Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/72

 ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF ARISTOCRACY.

Aristocracy has, in common with monarchy, the evils of an expenditure that depends on representation, the state maintaining little less pomp under aristocrats, than under princes.

It is compelled to maintain itself against the physical superiority of numbers also, by military charges that involve heavy personal services, and large expenditures of money.

Being a government of the few, it is in the main, as a necessity of human selfishness, administered in the interests of the few.

The ruled are depressed in consequence of the elevation of their rulers. Information is kept within circumscribed limits, lest the mass should come to a knowledge of their force, for horses would not submit to be put in harness and made to toil for hard taskmasters, did they know as much as men.

Aristocracies partaking of the irresponsible nature of corporations, are soulless, possessing neither the personal feelings that often temper even despotism, nor submitting to the human impulses of popular bodies. This is one of the worst features of an aristocracy, a system that has shown itself more ruthless than any other, though tempered by civilization, for aristocracy and barbarism cannot exist in common.

As there are many masters in an aristocracy, the exactions are proportionably heavy, and this the more