By liberty was meant protection against the tyranny of
political rulers.' This struggle has been carried on for ages, until it
has now come to be an axiom, universally received in civilized nations,
that government is instituted solely for the good of the governed. And
in the progress of amelioration and improvement, it has been supposed
that the popular principle of universal suffrage, with frequent
elections, and consequent responsibility of political agents, would
effectually prevent the exercise of tyranny in governments; and this
especially when governments are instituted under written constitutions,
with powers limited and clearly defined therein. The people, through
their chosen representatives, wielding the whole power of the national
organization, could not be expected to tyrannize over themselves.
Experience, however, soon proved that the tyranny of the majority in
popular governments is to be guarded against quite as carefully as that
of despotic rulers in any other form of polity. For, says Mr. Mill,
'when society is itself the tyrant--society collectively over the
individuals which compose it--its means of tyrannizing are not
restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political
functionaries.' The obvious truth of this statement needs no elaborate
attempt at illustration. In all the departments of thought and action,
of opinion and habit, the power of society over its separate members is
tremendous and unlimited, sometimes penetrating 'deeply into the details
of life, and enslaving the soul itself.
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