It dominates the whole of American society. How the Americans applied this principle even before their Revolution. Its growth as a result of the Revolution. Gradual and irresistible lowering of voting qualifications.
Any discussion of the political laws of the United States must always begin with the dogma of the sovereignty of the people.
The principle of the sovereignty of the people, which is always to be found, more or less, at the bottom of almost all human institutions, usually remains buried there. It is obeyed without being recognized, or if for one moment it is brought out into the daylight, it is hastily thrust back into the gloom of the sanctuary.
"The will of the nation!" is one of the phrases most generally abused by intriguers and despots of every age. Some have seen the expression of it in the bought votes of a few agents of authority, others in the votes of an interested or frightened minority, and some have even discovered it in a people's silence, thinking that the fact of obedience justified the right to command.
But in America the sovereignty of the people is neither hidden nor sterile as with some other nations; mores recognize it, and the laws proclaim it; it spreads with freedom and attains unimpeded its ultimate consequences.
If there is one country in the world where one can hope to appreciate the true value of the dogma of the sovereignty of the people, study its application to the business of society, and judge both its dangers and its advantages, that country is America.
I have already said that from the beginning the principle of the sovereignty of the people was the creative principle of most of the English colonies in America.
But it was far from dominating the government of society then as it does now.
Two obstacles, one external and the other internal, checked its encroachments.
It could not be ostensibly proclaimed in the laws, as the colonies were then still bound to obey the motherland; it had therefore to lie hidden in the provincial assemblies, especially that of the township. There it spread secretly.
American society at that time was by no means ready to swept it with all its consequences. In New England, education, and south of the Hudson, wealth, as mentioned in the last chapter, long exercised a sort of aristocratic influence which tended to keep the exercise of social power in a few hands. It was far from being the case that all public officials were elected and all citizens electors. Everywhere voting rights were restricted within certain limits and subject to some property qualification. That qualification was very low in the North but quite considerable in the South.
The American Revolution broke out. The dogma of the sovereignty of the people came out from the township and took possession of the government; every class enlisted in its cause; the war was fought and victory obtained in its name; it became the law of laws.
A change almost as rapid took place within society. The law of inheritance succeeded in breaking down local influences.
Just when all could see this effect of the laws and the Revolution, democracy's victory had already been irrevocably pronounced. Circumstances put power into its hands. It was not even permissible to struggle against it any longer. So the upper classes submitted without complaint or resistance to an evil which had by then become inevitable. They suffered the usual fate of fallen powers; each followed his own selfish interests; as there was no longer a chance of snatching power from the people's hands, and as they did not detest them enough to take pleasure in flaunting that their only thought was to gain their goodwill at any price. Consequently the most democratic laws were voted by the very men whose interests they impaired. In this way the upper classes aroused no popular passions against themselves, but they themselves hastened the triumph of the new order. This had the singular result that the impulse toward The state of Maryland, which had been founded by great lords, was the first to proclaim universal suffrage and introduced the most democratic procedures throughout its government.
Once a people begins to interfere with the voting qualification, one can be sure that sooner or later it will abolish it altogether. That is one of the most invariable rules of social behavior. The further the limit of voting rights is extended, the stronger is the need felt to spread them still wider; for after each new concession the forces of democracy am strengthened, and its demands increase with its augmented power. The ambition of those left below the qualifying limit increases in proportion to the number of those above it. Finally the exception becomes the rule; concessions follow one another without interruption, and there is no halting place until universal suffrage has been attained.
In the United States in our day the principle of the sovereignty of the people has been adopted in practice in every way that imagination could suggest. It has been detached from all fictions in which it has elsewhere been carefully wrapped; it takes on every possible form that the exigencies of the case require. Sometimes the body of the people makes the laws, as at Athens; sometimes deputies, elected by universal suffrage, represent it and act in its name under its almost Immediate supervision.
There are countries in which some authority, in a sense outside the body social, influences it and forces it to progress in a certain direction.
There are others In which power is divided, being at the same time within the society and outside it. Nothing like that is to be seen in the United States; their society acts by and for itself. There are no authorities except within itself; one can hardly meet anybody who would dare to conceive, much less to suggest, seeking power elsewhere. The people take part in the making of the laws by choosing the lawgivers, and they share in their application by electing the agents of the executive power; one might say that they govern themselves, so feeble and restricted is the part left to the administration, so vividly is that administration aware of its popular origin, and so obedient is it to the fount of power. The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things; everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it. _
World History
