CHAPTER XXVII.

EFFECTS AND USES OF INSTITUTIONAL SELF-DEVELOPMENT.

In order fully to appreciate institutional self-government, and not unconsciously to enjoy its blessings, as most of us enjoy the breath of life without reflecting on the organ of respiration and the atmosphere we inhale, it is necessary to present to our minds clearly and repeatedly, as we pass through life and read the history of our race, what effects it produces on the individual, on society, and on whole periods, and how it acts far beyond the limits of the country where it prevails.

The advantages of institutional liberty and organized selfgovernment, diffused over a whole country or state, and penetrating with its quickening power all the branches of government, may be briefly summed up in the following way:

Institutional self-government trains the mind and nourishes the character for a dependence upon law and a habit of liberty, as well as of a law-abiding acknowledgment of authority. It educates for freedom. It cultivates civil dignity in all the partakers, and teaches to respect the rights of others. It has thus a gentlemanly character. It brings home palpable liberty to all, and gives a consciousness of freedom, rights and corresponding obligations such as no other system does. It is the only self-government which is a real government of self, as well as by self, and indeed is the only real self-government, of which all other governments assuming the name of selfgovernment are but semblances, because they are at most the unrestricted rule of accidentally dominating parties, which do not even necessarily consist of the majorities. For it is a truth that what is called a majority in uninstitutional countries, which struggle nevertheless for liberty, is generally a minority, and often even a small minority.

Institutional self-government incarnates, if the expression. may pass, the idea of a free country, and makes it palpable, as the jury is nobly called the country for the prisoner. It seems that as long as institutions exist in full vigor, and no actual revolution takes place, that odious and very stale part of a successful general who uses the wreaths he has gained abroad, as a means of stifling liberty at home, is unknown. Rome had her Syllas and Marius, with their long line of successors, only from the time when the institutional character of Rome had begun to fade. A French writer of ability1 mentions as a fact worthy of note, that the Duke of Wellington never carried his ambition higher than that of a distinguished subject, although Napoleon expected the contrary; and General Scott, in his account of the offer which was made to him in Mexico, to take the reins of that country into his own hands, and rule it with his army, twice mentions the love of his country's institutions, which induced him to decline a ruler's chaplet.2

1 Mr. Lemoisne, Wellington from a French Point of View.

2 General Scott has given an account of this affair in some remarks he made at a public dinner at Sandusky, in the year 1852. The generals of most countries would probably charge the victorious general with niaiseric, for declining so tempting an offer. We delight in the dutiful and plain citizen who did not hesitate, and as the occur. rence possesses historical importance, the entire statement of the general is here given. I have it in my power to say, from the best information, that the following account is "substantially correct," and as authentic as reports of speeches can well be made :

"My friend," said General Scott, "has adverted to the proposition seen floating about in the newspapers. I have nowhere seen it correctly stated that an offer was made to me to remain in that country and govern it. The impression which generally prevails, that the proposition emanated from congress, is an erroneous one. The overture was made to me privately, by men in and out of office, of great influencefive of whom, of enormous wealth, offered to place the bonus of one million of dollars (mentioned below) to my credit in any bank I might name, either in New York or London. On taking possession of the city of Mexico, our system of government and police was established, which, as the inhabitants themselves confessed, gave security-for the first time perfect and absolute security-to person and property. About two-fifths of all the branches of government, including nearly a majo

Institutional self-government is of great importance regarding the obedience of the citizen.

