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Updated: May 19, 2025
It is tantamount to proclaiming that there cannot be too much aristocracy. That is an opinion which democracy cannot endure. Considered as a promise of future devotion, politeness is equally anti-democratic. The citizen owes no devotion to any person, he owes it only to the community.
Even now, no doubt, these men fought with most pleasure under the banner of freedom; but, strictly speaking, they were neither of democratic nor of anti-democratic views; they inscribed on the in itself indispensable banner, as it happened, now the name of the people, anon that of the senate or that of a party-chief; Clodius for instance fought or professed to fight in succession for the ruling democracy, for the senate, and for Crassus.
Minghetti spoke of Sir Henry Maine's book on "Free Government" with much praise; in spite of its anti-democratic tendencies, it had evidently raised his opinion of the American Constitution. He also praised American scientific progress.
My only quarrel with him here if it was a quarrel was that in his anxiety to support what he believed to be the cause of the people he was in effect anti-democratic. On this point I was wont to chaff him, for there was no man with whom you could more easily argue without hurting his feelings.
The more revolutionary view is that capitalism in Germany, with the irresponsible Kaiser, the unequal Reichstag election districts, the anti-democratic suffrage law and constitution in Prussia, is impregnable but that the progressive capitalists may themselves force the reactionaries to take certain steps toward democracy in order to check absolutism, bureaucracy, church influence, agrarian legislation, and certain excesses of militarism.
Nothing was further from the thoughts of that wise and patriotic hero than ideas of destruction. "I entreat you, Don Carlos, not to give way to your anti-democratic prejudices," he cried, in a burst of condescending effusion.
Where did the anti-republican, anti-democratic passion for swelling names come from, and how long has it been naturalized among us? A striking instance of it occurred at about the end of the last century. It was at that time there appeared among us one of the most original and singular personages to whom America has given birth.
In the separation session elections his party was outvoted by the squatting or anti-democratic element; but none the less the former in Geelong deputed the doctor to accompany the elected members, in order to keep a watch upon their doings.
And he would have been supported by his political friends, democrats being quite as ready to support tyranny, and to punish independent officials, as ever were aristocrats or monarchists. The manner in which Congress is constituted ought alone to suffice to show that our polity is thoroughly anti-democratic.
The Senate is therefore an extremely feeble anti-democratic remedy, and if it were intended as a check on democracy, it has not been a striking success.
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