Triple Entente

“ So they tried a middle course; in attempting to exclude James from the succession, failed, and were constrained finally to get rid of the reigning house. But the value of the Triple Alliance was not in its immediate effects. ”

“ Gentlemen, you may call the union which binds us an empire, you may call it a federation, you may call it an offensive and defensive alliance of the closest kind—you may call it what you will—the name is of subordinate consequence while mutual sympathy and sentiment retain that binding force which, as we have seen in this Jubilee week, you are all so generously prepared to acknowledge in your relations with the old country. ”

“ And there is the chosen head, commonly the man of greatest mark to be obtained, who exercises a recognized power over speakers and audience—the temporary king. Even an informally summoned assemblage soon resolves itself into these divisions more or less distinctly; and when the assemblage becomes a permanent body, as of the men composing a commercial company, or a philanthropic society, or a club, definiteness is quickly given to the three divisions—president or chairman, board or committee, proprietors or members. ”

“ We need not an entente between two or three governments, and alliances on the part of two others, but a union of all in a compact Federation, by which any violation of the laws of the Federation shall be treated as a ground of action of all against that one. ”

“ We have already passed through the stage of an entente consisting of mutual good-will, interest, forbearance, and respect; we have a good and solid knowledge of each other, so that we are now ready to cement this feeling by measures which will bring us so close together as to be practically one people. ”

“ So also all connections in which the only connecting medium is a common executive, whether a person, a body corporate or a state, are fictitious connections, the relationship being one of "permanent alliance" or "confederation" between independent states. Such connections are properly called "alliances" or "confederations." ”

“ I should regard my business as a hopeless undertaking if my chief agent had to be appointed by a third party, and, besides being himself put beyond my power of control, were charged with the choice and discipline of all his subordinates, subject not to my directions, but simply to my acquiescence! ”

“ A division often adopted in modern text-books and recognized by parliament in the Trustee Act, 1850, is into express, implied, and constructive. An express trust is determined by the person creating it. ”

“ We like freedom, God has put it in our bosoms; and as I said to President George A., the other day, in talking about this matter, in organizing the Order of Enoch, as it may be called, we want on the one hand the most perfect union; and on the other hand the most extended personal liberty that it is possible for men to enjoy consonant with carrying out the principles of unity. ”

“ I may add, Roland, that you seem to harbor strange ideas concerning rank and power. I have been a member of this guild much longer than you, and perhaps understand better its purpose. Our leader is not elected to govern a band of serfs. Indeed, and I say it subject to correction from my friends, the very opposite is the case. Our leader is our servant, and must conduct himself as we order. It is not for him to lay down the law to us, but whatever laws exist for our governance, and I thank Heaven there are few of them, must be settled in conclave by a majority of the league. ”

“ The essential point about the existing position is the fact of independent Executives—exercising powers, such as the absolute control of separate armaments and antagonistic fiscal systems, which make the actual relationship more like mere alliance than anything else, despite the common Crown. ”

“ All groups in which the leader changes, either through frequent choice or according to regular term, down to the case of chairman of a social union, seek in this way to gain the technical advantage of superiority and subordination while avoiding its personal disadvantages. Simultaneous superordination and subordination is one of the most decisive forms of reciprocity, and, if properly disposed throughout the various departments of activity, may, by virtue of this very intimate reciprocity which it signifies, constitute a most powerful bond between individuals. ”

“ And as faction, on one side, will be watching, thwarting, and exposing all that he does; his own party, on the other, will be making advantages of his distresses, and consequently be distressing him more; and he will find it harder to defend himself from his friends, and to preserve their dependence, than to disappoint his foes: Every party hangs together by interest, and every particular means his own. It is impossible to gratify all; and all that are not gratified are disobliged: Whoever therefore is at the head of a party, has but an uneasy station. ”

“ A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first gift. The need of this in our national assembly is greater than elsewhere, because the differences between the men opposed to each other are smaller. When two foes meet together in the same Chamber, one of whom advocates the personal government of an individual ruler, and the other that form of State, which has come to be called a Red Republic, they deal, no doubt, weighty blows of oratory at each other, but blows which never hurt at the moment. ”

“ It was like a meeting of the members of some mercantile company, upon the eve of a prosperous dissolution of the concern; when the subordinates, actuated by the purest gratitude toward their president, or chief, proceed to vote him a silver pitcher, in token of their respect. ”

“ The party apparatus handpicks from its ranks a closed order which is uncontrolled and which disposes of the extraordinary resources not only of the party but also of the state apparatus and transforms the party masses into a mere cover and an auxiliary instrument for its combinatory maneuvers. ”

“ Such union, where there are many men, and, consequently, many minds, can only be attained by the most absolute submission to one leader; and this leader, to obtain submission, should be either a lawfully constituted authority, or, in cases of emergency, one of those master-spirits to whom men bow with unquestioning submission, because of the majesty of intellect within them. ”

