" Under this sort
of democracy, based on popular, or rather individual sovereignty,
expressed by politicians when they call the electoral people,
half seriously, half mockingly, "the sovereigns," there obviously
can be no state, no social rights or civil authority; there can
be only a voluntary association, league, alliance, or
confederation, in which individuals may freely act together as
long as they find it pleasant, convenient, or useful, but from
which they may separate or secede whenever they find it for their
interest or their pleasure to do so. State sovereignty and
secession are based on the same democratic principle applied to
the several States of the Union instead of individuals.
The tendency to this sort of democracy has been strong in large
sections of the American people from the first, and has been
greatly strengthened by the general acceptance of the theory that
government originates in compact. The full realization of this
tendency, which, happily, is impracticable save in theory, would
be to render every man independent alike of every other man and
of society, with full right and power to make his own will
prevail. This tendency was strongest in the slaveholding States,
and especially, in those States, in the slaveholding class, the
American imitation of the feudal nobility of mediaeval Europe;
and on this side the war just ended was, in its most general
expression, a war in defence of personal democracy or the
sovereignty of the people individually, against the humanitarian
democracy, represented by the abolitionists, and the territorial
democracy, represented by the Government.
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