)
I say the mission of government, henceforth, in civilized lands, is
not repression alone, and not Authority alone, not even of law, nor
by that favorite standard of the eminent writer, the rule of the best
men, the born heroes and captains of the race, (as if such ever,
or one time out of a hundred, get into the big places, elective or
dynastic)--but higher than the highest arbitrary rule, to train
communities through all their grades, beginning with individuals and
ending there again, to rule themselves. What Christ appear'd for in
the moral-spiritual field for human-kind, namely, that in respect to
the absolute soul, there is in the possession of such by each single
individual, something so transcendent, so incapable of gradations,
(like life,) that, to that extent, it places all beings on a common
level, utterly regardless of the distinctions of intellect, virtue,
station, or any height or lowliness whatever--is tallied in like
manner, in this other field, by democracy's rule that men, the nation,
as a common aggregate of living identities, affording in each a
separate and complete subject for freedom, worldly thrift and
happiness, and for a fair chance for growth, and for protection in
citizenship, &c., must, to the political extent of the suffrage or
vote, if no further, be placed, in each and in the whole, on one
broad, primary, universal, common platform.
The purpose is not altogether direct; perhaps it is more indirect. For
it is not that democracy is of exhaustive account, in itself.
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