So far, most readers will follow the author without serious difficulty.  But now we come to passages which no one could understand who was not acquainted with the Nullification imbroglio of 1833.  A philosophic Frenchman or German, who should read this work with a view to enlightening his mind upon the nature of government, would be much puzzled after passing the thirteenth page; for at that point the hidden loadstone begins to operate upon the needle of Mr. Calhoun’s compass, and he is as Louis Napoleon writing the Life of Caesar.

Universal suffrage, he continues, and the frequent election of rulers, are indeed the primary and fundamental principles of a constitutional government; and they are sufficient to give the people an effective control over those whom they have elected.  But this is all they can do.  They cannot make rulers good, or just, or obedient to the constitution, but only faithful representatives of the majority of the people and executors of the will of that majority.  The right of suffrage transfers the supreme authority from the rulers to the body of the community, and the more perfectly it does this, the more perfectly it accomplishes its object.  Majority is king.  But this king, too, like all others, is selfish, and will abuse his power if he can.

So, we have been arguing in a circle, and have come back to the starting-point.  Government keeps within bounds the selfishness of the people; the constitution restrains the selfishness of the government; but, in doing so, it has only created a despot as much to be dreaded as the power it displaced.  We are still, therefore, confronted by the original difficulty.  How are we to limit the sway of tyrant Majority?

If, says Mr. Calhoun, all the people had the same interests, so that a law which oppressed one interest would oppress all interests, then the right of suffrage would itself be sufficient; and the only question would be as to the fitness of different candidates.  But this is not the case.  Taxation, for example:  no system of taxation can be arranged that will not bear oppressively upon some interests or section.  Disbursements, also:  some portions of the country must receive back, in the form of governmental disbursements, more money than they pay in taxes, and others less; and this may be carried so far, that one region may be utterly impoverished, while others are enriched.  King Majority may have his favorites.  He may now choose to favor agriculture; now, commerce; now, manufactures; and so arrange the imports as to crush one for the sake of promoting the others.  “Crush” is Mr. Calhoun’s word.  “One portion of the community,” he says,

“may be crushed, and another elevated on its ruins, by systematically perverting the power of taxation and disbursement, for the purpose of aggrandizing or building up one portion of the community at the expense of the other.”

May be.  But has not the most relentless despot an interest in the prosperity of his subjects?  And can one interest be crushed without manifest and immediate injury to all the others?  Mr. Calhoun says:  That this fell power to crush important interests will be used, is exactly as certain as that it can be.