The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Errata Vol. I
• Part I: Considerations Applicable to Democratic Government In General
• Chapter I: Introductory
• Chapter II: The Method of Enquiry
• Chapter III: The Definition of Democracy
• Chapter IV: The Historical Evolution of Democracy
• Chapter V: The Theoretical Foundations of Democracy
• Chapter VI: Liberty
• Chapter VII: Equality
• Chapter VIII: Democracy and Education
• Chapter IX: Democracy and Religion
• Chapter X: The Press In a Democracy
• Chapter XI: Party
• Chapter XII: Local Self-government
• Chapter XIII: Traditions Moribus Antiquis Stat Res Romana Virisque
• Chapter XIV: The People
• Chapter XV: Public Opinion
• Part II: Some Democracies In Their Working
• Chapter XVI: The Republics of Antiquity
• Chapter XVII: The Republics of Spanish America
• France
• Chapter XVIII: Land and History
• Chapter XIX: The Frame of Government: President and Senate
• Chapter XX: The Chamber of Deputies
• Chapter XXI: Cabinet Ministers and Local Party Organizations
• Chapter XXII: Judicial and Civil Administration
• Chapter XXIII: Local Government
• Chapter XXIV: Public Opinion
• Chapter XXV: The Tone of Public Life
• Chapter XXVI: What Democracy Has Done For France
• Switzerland
• Chapter XXVII: The People and Their History
• Chapter XXVIII: Political Institutions
• Chapter XXIX: Direct Legislation By the People: Referendum and Initiative
• Chapter XXX: Political Parties
• Chapter XXXI: Public Opinion
• Chapter XXXII: Concluding Reflections On Swiss Political Institutions
• Canada 1
• Chapter XXXII: The Country and the Frame of Government
• Chapter XXXIV: The People and the Parties
• Chapter XXXV: Working of the Government
• Chapter XXXVI: The Action of Public Opinion
• Chapter XXXVII: General Review of Canadian Politics

CHAPTER III

the definition of democracy

The word Democracy has been used ever since the time of Herodotus1 to denote that form of government in which the ruling power of a State is legally vested, not in any particular class or classes, but in the members of the community as a whole. This means, in communities which act by voting, that rule belongs to the majority, as no other method has been found for determining peaceably and legally what is to be deemed the will of a community which is not unanimous. Usage has made this the accepted sense of the term, and usage is the safest guide in the employment of words.

Democracy, as the rule of the Many, was by the Greeks opposed to Monarchy, which is the rule of One, and to Oligarchy, which is the rule of the Few, i.e. of a class privileged either by birth or by property. Thus it came to be taken as denoting in practice that form of government in which the poorer class, always the more numerous, did in fact rule; and the term Demos was often used to describe not the whole people but that particular class as distinguished from the wealthier and much smaller class. Moderns sometimes also use it thus to describe what we call “the masses “in contradistinction to “the classes.” But it is better to employ the word as meaning neither more nor less than the Rule of the Majority, the “classes and masses “of the whole people being taken together.

So far there is little disagreement as to the sense of the word. But when we come to apply this, or indeed any broad and simple definition, to concrete cases, many questions arise. What is meant by the term “political community “? Does it include all the inhabitants of a given area or those only who possess full civic rights, the so-called “qualified citizens”? Can a community such as South Carolina, or the Transvaal, in which the majority of the inhabitants, because not of the white race, are excluded from the electoral suffrage, be deemed a democracy in respect of its vesting political power in the majority of qualified citizens, the “qualified “being all or nearly all white? Is the name to be applied equally to Portugal and Belgium, in which women do not vote, and to Norway and Germany, in which they do? Could anybody deny it to France merely because she does not grant the suffrage to women? Or if the electoral suffrage, instead of being possessed by all the adult, or adult male, citizens, is restricted to those who can read and write, or to those who possess some amount of property, or pay some direct tax, however small, does that community thereby cease to be a democracy?

So again, what difference is made by such limitations on the power of the majority as a Constitution may impose? There are communities in which, though universal suffrage prevails, the power of the voters is fettered in its action by the rights reserved to a king or to a non-elective Upper House. Such was the German Empire, such was the Austrian Monarchy, such are some of the monarchies that still remain in Europe. Even in Britain and in Canada, a certain, though now very slender, measure of authority has been left to Second Chambers. In all the last mentioned cases must we not consider not only who possess the right of voting, but how far that right carries with it a full control of the machinery of government? Was Germany, for instance, a democracy in 1913 because the Reichstag was elected by manhood suffrage?

Another class of cases presents another difficulty. There are countries in which the Constitution has a popular quality in respect of its form, but in which the mass of the people do not in fact exercise the powers they possess on paper. This may be because they are too ignorant or too indifferent to vote, or because actual supremacy belongs to the man or group in control of the government through a control of the army. Such are most of the so-called republics of Central and South America. Such have been, at particular moments, some of the new kingdoms of South-Eastern Europe, where the bulk of the population has not yet learnt how to exercise the political rights which the Constitution gives. Bulgaria and Greece were nominally democratic in 1915, hut the king of the former carried the people into the Great War, as the ally of Germany, against their wish, and the king of the latter would have succeeded in doing the same thing but for the fact that the Allied fleets had Athens under their guns.

All these things make a difference to the truly popular character of a government. It is the facts that matter, not the name. People useds confound — some persons in some countries still confound — a Republic with a Democracy, and suppose that a government in which one person is the titular and permanent head of the State cannot he a government by the people. It ought not to he necessary nowadays to point out that there are plenty of republics which are not democracies, and some monarchies, like those of Britain and Norway, which are. I might multiply instances, but it is not worth while. Why spend time on what is a question of words? No one has propounded a formula which will cover every case, because there are governments which are “on the line,” too popular to he called oligarchies, and scarcely popular enough to be called democracies. But though we cannot define either Oligarchy or Democracy, we can usually know either the one or the other when we see it. Where the will of the whole people prevails in all important matters, even if it has some retarding influences to overcome, or is legally required to act for some purposes in some specially provided manner, that may be called a Democracy. In this book I use the word in its old and strict sense, as denoting a government in which the will of the majority of qualified citizens rules, taking the qualified citizens to constitute the great bulk of the inhabitants, say, roughly, at least three-fourths, so that the physical force of the citizens coincides (broadly speaking) with their voting power. Using this test, we may apply the name to the United Kingdom and the British self-governing Dominions,1 to France, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Greece, the United States, Argentina, and possibly Chile and Uruguay. Of some of the newer European States it is too soon to speak, and whatever we may call the republics of Central America and the Caribbean Sea, they are not democracies.

Although the words “democracy “and “democratic “denote nothing more than a particular form of government, they have, particularly in the United States, Canada, and Australia, acquired attractive associations of a social and indeed almost of a moral character. The adjective is used to describe a person of a simple and friendly spirit and genial manners, “a good mixer,” one who, whatever his wealth or status, makes no assumption of superiority, and carefully keeps himself on the level of his poorer or less eminent neighbours. I have heard a monarch described as “a democratic king.” 1 Democracy is supposed to be the product and the guardian both of Equality and of Liberty, being so consecrated by its relationship to both these precious possessions as to be almost above criticism. Historically no doubt the three have been intimately connected, yet they are separable in theory and have sometimes been separated in practice, as will appear from the two following chapters.

[1]Book VI., ch. 43.

[1]Subject, as respects the Union of South Africa and its component States, to the remark made above regarding persons of colour.

[1]I have read American writers who hold that the ownership of “public utilities “is what makes a community democratic.