peril, and laugh at commotions which, fraught as they may seem with possibilities of general disaster, he gayly hopes will not dislodge him, personally, from his position of vantage.
The old doctrine was, that there could be but one tyrant in a state, one usurper of power; but if it be agreed that the essence of tyranny consists not in the extent of power usurped and abused, but in the fact of usurpation and abuse, we may perhaps be led to see that there may be as many usurpers or tyrants in the state as there are depositaries of power. lie that is unfaithful in a little would be only too likely to be unfaithful in much, if he had the chance; at any rate he is in the same position morally and socially as though he had been unfaithful in much: he has done evil to the extent of his ability.
Let us look at the word "usurp" for a moment. The common and, as we think, correct etymology represents it as compounded of the two words usui and rapere, "to snatch for (one's own) use." Certainly a very happy mode of expressing the essential characteristic of tyranny. We load with opprobrium the monarchies of the past because they snatched to their own use and advantage powers which they could only righteously have wielded for the general good. We exult over the successive revolutions by which personal rulers have been shorn of their powers; and we look forward to the time when democracy in the fullest sense shall be coextensive with civilization. Then no man will be the depositary of any wide powers except strictly as a matter of delegation. Then the whole people everywhere will cooperate in the making, and largely control the execution, of the laws; and tyranny will forever be at an end.
The prospect is a cheering one, but the subject will bear a little closer looking into. Let us suppose that a certain monarch of past times—an Alfred let us say, an Edward III, a William III, or, going further back, an Antonine or a Trajan—finding himself in the possession of supreme power in the state, had faithfully endeavored, according to his best lights, to use that power for the benefit of his subjects, regarding himself as responsible to some higher power enshrined in his own conscience—could such a ruler, acting on such principles, properly be called a tyrant? His reply to the charge, were it made, would be: "I have not made a selfish or irresponsible use of power; I have not sacrificed others to myself, rather have I sacrificed myself to others; I have done my duty to the best of my knowledge and ability." Now the question arises. Can the individual citizen, who disposes of his ballot and his social influence, always say as much? If not, what are we to say of him? Are we to say that, because political power which was once possessed in the lump by one man has been broken into fragments and distributed to all men, all need for responsibility in the use of it has vanished? We fail to see it. Formerly one man had much, and he was required to be faithful in much; now each of us has a little—of the very same thing be it remembered, power, power not over ourselves only, but over others as well—and surely we are required to be faithful in the exorcise of that little. If we are not, what are we but each a petty tyrant in his way—fragments of one big tyrant, disjecti membra tyranni, if we may be allowed to alter a well-known Horatian phrase.
The man who sells his vote for money, what is ho but a usurper in the strict sense—one who snatches a public function, and applies it to his purely private advantage? What is he, again, but a traitor, seeing that, for money, he hands over the government, so far as he can do it, to a public enemy—the purchaser of votes being of absolute necessity a public enemy? Well, every man will not exchange his vote for
