It is among the evils, and perhaps not the smallest, of democratic governments, that the people must feel before they will see. When this happens, they are roused to action. Hence it is that those kinds of government are too slow.
The very idea of the power and right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This, within certain limits, is probably true. But in governments of a popular character, and purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent it bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude. Every man will speak as he thinks, or, more properly, without thinking, and consequently will judge of effects without attending to their causes.
Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, under no form of government are laws better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind.
There is a natural and necessary progression, from the extreme of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny; and arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
It is among the evils, and perhaps not the smallest, of democratic governments, that the people must feel before they will see. When this happens, they are roused to action. Hence it is that those kinds of government are too slow.