This general identity of interests is the only thing that can guarantee the stability of democratic institutions. Equality of rights, embodied in general self-government, is the great moral element of true democracy; it is the only reliable safety-valve in the machinery of modern society. There is the solid foundation of our system of government; there is our mission; there is our greatness; there is our safety; there, and nowhere else! This is true Americanism, and to this I pay the tribute of my devotion. EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN Edwin Lawrence Godkin was born of English ancestry at Moyne, County Wicklow, Ireland, on October 2, 1831. His father, the Rev. James Godkin, a Presbyterian minister of literary talents, after being forced from his pulpit for espousing the cause of Young Ireland, became a journalist of some distinction. The son received his preparatory education at Armagh, and at Silcoates School, Wakefield, Yorkshire. In 1846 he entered Queen’s College, Belfast. After graduating from this institution in 1851, he went to London to study law at Lincoln’s Inn. After some journalistic experience in the Crimea and in Belfast, he came to America in 1856 and settled in New York. His real career began with the founding of _The New York Nation_ in 1865. His connection with this journal was both long and distinguished, and his efforts for the encouragement of a sound and enlightened public opinion have recently been appropriately recognized in the semi-centenary volume, “Fifty Years of American Idealism,” edited by Gustav Pollak. He contributed many incisive essays on political and economic subjects to various magazines. The most important of these have been collected in three volumes, “Reflections and Comments,” “Problems of Modern Democracy,” and “Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy.” It is from the opening essay of the second that the following selection is taken.