Democracy has apparently meant quite different things to different people. To some it is essentially a form of government in which control is represented as in the hands of the majority of the people. Some seem to have no further interest in democracy, if only they see that the democratic form in government is preserved and jealously guarded and the majority by its ballot rules. To some it is the aspect of democracy as individualism that has appealed most--freedom of the individual even from the restraint of law and custom--or again equality of opportunity. These perhaps think of freedom as a supreme value in itself. Some think of democracy more in terms of its internal conditions or its results. They think of freedom as a means of _accomplishing_ good, not as merely _being_ a good. They believe that the good of the individual is not necessarily represented by the satisfaction of his desires, and so perhaps think of the law and order of the democratic community, the control and regulation of the individual in his daily life by the will of all, as the essential feature of a democracy. Here in America, taking our history and our life as a whole, it seems certain that the dominating mood has been the love of _individual freedom_. Our democracy is founded upon the idea of the _rights of the man_. But these rights and privileges of the man can be secured only by social organization that immediately takes away some of them. So our national life, just because of the strong individualism with which it began, also began with a firm principle of law and order modifying the idea of freedom. Some would say it began thus in a paradox or a delusion. Even to be morally free was not allowed. The group, in the Puritan society at least, exercised strict supervision over the moral life of the individual. Giddings says, in fact, that this experiment in moral control on the part of the people over all individuals is one of the chief characteristics of American life.