"Why the Republic may Endure" (1894)

BY PRESIDENT CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT

THE first moral cause of permanence of which the American republic has the advantage is the principle of toleration in religion—a principle which, though not recently enunciated (nobody has ever stated it better than William the Silent), has been very recently put in practice, not, by any means, in all parts of the civilized world, but in a few favored regions, and notably in the United States. On one of the tablets of the Water-gate at Chicago was written this sentence: "Toleration in religion the best fruit of the last four centuries." This statement is no exaggeration but the literal truth. Toleration in religion is absolutely the best fruit of all the struggles, labors, and sorrows of the civilized nations during the last four centuries. . . .

Another mental and moral force which makes for the permanence of our institutions is universal education. This is a new force in the world, not in action in any land before this century. It has not existed more than twenty years in such a civilized country as France; it dates only from 1870 in England. It is not yet true that education is universal even in our own country; but the principle of universal education finds general acceptance, and the practical results approximate more and more, as time goes on, to the requirements of the theoretical principle. In all civilized countries continuous effort is made to bring the practice up to the level of the theory. Within three generations immense progress has been made; and it now seems as if a perfectly feasible development of this principle in practice must work a profound change in human society within a comparatively small number of future generations. . . . It is a commonplace that republican institutions are built on education; but we hardly realize how new that commonplace is. Plato taught that the industrial and producing classes needed no education whatever. None of the republics which have died had anything more than a small educated class. The masses of their people grew up and lived in crassest ignorance. . . . Universal suffrage prolongs in the United States the effect of universal education; for it stimulates all citizens throughout their lives to reflect on problems outside the narrow circle of their private interests and occupations, to read about public questions, to discuss public characters, and to hold themselves ready in some degree to give a rational account of their political faith. The duties of republican citizenship, rightly discharged, constitute in themselves a prolonged education, which effectively supplements the work of schools and colleges.

A third reason for believing that our institutions will endure is to be found in the fact that a better family life prevails among our people than was known to any of the republics which have perished, or, indeed, to any earlier century. The family, not the individual, is the tap-root of the state, and whatever tends to secure the family tends to secure the state. Now family life—under which term may properly be included all the complex relations between husband and wife, and parents and children—is gentler in this century, and particularly in the United States, than it has ever been. Family discipline has become, even within thirty years, much gentler than it ever was before. The relations of husband and wife have also become juster. . . .

Pursuing the idea that the promotion of diffused happiness promotes governmental stability, we observe next that certain means of public happiness have recently been liberally provided in many American communities, at public expense, with great intelligence and by deliberate design. During the last twenty-five years, strenuous efforts have been made in many municipalities to promote public happiness by giving opportunities to the multitude for the enjoyment of fresh air and natural beauty. One of the most striking social phenomena in the United States of recent years has been the sudden creation of public parks and playgrounds, constructed and maintained at public expense. At bottom, the meaning of this sudden development is that the people seek to procure for themselves, and are procuring, increased means of health and happiness. . . . The provision of free libraries and museums of natural history and fine arts, at public expense, or by the combination of private endowments with public appropriations, is another evidence of the disposition of the democracy to provide the means of public cultivation and enjoyment. . . .

Another new and effective bulwark of state is to be found in the extreme publicity with which all American activities are carried on. Many people are in the habit of complaining bitterly of the intrusion of the newspaper reporter into every nook and corner of the state, and even into the privacy of home; but in this extreme publicity is really to be found a new means of social, industrial, and governmental reform and progress. As Emerson said, "Light is the best policeman." There are many exaggerations, perversions, and inaccuracies in this publicity; but on the whole it is a beneficent and a new agency for the promotion of the public welfare. . . . So new is this force in the world, that many people do not yet trust it, or perceive its immense utility. In cases of real industrial grievances or oppressions, publicity would be by far the quickest and surest means of cure—vastly more effective for all just ends than secret combinations of either capitalists or laborers. The newspapers, which are the ordinary instruments of this publicity, are as yet very imperfect instruments, much of their work being done so hastily and so cheaply as to preclude accuracy; but as a means of publicity they visibly improve from decade to decade, and, taken together with the magazines and the controversial pamphlet, they shed more light on the social, industrial, and political life of the people of the United States than was ever shed before on the doings and ways of any people. This force is distinctly new within this century, and it affords a new and strong guarantee for the American republic.

Within the past fifty years there has been developed, for the conduct of business, education, and charity, an agency which may fairly be called new—namely, the corporation. . . . In the service of corporations, there is seldom any element of personal devotion, such as existed in other times between subject and sovereign, or between retainer and feudal chief; but there is a large element of fidelity and loyalty, which is becoming of greater and greater importance in the formation of the national character. A considerable portion of all the business, charity, and education carried on in the United States is well conducted by the faithful and loyal servants of corporations, as every one will plainly see so soon as he takes account of his own contacts in daily life with the work of corporations, and compares them with his contacts with the work of individuals or of partnerships. This corporation service affords a new discipline for masses of people; and it is a discipline of the highest value toward inducing stability and durability in governmental institutions. . . .

