people, and only by a majority in the House of Commons could the people express its will. What made the "Rights of Man" popular with the English democrats of the "Constitutional Society" and the sympathisers with the French Revolution was not so much the old pre-historic popular "sovereignty" fiction-though it is true that there were many Englishmen, of whom Godwin was one, who could see no hope of Parliament reforming itself or of granting any measure of enfranchisement to the people, and therefore were willing to fall back on any theory for compelling Parliament to move towards a more liberal constitution-as the programme of practical reforms that was unfolded in its pages and the hon

racy-i.e. by popular meeting, suitable enough for small and primitive societies-must degenerate into hopeless confusion in a large population; that monarchy and aristocracy which sprang from the political confusio

ve steadily insisted on the constitutional right of representation in Parliament to

Parliament. He claimed that the whole nation ought to decide on the question of war with a

government had been hereditary, the new form was to be elective and representative. The money hitherto spent on the Crown was to be devoted to a national system of elementary education-all children remaining at school till the age of 14-and to old-age pensions for all over 60. It is in these financial proposals and the suggested social reforms that Pain

a policy of fierce persecution against all who bought, sold, lent or borrowed the "Rights of Man." "Constitutional Soc

ciation of theological opponents pursued him to the grave, and left his name a byword to the orthodox. As Paine's contribution to the body of democratic belief in the "Rights of Man" was submerged in the discussion on his religious opinions, so was his early plea for what he called "Agrarian Justice." On his release from a prison cell in the Luxembourg, in 1795, Paine published his "Plan for a National Fund." This plan was an anticipation of our modern proposals for Land Reform

, in 1802, and the French Revolution and Constitution making having yielded to a

ht and the "Ra

ght was to the fore with his programme of Radical reform. The problem for Cartwright and the Radical reformers was how to get the changes made which would give political power to the people-with whom was the sovereignty, as they had learnt from Locke-and make Parliament the instrument of democracy. A hundred years and more have not s

a republic, but were the work of public opinion driven by misgovernment to protest. The difficulty in England was that the mass of people might be in great wretchedness, badly housed, ill-fed, and generally neglected, but they were not conscious of any

were the root of all social political evil, Cartwright argued. War, national debt, distress, depopulation, land out of cultivation, Parliamentary debate itself become a mockery-these calamities were all due to long Parliaments; and would be cured if once a year-on June 1st-a fresh Parliament was elected by the votes of every man over eighteen-by ballot and without any plural voting-and a payment of two guineas a day was made to members on their attendance. Of course, Cartwright could not help writing "all are by nature free, all are by nature equal"-no political reformer in the eighteenth century could do otherwise-but, unlike his contemporaries, the Major was a stout Christian, and insisted that as the whole plan of Christianity was founded on the equality of all mankind, political rights must have the same foundation. By the political axiom that "no man

ORDON

ting by Seymo

wright's life-much more than his writings-kept the democratic ideal unshaken in the handful of "Radical Reformers" who survived the Tory reaction on the war with the French Republic in 1793, and his glowing enthusiasm helped to kindle the fire for political enfranchisement that was burning in the hearts of the manufacturing population by 1818. But in 1777 the electorate was not anxious for reform, and the unenfranchised gave no thought to their political disabilities. On the very day in 1780 that

n was defeated by an overwhelming majority. After that Pitt made no further effort for reform, and from 1793 to 1795 the Government

Cause" wa

with his "Political Register," in various ways renewed the campaign for manhood suffrage, and th

-and no man at that day wrote with greater ability for the common people, or with greater acceptance-Hunt did on the platform. Both strove to arouse the working class to demand enfranchisement. Hunt presided at the mass meeting at Peterl

or the next few years, intimidation and numerous arrests k

ent, and the British public, which, in the main, had been left untouched by the vision of a democracy and the call for a national co

pence (1

idea at the close of the eighteenth century. A Newcastle schoolmaster, Spence,

ating the least morsel, in any manner, from the parish, either at this or any time thereafter, is denied. For it is solemnly agreed to, by the whole nation, that a parish that shall either sell or give away any part of its landed property shall be looked upon wi

ouses, bridges, and other structures; in making and maintaining convenient and delightful streets, highways, and passages both for foot and carriages; in making and maintaining canals and other conveniences for trade and navigation; in planting and taking in waste grounds; in providing and keeping up a magazine of ammunition

quantity, quality, and conveniences of the land, housing, etc., which he occupies in it. The Government, poor, roads, etc., are all maintain

the time in the speedy triumph of right, and in the world-wide accep

r. Force and corruption attempting its downfall shall equally be baffled, and all other nations, struck with wonder and admiration

disciples in London, and the Spenceans were a recognised body of reformers in the early part of the nineteenth century. The attacks on private property in land, and the revolutionary proposals for giving the landlords noti

t Spence's "Plan" is its anticipation of Henry George's propaganda for a Single Tax on Land Values, and the extinction of all other methods of rais

itics and Dem

and the steady refusal to accept speculative ideas and a priori deductions in pol

, and from dull, self-satisfied complacency. He is the prophet, the agitator, the pioneer, and after him follow the responsible statesmen, who rarely see far ahead or venture on new paths. Once or twice in the world's history the practical

the fulfilment of these hopes and desires will depend on the wisdom of its political builders-the practical politicians. Often enough the structural alterations are so extensive that the architect does not recognise his plan;

ith, and in his sure confidence fails to understand why his neighbours will not

they hold their authority by election of the people, and they understand that the rate of spe

e did in France at the Revolution, and for a time the world will stagger at his doings. But there is no beginning de novo in politics, and the revolutions wrought by men who would give t

instinct that makes governments slay or imprison the political agitator and suppress the writings of political prophets can be understood. For the existence of every government is threatened by prophets and agitators, and in self-defence it resists inn

ll prudently leave the direction of its public affairs to men who, less gifted it may be in finding new path