VII.

MR. ANDREWS' REPLY TO MR. JAMES AND MR. GREELEY.

To the Editor of the New York Tribune:

Mr. James declines answering my questions on the ground that I expressed indifference to the issue of a discussion between him and another party. I did not express any indifference to the information which I sought from him. By this expert quibble he gracefully waves aside queries to which it is simply impossible for him to reply without committing himself, by inevitable sequence, to conclusions which he seems either not to have the willingness or the courage to avow. It would be cruel to insist any further. So let Mr. James pass. Before doing so, however, since he charges "fallacies and misconceptions" upon my article, and refers me obliquely to his replies to the "Observer," permit me to recapitulate the positions at which he has tarried temporarily while boxing the circle of possibilities in that discussion. I quote from Mr. James's various articles on the subject.

Position No. 1. "Marriage means nothing more and nothing less than the legal union of one man and one woman for life." "It does not mean the voluntary union of the parties, or their mutual consent to live together durante placito" (during pleasure), "but simply a legally or socially imposed obligation to live together durante vita" (during life).

That is to say, if I understand, that it is "the base legal bondage," or "outward force," which characterizes the union, and not the internal or spiritual union of loving hearts which constitutes the marriage.

Position No. 2. "It is evident to every honest mind that, if our conjugal, parental, and social ties generally can be safely discharged of the purely diabolic element of outward force, they must instantly become transfigured by their own inward, divine, and irresistible loveliness." "No doubt there is a very enormous clandestine violation of the marriage bond" [legal bond, of course, as he has defined marriage] "at the present time. The only possible chance for correcting it depends upon fully legitimating divorce. . . . because, in that case, you place the inducement to mutual fidelity no longer in the base legal bondage of the parties merely, but in their reciprocal inward sweetness or humanity." "You must know many married partners who, if the marriage institution" [the legal bond] "were

formally abolished tomorrow, would instantly annul that legal abolition again by the unswerving constancy of their hearts and lives." That is, without marriage. Position No. 3. "I have. . . . contended for greater freedom of divorce on these grounds; but I had no idea that I was thus weakening the respect for marriage. I seemed to myself to be plainly strengthening it," etc. "It seemed to me the while that I was saying as good a word for marriage as was ever said beneath the stars."

To resume: These three positions are, if language means any thing, as, follows: 1. The whole and sole substance of marriage is the legal bond or outward force which unites the parties for life.

2. This legal bond or outward force is a diabolical element, and should be wholly abolished and dispensed with.

3. By dispensing with marriage altogether—that is, with all outward form or legal bond-you do thereby strengthen the respect for marriage, and purify and sanctify the institution!

Position No. 4 goes a step further, if possible, in absurdity, and proposes not merely to allow parties to unmarry themselves ad libitum, but to still further purify what remains of marriage (after the whole of it is abolished) by turning disorderly members out, as they turn members out of church. See last article, passim.

Position No. 5 entreats of the editor of the "Observer" to let him off from the discussion-declines to answer my interrogatories—and, to make a verb of one of his pet substantives, he cuttle-fishes, by a final plunge into metaphysical mysticism.

When a writer, claiming distinction as a philosophical essayist, is content to rest his reputation upon a collation of his avowed positions such as the above, culled from his own statements made during the course of a single discussion, he shall not be compelled by any "shade of impropriety" on my part to undertake the distasteful task of disentangling himself from the perplexing embroglio.

Dismissing Mr. James, permit me now to pay some attention to your opinions. You, at least, I think, have the pluck to stand by your own conclusions, unless you are fairly driven off from them.

You

You affirm, with great truth, while you deplore it, that this is preeminently an age of "individualism," wherein the "sovereignty of the individual"— that is, "the right of every one to do pretty much as he pleases"—is already generally popular and obviously gaining ground daily. Let us, then, define our positions. If I mistake in assigning you yours, you are quite competent to correct me. declare yourself a reactionist against this obvious spirit of the age. You take your position in opposition to the drift - I think you will find it the irresistible drift – of that social revolution which you recognize as existing and progressing toward individualism and the sovereignty of the individual. You rightly refer free trade, freedom of the finances, freedom from State systems of religion and education,

and freedom of the love relations, to one and the same principle, and that principle you recognize as the spirit of the age, - the spirit of this, the most progressive and advanced age in the world's history. To this element of progression you put yourself in a hostile attitude. You rightly say that all these varieties of freedom "find their basis and element in that idea of 'individual sovereignty' which seems to us alike destructive of social and personal well-being." I rejoice that you so clearly perceive the breadth and comprehensiveness of that principle, and that all the ruling questions of the day are merely branches of one and the same question,—namely, whether the "sovereignty of the individual,” or, what is the same thing, the individual right of self-government, be a true or a false, and consequently whether it be a safe or a dangerous principle. This will greatly narrow the limits of the discussion; besides, it is much pleasanter to reason about general principles with one who is capable of grasping them than to be carried over an ocean of particulars, apparently different, but really belonging to the same category.

