Excerpt from Problems of Modern Democracy: Political and Economic Essays The controversy between the supporters of oligarchy and those of democracy, which has raged with greater or less heat ever since the middle of the last century, has drawn fresh vigor from the spectacle of the American war. Both sides have found in this great struggle, not only, to use the pulpit phrase, "an occasion to improve," but an endless supply of illustrations for the enforcement or elevation of their respective theories. The one sees, both in the causes of the struggle and in the manner in which it has been conducted, a series of conclusive proofs of the failure of popular government; the other finds in the incidents of each hour some new justification of its confidence in popular fortitude, honesty, and sagacity. And the discussion has been exacerbated by the fact, that neither party has been a disinterested spectator of the contest. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.