The view of the American Constitution herein presented may not be familiar to the average reader of our political literature. For notwithstanding the overwhelming proof of the aristocratic origin of our constitutional arrangements accessible to the unbiassed student, the notion has been sedulously cultivated that our general government was based on the theory of majority rule. Unfounded as an analysis of our political institutions shows this belief to be, it has by dint of constant repetition come to be widely accepted. It is beyond question that the Constitution was not so regarded by the people at the beginning of our national life. How, then, was this change in the attitude of the public brought about? There has doubtless been more than one influence that has contributed to this result. The abundant natural resources of the country and the material prosperity of the people are a factor that cannot be ignored. To these must in a measure be ascribed the uncritical attitude of mind, the prevailing indifference to political conditions, and the almost universal optimism which have characterized the American people. This lack of general attention to and interest in the more serious and profound questions of government has been favorable to the inculcation and acceptance of ideas of the system utterly at variance with its true character. Still, with all due allowance for these favoring conditions, it is hard to find a satisfactory explanation of the process by which the worshipers of democracy came to deify an undemocratic constitution. The desire of the conservative classes to preserve and perpetuate the system by presenting it in the guise of democracy, and their influence upon the political thought of the people generally must be regarded as the chief factor in bringing about this extraordinary change in public opinion. Hostile criticism of the Constitution soon "gave place to an undiscriminating and almost blind worship of its principles ... and criticism was estopped.... The divine right of kings never ran a more prosperous course than did this unquestioned prerogative of the Constitution to receive universal homage. The conviction that our institutions were the best in the world, nay more, the model to which all civilized states must sooner or later conform, could not be laughed out of us by foreign critics, nor shaken out of us by the roughest jars of the system."[142] CHAPTER VII UNDEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT