ABSTRACT

It is a curious fact that the States which were the loudest in their advocacy of democracy were the slave States. It will be found, when the enthusiasm for democracy is examined, that it has generally been based upon the assumption of an inferior class to which the blessings of political power were not to be extended. The Greeks, who invented democracy, took slavery for granted. Almost all democrats, until very recent times, assumed that women would remain in a condition of domestic slavery. The delights of democracy, in a word, consist in asserting oneself against one’s superiors, not in making concessions to those who are regarded as one’s inferiors. Since democracy has come to embrace all classes and both sexes, the enthusiasm for it has diminished.