more divided
by social or class ambitions and prejudices than they are united by a
tradition of common action and mutual loyalty. But wherever the whole
people are capable of thinking, feeling, and acting as if they
constituted a whole, universal suffrage, even if it costs something in
temporary efficiency, has a tendency to be more salutary and more
formative than a restricted suffrage.

The substantially equal political rights enjoyed by the American people
for so many generations have not proved dangerous to the civil liberties
of the individual and, except to a limited extent, not to his political
liberty. Of course, the American democracy has been absolutely opposed
to the delegation to individuals of official political power, except
under rigid conditions both as to scope and duration; and the particular
friends of liberty have always claimed that such rigid conditions
destroyed individual political independence and freedom. Hamilton, for
instance, was insistent upon the necessity of an upper house consisting
of life-members who would not be dependent on popular favor for their
retention of office. But such proposals have no chance of prevailing in
a sensible democracy. A democracy is justified in refusing to bestow
permanent political power upon individuals, because such permanent
tenure of office relaxes oftener than it stimulates the efficiency of
the favored individual, and makes him attach excessive importance to
mere independence. The official leaders of a democracy should, indeed,
hold their offices under conditions which will enable them to act and
think independently; but independence is really valuable only when the
officeholder has won it from his own followers. Under any other
conditions it is not only peculiarly liable to abuse, but it deprives
the whole people of that ultimate responsibility for their own welfare,
without which democracy is meaningless. A democracy is or should be
constantly delegating an effective share in this responsibility to its
official leaders, but only on condition that the power and
responsibility delegated is partial and is periodically resumed.

The only Americans who hold important official positions for life are
the judges of the Federal courts. Radical democrats have always
protested against this exception, which, nevertheless, can be permitted
without any infringement of democratic principles. The peculiar position
of the Federal judge is symptomatic of the peculiar