ABSTRACT
Democracy, understood as the State form of political equality or of popular sovereignty, denotes the constitutional equality of the share of all in the nation, with respect to co-operation in the formation—and that means the election—of the government. It is said, indeed, that leadership and Democracy do not exclude each other, since the mass, even in Democracy, may be influenced and guided by its leaders. The incompatibility of the democratic principle with the maintenance of the higher demands of justice is thereby acknowledged. The Democrats saw that, and therefore opposed the introduction of women's suffrage. For besides their democratic ideal they had also a wholly different ideal in view, the ideal of spiritual freedom. A democratic constitution can guarantee the realisation of just aims is an assertion which, by its doubtfulness, is at any rate secure from the danger of banality.
