It is certainly neither a mistake nor an exaggeration to say so, provided by the people you understand the whole people, in their sovereign capacity as one body politic. But it is an egregious mistake, an absurd and mischievous falsehood, to say so, if by the people be understood those who vote in the primary elections--whether the concurring majority of them or all of them. The people who vote are not _the_ sovereign people. In their capacity of voters they are--in common with all the other functionaries of the Government--coördinate parts of the indivisible organism of the State. The legislative, judicial, and executive functionaries of the Government--constituted directly or indirectly through the ministerial agency of their votes--when thus constituted, hold their powers not _from_ the voters, but _through_ them _from_ the sovereign; and to that sovereign alone are they responsible for the exercise of them. They are, therefore, not 'subordinate' to the voters, either in the sense of deriving their powers from them, or in the sense of being accountable to them, and there is no other sense of the term that is not futile here. They are subordinate in both these respects to the sovereign power of the nation; but so, too, are the voters themselves; and the former no more than the latter. But those who accept your instructions are not likely so to understand this. They are not likely to be wiser than their teachers, and cannot perhaps be so safely trusted with the dangerous edge tools of false doctrine. You tell them that all Government officials, in all departments, are subordinate to the sovereign people; and they are sure to understand it that they, the voters, are the sovereign people, and that all the constituted authorities are subordinate to them in point of power--hold their powers from them alone, and are responsible to them alone--while they themselves hold their powers from themselves, and are responsible only to themselves. Hence (and you yourself have in this speech set them the example) we hear them talking of themselves as the 'masters,' and Government officials as their 'servants,' just as though both alike were not servants of one and the same sovereign master, whose right and power it is--within the sphere of the state, and for the just ends of the state--to control every individual in the nation. There is a world of mischief in the use of such words among the ignorant and unreflecting, and demagogues well know how to avail themselves of the power it gives them. The pernicious tendency of your doctrine about the sovereign power and sovereign rights of individuals is seen in another and more general point of view.