
Excerpt from Mississipi Law Journal, Vol. 9: December, 1936 Political liberty bestows exalted pleasures, from time to time, upon a certain number of citizens. Equality every day confers a number of small enjoyments on every man. The charms of equality are every instant felt, and are within the reach of all; the noblest hearts are not ln sensible to them, and the most vulgar souls exult in them. Amongst these nations (european) equality pre ceded freedom: equality was therefore a fact of some standing when freedom was still a novelty: the one had already created customs, opinions, and laws belonging to it; when the other, alone and for the first time, came into actual existence. Thus the latter was still only an affair Of Opinion and Of taste, whilst the former had already crept into the habits of the people, possessed itself Of their manners, and given a particular turn to the smallest actions of their lives. Can it be wondered that the men of our own time prefer the one to the other? I think that democratic communities have a natural taste for free dom: left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and View any privation Of it with regret. But for equality, their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible; they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot ob tain that, they still call for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism - but they will not endure aristocracy. This is true of all times, and especially true in our own. All men and all powers seek ing to cope with this irresistible passion, will be over thrown and destroyed by it. In our age, freedom cannot be established without it, and despotism itself cannot reign without its support. This pronouncement of De Tocqueville was not only true when made, but was prophetic of the present; for the underlying cause of the domestic troubles in Europe is economic inequality, to escape from which dictatorships - either Of the Right or of the Left have been establish
Page Count:
120
Publication Date:
2016-12-11
Publisher:
Fb&c Limited
ISBN-10:
133459340X
ISBN-13:
9781334593406
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