This same principle of individual sovereignty, which to you seems destructive alike of social and personal well-being, is to me the profoundest and most valuable and most transcendently important principle of political and social order and individual well-being ever discovered or dreamed of. Now, then, we differ. Here, at the very start, is an illustration of individuality or diversity of opinion, and, growing out of that, of action also. We are both, I believe, equally honest lovers of the well-being of our fellow-men; but we honestly differ, from diversity of organization, intellectual development, past experiences, etc. Who, now, is the legitimate umpire between us? I affirm that there is none in the universe. I assert our essential peerage. I assert the doctrine of non-intervention between individuals precisely as you do, and for the same reasons that you do, between nations, as the principle of peace and harmony and good-fellowship. Upon my principle I admit your complete sovereignty to think and act as you choose or must. I claim my own to do likewise. I claim and I admit the right to differ. This is simply the whole of it. No collision, no intervention can occur between us, so long as both act on the principle, and only to prevent intervention when either attempts to enforce his opinions upon the other. How now is it with your principle? You determine, you being judge, that my opinions are immoral, or that the action growing out of them would be injurious to other living individuals, or even to remote posterity. You, as their self-constituted guardian, summon to your aid the majority of the mob, who chance to think more nearly with you than with me for the nonce; you erect this unreflecting mass of half-developed mind, and the power thence resulting, into an abstraction which you call "The State," and, with that power at your back, you suppress me by whatever means are requisite to the end, -public odium, the prison, the gibbet, the hemlock, or the cross. A subsequent age may recognize me as a Socrates or a Christ, and, while they denounce your.

conduct with bitterness, never yet discover the falsity of the principle upon which you honestly acted. They go on themselves to the end of the chapter, repeating the same method upon all the men of their day who differ, for good or for evil, from the opinions of that same venerable mob, called "The State." Or, perchance, the mob, and consequently "The State," may be on my side,—if not now, by-and-by, —and then I suppress you. Which, now, of these two, is the principle of order in human affairs? That I should judge for you, and you for me, and each summon what power he may to enforce his opinions on the other; or that each begin by admitting the individual-sovereignty of the other—to be exercised by each at his own cost-with no limitation short of actual encroachment?

With what force and beauty and truth does Mr. James assert that "freedom, in any sphere, does not usually beget disorder. He who is the ideal of freedom is also the ideal of order." He seems, indeed, wonderfully endowed by the half-light

of intuition to discover the profoundest truths and to clothe them in delightful forms of expression. It is lamentable to see how, when he applies his intellect to deduce their conclusions, they flicker out into obscurity and darkness. You see,

on the contrary, that this simple statement alone involves the whole doctrine that I have ever asserted of individual sovereignty. Hence the line of argument as between you and me is direct, while with him it leads nowhere. Your positions are intelligible; so, I think, are mine; Mr. James's are such as we find them. I am a democrat. You, though not a despotist consciously, and calling yourself a progressive, are as yet merely a republican; republicanism, when analyzed, coming back to the same thing as despotism, the arbitrary right of the mob, called the State, over my opinions and private conduct, instead of that of an individual despot. I am no sham democrat. I believe in no government of majorities. The right of self-government means with me the right of every individual to govern himself, or it means nothing. Do not be surprised if I define terms differently from the common understanding. I shall make myself understood nevertheless.

There are in this world two conflicting principles of government. Stripped of all verbiage and all illusion, they are simply: 1, that man is not capable of governing himself, and hence needs some other man (or men) to govern him; 2, that man is capable of self-government, potentially, and that, if he be not so actually, he needs more experience in the practice of it, including more evil consequences from failure; that he must learn it for himself, as he learns other things; that he is entitled of right to his own self-government, whether good or bad in the judgment of others, whenever he exercises it at his own cost, that is, without encroachment upon the equal right of others to govern themselves. This last is the doctrine of the sovereignty of the individual, which you denounce and oppose, and which I defend. It is simply the clear understanding, with its necessary extension and limitations, of the affirmation in the American Declaration of Independence that "all men are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The principle

of Protestantism is the same in the religious sphere, -"the right of private judgment in matters of faith and conscience." Either assertion includes virtually and by direct consequence the whole doctrine of the sovereignty of the individual, or "the right of men to do pretty much as they please." The right or wrong of this principle, dimly understood heretofore, has been the world's quarrel for some centuries. Clearly and distinctly understood, with the full length of its reach before men's eyes, it is to be the world's quarrel ever hereafter, until it is fairly and finally settled. All men are now again summoned to take sides in the fight, with the new light shed upon the length and breadth of the quarrel, by the development of modern ideas, and especially by Socialism, which you, sir, have done something to foster. Let those who wish to draw back do so now. Hereafter there will be less and less pretext of misunderstanding or incautious committal to the side of freedom.

Still, you are not upon the opposite side in this contest. So far as any guiding principle is concerned, it seems to me that you, in common with the great mass of progressives, or half-way reformers in the world, are simply without any-which you are willing to trust. The conservatives are a great deal better off. So far as you adopt a principle at all, it is generally that of this very individual sovereignty, which, nevertheless, you fear in its final carrying out; and hence you join the reaction whenever the principle asserts a new one of its applications. The petty despot and the comfortable bourgeois, in Europe, fear, from the same standpoint, in the same manner, just as honestly, and with just as good reason, the freedom of the press.

A liberty which anybody else in the universe has a right to define is no liberty for me. A pursuit of happiness which some despot, or some oligarchy, or some tyrannical majority, has the power to shape and prescribe for me, is not the pursuit of my happiness. Statesmen, politicians, religious dissenters, and reformers, who have hitherto sanctioned the principle of freedom, have not seen its full reach and expansion; hence they become reactionists, conservatives, and "old fogies," when the whole truth is revealed to them. They find themselves getting more than they bargained for. Nevertheless, the principle, which already imbues the popular mind instinctively, though not as yet intellectually, will not wait their leave for its development, nor stop at their bidding. Hence all middle men, far more than the conservatives, are destined in this age to be exceedingly unhappy.

A mere handful of individuals, along with myself, do now, for the first time in the world, accept and announce the sovereignty of the individual, with all its consequences, as the principle of order as well as of liberty and happiness among men, and challenge its acceptance by mankind. The whole world is drifting to our position under the influence of forces too powerful to be resisted, and we have had merely the good or ill fortune to arrive intellectually at the common goal in advance of the multitude. It gives us at least this happiness, that we look with plea