"A fear of democracy runs through liberalism". Discuss.

A fear of democracy is present in classical liberalism through their opposition to universal suffrage, fear of tyrannical majoritarian mob rule and support for constitutional constraints upon democratically elected governments. John Locke and John Stuart Mill both oppose universal suffrage through the limiting of voting rights to the propertied (in Locke’s case) and through granting citizen’s 1-4 votes based upon their level of political education (in Mill’s case). Locke’s opposition is based upon preventing citizen’s who have no stake in society from voting recklessly and Mill intended to prevent votes being casted ignorantly, however both qualms evidence a fear of democracy leading to negative policy outcomes. The classically liberal fear of democracy extends further to the fear of majoritarianism in the beliefs of Tocqueville and Rousseau. Rousseau believed that the majority may form a sum of individual tyrannical intents which may not reflect what is morally true as even 99% of people may support of an immoral policy whilst Tocqueville feared that a tyrannous majority may oppress minorities under the banner of a majoritarian consensus as is expressed in his fear of the rule of the 51%. These contentions express a fear of majoritarian democracy that constitutes as a classically liberal fear of democracy. This is replicated in US founding father James Madison’s support for a separation of governmental powers (into separate and distinct forces of a judiciary, legislative and executive) and his support for limitations upon the government through a codified constitution (which requires a special process for amendment as is outlined in article V). This also illustrates a fear of democracy through the checking of elected powers in Congress through a President (who is technically appointed through the electoral college system and not directly elected) and an unelected judiciary.//
Alternatively, one may argue that a fear of democracy does not run through liberalism. The attitudes of Locke and Mill do not necessarily suggest a fear of democracy as both supported the advancement of democracy relative to their contemporaries. Locke’s concept of the social contract was based upon the development of the principle of popular consent being key to governmental legitimacy (opposing Hobbes’ social contract theory that supported absolute power), Locke placed such importance in consent that he believed that a government that acts outside of popular consent should be overthrown under the people’s right to revolution. Furthermore, Mill supported votes for women on the same terms as men and thus both of their fears towards democracy could be argued to have been outweighed by the evidence of their support. However, this is fundamentally flawed as an argument because their general support for democracy simply contextualises their qualms with democracy as fears rather than outright opposition. Moreover, one could argue that a fear of democracy does not run through liberalism as Tocqueville’s ideal of a pluralism in which ideas are freely debated upon their flaws and merits within a marketplace of ideas is fully expressed within free and fair democratic elections and thus basic liberal principles of pluralism and rationalism inextricably link to a support for democracy. Additionally, as certain classical liberals such as Jeremy Bentham supported universal suffrage unconditionally and all modern liberals support democracy one could argue that classical liberal’s opposition to universal suffrage is the exception and not the rule. In conclusion, one could state that a fear of democracy runs through most of classical liberalism (with the fear of majoritarianism manifesting in constitutional constraints also surviving to modern liberals).