| <Saturday Review 21 June 1856: Bagehot>
| <Inconvincible Governments>
| A topic of the day is the cost of freedom. Recent history on 
| the Continent has called up a crowd of courtier speculators, 
| who magnify that cost till it seems to much to pay for 
| anything. Even in this country, some thinkers ~~ rather 
| informed than educated, rather active than wise ~~ have 
| half advocated the same conclusion. Of course this is 
| extreme error. No sound inquirer, attending to the evidence 
| of history or to the evidence of his own eyes, will resist the 
| conclusion that, if you can effectually establish a free 
| government, you had better establish it ~~ that, by so 
| doing, you secure immense blessings and escape 
| overwhelming evils. Yet the gain of freedom, it may be 
| allowed, is not pure gain. There are certainly some minor 
| compensations, which, as a sort of purchase-money, we 
| must pay for freedom.
| One of these set-offs is a difficulty in foreign policy. You 
| cannot convince a free people. Of course, in real life, it is 
| very hard to convince <reg orig=“any one”> anyone </reg>. 
| The number of unsuccessful litigants who are <hi> bona 
| fide </hi> converted by the adverse judgments of the 
| courts, is seemingly rather small. The majority resemble 
| the eminent counsel, who exclaimed, <p> “It <hi> is </hi> 
| the law, I know it’s the law, but the d~~d judges wont 
| decide it so.” </p> There being no effectual international 
| tribunal, intelligent Government has its crotchets. As, in 
| common life, almost every family has a tradition that its 
| ancestors were cheated out of some estate ~~ they even 
| name the estate, value the acres, and count the trees, the 
| only thing not intelligible being the title ~~ so all nations 
| have ancient claims. There is Old Coast, captured A.D. 1 
| ~~ Icy Isle, invaded A.D. 5 ~~ Barren Peak, ascended A.D. 
| 6; and it is difficult to make them imagine that these 
| traditional demands are not in truth valuable possessions. 
| This is of course common to all Governments, despotic 
| and free. But there is a great difference in practice. A 
| despot is one man. He governs by a <hi> bureau. </hi> If 
| he does not read international controversies himself, he is 
| daily in familiar intercourse with statesmen who have to 
| write on them ~~ who do read them, study them, master 
| them. It is impossible that such a man should not get some 
| notion of there being two sides to every question. Of 
| course, he may be weak and obstinate, vain or haughty. 
| He may have great defects of understanding. Still, in 
| civilized European despotisms, the Monarch is brought 
| daily into contact with people who do know, and whose 
| ordinary interest it is that he should know, what the case of 
| the adversary is. On the other hand, a free people only 
| hears its own side. It never reads the enemy’s despatches. 
| Very few persons are much wiser if they do read 
| despatches. The nation’s own Government, by word of 
| mouth, or through its own organs, makes its statement, 
| and hardly <reg orig=“any one”> anyone </reg> effectually 
| answers it. No doubt the Opposition are quite ready to say 
| that the negotiations have been misconducted ~~ that the 
| whole affair has been mismanaged ~~ that everybody has 
| done everything wrong ~~ that <reg orig=“no one” no-one 
| </reg> who, in that matter, has done anything, should ever 
| be allowed to do anything again. But the Opposition will go 
| no farther. It is most dangerous in politics to give your 
| opponent the monopoly of the national grievances. if he 
| can make out his case, he will be cheered, applauded, 
| beloved. He has <p> “vindicated the national honour.” </p> 
| If you succeed ~~ if you prove that your nation has no 
| claim to the Bay Islands ~~ all you can hope is a cold, 
| ungratified respect. <p> “Well, I suppose, confound him, he 
| <hi> was </hi> right. But I wish he had not been ~~ it was a 
| very deep bay, and there was much to be said on the other 
| side, for all that.” </p> If a war breaks out, the case is 
| worse. Those who object are proving that victories are 
| injurious ~~ that defeats are merited ~~ that there is no 
| glory for those who live, no patriotic consolation for those 
| who mourn ~~ that those who are dead, died endeavouring 
| to do injustice. No Opposition will condemn itself to an 
| argument like this. All political parties conspire to prove to 
| the nation the validity of its claims.
