so complex a polity. At the other end of the scale we may represent to
ourselves 250 "squatters" forming an independent State in the far West
of America. They are a pure democracy, and the sovereignty belongs to
them all jointly. Is a man to be tried for his life? The remaining 249
are his judges. Is a tax to be levied on ardent spirits? The 250 vote
it. Is there a call to arms? The 250 marshal themselves to war. That
clearly is the condition of minimum differentiation, where one citizen
is in all political points the exact counterpart of all the rest. Of
all polities it is the most _simple and elementary_ possible. And so
far forth as the natural order of evolution in polities, as in all
other things, is from simple to compound, this is also the _original_
polity. It is also the _residuary_ polity, that, namely, which comes
to be, when all other government in the State vanishes. Thus, if the
Powder Plot had succeeded, and King James I., with the royal family,
Lords and Commons, with the judges and chief officers of the
Executive, had all perished together, the sovereign authority in
England would have devolved upon the nation as a whole.

2. Certain monarchical writers shrink from the recognition of pure
democracy as either the first or the last term of the series of
polities. They do not recognize it as a polity at all. When there is
no governing body distinct from the mass of people at large, a
government must be formed, they say, by popular suffrage. Meanwhile,
according to them, the sovereign power rests not with the body of
electors: either it is not yet created, or it has lapsed: but as soon
as the election is made, they see sovereignty breaking forth like the
sun rising, in the person, single or composite, who is the object of
the people's choice. This would be the correct view of the matter, if
no choice were left to the electors, but they were obliged to
acquiesce in some prearranged polity, as a Monarchy, or a Council of