Opposition party

“ The open opposition of your policy among the members of the party is not half as dangerous to your success and not one-thousandth part as dangerous to your honor as the bad faith or indifference of men entrusted with the execution of your views and the redemption of your promises. ”

“ He tells us that it is one of the well-known lessons of political history and philosophy, that the opposition party comes in to preserve and crystallize the measures which their antagonists inaugurated; and that a conservative opposition party is better fitted to accomplish such a work than an aggressive radical party, who roughly pioneered the way and brought in the changes. ”

“ Nor indeed, under our system of government, are the leaders themselves of the House of Commons, for the most part, eager to carry party conclusions too far. They are in contact with reality. An Opposition, on coming into power, is often like a speculative merchant whose bills become due. ”

“ The method by which the party in opposition contrives to secure a parliamentary majority for itself is by disparaging the measures of the party in power, and promising greater reforms and better measures than those of their rivals. ”

“ I have said that what are called politics are out of fashion; there is no public man a jot more popular than another; nobody cares about parties, for there is no party distinguished by any peculiar badge of principle, with a distinct colour, and standing in open and defined antagonism to any other; none which has any great object to advance—constitutional, political, or commercial—in opposition to another party ranged against it. ”

“ So it is with political parties; they not only oppose, they support, strengthen, and invigorate each other, and I shall never, therefore, be a party to any measure, come from whichever side of the House it may, which seeks so to impair and destroy the balance of parties existing in this country that whichever party were in office should be free from the check of a vigorous opposition, directed by men of the same stamp and position as those to whom they were opposed. ”

“ We are convinced, that the government of the country was never intrusted to men who more thoroughly understood its interest, or were more sincerely disposed to promote it—to men who, in forming their arrangements, thought so much of what they could do, and so little of what they could get. On the other side, we see a party which, for ignorance, intemperance, and inconsistency, has no parallel in our annals,—which, as an Opposition, we really think, is a scandal to the nation, and, as a Ministry, would speedily be its ruin. ”

“ They are at once the working executive, the guiding agency in legislation, and the leaders and spokesmen of this party. Confronting them constantly is the Opposition, consisting of influential exponents of the contrary political faith who, in turn, lead the rank and file of their party organization; and if at any time the ministers in power lose their supporting majority in the Commons, whether through adverse results of a national election or otherwise, they retire and the Opposition assumes office. ”

“ If the members of one political party secede from that party, when changes they cannot accept are welcomed to their programme, and henceforth refuse them their support at the polling-booth, would it not be proper that men, sensible of the utter inadequacy of the performances of both parties to meet the evils under which the nation lies, should stand aloof from both government and opposition? ”

“ My uncle says, for instance, that you have abandoned respectable politics to become a Tower Hill pedagogue."
"Respectable politics," he replied, "if by that you mean the present government of the country, have been in the wrong hands for so long that people scarcely realise what is undoubtedly the fact—that the country isn't being governed at all. A Government with an Opposition Party almost as powerful as itself, all made up of separate parties which are continually demanding sops, can scarcely progress very far, can it?" ”

“ The Party of Opposition, or what remains of it, has much to repent of; many humiliating reflections must pass through the minds of those who compose it, and they must learn the hard lesson to be thankful for them as a discipline indispensible to their amendment. Thus only can they furnish a sufficient nucleus for the formation of a new Body ”

“ Such opposition as exists takes chiefly the form of party controversy upon details, and criticism by each faction of the steps of the other. Few seem to realize how far the country has departed from its former standards or that the most moderate proposals of to-day were radical yesterday. ”

“ The Government party shows considerable confidence, although, in reality, the programme it has issued does not go beyond ordinary commonplace; but it calls upon all other parties, as true patriots, to forget their differences, and to unite and form a grand Party of Order, in opposition to the party of negation and demolition, which was stealthily increasing, and which, under the enticing name of a Party of Freedom, sought to ingratiate itself with the nation. ”

“ For a very young Member to oppose his own party without causing irritation, and to receive the cheers of the Opposition without being led to seek in them solace for the silence of his own side, and to win general admiration by transparent sincerity and clear, balanced statement of reason, was a rare and notable performance. ”

“ Altogether the patrician party, though still powerful enough, was at the opening of the sixteenth century already on the decline, the wealthy and unprivileged opposition beginning in its turn to constitute itself into a quasi-aristocratic body as against the mass of the poorer citizens and those outside the pale of municipal rights. ”

