American politics

“ If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in147 you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic party or the Republican party (for at present machine and party are one) , or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era,—then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem, and you must be educated and drawn forward towards real life. ”

“ That the true mission of American democracy is to maintain the liberties of the people, the sovereignty of the states, and the perpetuity of the Union, by the impartial application of public affairs, without sectional discriminations, of the fundamental principles of human rights, strict justice, and an economical administration. ”

“ In America to-day we are confronted with two parties,—one the great multifarious, unformed mass of the people, and the other the strong, emancipated, cultured American nation, which is at work shaping the democracy. ”

“ National politics have from the start aimed primarily at efficiency—that is, at the successful use of the force resident in the state to accomplish the purposes desired by the Sovereign authority. ”

“ Such a country can have but one people, one interest, one government: and that people should be American—that interest ours—and that government republican. . . Accursed and infamous be the man that divides or alienates it! ”

“ Thus the furious interest, which the good American took in getting himself and his associates elected, could be justified by reasons founded on the essential nature of the traditional political system. ”

“ Some time ago, a Republican Senator, whom his colleagues had honored with the presidency pro tempore of the Senate, gave expression to these significant sentiments:
The purification of politics is an iridescent dream. Government is force. Politics is a battle for supremacy. Parties are the armies. The Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no place in a political campaign. ”

“ As we embark on this new course, let us put our country first, remembering that regardless of party label, we are all Americans. And let the final test of everything we do be a simple one: Is it good for the American people? ”

“ Changes in our political process—in not just who gets elected but how they get elected—that will only happen when the American people demand it. It will depend on you. That’s what’s meant by a government of, by, and for the people. ”

“ The patriotic American, mindful of the honor of his country, asks himself with anxious interest how the spectacle of the passage of our National Government from the control of one party to that of another will strike these keen observers, and how their experiences, communicated to the world, will affect the standing of this Republic in the opinion of civilized mankind. ”

“ I urge every Member of Congress to reflect upon the gravity of this matter and to remember what the American people want from us is something quite simple: to put partisanship aside, get the job done, and work together for the common good. ”

“ There grew up a feeling that it would be wiser for civil affairs to remain, in city, state, and nation, in the hands of those who were born and [232] educated under republican institutions, and not to fall altogether under control of those who were alien in blood and religion, and who were inclined to look upon politics, not in the light of the citizen's duty to the common weal, but as an easy and profitable calling where the least scrupulous scoundrel could gather the largest share of spoils. ”

“ May the hands of the executive of their own choice, be strengthened more by the unanimity and affection of the people, than by the dread of penal infliction, or any restraints that might repress free inquiry, relative to the principles of their own government, and the conduct of its administrators! The world is now viewing America, as experimenting a new system of government, a FEDERAL REPUBLIC, including a territory to which the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland bear little proportion. ”

“ The Republicans of the United States, assembled by their representatives in national convention, appealing for the popular and historical justification of their claims to the matchless achievements of the thirty years of Republican rule, earnestly and confidently address themselves to the awakened intelligence, experience, and conscience of their countrymen in the following declaration of facts and principles:
For the first time since the Civil War the American people have witnessed the calamitous consequences of full and unrestricted Democratic control of the Government. ”

“ Besides, you want not only to be elected, but, if elected, to do good service to the country and credit to yourself by your Administration. I think I am not entirely ignorant of politics. Let me make a prediction. No skill in nice balancing will save you from the necessity of choosing between two roads, one running in the reactionary tendencies and machine politics, and the other in the direction of intelligent, progressive and reformatory politics. ”

“ Such samples of the character which political questions have hitherto borne in this country are sufficient to remind all readers of our history of what have been the chief features of our politics, and may serve, without further elaboration, to illustrate the point I wish to emphasize. It is manifest how such a course of politics would affect statesmanship and political leadership. ”

“ The brilliant successes of the last year, and the promising appearances on the opening the campaign of the present, all cooperated to lead the Congress and the state legislatures to continue the high tone of sensibility and dignity, becoming a free and independent people, just emancipated from foreign domination. ”

“ It must be obvious that, in a country without an aristocracy or House of Peers, without a State Church or denominational school system, without a standing army, a navy, a foreign policy, or a millionaire class, politics must concern themselves chiefly with economic questions, matters of administration, and reforms aiming at some improvement of public morals. ”

“ How can we make it greater? By standing together as Americans. We shall not magnify, but shall belittle ourselves, if we swagger before our neighbors—using bravado for the strong, and insolence in [213] our treatment of the weak. But we should take American views instead of party views, when questions arise between this government and others. ”

“ The laboring men of this land may safely trust every just reform in which they are interested to public discussion and to the logic of reason; they may surely hope, upon these lines, which are open to you by the ballot-box, to accomplish under our American institutions all those right things you have conceived as necessary to your highest success and well-being. Do not allow yourselves to doubt, for one moment, the friendly sentiment of the great masses of our people. ”

“ The great game of the government was to sow, if not dissension, at least distrust, in the ranks of the national party,—to chill the ardor of patriotism, and, wherever possible, to excite different views, and different roads to success, amongst the popular leaders of the time. ”