. . . The extreme division of labor, which has more and more characterized the normal industrial methods in civilized states since the beginning of the present century, has brought about a mutual dependence of man on man and community on community, which is a strong guarantee of the permanence of free institutions. . . . All civilized mankind lives under similar conditions of interdependence. The sense of dependence is of course mutual, and with it goes some recognition of common aims and hopes among the different sorts and conditions of men. This sense of common interests is something very different from the sentiment of human equality. It is a feeling of unity, not of equality. It has a firm foundation in facts; whereas the notion that men are equal is plainly false, unless it be strictly limited to the political significance of equality, namely, to equality before the law and in regard to the right of suffrage. It is a feeling which leads naturally to a sense of human brotherhood. . . . The doctrine of human brotherhood has been taught for thousands of years. It is all contained in two words—"Our Father"; but, though accepted by seers and philosophers, it has been little realized in practice by the multitude. There are many signs of the wide and steady spread of the realized acceptance of this doctrine in practice. The theory, long current in the world, gets more and more applied in institutions, in business, and in society. The fact of intimate mutual dependence extends to different states and nations. A federation of States like the American Union affords a favorable field for the practical realization by masses of people of the truth of the affirmation St. Paul frequently repeated, "We are members one of another." . . . This realization of an ancient truth marks again the progress of society toward practical acceptance of the conception that there is a genuine unity of aims and hopes among all men, an acceptance which of itself will prove a stout bulwark of free institutions.

. . . In recent times, serious changes have taken place in regard to the highest hopes, aspirations, and ideals of mankind. . . . The first change of expectation which claims attention is the changed sentiment of the people toward what is new, and therefore untried. The American people, as a rule, approach a new object, a new theory, or a new practice, with a degree of hope and confidence which no other people exhibit. The unknown is to the savage terrible; the dark has been dreadful, and evil has always been imagined of it; many highly civilized people have an aversion to things novel; but for us Americans so many new things have proved to be good things, that we no longer look on what is novel with suspicion and distrust. Our continent is new, and has proved to be rich; our machinery is new, and has proved to be useful; our laws are many of them new, but they have proved helpful. The people have traversed many wilds and wastes, but have passed them with safety, and found good in the unexplored and unknown. The untried is therefore for us no longer terrible, or, at least, to be suspected. Hope and expectation of good spring in our hearts, as never before in the hearts of former generations.

Furthermore, the changes which have taken place in the realized doctrines of Christianity concerning the origin and nature of mall are very reassuring for those who believe in the possibility of developing a nation of freemen capable of orderly self-government. The old conceptions of the fall of man and of the total depravity of the race were good foundations for the régime of a beneficent despot, but not for the régime of self-governing freemen. The modern doctrine of the steady ascent of man through all his history is necessarily welcome to republicans, because it justifies their political beliefs. . . . No cherished ideal of our race has undergone a more beneficent change during the present century than the ideal of God; and this change makes strongly for the happiness of mankind. The Christian Gospel has just begun to be realized. We have just begun to understand that God is love. . . . This ideal promotes happiness and joy. It is not new; but it is newly realized by multitudes. Now, these beneficent changes in the spiritual conceptions of large numbers of men have taken place since our country took on its present governmental structure; and they have lent and will lend to that structure a firm support, because they contribute generously to the happiness and true spirituality of the people.

Finally, the object of religion and the aim of its ministers have become wonderfully different, since the American republic was established, from what they were in ancient or mediæval times, or even down to the opening of this century. . . . Since the beginning of this century a revolution has occurred, which has been felt more or less in every branch of the Christian Church and in almost every Christian nation, but has had a broad sweep in the United States. The primary objects of religion and its ministers in our day and country are more and more to soften and elevate the characters and lives of men in this world, and to ameliorate the common lot. . . . Religion, by devoting itself to the elevation of human character, becomes a prop and stay of free institutions, because these rest ultimately on the character of the citizen.

These, then, are some of the new principles and forces which make for the permanence of the republic: toleration in religion; general education; better domestic relations; attention to the means of public health and pleasure; publicity; corporation service; increased mutual dependence of man on man, and therewith a growing sense of brotherhood and unity; the greater hopefulness and cheerfulness of men’s outlook on man, the earth, the universe, and God; and finally, the changing objects and methods of religion and its institutions. It is the working of these principles and forces, often unrecognized, which has carried the republic safely through many moral difficulties and dangers during the past thirty years. These things, and not its size and wealth, make us love our country. These things, we believe, will give the American republic long life. These bulwarks of the commonwealth will prove all the stronger and more lasting, because women as well as men can work on them, and help to transmit them, ever broader and firmer, from generation to generation.

Charles William Eliot, Some Reasons why the American Republic may Endure, in his (New York, 1897), 47–67 passim.