Men who have
grievances are inflamed into anger and resentment. In claiming what they
believe to be their rights, they are in their own opinion acting on
behalf not merely of their interests, but of an absolute democratic
principle. Their angry resentment becomes transformed in their own minds
into righteous indignation; and there may be turned loose upon the
community a horde of self-seeking fanatics--like unto those soldiers in
the religious wars who robbed and slaughtered their opponents in the
service of God.
II
DEMOCRACY AND DISCRIMINATION
The principle of equal rights has always appealed to its more patriotic
and sensible adherents as essentially an impartial rule of political
action--one that held a perfectly fair balance between the individual
and society, and between different and hostile individual and class
interests. But as a fundamental principle of democratic policy it is as
ambiguous in this respect as it is in other respects. In its traditional
form and expression it has concealed an extremely partial interest under
a formal proclamation of impartiality.
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