even possible. It
is but another evidence of the excellence of the democratic principle.
Where power is the privilege of a class or of a single person, it may
be usurped; but where it is the expression of the common will, it can
no more be monopolized than air or light. The ignorant and unreasoning
force of a populace, sure of losing nothing and with a chance of
gaining something by any change, that restless material out of which
violent revolutions are made, if it exist here at all, is to be found
only in our great cities, among a class who have learned in other
countries to look upon all law as their natural enemy. Nor is it by any
fault of American training, but by the want of it, that these people
are what they are. When Lord Derby says that the government of this
country is at the mercy of an excited mob, he proves either that the
demagogue is no exclusive product of a democracy, or that England would
be in less danger of war if her governing class knew something less of
ancient Greece and a little more of modern America.

Whether or no there be any truth in the assertion that democracy tends
to bring men down to a common level (as it surely brings them up to
one), we shall not stop to inquire, for the world has not yet had a
long enough experience of it to warrant any safe conclusion. During our
revolutionary struggle, it seems to us that both our civil and military
leaders compare very well in point of ability with the British product
of the same period, and the same thing may very well be true at the
present time. But while it may be the glory, it can hardly be called
the duty of a country to produce great men; and if forms of polity have
anything to do in the matter, we should incline to prefer that which
could make a great nation felt to be such and loved as such by every
human fibre in it, to one which stunted the many that a few favored
specimens might grow the taller and fairer.

While the attitude of the government was by the necessity of the case
expectant so far as slavery was concerned, it is also true that the
people ran before it, and were moved by a deeper impulse than the mere
instinct of self-preservation. The public conscience gave energy and
intention to the public will, and the bounty which drew our best
soldiers to the ranks was an idea. The game was the ordinary game of
war, and they but the unreasoning pieces on the board; but they felt
that a higher reason was moving them in a game where t