“ They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community, and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests. ”

“ Where before we were a nation divided into disparate and mutually irrecon­cilable groups, today we seem to have divided into three factions, each one distinct from the other.
The first, which is in the majority, consists of those who feel whole­heartedly involved in the effort to make our New Society a lasting and viable reality. They are those who have placed all their hopes, their dreams, their lives, their property, their honor in the New Society. ”

“ Therefore, the third division is necessary because of the second, and the second because of the first; while the most necessary of all, and the one in which we ought to rest, is the first. But we do the opposite; for we spend our time in the third division, and all our zeal is devoted to it, while we utterly neglect the first. ”

“ At first a dark moving mass, that seemed to fill the narrow road, was all he could discern, but as this came closer, he could perceive that they marched in companies of divisions, each headed by his leader, who, from time to time, stepped from his place, and observed their order and precision. ”

“ But if it be the duty of princes to restrain the factious, much more does it concern them to dissolve and dissipate the factions themselves. Now I call a faction, a multitude of subjects gathered together either by mutual contracts among themselves, or by the power of some one, without his or their authority who bear the supreme rule. 176A faction, therefore, is as it were a city in a city: for as by an union of men in the state of nature, a city receives its being, so by a new union of subjects there ariseth a faction. ”

“ You were formerly the leader of your own faction, since it would appear that we are to talk of factions; you were dependent upon no one, and responsible only to yourself for your actions and opinions; and now you have allied your fortunes to those of persons by whom you will be subjected to a thousand indignities and annoyances when they no longer require your support. ”

“ Strux, hitherto there has been between us a rivalry more personal than scientific, which has rendered our cooperation in the common cause somewhat difficult. This, I believe, is to be attributed to the fact of there being two of us at the head of this expedition. To avoid antagonism, there should be only one chief to every enterprise. ”

“ A standing committee is appointed on each line of work which the Alliance decides to undertake; and the success of the organization will depend very largely on the wisdom with which the chairmen of these committees are selected and the faithfulness with which they serve. As conditions differ in different communities, no two Alliances may have exactly the same list of committees. Each organization is of course free to undertake as many or as few lines of work as it deems wise. ”

“ In the same way other men of authority might be invited to attend, but would not thereby become members of the Conference, which must consist, as an executive body, only of the responsible heads of Governments. ”

“ It will concentrate the labors of the people in one direction, and where a man's treasure is there will his heart be also; and if all a man's property is in the United Order if he be a Latter-day Saint, he will labor with fidelity for the furtherance of the objects which the Order has in view. ”

“ But I know that my opponents when their turn comes will appoint their friends to the Lieutenancies, and that so the balance will be maintained. If you or I appoint their friends, they won't appoint ours. ”

“ Instead of observing how from the chief, little above the rest, there is, under certain conditions, evolved the absolute ruler, entirely subordinating the select few and the many; and instead of observing how, under other conditions, the select few become an oligarchy tolerating no supreme man, and keeping the multitude in subjection, we have now to observe the cases in which there is established a coöperation between the first and the second. ”

“ A subordination, too, became necessary among the leaders of each band of adventurers: and being habituated to yield an obedience to a single person in the field, the lustre of his command and the utility of the institution easily prevailed upon them to suffer him to form the band of their union in time of peace, under the name of King. ”

“ In the convention at Chicago I did what I could to secure his nomination, as long as there was any ground of hope for success. In every convention of the kind there comes a time when the judgment of factions must yield to the judgment of the majority. ”

“ The members of a party, in order to promote some great common object, consent to wave all subordinate considerations:—That they may co-operate with more effect where they agree, they contrive, by reciprocal concessions, to preserve the semblance of unanimity, even where they differ. ”

“ The introduction of a new organ between the primary elements, like the sea between countries, operates, not as a barrier, but as a bond of union. The unity of the group, which consists in the commerce of each member with each other member by some sort of means, must become much more energetic and intimate when assisted by the activity of the mercantile class. ”

“ The organization is very cunningly contrived. The Brotherhood is made up in groups of ten. No one of the rank and file knows more than nine other members associated with him. The leaders of these groups of ten are selected by a higher power. These leaders are again organized in groups of ten, under a leader again selected by a higher power; but in this second group of ten no man knows his fellow's name or face; they meet always masked. And so the scale rises. The highest body of all is a group of one hundred, selected out of the whole force by an executive committee. ”

“ The lukewarmness of patriotism, the activity of private interest, the vastness of States, conquest and the abuse of government suggested the method of having deputies or representatives of the people in the national assemblies. These are what, in some countries, men have presumed to call the Third Estate. Thus the individual interest of two orders is put first and second; the public interest occupies only the third place. ”

“ To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government, better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. ”