d if need be assert their superior authority over any
part of the government, not excepting the constitution.[1]

Democracy, in politics, was based on the idea that public affairs could
best be run by the public voice. However expert may be the hand that
administers the laws, the hand and the heart that renders the final
decision in large questions must belong to the public.[2]

The people who laid the foundations for democracy in France and the
United States feared tyranny. They and their ancestors had been, for
centuries, the victims of governmental despotism. They were on their
guard constantly against governmental aggression in any form. And they,
therefore, placed the strictest limitations upon the powers that
governments should enjoy.

Special privilege government was run by a special class,--the hereditary
aristocracy--in the interest and for the profit of that class. They held
the wealth of the nation--the land--and lived comfortably upon its
produce. They never worked--no gentleman could work and remain a
gentleman. They carried on the affairs of the court--sometimes well,
sometimes badly; maintained an extravagant scale of social life; built
up a vicious system of secret international diplomacy; commanded in time
of war, and at all times; levied rents and taxes which went very largely
to increase their own comfort and better their own position in life. The
machinery of government and the profits from government remained in the
hands of this one class.

Class government from its very nature could not be other than
oppressive. "All hereditary government over a people is to them a
species of slavery and representative government is freedom." "All
hereditary government is in its nature tyranny.... To inherit a
government is to inherit the people as if they were flocks and
herds."[3]

4. _The Source of Authority_

The people were to be the source of authority in the new state. The
citizen was to have a voice because he was an adult, capable of
rendering judgment in the selection of public servants and in the
determination of public policy.

All through history there had been men into whose hands supreme power
had been committed, who had carried this authority with an astounding
degree of wisdom and integrity. For every one who had comported himself
with such wisdom in the presence of supreme authority, there were a
score, or more likely a hundred, who had used this power stupidly,
foolishly, inefficientl