Coalition

“ Strange revolutions have happened in the ways of thinking and in the feelings of men; but it is a very extraordinary coalition of parties indeed, and a kind of unheard-of unanimity in public councils, which can impose this new-discovered system of negotiation, as sound national policy, on the understanding of a spectator of this wonderful scene, who judges on the principles of anything he ever before saw, read, or heard of, and, above all, on the understanding of a person who has in his eye the transactions of the last seven years. ”

“ The Coalition! Ay, “the murdered Coalition!” The gentleman asks if I were led or frighted into this debate by the spectre of the Coalition. “Was it the ghost of the murdered Coali [Pg 123] tion,” he exclaims, “which haunted the member from Massachusetts; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?” “The murdered Coalition!” Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to the late administration, is not original with the honorable member. It did not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. ”

“ No system of that kind can be formed, which will not leave room fully sufficient for healing coalitions: but no coalition which, under the specious name of independency, carries in its bosom the unreconciled principles of the original discord of parties, ever was, or will be, an healing coalition. Nor will the mind of our sovereign ever know repose, his kingdom settlement, or his business order, in efficiency or grace with his people, until things are established upon the basis of some set of men, who are trusted by the public, and who can trust one another. ”

“ As the Nation had formed itself into two parties, and each was extolling the merits of its parliamentary champions for and against prerogative, nothing could operate to give a more general shock than an immediate coalition of the champions themselves. The partisans of each being thus suddenly left in the lurch, and mutually heated with disgust at the measure, felt no other relief than uniting in a common execration against both. ”

“ Should the representatives or people, therefore, of the smaller States oppose at any time a reasonable addition of members, a coalition of a very few States will be sufficient to overrule the opposition; a coalition which, notwithstanding the rivalship and local prejudices which might prevent it on ordinary occasions, would not fail to take place, when not merely prompted by common interest, but justified by equity and the principles of the Constitution. It may be alleged, perhaps, that the Senate would be prompted by like motives to an adverse coalition ”

“ Independent communities, in the mean time, however weak, are averse to a coalition, not only where it comes with an air of imposition, or unequal treaty, but even where it implies no more than the admission of new members to an equal share of consideration with the old. ”

“ But it will be said, a coalition of parties may indeed be allowed to be in many cases proper and wise; but a coalition between parties who have long treated each other with the extremest rancour, appears a species of conduct, abhorrent to the unadulterated judgment, and all the native prepossessions of mankind. ”

“ A coalition is not likely to take place, because its component parts are heterogeneous in their nature. The House of Representatives is not chosen by the state governments, but under the influence of those who compose the state legislatures. Let us suppose ten men appointed to carry the government into effect; there is every degree of certainty that they would be indebted for their reëlection to the members of the legislatures. ”

“ In grave emergencies, such as a state of war, communities often draw together in a political coalition because the community of interest transcends ordinary divisions. There is, however, one absolutely essential, prerequisite if a coalition is to succeed. ”

“ The consequence has been a coalition from which they have every thing to dread—a coalition which has been denied by those interested to place it in doubt, but whose existence each succeeding day renders more manifest. ”

“ But an impartial historian must record the opinion that the coalition was perfectly justified by existing political conditions, that had it not taken place, a stable government would in all probability have been for some time impossible, and that the time had come for the reconstruction of parties with a broad generous policy which would ignore issues at last dead, and be more in harmony with modern requirements. ”

“ In the general union of the states with one another, I do not see a coalition, a melting of all the parts together, so as to make the body one and homogeneous. It is only an aggregate of parts, always too separate, and which have a continual tendency to divide themselves, from the diversity of their laws, their manners, their opinions ”

“ But, admitting a general amalgamation and repartition of the States to be practicable, and the danger apprehended by the smaller States from a proportional representation to be real, would not their special and voluntary coalition with their neighbors be less inconvenient to the whole community and equally effectual for their own safety? ”

“ Things here are very unsatisfactory; no one sees his way out of the mess—and there is no way but my way—representation by population. There is great talk to-day of coalition—and what do you think? Why, that in order to make the coalition successful, the imperial government are to offer me the government of one of the British colonies. I have been gravely asked to-day by several if it is true, and whether I would accept. My reply was, I would rather be proprietor of the Globe newspaper for a few years than be governor-general of Canada, much less a trumpery little province. ”

“ A coalition of all the first, men in the country would, at that moment, have been as popular as the coalition of 1783 had been unpopular. Alone in the kingdom the King looked with perfect complacency on a cabinet in which no man superior to himself in genius was to be found, and was so far from being willing to admit all his ablest subjects to office that he was bent on excluding them all.
A few months passed before the different parties which agreed in regarding the government with dislike and contempt came to an understanding with each other. ”

“ Instead of the artificial attempts to divide all possible ideas and plans between two great parties, modern legislatures in advanced nations tend to develop smaller and smaller minority groups, while government is carried on by temporary coalitions. For a time we inveighed against this and sought to consider it a perversion of the only possible method of practical democracy. Today we are gradually coming to realize that government by temporary coalition of small and diverse groups may easily become the most efficient method of expressing the will of man and of setting the human soul free. ”

