Lectures and Miscellanies

Thus the Democratic idea, in affirming the peo- ple's sovereignty, does in effect reduce government into a mere public ministry or service. It utterly explodes the old conceptions of government, as having an authority derived from some other source than the people. It is only while imper- fectly evolved as in this country, in which not the whole people, but an ill-defined majority, rules, that it tolerates institutions which exhibit some faint remnant of authority. Oar institutions do not, as yet, by any means, perfectly incorporate the Democratic idea. They exhibit a far more ad- vanced development of it than has been attained anywhere else, but still fall very far short of giving it perfect expression. The great advantage, as it appears to me, which our position claims, is this : that we publicly recognise the worth of the Demo- cratic idea, and stand committed by our past his- tory, and our present tendencies, to allow it a com- plete evolution. It cannot be doubted by any attentive observer of our national and state legis- lation, that the tendency among us, from the be- ginning, has been to curtail the force of govern- ment, to reduce its legislative branches into a complete docility to the popular will, and make the executive branch more and more purely execu- tive. And if this be undeniable, if such be the continual operation of the Democratic idea, you will readily admit that its tendency is to destroy