The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1879-06-17

events, We cannot forbear to quote from the
words of Lord Macaulay In d letter TO q citi-
zen Of Pennsylvania, written two years before
the civil war, which is given in the May num-
Der Of the North American Revie,D:
81 have long been convinced
that institutions purely democratic must soon
er or later destroy liberty or civilization, or
both. In Europe, where the population is
dense, the effect Of such institutions would be
almost instantaneous. What happened in
France is IN example. In 1846 q pure DEM
ocracy was established there. During a short
time there was reason to expect a gem
eral spoliation, a national bankruptcy, a new
partition of the soil, q maximum of prices, a
ruinous load of taxation laid on the rich for
the purpose of supporting the poor in idle
ness. Such a system would in twenty years
have made France as poor and barbarous as
the France of the Carlovingians. Happily,
the danger was averted and now there is a
despotism, a silent tribune, an enslaved press.
Liberty is gone, but civilization has been
saved. l have not the smallest doubt that, if
we had a purely democratic government here,
the effect would be the same. Either the
poor would plumber the rich, and civilization
would perish, or order and prosperity would
be saved by a strong military government and
liberty would perish. You may think that
your country enjoys an exemption from these
evils. l will frankly own to you that l am Of
a very different opinion. Your fate l believe
to be certain, though it is deferred by a physi-
cal cause. As long as you have a boundless
extent of fertile and unoccupied land, your
laboring population will be far more at ease
than the laboring population of the Old
World; and while that is the case the Jefier-
son politics may continue to exist without
causing any fatal calamity. But the time will
come when New England will be as thickly
peopled as Old England. Wages will be as
low, and will fluctuate as much with you as
with us. You will have your Manchesters
and B~irminghams, and in those Manchesters
and Birminghams hundreds OF thousands Of
artisans will assuredly be sometimes out Of
work. Then your institutions will be fairly
brought to a test. Distress everywhere makes
the laborer mutinousa nd discontinued, and in
who tell him that it is a monstrous iniquity
that one man should have a million while an
other can not get a full meal.
8. Through such seasons the United States
will have to pass in the course of the next
century, if not in this. How will you pass
through them? l heartily wish you a good
deliverance. But my reason and my wishes
are at war, and l cannot help foreboding the
worst. 1t is quite plain that your government
will never be able to restrain a distressed and
discontented majority. For with you the ma
jority is the government, and has the rich
which are always in the minority, absolutely
at its mercy. The day will come when in the
State of New York a multitude Of people,
none Of whom have more than half a break
fast, Or expects TO have more than half a din
ner, will choose a Legislature. Is it possible
to doubt what sort Of "a Legislature will be
chosen? On one side is a statesman preach
ing patience, respect for vested rights, strict
observance of public faith. On the other is a
demagogue ranting about the tyranny of capi-
talists and usureIs, and asking why anybody
should be permitted to drink champagne and
to ride in a carriage while thousands of hon
est folks are in van of necessaries. Which
Of the two candidates is likely to be preferred
by a workingman who hears his children>cry
for more bread? l seriously apprehend that
you will, in some such season of adversely as
l have described, do things whichwill prevent
prosperity from returning /; that you will act
like people who should in a year of scarcity
devour all the seed corn, and thus make the
next year not of scarcity, but of absolute fam
inc. There will be, l fear, spoliation. The
tress will produce? fresh spoliation. There is
nothing to stop you. Your Constitution is all
sail and no anchor. As l said before, when a
society has entered on it's downward progress,
either civilization or liberty must perish.
Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the
reigns of government with a strong hand or
your republic will be as fearfully plundered
and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth
century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth,
with this difference that the Huns and Van
dals who ravagedNtlt Roman Empire came
from without, and ySus Huns and vandals
will have been engelaere4i within your own
country, by your own institutions"
OF this prophecy and opinion the writer of
the Rerieao article says: sThese are strange
and ominous words-tlie more ominous, in
deed, since a few years have in part tested
their truth and wisdom. In an age where the
events of a whole year of our fathers are often
into the narrow compass Of : month,
of an hour, we have seen the shad-
ow of M~acaulay's prophecy come upon us
with a rapidity that would have astonished
the great historian himself. The sails of the