Independent (politics)

“ We talk a great deal about the union of church and state, but that is not so dangerous, after all, as the mixture of politics and independent thought. Will the coming voter be an automatic, leg [Pg 155] less, hairless mollusk with an abnormal ear constantly glued to the tube of a big tank full of symmetrical ideas furnished by a national bureau of brains in the employ of the party in power? ”

“ To turn such a situation to advantage for the public good will be, in a great measure, the task of the “independent voter,” who has of late made himself felt, and grown to the estate of a distinct political force. ”

“ The Independent party is called into existence by the necessities of the people, whose industries are prostrated, whose labor is deprived of its just reward by a ruinous policy which the Republican and Democratic parties refuse to change ”

“ Address yourself to their moral nature, and their consciences will enlighten their understanding. Then you will organize the party of independent men. This independence will keep the rank and file vigilant, and that vigilance will keep the leaders upright and honest. ”

“ On that score we can not surely fail in knowing at least how to build up a reputation and establishment of our own. In debuts of this kind many talk of principle—political principle—party principle, as a sort of steel-trap to catch the public. We mean to be perfectly understood on this point, and therefore openly disclaim all steel-traps, all principle, as it is called—all party—all politics. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in every-day life. ”

“ The question now is, Shall a reactionary spirit, unfriendly to liberty, be permitted to subvert democratic republican government organized under constitutional forms?... The men who own and till the soil, who drive the mills, and hammer out their own iron and leather on their own anvils and lapstones ... are honest, intelligent, patriotic, independent, and brave. ”

“ And here let me speak for those with whom in minority and defeat, I am proud to be associated, the Independent Democrats, who espouse that Democracy which is transfigured in the Declaration of Independence, and the injunctions of Christianity. ”

“ 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! ”

“ In spite of the reaction of the last few years that spirit of independent thought and courageous action which broke loose from radical party control to give their rights to the disfranchised, to the people friendly conciliation and to the Commonwealth good and impartial government, that spirit has after all borne most excellent fruit ”

“ I stand firmly, immovably upon those great principles of self-government and state sovereignty upon which the campaign was fought and the election won.... If, standing firmly by my principles, I shall be driven into private life, it is a fate that has no terrors for me. ”

“ The Independents, of all men, being the advocates of moral reformation in politics cannot uphold a grossly dissipated man—and they ought not to wait to be driven from their position, but retreat in good order, before being charged, from an untenable ground. ”

“ Let us be independent of party, independent of everybody and everything except our own consciences and our own brains. Do not belong to any clique. Have the clear title deeds in fee simple to yourselves, without any mortgage on the premises to anybody in the world. ”

“ It is inevitable at present that place and power should be the goal of all parties, and that politics should present the aspect of a scramble for office. There is no dividing-line between political parties, as elsewhere. ”

“ Although I am one of those who believe in independence in politics and in the right and duty of every citizen to vote against his party if in his judgment the public interests so require, I profoundly believe that party government and party organization and machinery are absolutely essential under our form of government. ”

“ From hence it is obvious that Civil Liberty, in its most perfect degree, can be enjoyed only in small states, where every independent agent is capable of giving his suffrage in person, and of being chosen into public offices. ”

“ But amid this general uncertainty there are two capital maxims which prevail amongst our hucksters of politics : to love your party better than your country, and yourself better than your party. There are, it is true, real statesmen amongst us, men who love justice and do the right; but they seem lost in the mob of vulgar politicians and the dust of party editors.
Since the nation loves freedom above all things, the name democracy is a favourite name. No party could live a twelvemonth that should declare itself anti-demo- cratic. ”

“ It is said that the Great Powers must conciliate public opinion which hates and distrusts us as ‘barbarians,’ but we feel certain that the Powers could deal with ‘public opinion’ if they so desired, and convince the whole world that we are now working by civilised methods to become a free and independent nation. ”

“ Free and independent men in the Legislature, as in the country, are the best counterpoise to faction, and the mainspring to a nation's progress and greatness. Faction dreads independent men; patriotism requires them. ”

“ We shall be independent of party, because, having a very clear and intelligible faith, we survey the struggles of contending parties from the standpoint of a consistent body of doctrine, and steadily seek to use all parties for the realisation of our ideals. ”

“ If the “Imperialistic” party is a party which seeks to curtail and restrict{274} the rights of the People, then she goes with the People against all political parties whatsoever. But she takes no side in party politics: she is a stickler for Justice and Right for the great majority. ”

“ It will furnish an opportunity to the independents and the party men to deal fairly with each other. If you and your friends, as Republicans, want the support of the independents, you ought not to be left in doubt as to the things which will secure and those which would repel that support. I notice here and there statements in the newspapers assuming that a nomination of this or that character would command the whole vote of the independent friends of reform, some of which assumptions I have good reason to think erroneous. ”