“ Party organisation has grievous drawbacks. It sometimes teaches men to stifle their consciences, and to prefer the interest of their faction to the interest of the country. But where there is not party the necessary alternative is apathy or corruption.
There was in this Opposition, as there is in every political Opposition, men to whom the main question was when they would arrive at office; but the whole connection was sincerely possessed of the convictions for which they contended. ”

“ An opposition is formed against them, composed of all sorts, lovers of order and lovers of disorder, reasonable men and fanatics, business-like men and men of theory. The opposition succeeds; the government is overthrown; the victors divide into a moderate party and an advanced party. The advanced party go to the front, till they discredit themselves with crime or folly. ”

“ Whatever party is in power will always, so long as the existing system continues, be obliged to silence the opposition by the force of parliamentary machine; and whatever party is in power will always be accused of tyranny and autocracy by the other party. ”

“ Not unfrequently it happens that a section of the dominant party is profoundly discontented with the policy of the Government on some question which they deem of great importance. They find themselves incapable of offering any direct and successful opposition, but their discontent will show itself on some other Government measure on which votes are more evenly divided. ”

“ The spirit of party is, indeed, at the basis of our institutions; an opposition we must have, and the peculiar nature of our government requires a powerful one; but most unfortunately our demagogues—Whigs and Democrats—oppose men, not principles. If there be a man in the country capable of acting as mediator between the two hostile parties,—appeasing the one without sacrificing the principles of the other,—that man is Mr. ”

“ The opposition, usually masked under the title of non-party, try to make out that they are a favored class who get the best of everything. But the Party's heroic record of self-sacrifice eloquently refutes that. ”

“ The country wants a change of government but not a change of policy, and under such circumstances the task of a victorious opposition is much less to march in new directions than to mark time, to carry on the affairs of the nation on the same lines, but with greater administrative skill. In such periods the importance of party objects is much diminished and a policy which is intended merely to keep a party in power should be severely condemned. ”

“ His party is in great part composed of the rich and fashionable, who are constantly drawn away by one attraction or another, and whose habitual haunts are the clubs and houses at the west end of the town; and it is next to impossible to collect his scattered forces at a moment’s notice. The Opposition contains a dense body of fellows who have no vocation out of the walls of the House of Commons ”

“ We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy. ”

“ They are the special and organised representatives of a particular party and its ideas, but the fact that they may be called upon at any time to undertake the government of the nation as a whole, and that even while in opposition they take a great part in moulding its general policy, imposes on them limitations and restrictions from which a mere private member is in a great degree exempt. When a party comes into power its position is again slightly altered. Its leaders are certainly not detached from the party policy they had advocated in opposition. ”

“ OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it. ”

“ We demand, not “recognition,” but representation, and we are out to throw our votes to any party which gives us this, and withhold them from any party which refuses to give it. No longer will we follow any leader whose job the party controls. For we know that no leader so controlled can oppose such party in our interests beyond a given point. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But as the organ and instrument of parties, in governments of the numerical majority, it is as incompetent as suffrage itself, to counteract the tendency to oppression and abuse of power — and can, no more than that, supersede the necessity of the concurrent majority. On the contrary, as the instrument of party warfare, it contributes greatly to increase party excitement, and the violence and virulence of party struggles; and, in the same degree, the tendency to oppression and abuse of power. ”

“ The Opposition parties complain bitterly of the scarcity of persons who, when it comes to the test, have the requisite courage to boldly face the Government as opponents, either as candidates for Parliament or as speakers at election meetings. ”

“ We too must pause in every keen emergency to cajole, to persuade, to placate, to reconcile conflicting interests, to humour conflicting opinions,—termed by those who hold them, "principles." We too must forever bear in mind the political party which is in power, and the political party which waits to get into power ”

“ Differences of purpose and belief between political parties to-day are vastly less than the differences within the parties. The great gulf of division which strikes across our whole people pays little heed to fading party lines, or to any distinction in name only. ”

“ How they prayed for calmness, prudence, wisdom; begged that the legislators should not suffer themselves to be led into the temptation of partisan pride or party predilection; besought them to remember that their own just powers were loaned to them by the people at the polls, and that they must decide the people's will and not their own political preference ”

“ Whatever the two party organisations have a mind to do together, whatever issue they chance to reserve from "party politics," is as much beyond the control of the free and independent voter as if he were a slave subject in ancient Peru. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”