I know it is said that these are only vague and sentimental notions of progress—­notions of a “salvation by machinery.”  Let us pass to something that may be less vague, even if it be more sentimental.  For a hundred years we have reckoned it progress, that the people were taking part in government.  We have had a good deal of faith in the proposition put forth at Philadelphia a century ago, that men are, in effect, equal in political rights.  Out of this simple proposition springs logically the extension of suffrage, and a universal education, in order that this important function of a government by the people may be exercised intelligently.

Now we are told by the most accomplished English essayists that this is a mistake, that it is change, but no progress.  Indeed, there are philosophers in America who think so.  At least I infer so from the fact that Mr. Froude fathers one of his definitions of our condition upon an American.  When a block of printer’s type is by accident broken up and disintegrated, it falls into what is called “pi.”  The “pi,” a mere chaos, is afterwards sorted and distributed, preparatory to being built up into fresh combinations.  “A distinguished American friend,” says Mr. Froude, “describes Democracy as making pi.”  It is so witty a sarcasm that I almost think Mr. Froude manufactured it himself.  Well, we have been making this “pi” for a hundred years; it seems to be a national dish in considerable favor with the rest of the world—­even such ancient nations as China and Japan want a piece of it.

Now, of course, no form of human government is perfect, or anything like it, but I should be willing to submit the question to an English traveler even, whether, on the whole, the people of the United States do not have as fair a chance in life and feel as little the oppression of government as any other in the world; whether anywhere the burdens are more lifted off men’s shoulders.

This infidelity to popular government and unbelief in any good results to come from it are not, unfortunately, confined to the English essayists.  I am not sure but the notion is growing in what is called the intellectual class, that it is a mistake to intrust the government to the ignorant many, and that it can only be lodged safely in the hands of the wise few.  We hear the corruptions of the times attributed to universal suffrage.  Yet these corruptions certainly are not peculiar to the United States:  It is also said here, as it is in England, that our diffused and somewhat superficial education is merely unfitting the mass of men, who must be laborers, for any useful occupation.

This argument, reduced to plain terms, is simply this:  that the mass of mankind are unfit to decide properly their own political and social condition; and that for the mass of mankind any but a very limited mental development is to be deprecated.  It would be enough to say of this, that class government and popular ignorance have been tried for so many ages, and always with disaster and failure in the end, that I should think philanthropical historians would be tired of recommending them.  But there is more to be said.