It is not a criticism of a certain conception of democracy, so much as of democracy itself.

Ultimate responsibility for the government of a community must reside somewhere.

If the single monarch is practically dethroned, as he is by these liberal critics of democracy, some Sovereign power must be provided to take his place.

In England Parliament, by means of a steady encroachment on the royal prerogatives, has gradually become Sovereign; but other countries, such as France and the United States, which have wholly dispensed with royalty, cannot, even if they would, make a legislative body Sovereign by the simple process of allowing it to usurp power once enjoyed by the Crown.

France did, indeed, after it had finally dispensed with Legitimacy, make two attempts to found governments in which the theory of popular Sovereignty was evaded.