f, in order to prove that it was
false. If true, he contended it was true altogether; and that it must be
taken, if taken as an axiom at all, with its largest consequences. Now,
if a majority has a right to rule, in this arbitrary manner, it has a
right to set its dogmas above the commandments, and to legalize theft,
murder, adultery, and all the other sins denounced in the twentieth
chapter of Exodus. This was a poser to the demagogue, but he made an
effort to get rid of it, by excepting the laws of God, which he allowed
that even majorities were bound to respect. Thereupon, the governor
replied that the laws of God were nothing but the great principles which
ought to govern human conduct, and that his concession was an avowal
that there was a power to which majorities should defer. Now, this was
just as true of minorities as it was of majorities, and the amount of it
all was that men, in establishing governments, merely set up a standard
of principles which they pledged themselves to respect; and that, even
in the most democratical communities, all that majorities could legally
effect was to decide certain minor questions which, being necessarily
referred to some tribunal for decision, was of preference referred to
them. If there was a power superior to the will of the majority, in the
management of human affairs, then majorities were not supreme; and it
behooved the citizen to regard the last as only what they really are,
and what they were probably designed to be--tribunals subject to the
control of certain just principles.

Constitutions, or the fundamental law, the governor went on to say, were
meant to be the expression of those just and general principles which
should control human society, and as such should prevail over
majorities. Constitutions were expressly intended to defend the rights
of minorities; since without them, each question, or interest, might be
settled by the majority, as it arose. It was but a truism to say that
the oppression of the majority was the worst sort of oppression; since
the parties injured not only endured the burthen imposed by many, but
were cut off from the sympathy of their kind, which can alleviate much
suffering, by the inherent character of the tyranny.

There was a great deal of good sense, and much truth in what the
governor wrote, on this occasion; but of what avail could it prove with
the ignorant and short-sighted, who put more trust in one honeyed phrase
of the journa