Conservative politics

“ Wherever the chances were in favour of a liberal candidate, the satisfaction, the joy, and I may say the triumph of all liberals knew no bounds; and where a conservative seemed likely to have the greatest number of votes, the delight of the conservatives was equally great. For every Englishman takes a deep interest in politics, and is either a conservative or a liberal, and accordingly wishes to see conservatives or liberals returned to Parliament. ”

“ It is certain, however, that the issue must come back to its permanent form and that the political strife must be waged between the conservative and the radical theories of politics—between those who lay the greater stress on law and those who lay the greater stress on liberty, between those who see political health chiefly in the social principle and those who see it chiefly in the individual, between constitutionalism and democracy. ”

“ An outlook upon Imperial affairs which is less a conception of politics than the acceptance of a social tradition: which leaves suburban seats securely Conservative not because the Conservative creed is there definitely embraced, but because Conservatism is supposed to be the party favoured by Court, society, and the wealthy and fashionable classes. And too often an essential ignorance supplemented by an [82] arrogance which refuses advice and despises opposition. ”

“ The conservative party in the universe concedes that the radical would talk sufficiently to the purpose, if we were still in the garden of Eden; he legislates for man as he ought to be; his theory is right, but he makes no allowance for friction ”

“ A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them. ”

“ However men please to style themselves, I see no other than a conservative party. You are not only identical with us in your needs, but also in your methods and aims. You quarrel with my conservatism, but it is to build up one of your own ”

“ And so, no doubt, they are in their hearts and wishes, and so they would be, if the Conservatives would allow them to keep their places, and give them strength enough to maintain Conservative interests. ”

“ Although he professed conservatism only in those cases where conservatism was essential to the public good and radicalism in everything which might require radical treatment and radical reform, the spirit of opposition to the Tribune, as well as his temperamental leanings, carried him definitely to the conservative side. He was by nature inclined to accept the established order and make the best of it. Change, if it came, should come not through radical agitation and revolution, but by cautious and gradual evolution. The world needed brushing, not harrowing. ”

“ What a democracy, based upon universal suffrage, like ours needs most to insure its stability is an element of conservative poise in itself. This can be furnished only by popular faith in the principles underlying the democratic institutions; by popular reverence for high ideals and traditions; by popular respect for constitutional forms and restraints. Take away these conservative and ennobling influences, and the only motive forces left in such a democracy will be greed and passion. ”

“ All, therefore, which the best Conservatives chiefly dread in the complete ascendancy of democracy would be, if not wholly removed, at least diminished in a very great degree. These are the recommendations of the plan when looked at on its Conservative side. Let us now look at it in its democratic aspect. I claim for it the support of all democrats, as being the only true realisation of their political principles. What is the principle of democracy? Is it not that everybody should be represented, and that everybody should be represented equally? ”

“ If the principles of conservatism are based on firm supports, on a recognition of values, a sense of measure and proportion, a due regard for order,—its prejudices are indefensible. The wise conservative does not attempt to defend them; he only clings to them more lovingly under attack. ”

“ If belief in the perfectibility of man—and not of man only, but of governments—is the inspiration of liberalism, of radicalism, of the spirit that calls clamorously for change, and that has requisitioned the words reform and progression, sympathy with man and with his work, with the beautiful and imperfect things he has made of the chequered centuries, is the keynote of conservatism. The temperamental conservative is a type vulnerable to ridicule, yet not more innately ridiculous than his neighbours. ”

“ This power, however, had so completely woven itself into the whole fabric of American society and institutions, and had so long fed upon the virtue of our public men, that the Administration was not yet prepared to divorce itself entirely from the madness that still enthralled the conservative element of the Republican party. ”

“ Meanwhile we rejoice to know that the Conservative party, augmented alike in numbers and in prestige, is now so powerful that it ought to be able to resist successfully any measures of wrong policy or mistaken legislation on the part of the Government. ”

“ It is obvious that, however blurred the party lines may be in individual cases, the man who in England is by instinct and conviction a Conservative, must in America by the same impulse be a Republican. ”

“ To men of all parties and opinions, who wish well to the Republic, and would preserve its good name, it appeals. Alike to the Conservative and the Reformer, it appeals; for it stands on the truest Conservatism and the truest Reform. In seeking the reform of existing evils, we seek also the conservation of the principles of our fathers. ”

“ The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made. This quarrel is the subject of civil history. The conservative party established the reverend hierarchies and monarchies of the most ancient world. The battle of patrician and plebeian, of parent state and colony, of old usage and accommodation to new facts, of the rich and the poor, reappears in all countries and times. ”

“ Without presuming to require from political parties such an amount of virtue and discernment as that they should comprehend, and know when to apply, the principles of their opponents, we may yet say that it would be a great improvement if each party understood and acted upon its own. Well would it be for England if Conservatives voted consistently for every thing conservative, and Liberals for every thing liberal. ”

