fidence of which a really free
democracy would not be capable, because such leaders are, or claim to be
in every respect, except their prominence, one of the "people."
Distinction of this kind does not separate a leader from the majority.
It only ties them together more firmly. It is an acceptable assertion of
individual liberty, because it is liberty converted by its exercise into
a kind of equality. In the same way the American democracy most
cordially admired for a long time men, who pursued more energetically
and successfully than their fellows, ordinary business occupations,
because they believed that such familiar expressions of individual
liberty really tended towards social and industrial homogeneity. Herein
they were mistaken; but the supposition was made in good faith, and it
constitutes the basis of the Jeffersonian Democrat's illusion in
reference to his own interest in liberty. He dislikes or ignores
liberty, only when it looks in the direction of moral and intellectual
emancipation. In so far as his influence has prevailed, Americans have
been encouraged to think those thoughts and to perform those acts which
everybody else is thinking and performing.

The effect of a belief in the principle of "equal rights" on freedom is,
however, most clearly shown by its attitude toward Democratic political
organization and policy. A people jealous of their rights are not
sufficiently afraid of special individual efficiency and distinction to
take very many precautions against it. They greet it oftener with
neglect than with positive coercion. Jeffersonian Democracy is, however,
very much afraid of any examples of associated efficiency. Equality of
rights is most in clanger of being violated when the exercise of rights
is associated with power, and any unusual amount of power is usually
derived from the association of a number of individuals for a common
purpose. The most dangerous example of such association is not, however,
a huge corporation or a labor union; it is the state. The state cannot
be bound hand and foot by the law, as can a corporation, because it
necessarily possesses some powers of legislation; and the power to
legislate inevitably escapes the limitation of the principle of equal
rights. The power to legislate implies the power to discriminate; and
the best way consequently for a good democracy of equal rights to avoid
the danger of discrimination will be to organize the state so that its
power for ill