call one's self a sovereign, but it is greatly to the purpose to notice
that the political responsibilities of the free man have been
intensified and aggregated just in proportion as political rights have
been reduced and divided. Many monarchs have been incapable of
sovereignty and unfit for it. Placed in exalted situations, and
inheritors of grand opportunities they have exhibited only their own
imbecility and vice. The reason was, because they thought only of the
gratification of their own vanity, and not at all of their duty. The
free man who steps forward to claim his inheritance and endowment as a
free and equal member of a great civil body must understand that his
duties and responsibilities are measured to him by the same scale as
his rights and his powers. He wants to be subject to no man. He wants
to be equal to his fellows, as all sovereigns are equal. So be it; but
he cannot escape the deduction that he can call no man to his aid. The
other sovereigns will not respect his independence if he becomes
dependent, and they cannot respect his equality if he sues for favors.
The free man in a free democracy, when he cut off all the ties which
might pull him down, severed also all the ties by which he might have
made others pull him up. He must take all the consequences of his new
status. He is, in a certain sense, an isolated man. The family tie does
not bring to him disgrace for the misdeeds of his relatives, as it once
would have done, but neither does it furnish him with the support which
it once would have given. The relations of men are open and free, but
they are also loose. A free man in a free democracy derogates from his
rank if he takes a favor for which he does not render an equivalent.

A free man in a free democracy has no duty whatever toward other men of
the same rank and standing, except respect, courtesy, and good-will. We
cannot say that there are no classes, when we are speaking
politically, and then say that there are classes, when we are telling A