irtue, even,
with favour, but believes virtue should be voluntary in the man and
decreed by him out of his own soul,--need not be enlarged upon here; but
in its intellectual form, as a persuasion of the mind and will
necessarily precedent to political action, it may be glanced at, since
law thus becomes the embodied persuasion of the community, and is itself
no longer force in the objectionable sense; even minorities, to which it
is adversely applied, and on which it thus operates like tyranny,
recognize the different character it bears to arbitrary power as that
has historically been. But outside of this refinement of thought in the
analysis, the fact that the normal attitude of any cause in a democracy
is that men must be persuaded of its justice and expediency, before it
can impose itself as the will of the State on its citizens, marks a
regard for men as a brotherhood of equals and freemen, of the highest
consequence in State affairs, and with a broad overflow of moral habit
upon the rest of life.

That portion of the community which is not reached by persuasion, and
remains in opposition, must obey the law, and submit, such is the nature
of society; but minorities have acknowledged rights, which are best
preserved, perhaps, by the knowledge that they may be useful to all in
turn. Those rights are more respected under democracy than in any other
form of government. The important question here, however, is not the
conduct of the State toward an opposition in general, which is at one
time composed of one element and at another time of a different element,
and is a shifting, changeable, and temporary thing; but of its attitude
toward the more permanent and inveterate minority existing in class
interests, which are exposed to popular attack. The capital instance is
property, especially in the form of wealth; and here belongs that
objection to the suffrage, which was lightly passed over, to the effect
that, since the social will has no limits, to constitute it by suffrage
is to give the people control of what is not their own. Property,
reenforced by the right of inheritance, is the great source of
inequality in the State and the continuer of it, and gives rise
perpetually to political and social questions, attended with violent
passions; but it is an institution common to civilization, it is very
old, and it is bound up intimately with the motive energies of
individual life, the means of supplying society on a vast scal