rity of the members of congress and the executive, were quite desirous of having that country annexed to ours. They knew that, upon the ratification of the treaty of peace, nineteen out of twenty of the persons belonging to the American army would stand disbanded, and would be absolutely free from all obligations to remain in the army another moment. It was entirely true of all the new regiments called regulars, of all the volunteers, and eight out of ten of the rank and file of the old regiments. Thirty-three and a third per cent. were to be added to the pay of the American officers and men retained as the nucleus of the Mexican army. When the war was over, the government overwhelmed me with reinforcements, after there was no possibility of fighting another battle. When the war commenced, we had but one-fourth of the force which we needed. The Mexicans knew that the men in my army would be entitled to their discharge. They supposed, if they could obtain my services, I would retain these twelve or fifteen thousand men, and that I could easily obtain one hundred thousand men from home. The hope was, that it would immediately cause annexation. They offered me one million of dollars as a bonus, with a salary of $250,000 per annum, and five responsible individuals to become security. They expected that annexation would be brought about in a few years, or, if not, that I could organize the finances, and straighten the complex affairs of that government. It was understood that nearly a majority of congress was in favor of annexation, and that it was only necessary to publish a pronunciamento to secure the object. We possessed all the fortresses, all the arms of the country, their cannon foundries and powder manufactories, and had possession of their ports of entry, and might easily have held them in our possession if this arrangement had gone into effect. A published pronunciamento would have brought congress right over to us, and, with these fifteen thousand Americans holding the fortresses of the country, all Mexico could not have disturbed us. We might have been there to this day, if it had been necessary. I loved my distant home. I was not in favor of the annexation of Mexico to my own country. Mexico has about eight millions of inhabitants, and out of these eight millions there are not more than one million who are of pure European blood. The Indians and mixed races constitute about seven millions. They are exceedingly inferior to our As a lover of my country, I was opposed to mixing up that race with our own. This was the first objection, on my part, to this proposition. May I plead some little love of home, which gave me the preference for the soil of my own country and its institutions? I came back to die under those institutions, and here I am. I believe I have no more to add in reply."

own.

Obedience is one of the elements of all society, and consequently of the state. Without it political society cannot hold together. This is plain to every one. Yet there exists this great distinction, that there may be obedience, demanded on the sole ground of authority; such is the obedience expected by the parent. The authority of the parent comes from a source not within the circle of the obeyers. And there may be obedience, which has its very source within the circle of the obeyers. Such is the source of obedience due to authority in that society the component members of which live in jural. relations-in one word, in the state. The freeman obeys, not because the government exists before the people and makes them, but because man is a being destined to live in a political state-because he must have laws and a government. It is his privilege, and distinguishes him from the brute creation. Yet, the government existing as a consequence of the jural nature of society and of man, it is unworthy of a freeman to obey any individual as individual, to follow his commands. merely because issued by him, while the citizen of a free country acknowledges it as a prerogative to obey laws.

The obedience of a loyal free citizen is an act of self-directing compliance with a rule of action; and it becomes a triumph of reason and freedom when self-directing obedience is thus paid to laws which the obeyer considers erroneous, yet knows to be the laws of the land, rules of action legitimately prescribed by a body of which he forms a constituent part. This noble attribute of man is never politically developed except by institutions. To obey institutions of self-government has nothing galling in it on the ground of submission. We do not obey a person whom as individual we know to be no more than ourselves, but we obey the institution of which we know ourselves to be as integral a part as the superior, clothed with authority. The religious duty of obeying for conscience sake is not excluded from this obedience. On the contrary, it forms an important element. The term "law-abiding people" could never have become so favorite an expression with us, and would not be inscribed even on the banners of some who defy the law,

were we not an institutional people under the authority of institutional self-government.

Rulers over thirty millions of people, like our presidents, could not be easily changed, without shock or convulsion, were not the thirty millions trained by institutional self-government, were not the ousted minority conscious that, in the spontaneous act of submitting, they obey an institution of which they form as important a portion as the ruling party, and did not their own obedience foreshadow the obedience which the others must yield, when their turn comes. The "principle of authority" has become for the time being as popular, at least as often repeated a phrase, in France, as "abiding by the law" is with. us. Pamphlets are written on it, the journals descant on it. If the object of these writings is to prove that there must be authority where there is society, it would prove that the writers must consider the opinion of some communists, that all government is to be done away with, far more serious and disseminated than people at a distance can believe, to whom such absurdity appears as a mere paper and opposition fanaticism. If, however, all those discourses are intended to establish the principle of authority in politics as an independent principle, such as we find it in the church, because its institutor gave divine commandments, it would only show that the ruling party plainly desires absolutism.1

1 There is no doubt in my mind that the institutional government is the real school of civil obedience. Whether the following remarkable passage, which I found in Baron Müffling's Memoirs of the Campaign of 1813 and 1814, edited by Col. Philip Yorke, London, 1853, must be in part explained by the general self-government of England, and by the fact that every English gentleman is accustomed to political self-government and consequently to obedience, I shall not decide, but I strongly incline to believe that we must do so. General Müffling was the Prussian officer in the staff of the Duke of Wellington, who served as an official link between the two armies. He was, therefore, in constant personal intercourse with the English commander, and had the very best opportunity of observing that which he reports.

"I observed," says General Müffling, "that the duke exercised far greater power in the army he commanded than Prince Blücher in the one