Establishment (politics)

“ We plead the question as the sincerest friends to the Establishment;—as wishing to it all the prosperity and duration its warmest advocates can desire,—but remembering always what these advocates seem to forget, that the Establishment cannot be threatened by any danger so great as the perdition of the kingdom in which it is established. ”

“ The first pressing necessity is the establishment, as speedily as possible, of some civil authority which will give a distinct and tangible idea of Government to the native and half-breed population, now so totally devoid of the knowledge of what law and civil government may pertain to. ”

“ The more you spread government as an organization of the people themselves, the more humane, upon that working basis, are likely to be its operations—on one condition: that such organisation of the people, whatever its numbers, submits to the operation of its own laws and shares equally in the conditions which it imposes—that, if it provides a qualification for citizenship, it provides also the means for all to qualify. ”

“ There were, of course, many and capital distinctions between one government and another, in respect to the qualification of the citizen, the attributes and efficiency of the general assembly, the admissibility to power, &c.; and men might often be dissatisfied with the way in which these questions were determined in their own city. ”

“ The growth of constitutional government, as we now understand it, was promoted by the establishment of two different sets of machinery for making laws and carrying on government. ”

“ The state becomes a larger institution, by deepening its hold on a subordinate institution which had grown up as private property under the law of survival and centralization, until it reached the point where organization tended to suppress the free movement of the persuasive principle animating its members. ”

“ Where, we ask, are we to look for the forces that are to assist us in fighting this battle of statutory security? Has the Establishment become more liberal, or more disposed to open the parish schools, than we ourselves were when we composed the majority of that very Establishment? ”

“ What I now hold to be true for all time—and you will all agree with me some day—is that that branch of the Government that under our constitutional system is designated as the one having the authority is the only branch of the Government that can benefit capital, conserve or advance the rights of the people, or do justice in any way whatever. ”

“ To the wise men who were entrusted with the formation of that union and common government, it was obvious enough that each separate society should be entrusted with the management of its own peculiar interests, and that the united government should take charge only of those interests which were common and general. ”

“ The idea underlying these councils was to create, as it were, a certain constitution for factories by which the workman who had hitherto been a mere machine should become a creative factor, closely identified with the organization of the undertaking, conscious of responsibility, and thus making of democracy the same reality in economic life as it had already become in political life. ”

“ Among such constitutional institutions and organs, the location of the National Assembly that decides the political intent of the citizens as the representative organ of the citizens and the location of the President who superintends the administration and represents the nation are particularly decisive elements in determining the capital. ”

“ Our action should rest on some recognized general principle, which, applied to the capital of the nation, would be equally just applied to any of the political communities of which the nation is composed. ”

“ In the dissertation, the sovereignty of the people is unequivocally asserted, as the basis of society and civil power. Representation is made its substitute, from the impossibility of holding national assemblies. ”

“ But administration it is which organizes between the capacities of the people on the one hand, and the enlightened wishes of the government on the other—that intermediate nexus of social machinery without which both the amplest powers in a nation and the noblest policy in a government must equally and continually fall to the ground. ”

“ I am not aware that history furnishes any example in which a number of these political atoms or corpuscles have coalesced into a body, and learned to feel themselves one people, except through previous subjection to a central authority common to all. [2] It is through the habit of deferring to that authority, entering into its plans and subserving its purposes, that a people such as we have supposed receive into their minds the conception of large interests common to a considerable geographical extent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The "government," supposedly of, by and for all the people, becomes more and more adapted to serve the interests of the ruling class, and finally becomes merely a committee to protect the economic power of the masters and help keep in subjection the working class. ”

“ The institution is the most aristocratic in principle which now remains in England; far more so than the House of Lords, for it grants public money and disposes of important public interests, not in conjunction with a popular assembly, but alone. ”

“ Every enlargement of the powers of the government which may be made, every measure which may be adopted to aggrandize the dominant combination which may control the government for the time, must necessarily enlarge, in a greater or less degree, his patronage and influence. With their enlargement, his power to control the other departments of the government, and the organs of public opinion, and through them, the community at large, must increase, and in the same degree. ”

“ Our extra-constitutional party conventions, short-lived and poor in power as they are, constitute our only machinery for that sort of control of the executive which consists in the award of personal rewards and punishments. ”

“ No popular government ever determined the policy and administered the affairs of such large bodies of people successfully, ever transacted such a vast volume of business satisfactorily, ever promoted high and beneficent ends, ever afforded protection to the rights of each individual of the great multitude, unless in its plan of organization there was an organic separation of executive, legislative, and judicial functions and powers. ”

“ On the other hand monarchy, absolute in its origin as the paternal power of which it is the increment, has need, in proportion to the extent of its domain, to organize, and this organization, which is nothing other than an application of the policy of the principle of the division of labor, inevitably leads the monarchy to democracy. ”

“ And no doubt this is so far true, that the scheme aims at associating in the work of government with the head of the State the persons best adapted to meet the wants and wishes of the people, under the conditions that the several aspects of supreme power shall be severally allotted; dignity and visible authority shall lie wholly with the wearer of the crown, but labor mainly, and responsibility wholly, with its servants. ”

