HumanitiesWeb.org - The New Star Chamber and Other Essays (Observations on Democracy) by Edgar Lee Masters
HumanitiesWeb HumanitiesWeb
WelcomeHistoryLiteratureArtMusicPhilosophyResourcesHelp
Periods Alphabetically Nationality Topics Themes Genres Glossary
pixel

Masters
Index
Selected Works
Quotations
Recordings
Suggested Reading
Chronology
Related Materials

Search

Get Your Degree!

Find schools and get information on the program that’s right for you.

Powered by Campus Explorer

& etc
FEEDBACK

(C)1998-2012
All Rights Reserved.

Site last updated
28 October, 2012
Real Time Analytics

The New Star Chamber and Other Essays
Observations on Democracy

by Edgar Lee Masters

After a century of insidious slander of democracy the American people as a mass are beginning to show a confused conception of the ideals of free institutions. To say that the people are too zealous of their own welfare to relinquish any substantial right is to utter a fine phrase and ignore the facts. They have already parted with substantial rights; they continue to part with them and new propositions to surrender others are met by united acquiescence and divided protest. The policy of giving state aid to the mercantilists and taxing all others to do it; of fondling the producer and smiting the consumer; of considering capital as something to be worshiped and labor as something quite common, quite as a matter of fact and quite subsidiary to capital, has brought its logical result at last. In spite of philosophy, in spite of its interpreters in the persons of our most distinguished statesmen; in spite of the examples and teachings of the fathers and the warnings of their faithful successors, and in spite of sad experiences of other people at other times; in spite of all that should have curbed the spirit so reactionary to the policy of a republic, the American people today find themselves bewildered over principles which no one assailed a generation ago.

For along with this repression and favoritism there has accumulated in the hands of a few great wealth and great power. These influences instruct the young; they mould history and write it after it is moulded; they exalt and dethrone at will; they crown mediocrity and strike down merit; they have monopolized the means of intelligence; the girdles and the highways which circle the globe are theirs; the widow's oil and the farmer's salt are theirs; they have stolen all the weapons of caricature, satire and argument. And they have rapidly created a public sentiment which favors everything except the peccadilloes. The school histories, the accessible biographies are written with a view of prejudicing the young against popular institutions. Jefferson, Madison and Jackson are belittled in order to make room for the magnification of Hamilton and Marshall. With no patron saints but an astute bookkeeper and a complaisant judge they have enthroned themselves and demand attention. They fill the air with chattering panegyric over men who hated republican principles.

The important work of Jefferson, the most important ever performed by any statesman, which belongs not merely to the lower world of statecraft but has pierced into the rarer realm of philosophy, has been assaulted at its base for years, indoctrinating successive generations with a spirit of hatred for the memory of him whom the Olympus of judgment has placed above all Americans. And what is Jefferson charged with? Listen: Jefferson was not a warrior; he was a coward; he wrote anonymous letters; he did not walk straight; he did not look one in the eye. On the other hand Hamilton was a soldier; he was brave; he acknowledged his productions; he held his head erect; his piercing glance abashed the most self-possessed. But it is not considered that he devised an anonymous system of indirect taxation, by which the earnings of one man can be transferred to the pockets of another man, pursuant to which the evils of today have largely come to pass. If Jefferson wrote the "Anas," Hamilton fathered the protective tariff which nearly everyone has discovered is a deception; if Jefferson did not walk erect, if he did not look his hearer in the eye, Hamilton planned to revolutionize the republic and to do it by subterfuge and chicane.

In this unequal struggle, unequal for fifty years at least, the ideals of democracy have ceased to present themselves clearly to the eyes of the American people. In the lust for wealth and power officials have forgotten that they are not in office for themselves, but for the people. General corruption has undermined faith in the administration of the law. This condition of feeling is very responsive to arguments of absolutism. How close we are to that now time alone can determine. But that there is a silent sentiment for it, especially in those portions of the country which fought democracy with the Hartford convention and by good luck expunged their infamy through this traduction already discussed, there can be no doubt.

