course poor material for a republic, because they had
been debased so long by monarchy; and yet even they
would have been intelligent enough to make short work
of that law which the king had just been administering
if it had been submitted to their full and free vote.
There is a phrase which has grown so common in the
world's mouth that it has come to seem to have sense
and meaning -- the sense and meaning implied when it
is used; that is the phrase which refers to this or that
or the other nation as possibly being "capable of self-
government"; and the implied sense of it is, that there
has been a nation somewhere, some time or other
which WASN'T capable of it -- wasn't as able to govern
itself as some self-appointed specialists were or would
be to govern it. The master minds of all nations, in