Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/142

138 Theocracy, the priest power; monarchy, the one-man power; and oligarchy, the few-men power—are three forms of vicarious government over the people, perhaps for them, not by them. Democracy is direct self-government over all the people, for all the people, by all the people. Our institutions are democratic: theocratic, monarchic, oligarchic vicariousness is all gone. We have no Divine vicar who is responsible to God for our politics and religion; only a human attorney, answerable to the people for his official work. The axis of rotation has changed: the equator of the old civilization passes through the poles of the new. This makes some change in the geography of both Church and State.

Then the American government is industrial as well as democratic. The nation is not organized to plunder, but to earn. The people are not military, disposed to fight, but yet have great fighting power. Such is the individual variety of action, your and my personal freedom, such the national unity of action, compacting all to one great body, that the people will prove terrible fighters whenever the worst comes to the worst; and in this stage of civilization I think the ploughman is not safe unless he have a sword as well as a share. Yet the Americans are not military, disposed to kill and plunder, but industrial, inclined to create and earn; hence, in power for present welfare and future progress, we have an immense superiority over other nations of the world,

All human property is the result of toil, which is handwork, and thought, which is head-work. In the industrial democracy wealth is rated proportionally higher than in the vicarious governments of ancient and modern Europe; for here it is not balanced by any corresponding weight. There the father bequeathed his irresponsible office as family estate to his son or daughter, who were held royal, noble, gentle, because they inherited more than the mass of men. Here no man bequeathes office, honour, title—only money, which represents power to buy all marketable things, and in America there are few things not marketable. Hence money is valued not simply as personal and immediate power of use and beauty, but also as the power of powers, future ability to determine the social rank of the next generation. If the grandson of Dr.