Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1872 — Mr. Charles O’Co nor’s Ideal Democracy. [ARTICLE]

Mr. Charles O’Co nor’s Ideal Democracy.

Harper’s Magazine for November. The doctrines of go vernment announced in Mr. Ohai-les O’Conor’s letter are curious and interesting as the theories of an able man. Fourfifths of the work i low done by government lie thinks should lie leftundone, being a usurpat ;ioa of private right. The power to b> arrow money, lie says, is fatal to fre e institutions, because it fetters labor as the bondslave of capital. Pay as you go. If people wish to fight, let them l bot their own bills. If they can not, so much the better, for then they wi'.l not wish to fight; and war, which lie calls the “niqst shocking of all c rimes and calamities, would be irnpc ssible.” 3 [r. O’Conor evidently thin ks that “th ere never was a good wa.r iior a bud peace,” in which doctr ;ne, probably, the sons of Revolutiolia ry sires do not agree with him. There is,however,ace rtain simplicity in Mr; O’Conor’s views v vnieli recalls the democracy of the old Greek cities, and thafof sorne of the Swiss cantons to-day. Mr. I iayard Taylor gives us the latest acoov mt of the little canton of Appenzell. Ttisaii mountains, yet it supports more pop ulation to the acre than Hollan d,* and is full of industry and riches.. But it is a pure democracy. Nol >ody is allowed to decline a public ol lice; no public, officer receives any salt try—wliic h was Dr. Franklin’s theory of our national officers —and he repairs from liis own property any loss to th e treasury due to his official conduct. Yet they tax themselves roundly, and within the last fifteen years have raised seven hundred thousand doll ars to im prove their communications with the v/orld. Once a year all the people of A ppenzell assemble. Each man wet ,rs at his side the sword whioh the law commands hint to carry, aad forbids him to draw. When the landamma n, or chief magistrate, has been eieett d by a majority of al! the people prt sent, be binds himself to obey the taws, and then solemnly administers b o the multitude the oatli of obedience to their own laws. Mr. Freeh) an, who was there in 1863, says: “To hea r the voice of thousands of freemen p Hedging themselves to obey the laws v vhich they themselves have made is a moment in one’s life which can nc ret be forgotten, a moment for whose s akelt would be worth while to take a far longer and harder journey that i that which leads us to Uri or Appen zell.”

So in the canton of Uri, a c; uiton which has scarcely twenty thoi isand inhabitants, and which is com posed of bleak and bare mountain! 3— St. Gothard is in it, and the t ’alley of the river Reuss—there is a simple democracy which would cheer the soul of Mr. O'Conor. Onces . year in the village of Bozlingen, William Toll's birth-place—if scholarly research will still leave us v a Wi! lliam Tell, of which there seems to be some d oubt—all the people of the ca nton assemble. The little army of the cantop, 800 men strong, which can only be summoned to expel invaders from the canton, marches in front u nder the old Uri banner of the bull’s l u ad, which floated over the head of Ar aold von Winkelried at Sempach. T ’hen follow the magistrates and the pe< iple. A prayer is offered in the green m endow where the assembly is held. If new laws are wanted, they are now proposed and explained. The m. agiatrates of the year surrender t heir trusts. The chief of the come nonwealth leaves his official seat and places himself among his fellow- citizens. If he has hot lost t heir confidence, they recall him to the office, and it is the experience of little canton of Uri that republics are not ungrateful. This has been the simple habit of the government of Uri from the earliest history, interrupted only by the French invasion in 17f .9. These are the ideals which Mr. O’Conor evidently cherishes. But whether the practices of secluded and unchanging states of a few thousands of homogenous people could be wisely applied to the government of-a ct mtineht of various races, Mr. O’Conor does not say. But probably every 1 ' 1 body except Mr, O’Conor has decided. (j 3