eisurely class, there is an aping of English and German habits of
thought and modes of life which are utterly repugnant to republican
institutions. While Europe should seem to be almost ready to discard
baby-house distinctions and the embroidered rags of aristocracy,
America, strange to say, appears willing to put on and wear the
disreputable finery. We are becoming disagreeably familiar with what
Mr. Gladstone characterizes in an inspired phrase, as the _classes_ in
contrast with the _masses_.

This interchange of national customs comes inevitably from the
facilitated intercourse of our day, from the intimacy begotten by
inter-marriage, by commerce, by travel. But it is sad if we are to
borrow more than we lend, and if the balance of trade is to be
perpetually against us. We must find or invent a remedy if
republicanism is to survive. The widespread alarm felt among our
humbler citizens shows how real the danger is. Take, for instance, the
growing distrust of universal suffrage manifested by our cultivated
classes. Certain journals, the organs of wealth and monopoly;
social-science conventions, composed of pert specialists poisoned by
caste feeling; even pulpits, which should be the guardians and
exponents of democracy,--cautiously, tentatively, but as positively as
they dare, discuss the propriety of restraining the ballot, and sigh
for a property or an educational qualification.

Now, if there be one feature of American republicanism which is
supremely characteristic, it is universal suffrage. This
interpenetrates our political system as veins run through a block of
marble. The patriots and sages who framed our Constitution grouted it
with this principle. They believed and declared that it was safe to
trust men with self-government. They recognized, of course, the fact
that in every community there would be an element of ignorance and
inefficiency. But by putting the ballot in every hand they
deliberately took bonds of wealth and culture to enlighten this
ignorance and train this inefficiency. They enlisted the self-interest
of the Commonwealth on the side of popular education. They said,
practically, to the well-to-do and to those who had interests at
stake: See to it, if you would save your possessions, that you share
them with the poorest and the lowest, at least to the extent of
lifting them to the level of self-control and self-respect. In fact,
this is the meaning of our free schools, of trial by jury, and of