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CHAPTER VII.
CONTINUATION OF THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.
I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and despotic
government among a people in which the conditions of society are
equal, than among any other; and I think that if such a government
were once established among such a people, it would not only
oppress men, but would eventually strip each of them of several of
the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism therefore appears
to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic ages. I should have
loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we
live I am ready to worship it.
On the other hand, I am persuaded that all who shall attempt, in the ages upon which we are entering, to base freedom upon aristocratic privilege, will fail;—that all who shall attempt to draw and to retain authority within a single class, will fail. At the present day no ruler is skilful or strong enough to found a despotism, by re-establishing permanent distinctions of rank among his subjects: no legislator is wise or powerful enough to preserve free institutions, if he does not take equality for his first principle and his watchword. All those of our contemporaries who would establish or secure the independence and the dignity of their fellow-men, must show themselves the friends of equality; and the only worthy means of showing themselves as such, is to be so: upon this depends the success of their holy enterprise. Thus the question is not how to reconstruct aristocratic society, but how to make liberty proceed out of that democratic state of society in which God has placed us.
These two truths appear to me simple, clear, and fertile in consequences; and they naturally lead me to consider what kind of free government can be established among a people in which social conditions are equal.
