STATE

AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION.

Held at Madison, February 4 to 7, 1874.

MADISON, February 4, 7 1-2 P. M. The joint convention of the Agricultural and Horticultural societies met in the assembly chamber to listen to the address of Hon. W. C. Flagg, President of the Illinois Farmer's Association, upon our republican democracy." Secretary Field in the chair. There was a large and appreciative audience composed of legislators, delegates representing the numerous industrial societies of the state, many of them with their intelligent wives and daughters, with numerous ladies and gentlemen, residents of the city. The address was listened to with marked attention, and is here presented in full.

OUR REPUBLICAN-DEMOCRACY.

BY HON. W. C. FLAGG,

President Illinois State Farmer's Association.

De Tocqueville, in the introduction to his Democracy in America, wrote these remarkable words:

"The gradual development of the principle of equality is, therefore, a providential fact. It has all the chief characteristics of such a fact; it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes human interference; and all events, as well as all men, contribute to its progress. *

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"If the men of our time should be convinced by attentive observation and sincere reflection that the gradual and progressive

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development of social equality is at once the past and future of their history, this discovery alone would confer the character of a divine decree upon the change. To attempt to check Democracy would be in that case to resist the will of God, and the nations would then be constrained to make the best of the social lot awarded to them by Providence."

More than a generation has passed away since these remarkable words were written; but every passing year has given them new force and a wider currency. We find them confirmed by Gervinus in his introduction to the "History of the Nineteenth Century." "The emancipation of all the oppressed and suffering is the vocation of the century, and the force of this idea has been victorious over mighty interests and deeply rooted institutions, which may be perceived in the abolition of serfdom and villenage in Europe, and in the liberation of the slaves in the West Indies. This is the great feature of the time. The strength of belief and conviction, the power of thought, the force of revolution, a clear view of the object pursued, endurance and self sacrifice are all enlisted on the side of the people, and give this historical movement the character of a divine ordinance which cannot be resisted." John Stuart Mill added his eminent testimony in his work on "Liberty : "There is confessedly a strong tendency in the modern world towards a democratic constitution of society, accompanied or not by popular institutions." The Westminister Review of October, 1868, repeats the idea, "all society is tending to a democratic form, and all government to democratic government. It is impossible, even were it desirable, to arrest the tendency, and the only hope lies in inaugurating a sound system of morals which shall be effectually binding upon all individual persons composing the state."

I think there is no doubting the justness of these conclusions. Whether we hope as radicals, or as conservatives fear the result, we must agree as to the facts. Almost within the last decade Russia has emancipated her serfs, Italy has achieved constitutionalfreedom and national unity, Germany has become unified, England has extended the privileges of her franchise, and France and Spain, rid at least of an unscrupulous emperor and an infamous queen, and are now struggling with what ability they may, to

solve the difficult but ever recurring problem of self government. Within the same period, the dark shadow of slavery that hung over the great republic of North America and the great empire of South America, has passed away like a cloud from the face of the new world.

Democracy, spreading like a flood of light over the earth, concerns every nation and every age. To the American people, who have staked all upon its success, and who hailed its coming as the dawn of a political millenium, it is at once the object of a profound enthusiasm and of a patriotic anxiety-the object of profound enthusiasm, because we believe it to be the highest type of ideal or actual government; of a patriotic anxiety, because from inexperience and human imperfection, it often falls far short of its brilliant theories, and has caused but too many men of undoubted ability to despair of our republic. The old Federalists and the former Nullifiers did not entirely believe in the principles upon which our government is founded. Garrison once pronounced the constitution of the United States to be a "covenant with death and an agreement with hell." Choate declared that the Declaration of Independence was made up of "glittering and sounding generalities." To such straits, in one direction and

another, have men been driven whenever the nation has been untrue to the fundamental principles of its constitution. It is not wonderful, therefore, that men grow cynical and skeptical as the horrible details of the Tammany ring, the Kansas senatorial election and the credit mobilier become public, and that many lose faith in the capacity of the more depraved and ignorant portions of our country to govern themselves.

For one, however, I do not share in this lack of faith. I admit very grave existing abuses in our body politic, arising from failing in practice to carry out the theory of our government. "Go and put your creed into your deed," said anti-slavery Emerson to the slaveholding republic. The admonition must be repeated to a republic that, based upon the rights of men, gives unequal privileges to capital and labor; to corporations and private persons; to manufactures and agriculture; to trade and productions. Evils in some shape will be a constant attendant on democratic government, just as they are on all other human affairs. Bryant, in his glorious poem, apostrophizes freedom, not as

but as

"A fair young girl with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses,"

"A bearded man armed to the teeth."

And adds

"Thine enemy never sleeps,

And thou must watch and combat till the day

Of the new earth and heaven."

We must expect the old foe under new faces. It was African slavery ten years ago-it is corporate wealth and monopoly to-day-it will be something else when this war with our Shylock aristocracy has placed them where our former slave aristocracy is now in the position to earn what they consume by honest work. But, recurring to the self-evident truths of the declaration, and to the manifest drift of civilization, no man can be doubtful of ultimate good results: provided that you and I do our duty as citizens, and that when the cry of the "Philistines be upon thee," arouses this young giant of nations, it shall not be found shorn of its strength in the harlot lap of luxury and corruption. Let us never despair of the republic; never give up,

because of its abuses, the government of the people "over all, by all, and for the sake of all."

So I shall speak to-night of

REPUBLICAN-DEMOCRACY,

Meaning thereby a democracy limited by a constitution and qualified by a representative government. It is the rule of the people, directly or indirectly exercised, under the limitations of an organic law. But, as this organic law is itself only a more formally expressed will of the people, and is subject to their revision and amendment, we are compelled to go further back, and to a higher source, to find our constitution of constitutions. We find this in

the

HIGHER LAW,

-the fundamental part of all laws, constitutions and governments. Although twenty years since it was common to regard the doctrine of a Higher Law as Utopian and revolutionary, yet none is better founded in right or reason, sustained by more weighty authority, or more essential in securing conscientious and wise action in voter and representative, and therefore more important in a republican democracy. A careful examination of a wide range of authorities enables me to say, that wise men in all ages unite in maintaining one or more of three propositions :

1-That so far as each individual is concerned, his own conscience is the supreme law of his action, and must be obeyed at all hazards in all private or public affairs.

2-That the consentaneous opinion of mankind, called jus gentium, and sometimes the "unwritten law," as the result of the sum of the moral judgments of our fellow beings, and corrective, perhaps, of the bias of personal interest or prejudice that may warp our personal judgment, is of nearly equal value in determining the right or wrong of a given action, and ought constantly to be consulted.

3-That the law of nature-the Divine law, or law of God-as it is differently termed, according to the supposed source of the communication, is subject to the approval of conscience, supreme. I need not delay to prove these points. Confucius, the laws of