Key idea: Decentralization. To get equal security for all, power must be equitably diffused.
By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
Six hundred years before the birth of Christ absolutism held unbounded sway.
- [In] the East it was propped by the unchanging influence of priests and armies.
- In the West, where there were no sacred books requiring trained interpreters, the priesthood acquired no preponderance, and when the kings were overthrown their powers passed to aristocracies of birth.
What followed, during many generations, was the cruel domination of class over class, the oppression of the poor by the rich, and of the ignorant by the wise.
Athens, which like other cities was distracted and oppressed by a privileged class, avoided violence and appointed Solon to revise its laws.
It was the happiest choice that history records. Solon was not only the wisest man to be found in Athens, but the most profound political genius of antiquity.
- The upper class had possessed the right of making and administering the laws, and he left them in possession, only transferring to wealth what had been the privilege of birth.
- To the rich, who alone had the means of sustaining the burden of public service in taxation and war, Solon gave a share of power proportioned to the demands made on their resources.
- The poorest classes were exempt from direct taxes, but were excluded from office. Solon gave them a voice in electing magistrates from the classes above them, and the right of calling them to account.
This concession [...] introduced the idea that a man ought to have a voice in selecting those to whose rectitude and wisdom he is compelled to trust his fortune, his family, and his life.
Government by consent superseded government by compulsion, and the pyramid which had stood on a point was made to stand upon its base.
By making every citizen the guardian of his own interest Solon admitted the element of Democracy into the State. The greatest glory of a ruler, he said, is to create a popular government. Believing that no man can be entirely trusted, he subjected all who exercised power to the vigilant control of those for whom they acted.
The only resource against political disorders that had been known till then was the concentration of power. Solon undertook to effect the same object by the distribution of power. He gave to the common people as much influence as he thought them able to employ, that the State might be exempt from arbitrary government. It is the essence of Democracy, he said, to obey no master but the law.
Pericles, who was at the head of the Athenian Government, was the first statesman who encountered the problem which the rapid weakening of traditions forced on the political world. No authority in morals or in politics remained unshaken by the motion that was in the air.
The popular sentiment as to what was right might be mistaken, but it was subject to no test. The people were, for practical purposes, the seat of the knowledge of good and evil. The people, therefore, were the seat of power.
Pericles struck down the ancient doctrine that power goes with land
He intruduced the idea that to afford equal security, power must be equitably diffused.
[But] Pericles realized that simply removing privileges would only move power from the rich to the poor.
[So,] to achieve the balance of power, he restricted the right of citizenship to Athenians of pure descent. This reduced the "third estate" [common men] to 14,000 which was equal in numbers to the higher ranks
Pericles governed by persuasion.
Athenian Constitution gave the right to every interest to assert itself.
But for those who lost in the vote there was no redress.
"The law did not check the triumph of majorities or rescue the minority from the dire penalty of having been outnumbere"
When Pericles' influence was removed, class conflicts raged.
When upper ranks were slaughtered during the Peloponnesian war, the balance of power was disturbed, the lower ranks outnumbered the higher.
[Athenians] venerated the Constitution which had given them prosperity, and equality, and freedom. Thus they became the only people of antiquity that grew great by democratic institutions.
But the possession of unlimited power, which corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding of monarchs, exercised its demoralising influence on the illustrious democracy of Athens.
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
The humblest and most numerous class of the Athenians united the legislative, the judicial, and, in part, the executive power
The philosophy that was then in the ascendant taught them that there is no law superior to that of the State—the lawgiver is above the law.
It followed that the sovereign people had a right to do whatever was within its power, and was bound by no rule of right or wrong but its own judgment of expediency. On a memorable occasion the assembled Athenians declared it monstrous that they should be prevented from doing whatever they chose. No force that existed could restrain them; and they resolved that no duty should restrain them, and that they would be bound by no laws that were not of their own making.
The emancipated people of Athens became a tyrant
They ruined their city by attempting to conduct war by debate in the marketplace. Like the French Republic, they put their unsuccessful commanders to death.
They treated their dependencies with such injustice that they lost their maritime Empire. They plundered the rich until the rich conspired with the public enemy, and they crowned their guilt by the martyrdom of Socrates.
When the absolute sway of numbers had endured for near a quarter of a century, nothing but bare existence was left for the State to lose; and the Athenians, wearied and despondent, confessed the true cause of their ruin.
They understood that for liberty, justice, and equal laws, it is as necessary that Democracy should restrain itself as it had been that it should restrain the Oligarchy
The repentance of the Athenians came too late to save the Republic
The lesson of their experience endures for all times, for it teaches that government by the whole people, being the government of the most numerous and most powerful class, is an evil of the same nature as unmixed monarchy, and requires, for nearly the same reasons, institutions that shall protect it against itself, and shall uphold the permanent reign of law against arbitrary revolutions of opinion