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James Bryce (1838-1922). Democracy and Civic Duty. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays

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James Bryce (1838-1922). Democracy and Civic Duty. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record David J. Brewer, et al., eds.  The World’s Best Essays.  1900. Democracy and Civic Duty
By James Bryce (1838–1922) From the Contemporary Review, 1893.

SOME years ago in a lonely mountain valley of the canton of Glarus in Switzerland, I was conversing with a peasant landowner about the Landesgemeinde (popular primary assembly) which regulates the affairs of the canton. After he had given me some details, I asked him whether it was not the fact that all citizens had the right of attending and voting in this assembly. “It is not so much their Right,” he replied, “as their Duty.”

1   This is the spirit by which free governments live. One would like to see more of it here in London, where parliamentary and county council elections often bring little more than half of the voters to the polls. One would like to see more of it in the United States, where in many places a large proportion of the voters take no trouble to inform themselves as to the merits of the candidates or the political issues submitted to them, but vote blindly at the bidding of their party organizations.

2   This little anecdote of my Swiss friend illustrates what I mean in speaking of patriotism as the basis of the sense of civic duty. If people learn to love their country, if their vision is raised beyond the petty circle of their personal and family interests to appreciate the true width and splendor of national life, as a thing which not only embraces all of us who are now living here and grouped in a great body seeking common ends, but reaches back into the immemorial past and forward into the mysterious future, it elevates the conception of citizenship, it fills the sheath of empty words with a keen-edged sword, it helps men to rise above mere party views and to feel their exercise of voting power to be a solemn trust.  “Love thou thy land with love far brought   From out the storied Past and used   Within the Present, but transfused Through future time by power of thought.”

3   Into these feelings even the poorest citizen may now enter. Our British institutions have been widened to admit him: the practice of using the powers intrusted to him ought to form in him not only knowledge, but the sense of duty itself. So, at any rate, we have all hoped; so the more sanguine have predicted. And as this feeling grows under the influence of free institutions, it becomes itself a further means of developing new and possibly better institutions, such as the needs of the time may demand. Let me take an illustration from a question which has been much discussed of late, but still remains in what may be called a fluid condition. The masses of the British people in these isles, and probably to a larger extent also the masses of the people in our colonies, are still imperfectly familiar with the idea of a great English-speaking race over the world, and of all which the existence of that race imports. Till we have created more of an imperial spirit—by which I do not mean a spirit of vainglory or aggression or defiance—far from it—but a spirit of pride and joy in the extension of our language, our literature, our laws, our commerce over the vast spaces of the earth and the furthest islands of the sea, with a sense of the splendid opportunities and solemn responsibilities which that extension carries with it—till we and our colonies have more of such an imperial spirit, hardly shall we be able to create the institutions that will ere long be needed if all these scattered segments of the British people are to be held together in one enduring fabric. But if sentiment ripens quickly, and we find ourselves able to create those institutions, they will themselves develop and foster and strengthen the imperial spirit whereof I have spoken, and make it, as we trust, since it will rest even more upon moral than upon material bonds, a guarantee as well of peace as of freedom among the English-speaking races of the world….

4   It is common to talk of ignorance as the chief peril of democracies. That it is a peril no one denies, and we are all, I hope, agreed that it has become more than ever the duty of the State to insist not only on a more penetrating and stimulative instruction, but upon the inclusion of the elements of constitutional knowledge among the subjects to be taught in the higher standards of our schools.

5   Democracy has, however, another foe not less pernicious. This is indolence. Indifference to public affairs shows itself not merely in a neglect to study them and fit oneself to give a judicious vote, but in the apathy which does not care to give a vote when the time arrives. It is a serious evil already in some countries, serious in London, very serious in Italy, serious enough in the United States, not indeed at presidential, but at city and other local elections, for some reformer to have proposed to punish with a fine the citizen who neglects to vote, as in some old Greek city the law proclaimed penalties against the citizen who in a sedition stood aloof, taking neither one side nor the other. For, unhappily, it is the respectable, well-meaning, easy-oing citizen, as well as the merely ignorant citizen, who is apt to be listless. Those who have their private ends to serve, their axes to grind and logs to roll, are not indolent. Private interest spurs them on; and if the so-called “good citizen,” who has no desire or aim except that good government which benefits him no more than every one else, does not bestir himself, the public funds may become the plunder, and the public interests the sport of unscrupulous adventurers. Of such evils which have befallen some great communities, there are happily no present signs among ourselves; though it is much to be wished that here in Britain we could secure both at municipal and parliamentary elections a much heavier vote than is usually cast. More common in all classes is that other kind of indolence which bestows so little time and thought upon current events and political questions, that it does not try to master their real significance, to extend its knowledge, and to base its opinion upon solid grounds. We need, all of us, in all classes and ranks of society, the rich and educated perhaps even more than others, because they are looked up to for guidance by their poorer or less educated neighbors, to be reminded that as Democracy—into which we have plunged so suddenly that some hardly yet realize what Democracy means—is, of all forms of government, that which needs the largest measure of intelligence and public spirit, so of all democracies ours is that which has been content to surround itself with the fewest checks and safeguards. The venerable Throne remains, and serves to conceal the greatness of the transformation that these twenty-five years have worked. But which among the institutions of the country could withstand any general demand proceeding from the masses of the people, or even delay the accomplishment of any purpose on which they were ardently set, seeing that they possess in the popular house a weapon whose vote, given however hastily, can effect the most revolutionary change? I do not say this to alarm any timid mind, believing that our British masses are not set upon such changes, and are still disposed to listen to the voices of those whom they respect, to whatever class such persons may belong. The mutual good-will of classes is still among the most hopeful features in our political condition. But it is well to remember that it is upon the wisdom, good sense, and self-restraint of the masses of the people that this vast and splendid edifice of British power and prosperity rests, and to feel that everything we can do to bring political knowledge and judgment within their reach is now more than ever called for. Let me express this trust in the majestic words addressed to the head of the State by the poet whose loss we are now mourning, and than whom England had no more truly patriotic son:—                      “Take withal Thy poet’s blessing, and his trust that heaven Will blow the tempest in the distance back From thine and ours; for some are scared who mark, Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm, Waverings of every vane with every wind, *        *        *        *        * And that which knows, but careful for itself, And that which knows not, ruling that which knows To its own harm: the goal of this great world Lies beyond sight; yet—if our slowly grown And crown’d Republic’s crowning common sense, That saved her many times, fail not—their fears Are morning shadows huger than the shapes That cast them, not those gloomier which forego The darkness of that battle in the West, Where all of high and holy dies away.”

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