Some
centre of power was sure to absorb all the political life, and grow at
the expense of the outlying parts, until the result was a centralized
despotism. Hence it came to be one of the commonplace assumptions of
political writers that republics must be small, that free government
is practicable only in a confined area, and that the only strong and
durable government, capable of maintaining order throughout a vast
territory, is some form of absolute monarchy. [Sidenote: Fallacy of the
notion that republics must be small]
It was quite natural that people should formerly have held this opinion,
and it is indeed not yet quite obsolete, but its fallaciousness will
become more and more apparent as American history is better understood.
Our experience has now so far widened that we can see that despotism
is not the strongest but wellnigh the weakest form of government; that
centralized administrations, like that of the Roman empire, have fallen
to pieces, not because of too much but because of too little freedom;
and that the only perdurable government must be that which succeeds in
achieving national unity on a grand scale, without weakening the sense
of personal and local independence. For in the body politic this spirit
of freedom is as the red corpuscles in the blood; it carries the life
with it.
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