State Party

“ The citizens of the Territory who formed the majority in the organization of the territorial government, and in the elections for its Legislature and inferior officers, form one party. The persons who organized a State government, and attempted to put it in operation against the authority of that established by Congress, form another. ”

“ Of the final issue I have no doubt; but no man can tell what shall come to pass in the mean time. We see that political parties in the State are snapped asunder: whether the national party shall not be broken up, no man can say. ”

“ It would require a far more voluminous work than the present to give even a brief synopsis of the multitudinous acts of legislation and administration which the Republican party has performed for the good of the people through the national government, beside other volumes to tell of its achievements in and through the various state and local governments. ”

“ A party, according to the classical theory of the British constitution, is a body of men within the State who are agreed in regarding some measure or some principle as so vital to the State that, in order to secure the adoption of the measure or the acceptance of the principle, they are willing to sink all differences of opinion on other matters, and to work together for the one purpose which they are agreed in regarding as fundamental. ”

“ The question staring us in the face in American politics to-day is—What possible good can direct government do us if party organization remains in control? The movement for direct primaries, popular choice of United States senators, presidential primaries, initiative and referendum, the recall etc., will bear little fruit unless something is done at the same time to break the power of the party. ”

“ Whatever I may believe personally, it is no part of my business to plead the cause of any political party in our Department. We have nothing to do with parties. Our object is to consider how our nation is governed and how it should be governed—national, state, county, township and city governments, under whatever names these divisions may be called in different places. ”

“ The Party system, on the other hand, has undoubtedly contributed to the strength and security of the State by bringing about the convergence of the various streams of political thought into three main channels, each with settled principles, Conservative, Liberal and Labour in tendency, and pursuing ends that are on the whole national as well as rational. ”

“ The state will have to give these parties free and fair play, because the state will be democratically governed. Each party will have to look after its own interest, and it will, therefore, be essential that each party has its own organs. ”

“ If we would leave parties to the politicians, and would vote not for the party, not even for men, but for the city, and the State, and the nation, we should rule parties, and cities, and States, and nation. ”

“ The voters of the several States touched each other only through their leaders. In these early years national parties were hardly more than divisions of a governing class. Party organization was visible only in its most rudimentary form—a leader and a personal following. The machinery of a modern party organization did not come into existence until the railroad and the steamboat tightened the bonds of intercourse between State and State, and between community and community. ”

“ Granting that we are fundamentally a representative popular Government, with political parties the governing agencies, I believe the political party in power should assume responsibility, determine upon policies ill the conference which supplements conventions and election campaigns, and then strive for achievement through adherence to the accepted policy. ”

“ The Government of the Republic and the different State governments have subsidized organs, which publish the laws, speak authoritatively, and reflect the views only of the party, at the moment, in power. This discourages enterprise, and intensifies and embitters party feeling; the few opposition papers being driven to pursue the most violent course, as the only means of living at all. ”

“ Experience, as well as reason shows, that a government, operating as ours does, must give rise to two great political parties — which, although partaking, from the first, more or less of a sectional character, extend themselves, in unequal proportions, over the whole Union — carrying with them, notwithstanding their sectional tendency, party sympathy and party attachment of such strength, that few are willing to break or weaken them, by resisting, even an acknowledged infraction of the constitution, of a nature alike oppressive and dangerous to their section. ”

“ These are the demands of the People’s Party, the cardinal principles for which that party contends. They are all simple, easily understood, and must have approval of a great majority of the American people when brought to them for consideration by a party of the rank and file, controlled by the people themselves, not dictated to by the money oligarchy; by a party that stands for the interests of the many, not of the few. I close, as I began, by saying we need organization and education. ”

“ 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. We shall support no party—be the organ of no faction or coterie, and care nothing for any election or any candidate from president down to a constable. ”

“ If the voters of the party were in truth the source of authority within the party, then a means had to be devised of ascertaining their will. The democratic principle, in short, had to be applied to party. ”

“ 20 I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. ”

“ A political party making professions of devotion to the interests of any class of the people should be able to show by its record, that when in position to control legislation, it originated or adopted some policy beneficial to that class. Can the Democratic party present such evidence of friendliness for or sympathy with the laboring masses? For nearly thirty years it had supreme control of the National Government. ”

“ To understand the peculiar features of the American party system one must bear in mind the constitutional arrangements under which it has developed. The party is simply a voluntary political association through which the people seek to formulate the policy of the government, select the officials who are to carry it out in the actual administration of public affairs, and hold them to strict accountability for so doing. ”

“ How, then, can it assert, in the face of such admissions, that the House of Representatives derives its authority from the American people, in the aggregate, as forming one people or nation? To give color to the assertion, it affirms, that the people will be represented on the same principle, and in the same proportion, as they are in the legislature of each particular State. ”