“ Though some symptoms of the degradation of the human character have appeared in America, we hope the cloud is fast dissipating, and that no vicissitudes in human affairs, no intrigues of the interested, or any mistakes of upright men will ever damp the prospect of the establishment and continuance of a republican system, which appears to be best adapted to the genius of Americans. This form of government has the voice of the majority. ”

“ A weight of public opinion among the people for such a period, uniformly thrown into one scale so strongly, and so decisively, in the midst of all the extraordinary changes of parties, the events of peace and of war, and the trying conflicts of public policy and state interests, is perhaps unexampled in the history of all other free governments. ”

“ The effects, therefore, of a democracy are, first to raise an inordinate ambition among the people, and then to cramp the very ambition which it has raised; and, as I may comment upon hereafter, it appears as if this ambition of the people, individually checked by the nature of their institutions, becomes, as it were, concentrated and collected into a focus in upholding and contemplating the success and increase of power in the federal government. ”

“ They go to the form and substance of government, not to its policy, as in America, where every party cry, radical or conservative, is attuned to the music of a republican federation, and which is the sine qua non to all political conclusions. How can a nation progress until its people have chosen, or are competent to choose, a stable form of government, and are satisfied with certain organic political principles? ”

“ There is a great distinction between the objects and interests of the people, and the political objects and interests of their rulers. The people may be warmly attached to the Union, and its powers, and its operations; while their representatives, stimulated by the natural rivalship of power, and the hopes of personal aggrandizement, may be in a very opposite temper, and artfully using all their influence to cripple, or destroy the national government. ”

“ If political societies possess ambition, avarice, and all the other passions which render them formidable to each other, ought we not to view them in this light here? Will not the same motives operate in America as elsewhere? If any gentleman doubts it, let him look at the votes. Have they not been dictated by interest, by ambition? Are not the large states evidently seeking to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the small? ”

“ And, moreover, a just public opinion and a statesmanlike treatment of present problems demand that they be seen in their historical relations in order that history may hold the lamp for conservative reform. ”

“ Personal pride, party principles, and an ambition for public distinction will thus naturally prompt to an abandonment of old schemes, and combine with that love of novelty so congenial to all free states, to make every new administration the founders of new systems of government. ”

“ But though we may be proud of these conquests, we are compelled in the last analysis of our institutions, to return to a few fundamental notions of our government. We must continue the representative idea based upon the doctrine of the equality of rights and exercised by representative assemblies founded on popular elections; and after our most pleasing contemplation of the institutions of America, we must return to the people, the foundation of our government. Their wisdom and self-control, and these alone, will impart to our institutions that strength which insures their perpetuity. ”

“ It is the essence of democratic government that disagreements in the upper echelons of that government shall be resolved by the action and the will of the governed. You, the people of the United States, have done just that. ”

“ Every gentleman who has turned his thoughts to the subject of politics, and has considered the most eligible mode of republican government, agrees that the greatest difficulty arises from the executive—as to the time of his election, mode of his election, quantum of power, &c. ”

“ In any event, it is obvious that the development in this country of two such powerful and unscrupulous and well-organized special interests has created a condition which the founders of the Republic never anticipated, and which demands as a counterpoise a more effective body of national opinion, and a more powerful organization of the national interest. ”

“ The Republican party fearlessly accepts the issue and places itself upon the side of the American home and the American workingman. [Cheers.] We invite these young men who were too young to share the glory of the struggle for our political unity to a part in this contest for the preservation of our commercial independence. ”

“ Principles are inherent in government by the people, and parties are engines created by the people through which to voice the principles they espouse. Parties have divided on one line in this country from the beginning of our national existence to the present time. ”

“ In this land of ours, this America, the common citizen may criticize without restraint the policies of his Government or the aims of the chief executive. He may vote as his judgment or his conscience advises and not as a ruler dictates. ”

“ No true American, whatever his party allegiance, can avoid or lightly treat these important questions, nor can the right solution come from a consultation of his interests or prejudices, nor from any source other than the experience of the years since 1776, and a careful consideration of the wisdom or folly of the teachings of those who have made this country what it is. ”

“ In the approaching contest, the nation faces a crisis. Fundamental principles are involved. Shall the America of our fathers, with its republican form of government, its principles of civil liberty, and its whole democratic social and industrial order be maintained for a new period of constructive progress, or shall it be abandoned for some untried experiment? ”

“ A place where every interest and shade of opinion in the country can have its cause even passionately pleaded, in the face of the government and of all other interests and opinions, can compel them to listen, and either comply, or state clearly why they do not, is in itself, if it answered no other purpose, one of the most important political institutions that can exist any where, and one of the foremost benefits of free government. ”

“ And you still call yourselves Democrats, and claim the confidence of the people by your fidelity to the great principle that popular liberty and free institutions must be secured by a strict limitation of the powers of government! ”

“ Is the power of die president to influence the popular representatives, or the power of the government to neglect the militia, and use standing armies, good or evil, monarchical or republican, or congenial with the policy of the United States or of England, or of both? ”