classes of the community, preventing them from availing themselves of
the excess of their power to the detriment of the other classes." This
definition lays the foundation for the result which it is apparently
desired to reach, that "a government by the people can in no case
become a paternal government, since its law-makers are its mandatories
and servants carrying out its will, and not its fathers or its
masters." Here we have the most mischievous fallacy under the general
topic which I am discussing distinctly formulated. In the definition of
liberty it will be noticed that liberty is construed as the act of the
sovereign people against somebody who must, of course, be
differentiated from the sovereign people. Whenever "people" is used in
this sense for anything less than the total population, man, woman,
child, and baby, and whenever the great dogmas which contain the word
"people" are construed under the limited definition of "people," there
is always fallacy.

History is only a tiresome repetition of one story. Persons and classes
have sought to win possession of the power of the State in order to
live luxuriously out of the earnings of others. Autocracies,
aristocracies, theocracies, and all other organizations for holding
political power, have exhibited only the same line of action. It is the
extreme of political error to say that if political power is only taken
away from generals, nobles, priests, millionaires, and scholars, and
given to artisans and peasants, these latter may be trusted to do only
right and justice, and never to abuse the power; that they will repress
all excess in others, and commit none themselves. They will commit
abuse, if they can and dare, just as others have done. The reason for
the excesses of the old governing classes lies in the vices and
passions of human nature--cupidity, lust, vindictiveness, ambition, and
vanity. These vices are confined to no nation, class, or age. They