Democracy

From whichever side the topic is approached, there will appear to be a real inconsistency between democratic government, i.

The ideal of democracy, in short, is government for the good of the people by the people, and in accordance with the wish of the people;

The last great Act of Parliamentary reform was passed in 1884, and established democratic government based on Household Suffrage throughout the whole of the United Kingdom.

confirm the democratic government for our state;

Now the man who was buying such services was doing no wrong, for before the oaths had been taken and the agreements entered into, he could not be blamed for negotiating to his own advantage;

But as each man of you would be ashamed to desert the post to which he had been assigned in war, so now you should be ashamed to desert the post to which the laws have called you, sentinels, guarding the democracy this day.

So the law which destroys confidence in the rewards takes away the one thing that gives a higher value to rewards which you bestow.

For not the receipt of a flatterer’s pay with its taint of shame, but to be honored, where speech is free, as one who is deemed worthy—that is true glory;

Moreover, gentlemen, I think that you would come to a sounder judgement in this matter if you would observe this further truth, that the present law removes just the one advantage which the rewards of a democracy have over those of other constitutions.

So oligarchy, presumably, looks better to you than democracy!

As you all know, the name you give to our government is democracy, but I see that some of you listen with more pleasure to those who advocate the opposite to it.

Assuredly all other considerations are of less consequence, and when you listen good-naturedly to speeches on behalf of government efficiency and killings and the overthrow of democracy, how can one help but consider that you too are out of your minds?

Why, yes, he said, that is the constitution of democracy alike whether it is established by force of arms or by terrorism resulting in the withdrawal of one of the parties.

We have next to consider, it seems, the origin and nature of democracy, that we may next learn the character of that type of man and range him beside the others for our judgement.

And just as an unhealthy body requires but a slight impulse from outside to fall into sickness, and sometimes, even without that, all the man is one internal war, in like manner does not the corresponding type of state need only a slight occasion, the one party bringing in allies from an oligarchical state, or the other from a democratic, to become diseased and wage war with itself, and sometimes …

nor in order that it might be delivered up to the enemy, (for they might have done that when they invaded the country during their government:

for when the states had got a moderate government, and security of action, they went on to absolute liberty, and did not value the specious advantage of good laws which they received from the Athenians.

but about two months after his departure the Thasians began to fortify their city, as wanting no more aristocracy in conjunction with the Athenians, but daily looking for liberty to be given them by the Lacedaemonians.

he was establishing a democracy in Thessaly along with Prometheus, and arming the serfs against their masters.

Now we, believing that for men like ourselves and you democracy is a grievous form of government, and convinced that the commons would never become friendly to the Lacedaemonians, our preservers, while the aristocrats would continue ever faithful to them, for these reasons are establishing, with the approval of the Lacedaemonians, the present form of government.

For you in the days of the democracy were regarded as the bitterest of all haters of the commons, and under the aristocracy you have shown yourself the bitterest of all haters of the better classes

Accordingly, you elected a commission of twenty to govern Athens until a fresh code of laws had been authorized;

And all oaths sworn at Athens or in the army or elsewhere for the overthrow of the Athenian democracy I annul and abolish.

Then at least you fought Athens at sea, or helped to demolish her walls or put down her democracy, or reinstalled yourself by force?

you are by far the most barbarous of all the gods.

Is it possible that the gods have chosen such an envoy?

Eleventh was the one after the return from Phyle and from the Piraeus, from which it has continued down to the present, ever taking on more power for the multitude.

but at that time the people, having become master of affairs, established the constitution which now exists, in the archonship of Pythodorus, the people being thought to have justly taken the constitution, since it had effected its own return.

Democracy appears most fully in households without a master, for in them all the members are equal;

Hence even in tyrannies there is but little scope for friendship and justice between ruler and subjects;

Democracy is the least bad of the perversions, for it is only a very small deviation from the constitutional form of government.

I am sure you would have him put to death for trying to overthrow the democracy.

For what fatal or dangerous act will he shrink from, men of Athens,—this polluted wretch, infected with hereditary hatred of democracy?

if everyone in the city copied the audacity and shamelessness of Aristogeiton and argued in the same way as he, that in a democracy a man has an unlimited right to say and do whatever he likes, as long as he does not care what reputation such conduct will bring him, and that no one will put him to death at once for any of his misdoings;

Neither you nor your ancestors ever repented of observing these rules, for it is the salvation of democracy that it overcomes its enemies either by good counsel or by arms, but submits to its laws either by free choice or under constraint;

In my opinion it is right to restore the Rhodian democracy;

with oligarchies you fight for none of these things, but for your constitution and your liberty.

