9 to spread out among and through the broad base—the common people. Awakened into life by its warmth, that base began to indicate by its throes and convulsions, that the despotic weights above were cramping and galling it; until at last came the rending and overturning of the Feudal system, in the assertion that man has the right of governing himself. As an abstract, indefinite dictum this was settled affirmatively in the Revolution of '76. That was work enough for one great convulsion to decide. But an important subsequent question, to which the first, if settled affirmatively, would inevitably give rise, was not determined. This subsequent question lies at the bottom of the present issue. What our fathers began, therefore, we must complete. We broke from the Feudal extreme, and were right in doing so; that is settled—that is what our fathers decided. Now, the question is, how far in our oscillation shall we sweep from that extreme. That is what we are to decide. How far shall men be allowed to govern themselves. For in every great plan to be determined upon, if there is one extreme to be avoided, there is its opposite equally to be avoided. And so in this, if the extreme from which we broke was that condition in which one man governed all at his own will, the -opposite extreme to be avoided by a nation endeavoring to put the indefinite liberty it has gained into practice, is that condition in which every man governs himself, each at his own will. Thus tyranny of one man is at one end of the oscillation ; anarchy of all men is at the other end. In breaking away from the Feudal system, we must stop somewhere short of such liberty of action as amounts to mere anarchy. Where shall we stop, is the undecided question. We are to de- termine how far individual, or neighborhood, or State liberty of action can be allowed to develop and display itself to be consistent with the security, the permanent internal peace and general highest success of all. For if one man, or a few men, have no right to rule all, one man, or a lew men, have no right to ruin all. Each of these is a tyranny of the few over the many ; and one is equally insufferable with the other. We aiv a social structure; trade, and commerce, and the 9 •
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