Yes,there are some things the universal suffrage can decide,--and about these it will be exceedingly useful to consult the universal suffrage:but in regard to most things of importance,and in regard to the choice of men especially,there is (astonishing as it may seem)next to capability on the part of universal suffrage.--I request all candid persons,who have never so little originality of mind,and every man has a little,to consider this.If true,it involves such a change in our fashionable modes of procedure as fills me with astonishment and alarm.If popular suffrage is the way of ascertaining what the Laws of the Universe are,and who it is that will best guide us in the way of these,--then woe is to us if we do take aher method.Delolme on the British Constitution will save us;deaf will the Parcae be to votes of the House,to leading articles,constitutional philosophies.The other method--alas,it involves a stopping short,or vital change of direction,in the glorious career which all Europe,with shouts heaven-high,is galloping along:and that,happen when it may,will,to many of us,be probably a rather surprising business!
One thing I do k,and can again assert with great confidence,supported by the whole Universe,and by some two hundred generations of men,who have left us some record of themselves there,That the few Wise will have,by one method or aher,to take command of the innumerable Foolish;that they must be got to take it;--and that,in fact,since Wisdom,which means also Valor and heroic leness,is alone strong in this world,and one wise man is stronger than all men unwise,they can be got.That they must take it;and having taken,must keep it,and do their God's Message in it,and defend the same,at their life's peril,against all men and devils.This I do clearly believe to be the backbone of all Future Society,as it has been of all Past;and that without it,there is Society possible in the world.And what a business this will be,before it end in some degree of victory again,and whether the time for shouts of triumph and tremendous cheers upon it is yet come,or yet by a great way,I perceive too well!A business to make us all very serious indeed.A business to be accomplished but by le manhood,and devout all-daring,all-enduring loyalty to Heaven,such as fatally sleeps at present,--such as is dead at present either,unless the gods have doomed this world of theirs to die!
A business which long centuries of faithful travail and heroic agony,on the part of all the le that are born to us,will end;and which to us,of this "tremendous cheering"century,it were blessedness very great to see successfully begun.Begun,tried by all manner of methods,if there is one wise Statesman or man left among us,it verily must be;--begun,successfully or unsuccessfully,we do hope to see it!
In all European countries,especially in England,one class of Captains and commanders of men,recognizable as the beginning of a new real and imaginary "Aristocracy,"has already in some measure developed itself:the Captains of Industry;--happily the class who above all,or at least first of all,are wanted in this time.In the doing of material work,we have already men among us that can command bodies of men.And surely,on the other hand,there is lack of men needing to be commanded:the sad class of brother-men whom we had to describe as "Hodge's emancipated horses,"reduced to roving famine,--this too has in all countries developed itself;and,in fatal geometrical progression,is ever more developing itself,with a rapidity which alarms every one.On this ground,if on all manner of other grounds,it may be truly said,the "Organization of Labor"(organizable by the mad methods tried hitherto)is the universal vital Problem of the world.
To bring these hordes of outcast captainless soldiers under due captaincy?This is really the question of questions;on the answer to which turns,among other things,the fate of all Governments,constitutional and other,--the possibility of their continuing to exist,or the impossibility.Captainless,uncommanded,these wretched outcast "soldiers,"since they can starve,must needs become banditti,street-barricaders,--destroyers of every Government that can put them under captains,and send them upon enterprises,and in short render life human to them.Our English plan of Poor Laws,which we once piqued ourselves upon as sovereign,is evidently fast breaking down.Ireland,admitted into the Idle Workhouse,is rapidly bursting it in pieces.That never was a "human"destiny for any honest son of Adam;here but in England could it have lasted at all;and ,with Ireland sharer in it,and the fulness of time come,it is as good as ended.
Alas,yes.Here in Connemara,your crazy Ship of the State,otherwise dreadfully rotten in many of its timbers I believe,has sprung a leak:spite of all hands at the pump,the water is rising;the Ship,I perceive,will founder,if you can stop this leak!