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Self-Government (1852, second edition, 1874). Both of these works have been adopted as text-books at Yale.

VOX POPULI, VOX DEI.

The poetic boldness of the maxim, Vox populi, vox Dei, its epigrammatic, its Latin and lapidary formulation, and its apparent connection of a patriotic love of the people with religious fervor, give it an air of authority and almost of sacredness. Yet history, as well as our own times, shows us that everything depends upon the question, who are "the people?" and that even if we have fairly ascertained the legitimate sense of this great yet abused term, we frequently find that their voice is anything rather than the voice of God.

If the term "people" is used for a clamoring crowd, which is not even a constituted part of an organic whole, we would be still more fatally misled by taking the clamor for the voice of the Deity. We shall arrive, then, at this conclusion, that in no case can we use the maxim as a test; for, even if we call the people's voice the voice of God in those cases in which the people demand what is right, we must first know that they do so before we call it the voice of God. It is no guiding authority; it can sanction nothing.

There are, indeed, periods in history in which, centuries after, it would seem as if an impulse from on high had been given to the whole masses, or to the leading minds of leading classes, in order to bring about some comprehensive changes. That remarkable age of maritime discovery which has influenced the whole succeeding history of civilization, and the entire progress of our kind, would seem, at first glance, and to many even after a careful study of its elements, to have received its motion and action from a breath not of human breathing. No person, however, living at that period would have been authorized to call the widespread love of maritime adventure the voice of God, merely because it was widely diffused. Impulsive movements of greater extent and intensity have been movements of error, passion, and crime. It must be observed that the thorough historian often acts in these cases as the nat

ural philosopher who finds connection, causes and effects, where former ages thought they recognized direct and detached manifestations or interpositions of a superior power, and not the greater attribute of variety under eternal laws and unchanging principles.

I am under the impression that the famous maxim first came into use in the Middle Ages, at a contested episcopal election, when the people, by apparent acclamation, having elected one person, another aspirant believed he had a better right to the episcopate on different grounds or a different popular acclamation. That the maxim has a decidedly medieval character no one familiar with that age will doubt. When a king was elected it was by conclamation; the earliest bishops of Rome were elected or confirmed by conclamation of the Roman people. Elections by conclamation always indicate a rude or deficiently organized state of things; and it is the same whether this want of organization be the effect of primitive rudeness or of relapse.

Now, the maxim we are considering has a strongly conclamatory character and to apply it to our modern. affairs is degrading rather than elevating them. How shall we ascertain, in modern times, whether anything be "the voice of the people?" and next, whether that voice be "the voice of God," so that it may command respect? For unless we can do this, the whole maxim amounts to no more than a poetic sentence, expressing the opinion of an individual; but no rule-no canon.

Is it unanimity that indicates the voice of the people? Unanimity, in this case, can mean only a very large majority. But even unanimity itself is far from indicating the voice of God. Unanimity is commanding only when it is the result of digested and organic. public opinion; and even then we know perfectly well that it may be erroneous, and consequently not the voice of God, but simply the best opinion at which erring and sinful men at the time are able to arrive.

But the difficulty of fixing the meaning of this saying. is not restricted to that of ascertaining what is "the voice of God." It is equally difficult to find out what is "the voice of the People." If by the voice of the people be meant the organically evolved opinion of a

people, we do not stand in need of the saying. We know we ought to obey the law of the land. If by the voice of the people be meant the result of universal suffrage without institutions and especially in a large country with a powerful executive, not permitting even preparatory discussion-it is an empty phrase. It is deception, or it may be the effect of vehement yet transitory excitement. The same is true when the clamoring expression of many is taken for the voice of the whole people. .

Whatever meaning men may choose to give to Vox populi, vox Dei, in other spheres-or, if applied to the long tenor of the history of a people, in active politics and in the province of practical liberty-it either implies political levity-which is one of the most mordant corrosives of liberty-or else it is a political heresy, as much as Vox regis, vox Dei would be. If it be meant to convey the idea that the people can do no wrong, it is as grievous an untruth as would be conveyed by the maxim, "the king can do no wrong," if it really were meant to be taken literally.-Civil Liberty and SelfGovernment.

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