Partisanship

“ Partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other. ”

“ Believing, to quote his own language, "in an open and sturdy partisanship which secures the legitimate advantages of party supremacy," he also believes that parties were made for the people, and declares himself "unwilling, knowingly, to give assent to measures purely partisan which will sacrifice or endanger the people's interests." ”

“ I think the spirit of partisanship is of use in a point of view that has not been distinctly adverted to. It serves as a conductor to carry off our antipathies and ill-blood in a quarter and a manner that is least hurtful to the general weal. ”

“ The nation revolted against such a display of despotic partisanship, refused the Democratic government the vote of confidence which the President had solicited and elected a Congress Republican in both Houses. ”

“ I am ready to act with men who are free from that great danger that surrounds all men of all parties,—the danger that patriotism itself, warmed and heated in party contests, will run into partisanship. I believe that, among the sober men of this country, there is a growing desire for more moderation of party feeling, more predominance of purely public considerations, more honest and general union of well-meaning men of all sides to uphold the institutions of the country and carry them forward. ”

“ Most hopefully, there are increasingly greater numbers who belong to their country instead of to a party, and who elect human principles to rule and to reign over us rather than the ring-managers of prejudice and partisanship known as “parties.” ”

“ When we remember that all are thus affected more or less, in estimating political antagonists, their acts and their views, we are reminded what an immense obstacle political partisanship is in the way of Social Science. ”

“ We maintain party government not to promote intolerant partisanship but because opportunity must be given for expression of the popular will, and organization provided for the execution of its mandates and for accountability of government to the people. ”

“ It is, perhaps, too much to hope that partisanship may be entirely excluded from consideration of the subject, but at least it can be made secondary to the business interests of the country—that is, to the interests of our people as a whole. ”

“ They have calmed disturbing political elements;—the press is purified, the politician disarmed, the civil service well regulated. Hurtful partisanship is passing away. Since the people as a whole will never willingly surrender their sovereignty, reactionary movement is possible only in case the nation should go backward. ”

“ You need not lose sleep over the recrudescence of extreme partisanship this year. We have these fights every two years, with a particularly hard fight every fourth year. The people follow the leaders of the two major parties. ”

“ We need to overcome irrational partisanship. "A good share of the disputes about social reform that are always filling the air arise from the fact that some persons see one side of this question very clearly and refuse to see the other ”

“ Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only is their time and labor due to the Government, but they should scrupulously avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending by a display of obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have relations with them as public officials. ”

“ I met the ingrained partisans of the opposite creed who would, some from personal interest, some from mere traditional prejudice, stubbornly, close their ears and minds to every argument going against their side, and vociferously, not seldom with a sort of fanatical ferocity, resent and repel everything that seemed to threaten the power or prestige of their party, and who, in some instances, had established a sort of partisan lordship and sought to exercise a political terrorism over their neighbors. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That is, of course, the final point in that theory of our institutions. The victorious party in an election is regarded as having conquered the country; it takes the spoils and gives or allows to the minority as a boon, given in contempt, what it sees fit. ”

“ On mere grounds of expediency it seems to me that no party was ever founded on opposition to a single man or ever will be. Whatever the result of the election the parties will remain. By staying in the party I can be of some use. By going out I destroy all the influence and power for good I may possess. I have written you at great length, my dear Mr. Schurz, and with entire frankness and of course in the most absolute confidence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is it not well and necessary to break the despotic partisan rule which vociferously pronounces the sentence of political death upon every man who dares to have an independent opinion; which insolently threatens the first commercial city of the State with injurious legislation, if the people of that city, true to their honest and patriotic impulses, refuse to work into the hands of partisan rings ”

“ The hour has arrived when thoughtful colored men should cease to put their faith upon broken straws; when they should cease to be the willing tools of a treacherous and corrupt party; when they should cease to support men and measures which do not benefit them or the race; when they should cease to be duped by one faction and shot by the other. The time has fully arrived when they should have their position in parties more fully defined, and when, by the ballot which they hold, they should force more respect for the rights of life and property. ”

