e of democracy was distilled. Democracy,
Demos, the crowd, the people, the nation, were already, in the woods
of Germany, the court of last resort. They growled dissent, and they
gave assent with the brandishing of their weapons, javelins, or
ballots. They were called together but seldom, and between the
meetings of the assembly, the executive work, the judicial work, the
punishing of offenders, was left to a chosen few; left to those who by
their control over themselves, their control over their families,
their control over their neighbors, seemed best qualified to exercise
the delegated control of all.

The chief aim of their organized government, such as it was, seems to
have been to leave themselves free to go about their private business,
with as little interference from the demands of public business as
possible. The chief concern of each one was to secure his right to
mind his own business, under certain safeguards provided by all. If
those delegated to govern became autocratic, or evil-doers, or used
their power for self-advancement or self-enrichment, they were
speedily brought to book. The philosophy of government, then, was to
make men free to go about their private business. That the time might
come when politics would be the absorbing business of all, dictating
the hours and wages of men under the earth, and reaching up to the
institution of a recall for the angel Gabriel, and a referendum for
the Day of Judgment, was undreamed of. The chiefs of the clans, the
chiefs of the tribes, the kings of the Germans, and finally the
emperors were all elective. The divine right of kings is a purely
modern development. The descendants of these German tribes in England,
elected their king in the days of William the Conqueror even, and as
late as 1689 the Commons of England voted that King James had
abdicated, and that the throne was vacant!

The so-called mayors of the palace, who became kings, were in their
day representatives of the landholders, delegates of the people, who
advised the king and aided in commanding the armies. These hereditary
mayors of the palace drifted into ever greater and greater control,
until they became hereditary kings. The title was only hereditary,
however, because it was convenient that one man of experience in an
office should be succeeded by another educated to, and familiar with,
the same experiences and duties, and this system of heredity continues
down to this day in business, and in