What, then, of democracy do we hold fast to? Is it man's equality? But that is attacked, not by denying what it means, that all men have equal rights before the law, but by saying that all men are not equal, because men differ in mental power and character, which it does not mean. Then it follows that every proposition of democracy must be again defended. All is upset which we thought secure. All is confusion where once was order. All that was done must be done again. A spirit of rude iconoclasm has swept over from the middle ages, and masquerading as progress goes about to tear down what was built so firmly centuries ago.

Do governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed? That was once the general tenet in this country. But now it is disputed. It is now held that there is a metaphysical substance called sovereignty not derived from the people, but which proceeds from the same source that originates the sovereignty of despotism, and is the same thing in degree and kind. It is the child of destiny and the voice of God. It is the recrudesence of Philip's power and it may send its duke of Alva anywhere in the world to subdue heresy and cow rebellion.

Is liberty an inalienable right? Yes, but----! It may be so, but----! Liberty, why of course, but----! Liberty must be carefully circumscribed or it will spread into license.

Is the pursuit of happiness an inalienable right? This is impugned by all our modern legislation. The government has surrendered to a marauding band of giant monopolies the sovereign power of taxation. For the power to destroy competition, and in its turn to fix prices at will, is an exercise of the taxing power, while every dollar taken from a man decreases his liberty to pursue his own way in life and weakens his capacity as a citizen. For along with such perversion of justice there is born the spirit of anarchy on one side and of socialism on the other; anarchy, which would uproot all government, and socialism, which would make government of everything. And as discontent is heard in the land the only remedy suggested is the club, not to destroy the injustice, but to beat down discontent with the injustice. Thus we have government by injunction and expediency in legislation.

But democracy itself has been at fault. As a matter of fact, there is no such thing as traditional democracy; it has no historic character to which the democratic party of today can turn for guidance. The democratic party has been for free trade and then for protection. It was on both sides of the bank question; it opposed and championed internal improvements. It was for hard money and it worshiped at the shrine of the greenback. And while its several opposing parties were equally vacillating it was natural that they should be so. They were seeking at all times to draw the government into the hands of a few men, which was a difficult process; while to keep the government in the hands of the people as a means to democratic ends was generally a popular creed. It found general acceptance and it should have been the objective point at all times.

The principles of democracy, therefore, cannot always be found in its platforms. All of its tenets can be deduced from the great outlines of the declaration of independence. They were written there out of the fullness of the human heart; their inspiration was the necessary logic of human life. What each desires are life and liberty and the privilege to seek his own; to have that which he earns and to surrender none of it to others under the law except what is necessary to protect others in the same enjoyment. It is in the human heart that democracy has erected her temple; it is from the human heart that the voice of democracy, whether in grief or joy, whether subdued or victorious, ever speaks and will speak forever.

But to emphasize the rights of the common people, as if democracy was concerned alone with them, is an erroneous and pernicious course. Democracy concerns itself with no class. It demands that the poor man shall have and enjoy his own; that he shall worship and speak and act as he pleases up to the limit of the same right as every other man. Whoever by diligence has acquired wealth shall also enjoy and keep what he has gained. Children, even, shall inherit idleness from him who earned it. The end of democracy is not the rule of the common people. The end of democracy is the development of the individual in intellect and morals and usefulness, in a sense of justice, in the virtues of the heart, and to that end democracy demands liberty, and to obtain liberty it reposes the government in the whole people. If there be failure, which is minimized by popular rule, it is by the same token guaranteed a speedy and comprehensive amendment. Democracy believes in wealth for all who can by industry and intelligence obtain it. It will not permit trespass or confiscation. Nor will it by special privilege from the state suffer a part to acquire wealth at the expense of the many. Such a course impugns the principle of man's equality, which is the first clause in its creed.