“ Under a false notion of fealty these men subject their neck to the party collar and go to the polls yoked with ignorance and crime, and at the heels of some low-browed political dictator they sacrifice their country’s weal on the altar of partisan allegiance. ”

“ What is there that can prevent any sincere man among you from joining our effort to give this State good government, when your own consciences must tell you that the partisan rule against which we have risen was an injury to the best interests of the State, and certainly no honor to those who supported it? ”

“ Even in its best estate, when there are organic issues, issues which create genuine enthusiasm and raise the combatants above the meanness of faction, is party a good government? Is not the possession of power and place always present as a motive warping the conduct of the leaders on national questions? Does not sheer passion always rage among the rank and file? Is not corruption an almost indispensable instrument of party organization? ”

“ The brutal cynicism with which certain Republican Senators and Representatives kick aside the solemn pledges of their party contained in its national platforms for a quarter of a century — pledges upon which the party has constantly asked for the votes of the people — shocks the popular conscience. ”

“ Parties, when they strive solely for principle, are the life of a nation; but when they strive solely for pelf, patronage, and power they are its death. Even corrupt party leaders may destroy a republic; sometimes even ambitious leaders may do so. Did a nation ever make a narrower escape than did our own during the slaveholders' rebellion? Who but ambitious party leaders caused that rebellion? ”

“ Do you see the thousands leaving your banners, unwilling to submit to your treacherous scheme to rob the people of their election? Do you know what that means? It means that the man rises above the partisan. It means the revival of conscience in our politics. It is the true sovereignty of the people vindicating itself. ”

“ It is inevitable at present that place and power should be the goal of all parties, and that politics should present the aspect of a scramble for office. There is no dividing-line between political parties, as elsewhere. ”

“ Political parties have divided us in the past and we should avoid the recurrence of our sad experience. We must eradicate the baneful influence of factional strife and strike at the very roots of partisan spirit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The same benign necessity and the same practical abuse appear in the parties, into which each State divides itself, of opponents and defenders of the administration of the government. Parties are also founded on instincts, and have better guides to their own humble aims than the sagacity of their leaders. ”

“ MY PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION The Party System has its critics; it will always have its critics. But you will not abolish it; you can do so only by being false to your own principles, and forming an anti-Party Party.—Lord Hopedale.
I had not, up to this time, taken much part in public affairs even on a small scale. ”

“ But let the political parties once begin to fight with indictments—put into their hands the two-edged weapon of persecution—and, whatever delusion you may indulge in, the liberties of the people will be no more secure in America than they are in Austria and Naples.
There is one kind of despotism more terrible than that of kings—that is, the despotism of political parties. [Loud applause.] Their tendency is not only to defeat but to oppress their opponents. However pure their first intentions may be, they will, in the heat of political contests, insensibly drift into that irresistible current. ”

“ Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party. Thus have we seen those territorial divisions and regulations which ought to be permanent, as well as other useful laws, altered, for no other end than to influence an election. ”

“ That our deliberations on this interesting subject should be uninfluenced by those partisan conflicts that are incident to free institutions is the fervent wish of my heart. To make this great question, which unhappily so much divides and excites the public mind, subservient to the short-sighted views of faction, must destroy all hope of settling it satisfactorily to the great body of the people and for the general interest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no other alternative; one of the two great parties must yield to any faction which becomes strong enough to hold the balance of power between them, or suffer the inevitable consequences—instability and impotence of government. ”

“ I repeat, how much easier would it be to solve such problems, how much easier to avert the dangers to our republican institutions they bring with them, if but for a short period that partisan spirit could be dispelled which blinds our eyes against the truth and cripples our patriotic impulse to do what is right and just and wise. ”

“ It clearly implies that the community is divided by a difference of opinion, not only on ordinary matters and points of current administration, but on some question of fundamental character and of paramount importance. Nothing less can make the submission of the individual intellect and conscience to party discipline rational or moral. In the absence of such a question, party is faction, the ruin of all commonwealths. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As soon as it is settled, there is no reason why the ordinary laws of Parliamentary life in this country should not recover their force, and why a political party—so grievously divided against itself as is the Liberal party at the present moment—should not make way for its opponents. ”