PUBLIC OPINION.

No fabled monster of antiquity ever struck such terror into the breasts of a rude people, as the hydraheaded, many-mouthed, invisible, but omnipresent monster, which we call Public Opinion, inflicts upon the present race of men. Without shape or form, viewless as the wind, it encircles us like the air we breathe. In vain we try to escape from its dreadful presence. It haunts us on land and on the sea, and reaches us in the most remote and desolate regions of the globe. Napoleon felt it as acutely on the barren rock of St. Helena as when seated in the Tuilleries, master of half the world. We may fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, or bury ourselves in the caves of the hills, but even there it stares us in the face. It will not go down at our bidding. It clings to us like the shirt of Nessus. It goes when we go, stops when we stop, lies down with us at night, and rises with us in the morning. There is no escape from its presence, for, like light and electricity, it pervades the universe.

No man is so hardy, so encased in triple rows of brass, that he can defy the dread tribunal of public opinion. He may encounter without fear the dangers of the sea, the horrors of war, the pestilence that walketh at noon day, the savage beast that roams in the forest, or the more savage man that knows no mercy for his fellows, but the opinion of all men he cannot face so easily. The desire to be thought well of by others is one of the most deep-seated and ineradicable of all sentiments that belong to the human heart. The most abandoned criminal in his cell, his hands red with human blood, and stained with every vice that can disgrace our common nature, with hardly a vestige of humanity left in him, is still anxious that the public should not utterly condemn him, and that the world should recognize some redeeming traits in his character; that he should be allowed to possess some one virtue, though it may be linked with a thousand crimes.

Public opinion acts with more or less intensity, and is more or less omnipotent, according to the variety of national manners and of forms of government that prevail in different parts of the world. It is very observable that it becomes more absolute and tyrannical, just in proportion as nations become more free, and the restraints of political institutions are less felt. Hence, nowhere is its force so fully exhibited as with us, who enjoy the highest degree of civil and political

liberty. When the laws bear lightest, public opinion, for that very reason, bears heaviest upon us. In France one is much more free to say and do what he pleases, without the fear of what his neighbors will say, than he is in the United States. He is not allowed to talk politics or to criticise the government, but may discuss everything else, without the fear of being persecuted for his opinions if they are different from those around him. The physician in Paris or London is not deterred by the fear of ridicule from examining the claims of clairvoyance or of spiritualism, and of investigating their phenomena.

We may

With us the case is just the reverse. abuse our rulers to our heart's content, in the full enjoyment of unrestrained political freedom, but in all matters relating to science, morals and religion, we must be careful how we express an independent opinion. We are made to feel at once that though politically free we are socially more enslaved than the most despotic nations of Europe. The price we pay for our civil freedom is social slavery. As the rigor of law is less felt, its place is supplied by a common law of public opinion. This we see illustrated in our new States and Territories at the West, where, in a new and unsettled state of society, the laws can act but feebly, and are inadequate even to the protection of person and property. Public opinion takes the place of law and becomes the most tyrannical of

masters. The man who steals a horse, commits the gravest offence in a new and unsettled country, where horses are indispensable and the laws too weak for their protection. He is tried at the bar of public opinion and hung up by the orders of Judge Lynch on the first tree.

The recent outbreak in California and the formation of a Committee of Safety is a notable and terrible example of the force of public opinion, where the laws bear lightly and are inadequate for protection. Man is destined, for his good no doubt, to be to a certain extent the slave of his fellow-men. In proportion as he becomes politically free he becomes socially enslaved. When the law bears lightest, public opinion bears heaviest. Nowhere is there so little social freedom as in the free and enlightened United States of America. Nowhere is this control of public opinion so absolute as in the States which enjoy the highest degree of political liberty, and the one is the necessary result of the other. Who dares here broach a new theory in science, morals, or religion, that thwarts the prejudices of his neighbors? In Paris the Frenchman may do it with impunity, but here the

cry

is at once, Crucify him, Crucify him, not on the cross, to be sure, but with averted faces, banishment from our sympathy and our society, and from all communion with those from whom he has dared to differ, by holding up the slow-moving finger of scorn, or, it may be, raising the cry of mad dog.

That public opinion acts beneficially in many respects there can be no doubt, and that it exerts oftentimes a wise and salutary restraint is of course true. It is in fact the basis on which all law in a free country must rest, for law is but public opinion embodied in the Statute Book. It is a curious reflection, however, that it is only a certain amount of liberty that man can enjoy. If he is released from the burden of a despotic and arbitrary government he becomes only so much the more the slave of public opinion. He obtains one species of liberty at the expense of another. He must be governed just so much, either by the king or the emperor, or by public sentiment. He throws off one burden only to assume another. The conclusion would seem to be that liberty is pretty equally diffused throughout the world. Some are under one tyrant and others under many. Those whom we commiserate in other countries as being under a galling yoke of despotism, may have in some respects more liberty of speech and action than we enjoy ourselves. It behooves us not to be too boastful, or to imagine that because we live under a free government we are, therefore, altogether free.