In so far as his influence has prevailed, Americans have
been encouraged to think those thoughts and to perform those acts which
everybody else is thinking and performing.
The effect of a belief in the principle of "equal rights" on freedom is,
however, most clearly shown by its attitude toward Democratic political
organization and policy. A people jealous of their rights are not
sufficiently afraid of special individual efficiency and distinction to
take very many precautions against it. They greet it oftener with
neglect than with positive coercion. Jeffersonian Democracy is, however,
very much afraid of any examples of associated efficiency. Equality of
rights is most in clanger of being violated when the exercise of rights
is associated with power, and any unusual amount of power is usually
derived from the association of a number of individuals for a common
purpose. The most dangerous example of such association is not, however,
a huge corporation or a labor union; it is the state. The state cannot
be bound hand and foot by the law, as can a corporation, because it
necessarily possesses some powers of legislation; and the power to
legislate inevitably escapes the limitation of the principle of equal
rights.
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