Therefore I should not hesitate to say that I think it a greater advantage that all the Greeks should be your enemies under democracy than your friends under oligarchy.

Accordingly I entreat all the gods and goddesses that what is best for the democracy of the Athenians and for those who bear goodwill toward the democracy, both now and for time to come, I may myself be moved to write and the members of the Assembly to adopt.

You will not find me to have done wrong on the score of any of my measures, or a fit person to be deprived of my civic rights or destroyed, but a man who is as much devoted to your democracy as the best patriots—not to say anything invidious —who of all men now living has accomplished most in your behalf and of all men of my time has available the most signal tokens of devotion to you.

The real danger to democracy no one is bold enough to name;

And yet, Athenians, though the culprits—mark whether my words are true—deserved death, it is not through them that the democracy is endangered.

But the private houses of those who rose to power were so modest and so in accordance with the style of our constitution that the homes of their famous men, of Themistocles and Cimon and Aristides, as any of you can see that knows them, are not a whit more splendid than those of their neighbors.

He has joined the clique that wants to get rid of democracy,—that regards the established political order as an inconstant wave,—mere midsummer madness.

Observe in conclusion that, apart from all other reasons, the conviction of this man is eminently desirable in view of your future relations with Philip.

for I believe that nothing becomes a democratic people more than zeal for equity and justice.

But just reflect, men of Athens, that the Achaeans in the Peloponnese enjoyed democratic government, and one of their democracies, that of Pellene, has now been overthrown by the Macedonian king, who has expelled the majority of the citizens, given their property to their slaves, and set up Chaeron, the wrestler, as their tyrant.

My own advice, as I said at the start, is to believe them when they say that we ought to abide by the joint agreement, unless, when they insist on our abiding by the oaths, they interpret them as not forbidding any act of injustice, or imagine that no one will be sensible of the change from democracy to tyranny or of the overthrow of a free constitution.

For whatever the majority are in a democracy, such appears also the common character;

But it is fitting that all who have acquired anything hold it securely — and that too in a democracy, and among you, who pride yourselves most on administering your own affairs lawfully and justly — but most of all, I think, the honours and the favours;

And since in addressing a king I have spoken for his subjects, surely I would urge upon men who live under a democracy to pay court to the people.

for I have so lived all my life till now that no man either under the oligarchy or under the democracy has ever charged me with any offense, whether of violence or injury, nor will any man be found to have sat either as arbitrator or as judge upon my actions.

Also I think that not only the people of the Peloponnesus in general but even the adherents of democracy, whom we consider to be especially unfriendly to us, are already yearning for our protection.

But I know that it is hazardous to oppose your views and that, although this is a free government, there exists no ‘freedom of speech’ except that which is enjoyed in this Assembly by the most reckless orators, who care nothing for your welfare, and in the theater by the comic poets.

For it is this which plunged us into our present state of disorder, which overthrew that democratic government under which our ancestors lived and were the happiest of the Hellenes, and which is the cause, one might almost say, of all the ills which we both suffer ourselves and inflict upon the rest of the Hellenes.

We are concerned about our polity no less than about the safety of the whole state and we know that our democracy flourishes and endures in times of peace and security while in times of war it has twice already been overthrown, but we are hostile to those who desire peace as if suspecting them of favoring oligarchy, while we are friendly to those who advocate war as if assured of their devotion to democracy.

For they established government by the people, not the kind which operates at haphazard, mistaking licence for liberty and freedom to do what one likes for happiness, but the kind which frowns upon such excesses and makes use of the rule of the best.

However, those who undertake to praise any people in superlative terms must show, not only that they were not depraved, but that they excelled in all the virtues both those who lived at that time and those who are now living—which is the very claim that one may make for our ancestors.

I shall now proceed to speak about the polity which I took for my subject and about our ancestors, going back to the early times when neither the word oligarchy nor the word democracy was as yet in our speech, but when monarchies governed both the barbaric races and all the Hellenic states.

And a third form of government is the rule of the multitude, called democracy, is it not?

In the case of democracy, however, whether the multitude rule those who have property by violence or with their willing consent, and whether the laws are carefully observed or not, no one ever habitually changes the name.

But the government of the multitude is weak in all respects and able to do nothing great, either good or bad, when compared with the other forms of government, because in this the powers of government are distributed in small shares among many men;