| In America this is felt even more than it is here. No respect 
| for the American people ~~ no admiration for their vigour, 
| ability, and energy ~~ will induce educated men in Europe 
| to respect certain American institutions. Many wonder that, 
| in a country where there is so much virtue and cultivation, 
| the tone of public discussion should be so low and mean. 
| Yet we have at home an instance which should enable us 
| to understand how the two may be consistent. If you throw 
| the whole power into the hands of an inferior class ~~ a 
| class worthy, no doubt, to be represented in its way, but 
| not worthy to have an enormous preponderance ~~ you 
| must not wonder if you reap as you have sown. There is 
| the borough of Finsbury. We remember hearing a learned 
| man in Russell-square ~~ a scholar, who, like many other 
| erudite scholars, rather preferred the instructed, elaborate 
| bureaucracy of Germany to the free ignorant politics of his 
| own country ~~ arrest an eloquent eulogium of the success 
| with which <hi> all </hi> classes were represented under 
| the British Constitution by remarking <p> <hi> I </hi> am 
| represented by Mr. Wakley and Tom Duncombe.” </p> 
| America is one great Finsbury. The instructed sense, the 
| delicate taste, the high cultivation, which are really 
| components in her national life, find no voice in her 
| government ~~ are overwhelmed amid the multitude of the 
| masses. It is true, of course, that those masses are not 
| what they would be in this or in any European country. We 
| do not speak of the unsettled populations of the extreme 
| South ~~ a dangerous element, which it is to be feared the 
| world may hereafter have more adequate means of 
| estimating at its value. We do not speak of the States in 
| which the institution of slavery has produced one of its 
| worst and most obvious effects in the disrepute and 
| degradation of free labour. We would speak of America in 
| her best estate ~~ in provinces abounding in all the 
| materials of civilization ~~ where the working classes are 
| better off than they are anywhere else in the world. It is 
| exactly here that she is most likely to feel the difficulty of 
| impartiality in foreign affairs. The ruling power in those 
| districts resides in what we may call the <hi> just-taught 
| </hi> classes. An immense deal of common information is 
| diffused. All the knowledge which is of use in the every-day 
| work of civilization is most popular. Reading and writing are 
| the property of everybody. An eager, sharp, <p> “smart” 
| </p> sense is universal among the masses. Woe to those 
| who try to deceive them on matters within their daily 
| sphere, and having reference to their daily calling. But it is 
| absurd to expect from such persons the balanced sense, 
| the exercised judgment, the many-sided equanimity, which 
| are necessary to from a judgment on elaborate 
| controversies, and on difficult foreign relations. The eager 
| intuition, the narrow promptitude, which conduce to their 
| rapid success in their personal pursuits, unfit them for 
| forming a judgment on matters beyond them. They go too 
| quick. They are unalive to the danger of believing as they 
| wish. They fancy that all who argue against them are trying 
| to impose upon them. A low suspicion taints their intellect 
| ~~ a fear of being overreached warps their conduct. They 
| are the ready victims of incendiaries ~~ the sure converts 
| of agitators who trade in grievances, and who can always 
| show that America is injured, that England has been 
| meddling, and that instant attention is required to prevent 
| our attacking some place which we never desired, or 
| annexing some region of which we never heard.
| The inference from all this is clear. A country whose 
| institutions subject her to this difficulty is entitled ~~ most of 
| all from those who are near enough in habit and language 
| to comprehend her ~~ to a large tolerance in international 
| controversies. She does not know what she is doing. We 
| may justly endure from our misled and mistaken kindred 
| what it would be disgraceful to bear from an intelligent and 
| designing despot.