ed years; it seems to be a national dish in
considerable favor with the rest of the world--even such ancient nations
as China and Japan want a piece of it.

Now, of course, no form of human government is perfect, or anything like
it, but I should be willing to submit the question to an English traveler
even, whether, on the whole, the people of the United States do not have
as fair a chance in life and feel as little the oppression of government
as any other in the world; whether anywhere the burdens are more lifted
off men's shoulders.

This infidelity to popular government and unbelief in any good results to
come from it are not, unfortunately, confined to the English essayists. I
am not sure but the notion is growing in what is called the intellectual
class, that it is a mistake to intrust the government to the ignorant
many, and that it can only be lodged safely in the hands of the wise few.
We hear the corruptions of the times attributed to universal suffrage.
Yet these corruptions certainly are not peculiar to the United States: It
is also said here, as it is in England, that our diffused and somewhat
superficial education is merely unfitting the mass of men, who must be
laborers, for any useful occupation.

This argument, reduced to plain terms, is simply this: that the mass of
mankind are unfit to decide properly their own political and social
condition; and that for the mass of mankind any but a very limited mental
development is to be deprecated. It would be enough to say of this, that
class government and popular ignorance have been tried for so many ages,
and always with disaster and failure in the end, that I should think
philanthropical historians would be tired of recommending them. But there
is more to be said.

I feel that as a resident on earth, part owner of it for a time,
unavoidably a member of society, I have a right to a voice in determining
what my condition and what my chance in life shall be. I may be ignorant,
I should be a very poor ruler of other people, but I am better capable of
deciding some things that touch me nearly than another is. By what logic
can I say that I should have a part in the conduct of this world and that
my neighbor should not? Who is to decide what degree of intelligence
shall fit a man for a share in the government? How are we to select the
few capable men that are to rule all the rest? As a matter of fact, men
have been rulers who had neither the average intelligen