Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

[516] There is a law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, thoroughly executed in every county but ours; and here the men appointed to execute it not only do not want to, but you cannot expect them to. They were elected not to execute it, and they say they can't execute it. Shall we take up the rails, or change the engineer?which?

Men say, to take the appointment of the police out of the hands of the peninsula is anti-democratic. Why, from 1620 down to within ten years, the State always acted on that plan. The State makes the law. Who executes it? The State. For two hundred years, the Governor appointed the sheriff of every county, and the sheriff appointed his deputies, and they executed the laws. The constables of the towns were allowed merely a subsidiary authority to execute by-laws, and help execute the State law. The democratic principle is, that the law shall be executed by an executive authority concurrent with that which makes it. That is democracy. The State law, naturally, democratically, is to be executed by the State. We have merely, in deference to convenience, changed that of late in some particulars, and we may reasonably go back to the old plan if we find that, in any particular locality, the new plan fails. Why not? In all other matters of State concern, as Mr. Ellis has well shown,--Board of Education, Board of Agriculture, and all the various boards,--the State has the control. You perceive this “anti-democratic” argument can be carried out to an absurdity. Suppose the Five Points of New York should send word to the Fifth Avenue, “We don't like your police; we mean to have one of our own, and it will be very anti-democratic for you to take the choice of our own constables out of our own hands.” Suppose North Street should send word to the City Hall, “We have concluded to turn every other house into a grog-shop, of ”