Political debate

“ If we want good government, is it not time that we should take our share in the struggle to secure it?” And hence that fresh political activity, that freedom of criticism, that breaking of party lines, that movement of independence all over the field, which makes political ringmasters tremble and patriotic citizens rejoice in new hope. ”

“ If, in connection with these solid foundations for a natural religion, we add the important fact, that this is a republic, in which the wish of the majority, should become the law of the mass; we shall discover that politics become the natural channel, through which the wishes of the majority are expressed; that corrupt politics, result in bad government; that pure politics, insure good government; that a wise, just government, is the greatest political benefit which can be conferred on the people governed. ”

“ On that score we can not surely fail in knowing at least how to build up a reputation and establishment of our own. In debuts of this kind many talk of principle—political principle—party principle, as a sort of steel-trap to catch the public. 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. ”

“ New and Old Conceptions of Government.—To draw such a distinction between Government and people as if two separate spheres of power, a stronger and higher, and a weaker and lower, negotiated and came to terms with each other, is a remnant of transmitted political sentiment, which still accurately represents the historic establishment of the conditions of power in most States. ”

“ The next removal must be to the study of politics; to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies; that they may not in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of such a tottering conscience, as many of our great counsellors have lately shown themselves, but steadfast pillars of the state. ”

“ Supposing then the individual to have decided that some command of a 'political superior' is not for the common good, how ought he to act in regard to it? In a country like ours, with a popular government and settled methods of enacting and repealing laws, the answer of common sense is simple and sufficient. ”

“ The State, government with its functions and powers, is now the subject of vital interest to every thinking man. Political developments in all civilized countries have brought the questions home. Shall we have a strong government? Are democracy and parliamentary government to be preferred, or is Fascism of one kind or another, dictatorship - monarchical, bourgeois or proletarian - the solution of the ills and difficulties that beset society today? ”

“ Just how great must be the advance of society and just what must be the character of the advance, preliminary to its advantageously assuming the autonomous—republican—form of political organisation, must be admitted to be an open question. ”

“ It is our business to lay down certain principles and propositions of policy, and we have to present to the suffrage of the people, men for the highest offices of the Republic, who, if elected, are to carry those principles and propositions into a living reality. ”

“ And no mode of implanting a wholesome political feeling in the masses can equal candid political discussion: discussion one ruling principle of which shall be to teach that the greatest differences of opinion may be honestly entertained; that, with scarcely an exception, the leading men of each party, those who have any title to the name of statesman, are animated with an honest, patriotic desire to promote the best interests of the nation; and that the elucidation of truth is not aided by unreasoning invective and the undeserved imputation of base motives. ”

“ Add to these obstacles the fierce partisan feeling engendered by the circumstances of the time and country—fears of aristocratic influences on the one hand, and sectional intrigues on the other, and we can easily perceive that the first duty of the enlightened and patriotic was to clear away prejudices, explain principles, advocate cardinal political truths, and lift the whole subject out of the dense region of faction and into the calm and clear sphere of reason and truth. ”

“ If our difference of opinion is so inclusive that we can agree on nothing political, our differences have gone from mere opinion into the depths of ideology. Here the institutional framework is affected. ”

“ We should, therefore, recognise what is here suggested, and should counter-balance an undue regard for political movements and political power by the remembrance that the hardest tasks of all are accomplished by quite another power, and by a power which the politician often overlooks. ”

“ Yet, the Politician seems, of all others, most liable to be mistaken in the Application of History to his own Purpose; because the political Connexions and Interests of Men are, above all others, complicated and various. ”

“ But every one will be politically active; and instead of the stronghold of politics in a desert of ignorance, there will be that interplay of political functions, distributed among the whole body of the people, which is the real meaning of democracy. ”

“ This may be so, but review the history of our political struggles, and then answer me the question, how it happens that two men, of equal ability and learning, but of different political creeds, will, when starting from the same premises, so seldom arrive at the same conclusions? ”

“ No other method has yet been discovered by which effectively to express political opinion, to secure stability in governmental administration and policies, and to effectuate the real and permanent judgment of the people and promote their best interests. ”

“ In these days of strong party feeling and of keenly-contested social and religious issues, it might perhaps be thought difficult to find a single question having a vital bearing upon national life and well-being on which all persons, no matter of what political party, or of what [10] shade of sociological opinion, would be found to be fully and entirely agreed. ”

“ Finally, when the state becomes a democratic organisation and co-operates with the individual in all spheres of his activity, the movement for political democracy has ripened and has produced its natural social fruits. ”

“ The contending political parties in a republic should be such in point of mental and moral constitution and capability that the government may be intrusted to either without serious apprehension for the safety of the public interest. ”

“ But the need of the fictitious explanation arises from a wrong way of putting the question; the power which regulates our conduct in political society is conceived in too abstract a way on the one side, and on the other are set over against it, as the subjects which it controls, individuals invested with all the moral attributes and rights of humanity. ”

