§ 1.

Of the several conclusions deducible from the law of equal freedom there are few more manifest or more generally agreed to than this, that all members of a community have like claims to political power. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then each is free to exercise the same authority in legislation as his fellows; and no individual or class can exercise greater authority than the rest without violating the law.

Evidently, therefore, a purely democratic government is the only one which is morally admissible — is the only one that is not intrinsically criminal. As lately shown, no government can have any ethical authority. The highest form it can assume is that in which the moral law remains passive with regard to it—tolerates it—no longer protests against it. The first condition of that form is that citizenship shall be voluntary; the second—that it shall confer equal privileges.