“ There is nothing like a Revolution for making people conservative; that is one of the reasons why, for instance, our Constitution, the child of Revolution, is the most conservative [Pg 35] in history. But, in other respects, why should we Americans be conservative? ”

“ The Conservatives, as being by the law of their existence the stupidest party, have much the greatest sins of this description to answer for; and it is a melancholy truth, that if any measure were proposed on any subject truly, largely, and far-sightedly conservative, even if Liberals were willing to vote for it, the great bulk of the Conservative party would rush blindly in and prevent it from being carried. ”

“ It was a misfortune for more than Conservatism that his massive wisdom, his shrewd judgment, his cool scepticism, his contempt of mere ideas, his horror of extremes, his hatred of any kind of cant and self-illusion, his distrust of zeal and prejudice against the needless enlargement of issues were not at the service of the Conservative Party at a time when it needed above all things sane and strong control. ”

“ Let me first address myself to Conservatives. What is it that persons of Conservative feelings specially deprecate in a plan of Parliamentary reform? It is the danger that some classes in the nation may be swamped by other classes. What is it that we are warned against, as the chief among the dangers of democracy? not untruly, as democracy is vulgarly conceived and practised. ”

“ The truth of conservatism lies, first, in its love of the existing order. Every established form of social life has had a certain wholeness and strength and perfection of its own. This is as true of savagery as it is of any type of civilization. Interests are in equilibrium, and are guaranteed security within certain limits that are generally understood. In other words, at least a measure of fulfilment may be counted on. The conservative is right in valuing this as a prodigious achievement. ”

“ Though we Conservatives are deeply persuaded that our society is ailing, and know that Conservatism holds the key to national salvation—and feel sure the country agrees with us—we seem unable to demonstrate the practical relevance of Conservative principles to the needs of the day. We sit by impotently while Congress seeks to improvise solutions to problems that are not the real problems facing the country, while the government attempts to assuage imagined concerns and ignores the real concerns and real needs of the people. ”

“ But the good cause of constitutional government in America is not lost with their failure— public opinion, whenever it shall be fairly appealed to, will declare itself in favour of truth and order; the conservative principle, though dormant, is yet powerful ”

“ But he sees that to be impossible in France, and, like a wise man that he is, he takes the next best thing—which is a Conservative Republic, based on a written constitution, like that of the United States, and girt round by every check on the exercise of power—a government in which there is the greatest possible degree of personal freedom consistent with public order. ”

“ Resolved, that in view of our repeated failures to reform the State Government by the policy of co-operation with the Conservative element of the Republican Party, who professed the same object, and of recent events we recognize the absolute and immediate necessity of reorganizing the Democratic party to restore an honest and economical government. ”

“ Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. The charge is preposterous and we ought boldly to say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. The principles on which the Conservative political position is based have been established by a process that has nothing to do with the social, economic and political landscape that changes from decade to decade and from century to century. These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. ”

“ We are a conservative race, and our conservatism has been eminently successful in that matter of supreme moment,—the preservation of the faith and the purity of our people. It is difficult, therefore, to see the necessity of change, to meet the exigencies of the times, and the higher demands of the nation and the race. ”

“ In this state of confusion many Liberal-Conservatives are beginning to wish for the consolidation of the Government, and are inclining to support it, if the Government itself will give them an opportunity of doing so, by asserting their own independence as a Conservative Government, and will leave off truckling to the Radicals, by accepting measures which everyone knows to be repugnant to their feelings and opinions, and inconsistent with the principles they have always professed. ”

“ The true Democrats, with a unanimity hitherto unknown, will appreciate the utility of the national idea and will demonstrate that our Constitution was indeed intended “to live and take effect in all successions of ages.” The popular party, at once conservative and radical, will demonstrate by its habitual self-restraint, by its scrupulous regard for justice, by the honorable methods which it shall observe and exact, by its prudence in legislation, that the Democracy in the plentitude of its powers, is most truly conservative of all that vast store of good which the past hands down. ”

“ Reform is affirmative, conservatism negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth. Conservatism is more candid to behold another's worth; reform more disposed to maintain and increase its own. Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry. It makes a great difference to your figure and to your thought, whether your foot is advancing or receding. Conservatism never puts the foot forward; in the hour when it does that, it is not establishment, but reform. ”

“ The true strength of the Conservative element in a State is to recognise at the proper moment the essential features of the situation, to exercise its judgment with an open mind and absolute freedom from visionary aspirations, to acknowledge the rights and the true inwardness of the living present, to keep immediately practical objects in view, and, as a party devoted to the maintenance of what exists, to secure for every stage of development a period of consolidation. ”

“ And if it is the other way around, if government grants rights, then government can also take those rights away. If that is the case, we would be similar to many of the other governments, many of the other civilizations, and we are not. We are the United States of America, founded upon four of these conservative principles.
All of these principles are conservative principles: the respect for tradition and wisdom of past generations, the rule of law, the belief in individual freedom and liberty, and the fourth thing is a belief in a law higher than man's law. ”

“ But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. ”