“ On the contrary, many a people has gradually emerged from this condition by the aid of a central authority, whose position has made it the rival, and has ended by making it the master, of the local despots, and which, above all, has been single. ”

“ That the other political authorities in the given society are subordinate to the sovereign or supreme one; deriving their political powers from its express or tacit delegation, and holding those powers at its pleasure. ”

“ In contests of this nature, where a considerable body of people who have attempted to free themselves of the control of the superior government have reached such point in occupation of territory, in power, and in general organization as to constitute in fact a body politic ”

“ Moreover the theory of an early triumph and rapid decay of democratic government appears to me impossible to maintain, and I have suggested that in the growth of the common council we may find some evidence of a popular movement towards more effectual self-government which seems to have stirred the industrial classes of the fifteenth century. ”

“ On your present system, can you suppose that one branch will possess it more than the other? The second branch ought to be composed of men of great and established property—aristocracy; men who, from pride, will support consistency and permanency; and to make them completely independent, they must be chosen for life, or they will be a useless body. Such an aristocratic body will keep down the turbulency of democracy. ”

“ Instead of a body of efficient and responsible officials, directly and immediately dependent upon their superiors, receiving wages and hoping for promotion, such as successful centralized governments have usually possessed, the king and council made use of the old and cumbrous machinery of local self-government as they found it. ”

“ How much more sublime is the idea of forming a great nation, by a chain of republicks, subordinate to publick good, than by a chain of satraps subordinate to imperial will, or of chartered companies subordinate to selfish avarice? Such a system stands upon national interest. No people, except ourselves, have seriously attempted to make this interest the basis of civil government. ”

“ That is, the Assembly destroyed on the one hand the time-honored, spontaneous, and lasting societies formed by geographical position, history, common occupations and interests, and on the other, those natural chiefs whose name, repute, education, independence, and earnestness designated them as the best qualified to occupy high positions. ”

“ Thus at first of little account, and growing in power only because the free portion of the community occupied in production and distribution grew in mass and importance, so that its petitions, treated with increasing respect and more frequently yielded to, began to originate legislation, the representative body came to be that part of the governing agency which more and more expresses the sentiments and ideas of industrialism. ”

“ The real legislative power rests with the lower chamber, which directly represents the middle and lower classes, professional, business, and industrial. The action of lawmaking bodies is usually limited in scope by the provisions of a written constitution, and is modified by the public opinion of constituents. ”

“ That function is to build up an industrial republic inside the shell of the political State, in order that when that industrial republic is fully organised it may crack the shell of the political State and step into its place in the scheme of the universe. ”

“ While we have urged the laboring classes to arouse, we have at the same time shown the necessity of complete and thorough organization, and we now further urge the absolute withdrawal of affiliation with any party, and the devotion of their entire strength to the construction of their own party, upon the principles of freedom, equality and justice for all, let them lead where they may. ”

“ The statements which have now been made are sufficient to remind the reader of the important fact, that, at the commencement of the Revolution, there existed, and had long existed, in all the colonies, local legislatures, one branch of which was composed of representatives chosen directly by the people, accustomed to the transaction of public business, and being in fact the real organs of the popular will. ”

“ New popular authorities had, as it were, of themselves sprung up over the face of the country, and the National Assembly, in place of the royal council, became the centre of government, so far as any government existed. ”

“ From evidences rapidly accumulating, it is believed that this country is ripening for such a form and administration of government; but in the present condition of society and of servitude to its customs, the imperfect and partial manner of arriving at representation, and of making and administering law, such a reform cannot be inaugurated ”

“ From the nature and purpose of civil institutions, all the lands within the limits, which any particular party has circumscribed around itself, are assumed by that society, and subject to their allotment; this may be done by themselves assembled collectively, or by their legislature, to whom they may have delegated sovereign authority; and, if they are alloted in neither of these ways, each individual of the society may appropriate to himself such lands as he finds vacant, and occupancy gives him title. ”

“ Or, imagine a legislature forming a system for the government of bedlam, and, proceeding upon the maxim that man is a sociable animal, should draw them out of their cells, and form them into corporations or general assemblies ”

“ I doubt, too, whether any other convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better constitution. For when you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble, with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected? ”

“ Political offices are chiefly monopolized by men of famous birth or great riches. The king, the chief officer of the land, must surpass all others in wealth, and the pomp and circumstance which comes thereof, and in aristocracy of birth. ”

“ The great and radical vice, in the structure of the existing confederation, is in the principle of legislation for States or governments, in their corporate or collective capacities, and as contra-distinguished from the individuals of which they consist. ”

“ But the elective franchise, the right to choose and elect the men who are to fill the offices, and make the laws and execute them, lies at the very bottom of such government. It is the first principle and starting-point, and is as much implied in the very name and idea of self-government, or government of the people, as any other principle, right, or idea pertaining to such a government. ”