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.Until the 1890s,Godkin supplemented the regular round of commentary on events with morephilosophical reflections on the possibilities and limits of democracy.With con-siderable consistency, he continued to take it as a self-imposed duty to rootout what in 1865 he called   all the delusions  that were   current at presentamongst democrats and aristocrats here and in Europe, as to the real nature,requirements, and consequences of a democratic form of government.  55 Inthe immediate context of Reconstruction, this effort represented both a con-tribution to political thought and an attempt to impress on American readersthe responsibilities that came with voting, which Godkin believed were insuffi-ciently appreciated.The article he revised for Norton showed his debt to Mill sConsiderations on Representative Government, explaining that the   steady cul-tivation, by every possible agency, of a feeling of responsibility to others thanourselves for the use made of the franchise  would help American voters torealize   a general advance towards the conscientious performance of this mostimportant of all our social duties.  56While Godkin applied the sensibilities of European liberalism to the Ameri-can scene, he also self-consciously contributed to the debate over liberal de-mocracy that was raging within Britain.His Reconstruction-era work as a cor-respondent for the London Daily News helped to sustain an acute awareness ofLIBERAL HIGH TIDE 115how the process of   Americanization  was extended during the heated strugglefor parliamentary reform.In early 1867, as the move for reform was nearingits climax, Godkin predicted that   we are witnessing the last days even ofconstitutional monarchies  and that the   next century will probably see thewhole Western world ruled by a numerical majority, exercising its power eitherthrough the medium of one man or of an elected assembly.  He believed thatthe example of the United States should dispel the anxiety that many observersexpressed about such a dramatic development.Far from a tyrannical interfer-ence in the affairs and opinions of the majority, Godkin asserted, Americandemocracy had produced a country freer and more tolerant than any other.As   singular as it may seem,  the United States was   of all countries in thecivilized world, that in which the law meddles the least in a man s disposal ofhis possessions, in which religious worship is freest from legislative control orinterference, and in which a man s religious or other opinions, his manners, hiscalling or mode of life, expose him to least reproach from his neighbors.  Giventhis proven record of liberal democracy in practice, he charged that opponentsof British reform expressed only their rank prejudice in warning of illiberaldemocracy in theory.Those hoping to direct affairs toward progress neededa new strategy that would trust large groups of properly instructed voters tobe motivated by justice, a concern for the common good, and a respect forindividual rights.The United States was again instructive since   religious tol-eration, the improvement in the condition of prisoners, the mitigation of thehorrors of war, and a hundred other reforms  undertaken in the New Worldwere   brought about, not by the direct agency of a few reformers, but by thesuccess of reformers in persuading the majority into their way of thinking.  57Godkin s tribute to liberal democracy within the United States and to theAmerican people s proven record of enlightened reform anticipated argumentsset forth in Essays on Reform, which appeared just a few months later.Theyoung university-based British liberals hoped that this volume would consoli-date their standing as a distinctly progressive segment of the Victorian intel-ligentsia.From the outset, the contributors promised to show that the   de-mand for a more national Parliament is not a mere cry to which it would befolly and weakness to give way, or the expedient of a party anxious to attainpower by the aid of popular agitation, but a conviction seriously entertainedand capable of being supported by arguments worthy of the attention of thosewho wish to legislate deliberately and in an impartial spirit for the good of thewhole people.  Its guiding forces were some of the same pro-Union intellectu-als who made up the Jamaica Committee, though in this forum the example116 LIBERAL HIGH TIDEof the United States was explicit rather than merely implied.Goldwin Smith,who had already applied his Civil War experience to the British call for reform,argued in   The Experience of the American Commonwealth  that most of theflaws associated with the United States were a result not of democracy but ofthe corrupting effects of slavery, mass immigration, and the   colonial  back-wardness of a culture whose greater refinement would come only with the pas-sage of time.Somewhat more defensively, Leslie Stephen similarly disputedthe links between American flaws (which he acknowledged) and the systemof popular government (which he predicted could be implemented with fargreater success in a stable and enlightened country such as Britain) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]