Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
The second change is the transference of the power to the people.
All the power that there is we have given to the people, who are now
waiting for a prophet to teach them how best to use it. I trust I
am under no illusions; Democracy has many dangers and many evils;
but these seem to me not so bad as those others which we have shaken
off. One must not expect a Millennium; mistakes will doubtless be
committed, and those bad ones. Besides, a change in the machinery
does not change the people who run that machinery. There will be the
tyranny of the Caucus to be faced and trampled down; we must endure,
with all his vices and his demagogic arts, the professional politician
whose existence depends on his party; we must expect--and ceaselessly
fight against--bribery and wholesale corruption when a class of these
professional politicians, poor, unscrupulous, and grasping, will be
continually, by every evil art, by every lying statement, by every
creeping baseness, endeavouring to climb unto power--such there are
already among us; we shall have to awaken from apathy, and keep
awake, those who are anxious to avoid the arena of politics, yet, by
education, position, and natural abilities, are called upon to lead.
Yet who, even in the face of the certain dangers, the certain mistakes,
of Democracy, shall say that great, terrible, and most disastrous
mistakes have not been made by an Aristocracy? There is always hope
where there is freedom; let us trust in the common-sense of the nation,
and remain steadfast in that trust.
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