Now, in this democracy founded on the preponderance of numbers, into whose hands am I required to make this surrender? - Theoretically, to the community, that is to say, to a crowd in which an anonymous impulse is the substitute for individual judgment; in which action becomes impersonal because it is collective; in which nobody acknowledges responsibility; in which I am borne along like a grain of sand in a whirlwind; in which all sorts of outrages are condoned beforehand for reasons of state: practically, to the plurality of voices counted by heads, to a majority which, over-excited by the struggle for mastery, will abuse its victory and wrong the minority to which I may belong; to a provisional majority which, sooner or later, will be replaced by another, so that if I am to-day oppressor I am sure of being oppressed to-morrow; still more particularly, to six or seven hundred representatives, among who I am called upon to choose but one. To elect this unique mandatory I have but one vote among ten thousand; and in helping to elect him I am only the ten-thousandth; Ido not even count for a ten-thousandth in electing the others. And it is these six or seven hundred strangers to me to who I give full power to decide for me - note the expression full power - which means unlimited power, not alone over my possessions and life, but, again, over my conscience, with all its powers combined; that is to say, with powers much more extensive than those I confer separately on ten persons in whom I place the most confidence - to my legal adviser who looks after my fortune, to the teacher of my children, to the physician who cares for my health, to the confessor who directs my conscience, to friends who are to serve as executors of my last will and testament, to seconds in a duel who decide on my life, on the was of my blood and who guard my honor. Without reference to the deplorable farce, so often played around the ballot-box, or to the forced and distorted elections which put a contrary interpretation on public sentiment, or to the official lies by which, at this very moment, a few fanatics and madmen, who represent nobody but themselves, assume to represent the nation,[14] measure what degree of confidence I may have, even after honest elections, in mandatories who are thus chosen! Frequently, I have voted for the defeated candidate;in which case I am represented by the other who I did not want for a representative. In voting for the elected candidate, I did it because I knew of no better one, and because his opponent seemed to me worse.
I have only seen him one time out of four and then fleetingly, at odd moment; I scarcely knew more of him than the color of his coat, the tone of his voice, and the way he has of thumping his breast. All Iknow of him is through his "platform," vague and declamatory, through editorials, and through drawing-room, coffee-house, or street gossip.
His title to my confidence is of the flimsiest and shallowest kind;there is nothing to substantiate to me his integrity or competency; he has no diploma, and no one to endorse him as has a private tutor; he has no guarantee from the society to which he belongs, like the physician, the priest or the lawyer. With references as poor as these I should hesitate to recruit him even as a domestic. And all the more because the class from which I am obliged to take him is almost always that of politicians, a suspicious class, especially in countries in which universal suffrage prevails. This class is not recruited among the most independent, the ablest, and the most honest, but among voluble, scheming men, zealous charlatans, who for want of perseverance, having failed in private careers, in situations where one is watched too closely and too nicely weighed in the balance, have selected roles in which the want of scrupulousness and discretion is a force instead of a weakness; to their indelicacy and impudence the doors of a public career stand wide open. - Such is the august personage into whose hands, according to the theory, I am called upon to surrender my will, my will in full; certainly, if self-renunciation were necessary, I should risk less in giving myself up to a king or to an aristocracy, even hereditary; for then would my representatives be at least recommended by their evident rank and their probable competency. - Democracy, in its nature and composition, is a system in which the individual awards to his representatives the least trust and deference; hence, it is the system in which he should entrust them with the least power. Conscience and honor everywhere enjoin a man to retain for himself some portion of his independence; but nowhere is there so little be ceded. If a modern constitution ought to clearly define and limit the domain of the State, it is in respect of contemporary democracy that it ought to be the most restrictive.
III.
Origin and nature of the modern State. - Its functions, rights and limits.
Let us try to define these limits. - After the turmoil of invasions and conquest, at the height of social disintegration, amidst the combats daily occurring between private parties, there arose in every European community a public force , which force, lasting for centuries, still persists to our day. How it was organized, through what early stages of violence it passed, through what accidents and struggles, and into whose hands it is now entrusted, whether temporarily or forever, whatever the laws of its transmission, whether by inheritance or election, is of secondary importance; the main thing is its functions and their mode of operation. It is essentially a mighty sword, drawn from its scabbard and uplifted over the smaller blades around it, with which private individuals once cut each others'
