racy may mean something more than a
theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean
anything less.

If, however, democracy does not mean anything less than popular
Sovereignty, it assuredly does mean something more. It must at least
mean an expression of the Sovereign will, which will not contradict and
destroy the continuous existence of its own Sovereign power. Several
times during the political history of France in the nineteenth century,
the popular will has expressed itself in a manner adverse to popular
political institutions. Assemblies have been elected by universal
suffrage, whose tendencies have been reactionary and undemocratic, and
who have been supported in this reactionary policy by an effective
public opinion. Or the French people have by means of a plebiscite
delegated their Sovereign power to an Imperial dictator, whose whole
political system was based on a deep suspicion of the source of his own
authority. A particular group of political institutions or course of
political action may, then, be representative of the popular will, and
yet may be undemocratic. Popular Sovereignty is self-contradictory,
unless it is expressed in a manner favorable to its own perpetuity and
integrity.

The assertion of the doctrine of popular Sovereignty is, consequently,
rather the beginning than the end of democracy. There can be no
democracy where the people do not rule; but government by the people is
not necessarily democratic. The popular will must in a democratic state
be expressed somehow in the interest of democracy itself; and we have
not traveled very far towards a satisfactory conception of democracy
until this democratic purpose has received some definition. In what way
must a democratic state behave in order to contribute to its own
integrity?

The ordinary American answer to this question is contained in the
assertion of Lincoln, that our government is "dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal." Lincoln's phrasing of the
principle was due to the fact that the obnoxious and undemocratic system
of negro slavery was uppermost in his mind when he made his Gettysburg
address; but he meant by his assertion of the principle of equality
substantially what is meant to-day by the principle of "equal rights for
all and special privileges for none." Government by the people has its
natural and logical complement in government for the people. Every state
with a legal framewor