tent. Take from the science and the art of government,
and from its methods, whatever has had its origin in the consciousness
of his ill-will and the fear of his power and what have you left? A pure
republic--that is to say, no government.

I should like it understood that, if not absolutely devoid of
preferences and prejudices, I at least believe myself to be; that except
as to result I think no more of one form of government than of another;
and that with reference to results all forms seem to me bad, but bad in
different degrees. If asked my opinion as to the results of our own, I
should point to Homestead, to Wardner, to Buffalo, to Coal Creek, to the
interminable tale of unpunished murders by individuals and by mobs, to
legislatures and courts unspeakably corrupt and executives of criminal
cowardice, to the prevalence and immunity of plundering trusts and
corporations and the monstrous multiplication of millionaires. I should
invite attention to the pension roll, to the similar and incredible
extravagance of Republican and Democratic "Houses"--a plague o' them
both! If addressing Democrats only, I should mention the protective
tariff; if Republicans, the hill-tribe clamor for free coinage of
silver. I should call to mind the existence of prosperous activity of a
thousand lying secret societies having for their sole object mitigation
of republican simplicity by means of pageantry and costumes grotesquely
resembling those of kings and courtiers, and titles of address and
courtesy exalted enough to draw laughter from an ox.

In contemplation of these and a hundred other "results," no less
shameful in themselves than significant of the deeper shame beneath
and prophetic of the blacker shame to come, I should say: "Behold the
outcome of hardly more than a century of government by the people!
Behold the superstructure whose foundations our forefathers laid upon
the unstable overgrowth of popular caprice surfacing the unplummeted
abysm of human depravity! Behold the reality behind our dream of the
efficacy of forms, the saving grace of principles, the magic of words!
We have believed in the wisdom of majorities and are fooled; trusted to
the good honor of numbers, and are betrayed. Our touching faith in
the liberty of the rascal, our strange conviction that anarchy making
proselytes and bombs is less dangerous than anarchy with a shut mouth
and a watched hand--lo, this is the beginning of the aid of the dream!"

Our Gov