ABSTRACT
Two of the historical watchwords of democracy exclude one another. Where there is political liberty, there can be no equality. The French threw away universal suffrage after the Reign of Terror; it was twice revived in France that the Napoleonic tyranny might be founded on it. This observation, that "a human society, and particularly a modern society is a vast and complicated thing", is in fact the very proposition which Burke enforced. The British Constitution is unique and remarkable. The imitations have not been generally happy. The only evidence worth mentioning for the duration of popular government is to be found in the success of the British Constitution during two centuries under special conditions, and in the success of the American Constitution during one century under conditions still more peculiar and more unlikely to recur. The public powers are carefully defined: the mode in which they are to be exercised is fixed.