Democracy demands freedom of conscience. It was won by the most painful struggle in the history of man. Nor is it in these days of unsettled ideals very generally assailed. While Charles V reasoned that there was but one religion and one salvation, and that to punish heresy was to serve God and man, no one now fails to smile at this quaint sophistry. It passed away long ago where a great deal else that still lingers to hamper mankind should have gone.

As a principle of government democracy demands the least government consistent with public order and the general welfare. It limits its interference to trespasses. Whenever a hand is uplifted or a plot concocted to assail equal rights, democracy enters its effectual protest. And in the observance of this simple rule is a great reward to the people as a whole. Under its benign influence there are no boards to intermeddle in private affairs; there is no corrupt officialism; there is little chance for powerful machines; there is frugality in administration; there are no useless and costly navies; there are no standing armies; there is no extravagant flummery; there is no grabbing of a scrubby island, and then of other islands to protect the first; there are no subsidies, no protective tariffs, no system of finance which favors a part of the people; no public debt, and, in short, none of the numberless devices which are foisted upon the people whether they will or no, upon pretenses good or bad, inventions of the Medicis and the Machiavellians of history who worked the incantations of power and glory in benighted times. But they are worked today, for one of the strange paradoxes in the political thought of the masses is the pride and satisfaction which they manifest in granting to a central body far away the very power by which their rights are admittedly infringed.

It follows from what has been said that the components of democracy are the free city, the free township, the free county and the free state, co-operating in a synthetic process to the national government. This is the ideal of democracy. There can be no republic without it. Our fathers learned the lesson from the free cities of Italy and the Netherlands, and the truth of local self-government is so obvious that the very statement of the proposition exhausts explanation and comment. And in good report and ill, in spite of falsehood and sophistry, the democracy has adhered to this principle. There never was a time when democratic leaders were not in favor of a nation, although there was honest difference of opinion as to the powers of the nation. But the process to which democracy was ever and ever will be a remorseless foe is the accumulation of all power in the hands of a few men, which was the hobby of Hamilton and which in our day has almost come to pass.

And as inclusive of all that has been defined democratic government extends to the enforcement of the law of equal freedom. It is a simple policy. It does not abound in promises of favors; it only insures justice. It does not appeal to the vision in glorious pageants; it convinces the intellect by its logic; it warms the heart by its humanity. It does not symbolize itself in serried ranks of armed men, through which the ruler rides amidst the plaudits of those who claw the cap from the peaked head, while women weep and strong men faint with emotion at the sight of God-given power. It parades no squadron of battleships before the blurred eyes of sycophants and sentimentalists. It cares nothing for tinsel and finery, for black robes and wigs, for that mummery and pretense which is practiced to overawe the sentiments of those who are in the humble walks of life and convince them that its functions are intrusted to the anointed, and that those who are predestined to service and labor must obey implicitly and pay entirely.

But what is the symbol of democracy? It is the carpenter, the mechanic, the boatman, the shoemaker, the farmer, the tradesman, the banker, the lawyer, the philosopher, each in his way of life doing the world's work, protected by his own government in his rightful liberty, and in the aggregate mass of robust justice and honorable strength reserving a power for perpetuation which only internal corruption can destroy. Its apparel is that of Lincoln, and its surroundings are the books and the hospitality of Jefferson -- things which do not cloud the eyes or enslave the feelings, but which in their simple majesty and merit are the enduring and beneficent pictures of history.

It follows that what is the strength of democracy is its weakness. It does not promise something for nothing; it does not argue that to take from one part and add to the other part increases the bulk of the whole; that to tax the many for the few enriches all; that to subsidize a private enterprise is profitable to those who are interested only in paying the subsidy; that wealth can be created by taxation; that to pay interest on a large and growing public debt is beneficial to the people; that a surplus locked up in the treasury drawn by taxation is a sign of prosperity -- none of those things does it pretend, promise or preach. It offers nothing but equal freedom to all. To those who want more democracy is not attractive; upon those who are deceived into taking less its warnings are lost. For the malevolent side of life shadows every virtue with a fault. And no question can be so fairly, so clearly stated that ingenious sophistry will not give it an evil aspect.