“ As a rule, politics we will not deal with. But questions of policy may never be divorced from the demands of morality. We will, therefore, as occasion many arise, discuss important political topics from the stand-point of justice and righteousness. ”

“ To pretend that this ramification of political power into a complex gradation of functions cannot exist without there being a variety of interests and domestic institutions, would be to say that the people among whom there is no such variety cannot be free ”

“ The views of those who looked mainly to the highest development of political life in a single small society, have to be modified if the object sought for is the extension of political life to the largest number of people. ”

“ I allude to the very general disposition to confine political discussions to political men. Thus, the private citizen, who should presume to discuss a political question, would be deemed fair game for all who thought differently from himself. ”

“ The principles I am enquiring into, regard the cool administration of their government; it belongs to another branch of politics, to contrive bulwarks against their passions, vices and weaknesses, as men. ”

“ The strongest point to be made in behalf of even such rudimentary political forms as democracy has already attained, popular voting, majority rule and so on, is that to some extent they involve a consultation and discussion which uncover social needs and troubles. ”

“ This is the master topic of the age; and during the whole fifty years it has intensely occupied the thoughts of men. The nature of civil government, its ends and uses, have been canvassed and investigated; ancient opinions attacked and defended; new ideas recommended and resisted, by whatever power the mind of man could bring to the controversy. From the closet and the public halls the debate has been transferred to the field; and the world has been shaken by wars of unexampled magnitude, and the greatest variety of fortune. ”

“ Meanwhile, the wise and thinking part of the community, who could trace evils to their source, labored unceasingly to inculcate opinions favorable to the incorporation of some principles into the political system which might correct the obvious vices, without endangering the free spirit of the existing institutions. ”

“ In its less perfect and more usual state the Democratic theory is advanced either as an ethical theory which postulates an absence of formal acquiescence on the part of the governed as injustice, or else as a convenient political compromise ”

“ In this, the first decade of the twentieth century, we find new conditions confronting the people called by many in the political sense, “Progressive.” There are many conditions in both the commercial and political orders of the time which are deemed by the leaders to need a change. ”

“ They demonstrate that there is no dominating moral principle in the creed of any of the great political parties, and that the voters who believe in principles rather than offices or men, hold the balance of power in our civilization. ”

“ At this moment, we desire to mention one remarkable quality which makes those essays unique among arguments written in the heat of a great political controversy. They were written to urge that human beings create a great nation and grant some enumerated powers to interfere with their own freedom. ”

“ We believe in popular rule through political action, but as to details we are on a search for improvement. We ask you to learn our language and our institutions and then give us the benefit of your best thought on ways and means for the improvement of our machinery for democratic government. The bars are down for the frankest criticism from men and women who have the democratic patience to trust their proposals to peaceful procedure. ”

“ But a conception so plausible at the first glance, and for which there are so many precedents in history, might perhaps, in the general chaos of political opinions, rise again to the surface, and be brought forward on occasions when it might be seductive to some minds ”

“ The desirable democratic object, implied in the traditional democratic demand for equality, consists precisely in that of bestowing a share of the responsibility and the benefits, derived from political and economic association, upon the whole community. ”

“ And, seeing this, we shall infer that the emotion excited in men by embodied political power must now, and for a long-time to come, be a great obstacle to the formation of rational sociological conceptions—tending, as it must ever do, to exaggerate the importance of the political factor in comparison with other factors. ”

“ But great ideas sometimes now make their way in spite of the most obstinate opposition, and operating, particularly in republics, by insensible degrees, sow the seeds of those principles and true opinions, which, as they arrive to maturity, prove so efficacious in times of political contest and public commotion. ”

“ Is it not obvious, then, that the student who seeks for the explanation of democracy in the social and economic forces that underlie political forms must make inquiry into the conditions that have produced our democratic institutions, if he would estimate the effect of these vast changes? ”

“ A weight of public opinion among the people for such a period, uniformly thrown into one scale so strongly, and so decisively, in the midst of all the extraordinary changes of parties, the events of peace and of war, and the trying conflicts of public policy and state interests, is perhaps unexampled in the history of all other free governments. ”

“ Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established. ”

“ We have been told, during my lifetime at least, not to criticize leaders, to trust leaders, and so intellectual discussion ceased and the high principles on which national action should be based became less and less understood, less and less common possessions. ”

“ Where the whole machinery of government is capable of being changed or modified by the will of the people while the written constitution remains, and where hereditary and territorial differences of opinion exist on very important subjects, is not surprising that party spirit should run very high. ”

“ Such samples of the character which political questions have hitherto borne in this country are sufficient to remind all readers of our history of what have been the chief features of our politics, and may serve, without further elaboration, to illustrate the point I wish to emphasize. It is manifest how such a course of politics would affect statesmanship and political leadership. ”