“ On both sides we have the corporate and the individual flavour; on both sides we have those individuals-by-courtesy whose flavour is almost wholly corporate; on both sides the corporate flavour is one that we find intensely disagreeable. In the coalition we find it noxious, in the opposition no worse than irritating. No doubt this is because we recognise a tendency to take the coalition seriously, while the opposition is held to be ridiculous. But both the coalition and the opposition—we use both terms in their corporate sense—are unmistakably the product of the present age. ”

“ Nobody can read the list of the division without seeing that the majority comprised the names of people who have never dreamt of any coalition with anybody, and who voted entirely with reference to the merits of the particular case, and though some (including Disraeli and Gladstone) wished to damage the Government, many others were either friendly to them generally, or at least neutral. ”

“ In your inaugural session, which lasted barely thirty days, you enacted the most important legislation pledged in the Coalition platform and urgently required by the nature of the new responsibilities of the present government. The record you have made has earned for you just commendation and constitutes the main reason for the prevailing confidence in our future. ”

“ The enlightened men who compose the majority of our Assembly render themselves powerless by their division on what is called the political question—that is to say, on the form of sovereignty. They may be assured that each political party, when it advances its principle, raises against it a majority formed by the coalition of rival parties. ”

“ The Revolution itself was, indeed, brought about by a Coalition, in which Tories, surrendering their doctrines of submission, arrayed themselves by the side of Whigs, in defence of their common liberties. Another Coalition, less important in its object and effects, but still attended with results most glorious to the country, was that which took place in the year 1757, when, by a union of parties from whose dissension much mischief had flowed, the interests of both king and people were reconciled, and the good genius of England triumphed at home and abroad. ”

“ Saturday.—Heard at the Club that if the Coalition is not better supported in their attempts to carry out progressive reforms and combat the forces of Revolution and Anarchy, they will form themselves into a new party and go to the country. Locally we are to have, in addition to the retiring Coalitionist, a Free Liberal candidate, a Labour Party candidate, a couple of Independent candidates, a People's Party candidate, a National Party candidate, a Modern Party candidate, a Britannic Party candidate, and an Efficiency Party candidate. ”

“ Accordingly, in several States, and more notably in the great State of New York, there was begun a quiet but unremitting effort to bring about a coalition or "fusion," as it was termed, of the warring Democratic factions, on the basis of a division of the spoils which such a combination might hope to secure. Nor did the efforts stop there. If the union of the two factions created the probability, the union of three seemed to insure certainty, and the negotiations for a coalition, therefore, extended to the adherents of Bell and Everett. ”

“ Every confederate is tempted to throw on others some part of the burden which he ought himself to bear. Scarcely one honestly furnishes the promised contingent. Scarcely one exactly observes the appointed day. But perhaps no coalition that ever existed was in such constant danger of dissolution as the coalition which William had with infinite difficulty formed. The long list of potentates, who met in person or by their representatives at the Hague, looked well in the Gazettes. ”

“ At Manchester on 3 March he advocated a coalition among those who were opposed to home rule, and suggested that 'unionists' should be the general name adopted by 'the party of the union,' while their opponents should be known as 'separatists.' He added that if the dissentient liberals should be able to form a ministry of their own the conservatives would support them, and that if their leaders were willing to enter a coalition cabinet those conservatives 'with whom the whigs did not wish to serve ' would cheerfully stand aside. ”

“ I expect with much impatience the first days of your meeting: the purity and integrity of the Coalition will suffer a fiery tryal; but if they are true to themselves and to each other, a Majority of the House of Commons must prevail; the rebellion of the young Gentlemen will be crushed, and the Masters will resume the Government of the School. ”

“ It was easier to turn them out than to find a good and strong government to replace them. It was obvious that neither the Whigs nor the Peelites could form a government, still less Palmerston or the Radicals, and it became a matter of absolute necessity to attempt a coalition, which, whatever objections there might be to coalitions, would at least have the advantage of filling the several offices with able men. ”

“ It was the municipal and Jacobin organisation of France that forced the coalition of Europe to retreat. But in each group, if we look more closely, there were two or three individuals more capable than the rest, who, whether leaders or led, executed decisions and had the appearance of leaders, but who (if, for instance, we read the proceedings of the people's clubs) seem to us to have drawn their strength far more from their group than from themselves. ”

“ It was made the pretense, but it had nothing whatever to do with the question of the coalition; and I wanted to say, Mr. President, that that coalition has never been dissolved; it exists in full force to-day; and if the Senator from Missouri on my left is not, authorized to speak for his colleague, here is as good a place to disavow it as can be found.
Mr. President, I have here a speech made by the Senator from Missouri on my left, [Mr. Blair,] at Meridian, Mississippi, made November of last year, and I will ask the Secretary to read from the New York World the passage which I have marked. ”

“ When it disappears a difficult parliamentary situation will be created for the Socialists as they then, either as an independent factor without representation in the Cabinet or as a co-operating wing with representation in the Cabinet, will have to keep a coalition government in office. ”

“ In these institutions we had self-government, and participation in public affairs, and also the idea of cooperation between the various classes and political tendencies—the idea of coalition. The election law of the Duma provided for the representation of all group interests of the community, and representation by an actual member of the group, by a bona fide peasant in the case of the peasantry. The seats in the assembly were distributed specifically to landlords, manufacturers, the smaller bourgeoisie, workmen, and peasants. ”