BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND JOSEPH DE MAISTRE.

A DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD.

Franklin. I am glad to have the opportunity of exchanging a few words with a politician so celebrated in his own day--and not very long after mine-as the Count Joseph de Maistre. I reverence in him that rarest of phenomena among the political thinkers both of my time and his-one who had a principle, and throughout his speculations adhered to it. Our respective positions were indeed on the very opposite extremities of the platform: and yet I think, though neither of us is very likely to be convinced by the other, each may learn from the other. That is, if the Count will honour a simple citizen-for whose countrymen, and their constitution, I am afraid he entertained in life not much respect by exchanging ideas with him in this limbo of ours below.

De Maistre. Monsieur Franklin, the envoy of a great people, and the honoured guest of the Court of France, need not trifle with a very poor Savoyard gentleman by assuming such airs of modesty. But you are indeed mistaken in the sentiments which you attribute to me respecting your country and her institutions. That the theory of popular rights, professed among you, is founded in error, I know full well: but it is not your theory only. Other communities, possessing so-called liberal institutions, profess it, and act upon it, as I have always said, with less of consistency and therefore with inferior success; because they have been always endeavouring to fit on to their trumpery structures, based on mere assumptions or on

mere hazard, something of the majesty and inviolability which appertain solely to that polity which is from on high. You have been ever too steady in your utilitarian faith to fall into this self-contradictory fallacy; or at least until lately: for if the rumours which reach us respecting the strife which now convulses your country are true, some of your statesmen seem to be already invoking the theory of divine right in favour of your fire-new Federation. For the rest, I never preferred absolute to free institutions. I perceived the practical value of selfgovernment as clearly as any republican among you. Every nation (I have said it) has in the long run that government which it deserves. Yours dared nobly, and deserved highly, and earned its reward. I never quarrelled with the superstructure of your political edifice; but I denied, and deny, that it, or any other raised on the theory of popular sovereignty, has a foundation, or can possibly endure beyond a short season. I deny that these popular franchises, of which I by no means undervalue the beneficial effects, can be rested on any secure basis except that of concession from the ruler; for that higher political authority which by the supposition concedes them, can alone restrain the abuse of them. So long as its controlling power is kept out of sight or denied, the world can but witness the recurrence of that dispiriting, never-ending round, of freedom degenerating into licence, and licence begetting tyranny. And surely, if anything of truth reaches us here, the period for the accomplishment of my very unwilling prophecies, as regards your country, seems near at hand.

Franklin. You allowed us, I think, even a much shorter period, when you occupied the prophetical pulpit. If I remember rightly, you expressed yourself ready to wager a thousand to one that our then projected metropolis

would either never be built, or would not be called Washington, or that Congress would never sit there.

De Maistre. Alas! where is the prophet among us who can endure the test of a literal verification of his conjectures respecting events close at hand? Not I, assuredly. I was always too much dazzled by the vividness of that light in which, as I believe, I contemplated the ultimate goal of the course of human society, to have a clear vision of near objects on either side of the road to it. I have always thought that one of the strange notions of the poet Dante respecting the state of souls in this limbo of ours was applicable, in life, to a class of thinkers to which I myself belonged. We were like those people of imperfect eyesight who see things at a distance in outlines of preternatural sharpness, very imperfectly things near them; and are forced to rely for their knowledge of these latter on the reports of more practical observers than themselves. You, I suspect, belonged to the opposite category at all events, without pronouncing uncourteously on your power of presaging the distant future, I may be allowed to recognise the singular precision of your judgment as to occurrences soon to happen. But, having prefaced thus much, I stand by my prophecy. The first alternative has substantially come true. Washington has never been built. It is an encampment-not a city in any true sense. It is a mere political fungus spreading on the surface of the soil-not an abiding centre of human enjoyment or industry rooted in it. And-pardon the thought, it is no new one, and uttered in sadness and not in sarcasm-what Washington is among cities, your Republic will prove among polities.

*Noi veggiam come quei ch' ha mala luce,
Le cose, disse, che ne son lontano . . .
Quando s' appressano, o son, tutto è vano
Nostro intelletto, e s' altri non c' apporta,
Nulla sappiam di vostro stato umano.

Franklin. Through what outward phases of political
being my beloved country may have to pass, I am cer-
tainly not the seer to foretell. But thus much I will
confidently anticipate: the substantial advantages which
she has won for herself, and taught the rest of the world
how to win, will never be lost. Political wisdom may,
for aught I know, run back in other things; but not in
this. It was her destiny to prove to mankind, that man-
kind need not be governed by classes, nor for classes; that
men in the long run are capable of conducting their own
affairs; that there is no hierarchy, whether resting its
claims on divine right or on imaginary compacts and
surrenders, charters or protocols, in government, whatever
there may be in religion. She has taught the world how
to get rid of all these impostures: if the world will for a
while let them still subsist, in obedience either to a blind
fear of revolution or to the sophistries (pardon the ex-
pression) of learned men who try to weave their fears and
scruples into theories, she at least has shown the better
way. Democratic progress is henceforth quite as assured
as scientific progress; and men will one day smile as
serenely over the reactionary fallacies which impede the
first, as over the prejudices which retard the latter. If
you must have divine right to base your system, seek it
here. I was a versifier in my youth, though you would
hardly think it; and I remember well the hold which some
rough lines of a rhymster of my day took on my imagi-
nation; men laughed at them and him, for he was an
Irish Lord, a courtier and a jobber-

Superior virtue, wisdom, might,
Create and mark the ruler's right,
So Nature's laws conclude:
Then Thine it is, to whom belong
The wise, the virtuous, and the strong,
Thrice glorious Multitude.

I have learnt since to frame my own model Republic on a lower principle, that of expediency: but the words ring in my ears like the note of a clarion notwithstanding.

De Maistre. If I thought you in earnest, I might be tempted to ask, what is the value of having collective virtue and collective wisdom at the head of affairs, if individual wisdom and virtue are almost invariably either slandered, or bullied, or hustled by mere brute force out of all leading functions in the conduct of those affairs; which is no mere calumny of us monarchists, but the constant complaint of those who live under a democracy, and not the least (unless I am misinformed) of the more intelligent of your countrymen ?

Franklin. I will answer you, at all events, in plain earnest. I admit the charge; it was true to some extent in my time; it is no doubt truer now, when democracy has richer prizes to offer to those who will condescend to flatter its weaknesses. But admitting it fully, I am utterly at a loss to understand the importance with which ordinary thinkers invest it. I cannot but think they confound altogether the means with the end. The end is simply that the vast mass of mankind may live happy, contented, industrious, and, above all, progressive. If the preeminence of a few wealthy hereditary statesmen, or a few of the most refined talkers and writers, is necessary towards this end, then I fairly admit that America is in a bad way. But what if this, the only real end of government, is no such deep mystery after all? what if it is really attainable by the efforts in common of a number of not very distinguished people, roughly but effectively trained by their very circumstances, working on and quarrelling on and jobbing on as members of democratic bodies usually do? What does it matter, in that case, if the philosopher