To instance this let us take a few examples from history. Those who opposed and oppose the tariff are in favor of pauper labor; they are inimical to American industry; they believe in a cheap man and a cheap coat; those who struggle against centralization in government are loose in their morals; they are not in favor of order and law; those who decry the subjugation of feeble peoples and the taking of their country are cowards; they are weaklings; they are behind the times; they are disloyal, unpatriotic; they are rebels at heart, the offshoots of impotent treason in days past. Groundless as are these charges, aimless and foolish as they are, they are preferred on a deep and astute principle, viz., that men must rely for their guidance on what is said by men who talk and editors who write, that the majority of men cannot personally investigate these questions and that reiteration of these calumnies will instill a spirit of skepticism of the best motives and the purest professions. This course is as old as the discussion of public questions. It is the warfare of vile debate, through which humanity drags its feet by difficult steps or from which humanity staggers back into the shadows of a perished century.

Finally, democracy is intensely practical. It has no refined and protracted problems to solve, such as afflict the system of socialism. It need not concern itself with how property shall be first divided and afterward how it shall be kept in a condition of equality; how many hours men shall work; what they shall eat if they do work or what if they do not; what schooling shall be maintained. It has no devious course of idealism to trace out and explore before it can set to work, and no unforeseen steps to trust to luck, beyond the limits of forethought.

Democracy outlines her program in a few simple words: Men shall enjoy liberty of action up to the limit of the same liberty for all men; there shall be equal freedom; he who infringes this rule shall be punished. Under this benign system democracy knows that humanity will progress, because the individual must develop. It is not a prophecy, but a fact. The state neither adds to nor takes from the law of the survival of the fittest. The task of mitigating that law it leaves to man in his private life, in his condition of untrammeled strength which results from freedom. To what end shall there be special privilege? To what end shall a class be created or an aristocracy of wealth or prerogative established? How often has the aristocracy produced men who furnished humanity with philosophy, invention, discovery or statesmanship? And whenever an aristocracy has produced such men how have they risen to real greatness except by following with more or less faithfulness the principle of liberty?

Democracy draws no long face about charity, nor does it whine about love. Democracy is content with justice, which is practicable and which the state can and ought to enforce. No amount of preaching can make men love each other, and involuntary charity, such as the state sometimes commands, leads to extensive abuse. State charity covers from the eyes of the people a multitude of political sins. Democracy nourishes the feelings of individual worth and cultivates proper pride. It abhors the snob and the lackey. Founded upon freedom, it has no cause to serve except humanity. It owes no personal fealty. It cares nothing for that patriotism which consists in cringing adoration of an administration. It is indifferent to the flag when it degenerates into a piece of gorgeous bunting and no longer represents anything but force.

Whatever is independent, progressive and self-reliant in Americans, whatever in them is noble and just, they owe to democracy. It is democracy that makes them demand their rights and insist on fair play for all. It is democracy that keeps the way open for the unbounded energy of Americans. It is democracy that laughs at cant and slaps the solemn jowls of hypocrisy. It is the hard head of democracy that refuses to be turned by pompous silliness and that scoffs at pretense. It is democracy that gives sincerity to life and its endeavors. It is democracy that is regardless of a man's purse or his clothes, but looks to his mind, his virtues and his manners. It is democracy that respects the toiler, whether he toil with his hands or with his brains. It is democracy that believes in the aristocracy of ability and morality and is glad to see a frock coat on the back of any man who has earned it. It is democracy that is subduing the hands which are opposing it, that is bringing freedom of trade to America, and by slow but sure processes is establishing all it has contended for -- while these ideas, which are not for an age, but for all time so long as the world is as it is, are progressing to the uttermost parts of the globe.
Previous Essay
Personae

Terms Defined

Referenced Works