substantially what is meant to-day by the principle of “equal rights for all and special privileges for none.”  Government by the people has its natural and logical complement in government for the people.  Every state with a legal framework must grant certain rights to individuals; and every state, in so far as it is efficient, must guarantee to the individual that his rights, as legally defined, are secure.  But an essentially democratic state consists in the circumstance that all citizens enjoy these rights equally.  If any citizen or any group of citizens enjoys by virtue of the law any advantage over their fellow-citizens, then the most sacred principle of democracy is violated.  On the other hand, a community in which no man or no group of men are granted by law any advantage over their fellow-citizens is the type of the perfect and fruitful democratic state.  Society is organized politically for the benefit of all the people.  Such an organization may permit radical differences among individuals in the opportunities and possessions they actually enjoy; but no man would be able to impute his own success or failure to the legal framework of society.  Every citizen would be getting a “Square Deal.”

Such is the idea of the democratic state, which the majority of good Americans believe to be entirely satisfactory.  It should endure indefinitely, because it seeks to satisfy every interest essential to associated life.  The interest of the individual is protected, because of the liberties he securely enjoys.  The general social interest is equally well protected, because the liberties enjoyed by one or by a few are enjoyed by all.  Thus the individual and the social interests are automatically harmonized.  The virile democrat in pursuing his own interest “under the law” is contributing effectively to the interest of society, while the social interest consists precisely in the promotion of these individual interests, in so far as they can be equally exercised.  The divergent demands of the individual and the social interest can be reconciled by grafting the principle of equality on the thrifty tree of individual rights, and the ripe fruit thereof can be gathered merely by shaking the tree.

It must be immediately admitted, also, that the principle of equal rights, like the principle of ultimate popular political responsibility is the expression of an essential aspect of democracy.  There is no room for permanent legal privileges in a democratic state.  Such privileges may be and frequently are defended on many excellent grounds.  They may unquestionably contribute for a time to social and economic efficiency and to individual independence.  But whatever advantage may be derived from such permanent discriminations must be abandoned by a democracy.  It cannot afford to give any one class of its citizens a permanent advantage or to others a permanent grievance.  It ceases to be a democracy, just as soon as any permanent privileges are conferred by its institutions or its laws; and this equality of right and absence of permanent privilege is the expression of a fundamental social interest.