“ The intensity, the anxiety depicted, while results far-reaching and momentous are pending, furnish a scene vivid and striking that cannot be pictured. Here is being formed the policy of a party which is to be subjected to the winnowing fan of acute and honest criticism, and by denunciation by opposite parties, striving to obtain the administration of the Government, the fiat of which and the selection of the standard-bearer constitute the claim for the suffrage of the people. They are the preparatory cornerstones of self-government, fashioned and waiting for the verdict of the nation. ”

“ We shall very soon have parties formed—a court and country party—and these parties will have names given them; one party in the house of representatives will support the president and his measures and ministers—the other will oppose them—a similar party will be in the senate—these parties will struggle with all their art, perhaps with intrigue, perhaps with corruption at every election to increase their own friends, and diminish their opposers. ”

“ Not only has each leading political party made the attempt, but the task has been undertaken by the Greenbackers, the Populists and by those who would form a party of their own, or be independent of all parties. ”

“ To me this government seems to consist of a confederation of parties of interest, excluding the majority of the nation. Such as the church of England, the paper stock party, the East India company, the military party, the pensioned and sinecure party, and the ins and outs, once called whigs and tories; each struggling for self interest and self government, but all, creeping forth like caterpillars from the legal nests in which they have been hatched, to feed upon the fruits of the nation. ”

“ An essential adjunct of a constitutional system like the British—the two fundamental principles of which are democracy and Party government—is the Party organization for the education of public opinion in its tenets, and for having its forces ready to take the field at the General Election, the outcome of which is the supremacy of one Party or the other in the House of Commons for a term of years, and, consequently, the paramount influence of one set of political principles or the other in the government of the Nation. ”

“ In the Legislative Assembly there are the Government party, consisting of the Colonial Secretary and the Attorney General, who prove their loyalty and devotion by adhering to His Excellency the Governor on every division, and (according to general belief) would rather vote against their own measures than against the representative of their Queen. Then there is the popular party, consisting of the popular member, who speaks at random on either side of the debate, but invariably votes against the Government, in order to maintain inviolate the integrity of his principles. ”

“ We pledge ourselves anew to the constitutional doctrines and traditions of the Democratic party, as illustrated by the teachings and examples of a long line of Democratic statesmen and patriots, and embodied in the platform of the last national convention of the party. ”

“ If the majority is to mould the policy of the party, if the demos is to be kept constantly awake and brought out to vote after the excitement of the hour has passed away, it is necessary that the party be organized. ”

“ Adverting, first, to the past policy of the government, we find that one party, embracing a very large portion, perhaps at this time a majority, of the people of the United States, in all quarters of the union, entertain the opinion, that, in the settlement of the new states and the disposition of the public lands, congress has pursued not only a highly just and liberal course, but one of extraordinary kindness and indulgence. ”

“ They are of indisputable importance, but to base a party upon any one of them alone would be futile and absurd. They must be dealt with by a party which takes a comprehensive view of them all and which will not dispose of them in accordance with some special, local or temporary interest, but will act in conformity with the general and permanent interests of the whole nation. ”

“ On the virtual ruins of the effete political organizations, the spirit of the people finds utterance through the agency of the new party which chooses as its name the "Independence Party." Vitalized by the infusion in its body of the energetic and patriotic young men of the country, the new party sprang into the lists, as it were, full grown. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A parliamentary government chosen on the party system is, as we have seen, at once the trustee of the whole nation, bound as such to make the welfare of the whole its supreme end, and also the special representative of particular classes, the special guardian of their interests, aims, wishes, and principles. ”

“ If that wise rule be followed by the voters of 1920 and the subsequent years, they will prudently judge from the past record of the Republican party that it is the party to which the future interests of the nation are most safely o be committed. They will affiliate themselves with it, with a serene assurance that so long as its principles and practices prevail, “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” ”

“ The best solution, however, of the existing political situation would probably be the maintenance of the two historic parties, the republican party being frankly devoted to rule by the privileged classes under the leadership of men such as Mr. ”

“ Always devoted to the principles of that great party which maintains the equality and rights of the States, as well as of the individual citizen, she is here to-day in grand council to do all that in her lies for the advancement of our common cause. ”

“ It is the party of national honor, which has removed the foul reproach of slavery, and redeemed the plighted faith of the government in financial legislation and administration. It is the party of equal rights, an unsullied ballot and honest elections. It is the party of national policies, of comprehensive scope and enlightened self- interest, by which industry is diversified, labor systematically protected, and the prosperity of all classes and sections promoted. ”