The latter will be
forced where they belong into the ranks of the supporters and
beneficiaries of the existing system; and the party of genuine reform
will be strengthened by their departure. On the other hand, the sincere
and thorough-going reformers can hardly avoid a division into two
divergent groups. One of these groups will stick faithfully to the
principle of equal rights and to the spirit of the true Jeffersonian
faith. It will seek still further to undermine the representative
character of American institutions, to deprive official leadership of
any genuine responsibility, and to cultivate individualism at the
expense of individual and national integrity. The second group, on the
other hand, may learn from experience that the principle of equal rights
is a dangerous weapon in the hands of factious and merely revolutionary
agitators, and even that such a principle is only a partial and
poverty-stricken statement of the purpose of a democratic polity. The
logic of its purposes will compel it to favor the principle of
responsible representative government, and it will seek to forge
institutions which will endow responsible political government with
renewed life.
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