The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-06-13
evening State SoilrnaI.
FRIDAY EVENING. JUNE -. 1873,
sociolosy--lTerbert Spencer ON Polit-
~ - icaI Bias. ie lsafN


sociolosy--IIerbert spencer ON Polit-
ls9 - f. Teal Bias. e l
The eleventh paper of Herbert Spencer's
Study of Sociology, in The Contemporary
Review Cor May is devoted to Political Bias,
and lisa remarkably thoughtful contribution.
The following allusion to our own country
may prove interesting, coming, as it does,
from 50 thoughtfula writer as Mr.. Spen-
Ger. He has been speaking Of forms Of gov
eminent in connection with national char
acter, and has stated that new Democracy
is but old Despotism differently spelt!
''For, less strikingly, and in other ways,
still with sufficient clearness, this same
truth is displayed in the United States. /
do not refer only to such extreme
illustrations of it as were at one time
furnished in California where, along with
that complete political freedom which some
suppose to be the sole requisite for social
welfare, most men lived in perpetual fear
for their lives, while others prided them
selves on the notches which marked, on
the hits of their pistols, the number Of
men they had killed. Nor will / dwell on
the state of society existing under repub-
lican forms in the west, where white
woman is burnt to death for marrying a
negro, where secret gangs murder in the
the night men whose conduct they
dislike where uobs stop trains
to lynch offending persons con-
tanned in them; where the carrying
of revolver is matter of course; where
Judges are intmated and the execution Of
Justice often impracticable. do but name
these as extreme instances Of the way in
which under institutions that nominally
secure men from oppression, they may be
intolerably oppressed, unable to utter their
opinions and TO conduct their private lives
as they please. Without going so far, we
may find in the eastern states proof enough
that the forms of liberty and the reality
of liberty are not necessarily commensu-
rate. A state of things under which
men administer justice in their own cases,
are applauded for SO doing, and mostly
acquitted if tried, is state of things which
has, in so far, refrigerated towards less
civilized state !; for one Of the cardinal traits
of political progress is the gradual disap-
pearance Of personal retaliation, and the
increasing supremacy Of a ruling power
which settles the differences between indi-
yiduals and Furnishes aggressors. And in
proportion as this ruling power is enfee-
bled the security of individuals is lessened.
That security, lessened in this general way,
is lessened in more special ways, we see in
the bribery of judges, in the financial
frauds by which many are robbed
without possibility of remedy, in the cor
ruptness Of New York administration,
which, taxing SO heavily, does SO little. 1
And, under another aspect, we see the like
in the doings Of legislative bodles-in the
unfair advantages which some individuals
gain over others by Lobbying" in Credit
Mobilier briberies, and the like. While the
outside form Of free government remains,
there has grown up within it areality which
makes government not free. The body Of
professional politicians, entering public life
to get incomes, organizing their forces and
developing their tactics, have, in fact, come
to be ruling class quite different from that
which the constitution intended to secure;
and class having interests by no means
identical with public interests. This wor-
ship Of the appliances to liberty in place Of
liberty itself, need continually exposing.
There is no intrinsic virtue in votes. The
possession of representatives is not itself a
benefit. These are but means to an end
and the end is maintenance Of those con- /
ditions under which each citizen may carry
on his life without further hindrances from
other citizens than are involved by their
equal caims--the securing to each citizen
; ali such beneficial results of his activities
as his activities naturally bring. The
worth of the means is measured by the de-
gree in which this end is achieved. "A citi-
zen nominally having complete means and
but partially securing the end, is less free
than another who uses incomplete means to
d.