“ If we want good government, is it not time that we should take our share in the struggle to secure it?” And hence that fresh political activity, that freedom of criticism, that breaking of party lines, that movement of independence all over the field, which makes political ringmasters tremble and patriotic citizens rejoice in new hope. ”

“ Independent, therefore, of all conviction of mind, there must be a minority in the house, whose clamour and opposition will impede the progress of tyranny; whereas a king, surrounded by his guards, and a cringing nobility, has no check. ”

“ Are there no party contests stirring the popular mind to its very depth? And now, in the freest of all countries, where the people in the largest sense are called to govern themselves, where the people owe so much to their democratic institutions and are said to be so proud of them, here there should not be patriotism and public spirit enough, here it should require the sordid allurement of spoils and plunder to inspire the citizens with an active interest in their own affairs? ”

“ It was this large contribution of free-thinking and independent Democrats, who had the courage to throw off party allegiance and discipline in behalf of the principles of free government on which our republican system is founded, the right of the people to self-government, and, consequently, the right to form and establish their own constitution without dictation or interference from the central government so long as they violated no provision of the organic law, that gave tone, form, and ascendancy to the Republican party in every free State. ”

“ This is not the liberality and equality which constitute democracy as the social order in which popular sovereignty is most fully realized because, through the discipline of reason, men have the authority to govern themselves and use the freedom of self-government. ”

“ But if unwise counsels prevail-if we become divided-if schisms arise-if dissensions spring up-if factions are engendered-if party spirit, nourished by unholy personal ambition shall rear its hydra head, I have no good to prophesy for you. Without intelligence, virtue, integrity, and patriotism on the part of the people, no republic or representative government can be durable or stable. ”

“ It can render inestimable service to the cause of good government by wielding the balance of power it holds with justice and wisdom, and from purely patriotic motives. Ours must necessarily be, in a certain sense, a government of and by political parties; but it will be all the better for the country if it is a party government tempered by an unselfish, enlightened, and patriotic independent opinion. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The trials and triumphs of our free institutions are hackneyed themes. They are the star attractions of every political conflict. They furnish a perpetual well-spring of every grade of rhetoric for the hustings, and partisan organs proclaim with the regularity of the seasons, the annual perils of free government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The leaders, which comprehend what was previously known as the State Rights Party, and is much the lesser class, seek to break down National Independence and set up State domination. With them it is a War against Nationality. ”

“ The people were to guide their leaders, not their leaders the people; and any intellectual or moral independence and initiative on the part of the leaders in a democracy was to be condemned as undemocratic. ”

“ If the balance incline towards a more liberal form of government, towards democratic institutions, and therefore towards self-government, and the participation of the many rather than of the few in the affairs of the State, I am not to blame, nor is it my ordinance, but that of History and of Providence. ”

“ Here everybody feels himself as good as anybody else. Here the masses have from generation to generation been accustomed to the exercise of political power in their own right and in their own way, — at least in the way they tolerate, if they do not in every respect specifically direct it. Here the opinion of the masses, in the broadest sense of the term; the way in which they feel and think or understand their interests, or misunderstand them, as the case may be, expressed in the greatest number of votes, are the real power that controls the 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. ”

“ Were it to become independent, it could, without altering its constitution, or taking upon itself any further function than those which it now possesses, stand alone as a distinct and self-sufficient 113political community. ”

“ We wish to turn our backs on all sectional parties, and on all parties groping in the moonlight of the past, and to ally ourselves with any party that will be animated with the spirit of civil and religious toleration, broad and elevated patriotism, not bounded by State lines, and inspired with pride and an abiding faith in the genius of free institutions. ”

“ In the politics of the interior, he demands ministerial responsibility, equality before the law, the right of voting supplies, parliamentary representation,—in short, the usual programme of the opposition in liberal Europe. ”

“ If it be true, then, that under an established constitutional government all its well-wishers have the same interest, the power of the same must be placed in the hands of the enlightened who can have no interest pressing on them, greater than the common interest of all citizens. Depart from these principles and you fall into the abuses of representative government. You would have extreme poverty in the electorate and extreme opulence in the legislature. ”

“ The contending political parties in a republic should be such in point of mental and moral constitution and capability that the government may be intrusted to either without serious apprehension for the safety of the public interest. ”

“ Their vices are probably more favorable to the prosperity of the state than those of the indigent, and partake less of moral depravity.
After all, sir, we must submit to this idea, that the true principle of a republic is, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. This great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed. ”