My object in this chapter is to inquire what effect has been produced upon the morals of the American people by this acknowledged dominion of the majority?
1st. As to the mass of the people themselves. It is clear, if the people not only legislate, but, when in a state of irritation or excitement, they defy even legislation, that they are not to be compared to _restricted_ sovereigns, but to despots, whose will and caprice are law. The vices of the court of a despot are, therefore, practised upon the people; for the people become as it were the court, to whom those in authority, or those who would be in authority, submissively bend the knee. A despot is not likely ever to hear the truth, for moral courage fails where there is no law to protect it, and where honest advice may be rewarded by summary punishment. The people, therefore, like the despot, are never told the truth; on the contrary, they receive and expect the most abject submission from their courtiers, to wit, those in office, or expectants.
Now, the President of the United States may be considered the Prime Minister of an enlightened public, who govern themselves, and his communication with them is in his annual message.
Let us examine what Mr Van Buren says in his last message.
First, he humbly acknowledges their power.
"A national bank," he tells them, "would impair the rightful _supremacy_ of the popular _will_."
And this he follows up with that most delicate species of flattery, that of praising them for the very virtue which they are most deficient in; telling them that they are "a people to whom the _truth_, however unpromising, can _always_ be told with _safety_."
At the very time when they were defying all law and all government, he says, "It was reserved for the American Union to test the advantage of a government entirely dependent on the continual exercise of the popular will, and our experience has shewn, that it is as _beneficent_ in _practice_, as well as it is just in _theory_."
At the very time that nearly the whole Union were assisting the insurrection in Canada with men and money, he tells them "that temptations to interfere in the intestine commotions of neighbouring countries have been thus far successfully resisted."