For in one
fundamental respect the political science on which democracy was based
was the same science that Aristotle formulated. It was the same
science for democrat and aristocrat, royalist and republican, in that
its major premise assumed the art of government to be a natural
endowment. Men differed radically when they tried to name the men so
endowed; but they agreed in thinking that the greatest question of all
was to find those in whom political wisdom was innate. Royalists were
sure that kings were born to govern. Alexander Hamilton thought that
while "there are strong minds in every walk of life... the
representative body, with too few exceptions to have any influence on
the spirit of the government, will be composed of landholders,
merchants, and men of the learned professions." [Footnote: _The
Federalist_, Nos. 35, 36. _Cf_. comment by Henry Jones Ford in
his _Rise and Growth of American Politics_. Ch. V.] Jefferson
thought the political faculties were deposited by God in farmers and
planters, and sometimes spoke as if they were found in all the people.
[Footnote: See below p. 268.] The main premise was the same: to govern
was an instinct that appeared, according to your social preferences,
in one man or a chosen few, in all males, or only in males who were
white and twenty-one, perhaps even in all men and all women.
In deciding who was most fit to govern, knowledge of the world was
taken for granted.
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