However, if in
general it be not easy to determine concerning the lawfulness of such
devious proceedings, which must be ever on the edge of crimes, it is far
from difficult to foresee the perilous consequences of the resuscitation
of such a power in the people. The practical consequences of any
political tenet go a great way in deciding upon its value. Political
problems do not primarily concern truth or falsehood. They relate to
good or evil. What in the result is likely to produce evil is
politically false; that which is productive of good, politically true.
Believing it, therefore, a question at least arduous in the theory, and
in the practice very critical, it would become us to ascertain as well
as we can what form it is that our incantations are about to call up
from darkness and the sleep of ages. When the supreme authority of the
people is in question, before we attempt to extend or to confine it, we
ought to fix in our minds, with some degree of distinctness, an idea of
what it is we mean, when we say, the PEOPLE.
In a state of _rude_ Nature there is no such thing as a people.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243