Political entity

“ The influences which form opinions and decide political acts are different in the different sections of the country. An altogether different set of leaders have the confidence of one part of the country and of another. ”

“ We have from the first affirmed, and unvaryingly kept in view, the coequal importance of two great requisites of government—responsibility to those for whose benefit political power ought to be, and always professes to be, employed ”

“ I am not aware that history furnishes any example in which a number of these political atoms or corpuscles have coalesced into a body, and learned to feel themselves one people, except through previous subjection to a central authority common to all. [2] It is through the habit of deferring to that authority, entering into its plans and subserving its purposes, that a people such as we have supposed receive into their minds the conception of large interests common to a considerable geographical extent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Take, for instance, the exercise of political power. Is a state free in proportion to the number of its subjects who are admitted to rank among its citizens, or to the degree in which its recognised citizens are invested with political authority? ”

“ A popular government of this extent, it was evident, could be framed only by carrying into full effect the principle of representation or of delegated power; and the world was to see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. ”

“ As your nomination and election marked a most hopeful revival in political morals, so may your administration, born of the noblest impulses of the American people, become a lasting example of good government, to serve as an instruction and encouragement to coming generations and to write your name into the annals of the Republic with imperishable honor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Growth of Radicalism.—Two working principles have hitherto furnished the basis for political and economic organizations in such countries as the United States, Great Britain, and France. |Democracy and individualism.| Democracy, by which we mean the control of government by the whole people, acting chiefly through their representatives, has been the accepted basis of political institutions. ”

“ The people will, if the Democratic leaders do not, appreciate the greatness and beneficence of the idea upon which the new order of things, the settlement we propose, rests—true and general self-government exercised in and through the States ”

“ In the difference of national character between the people of these two empires we may discern the influence of political systems on the human mind, and infer the importance of the task which a legislator undertakes, in attempting to reduce a barbarous people under the control of government and laws. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You learn here what good political institutions mean. The country is being badly governed at this moment, but, however it may be governed, incapable as the men at the helm may be, things go well, nevertheless. ”

“ If, however, we consider the underlying conditions and forces that create the democratic type of government, and at times contradict the external forms to which the name democracy is applied, we shall find that under this name there have appeared a multitude of political types radically unlike in fact. ”

“ An unfavourable position for founding a Government, and, above all, a free Government. A certain degree of excitement and emulation invariably exists between the [108] people and the political parties, which constitutes the very life of the social body, and encourages its energetic and wholesome development. ”

“ NATIONALITY AND HUMANITY
I have discussed, in the three preceding chapters, the probable effect of certain existing intellectual tendencies on our ideals of political conduct, our systems of representation, and the methods which we adopt for securing intellectual initiative and efficiency among our professional officials—that is to say, on the internal organisation of the State. ”

“ In discussing democratic forms of government, all political writers distinguish between a pure democracy, where each citizen has a direct voice and vote in administration and legislation, and a representative democracy, where these functions are committed to a limited body, selected for the purpose from time to time by their fellow citizens ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are the power-houses of our political system. Party sentiment finds its first public expression there—often it has its beginnings there in the free conversations which characterize such American political societies. ”

“ That the other political authorities in the given society are subordinate to the sovereign or supreme one; deriving their political powers from its express or tacit delegation, and holding those powers at its pleasure. ”

“ Such men filled the stage during that period of construction and conservative National organization, devoting the best efforts of their statesmanship, the statesmanship of the political mind, to the purpose of raising their country to greatness in wealth and power, of making the people proud of their common nationality and of imbedding the Union in the contentment of prosperity, in enlightened patriotism, National law and Constitutional principle. ”

“ The political state as such—the fatherland, let us say—or the history of a State and country, are essentially something universal, which, regarded in the light of such universality, does not appear under the mode of a subjectively individual existence, or, in other words, in inseparable and exclusive coalition with one definite living individual. ”

“ It is in such states, perhaps, as in a fabric of a large dimension, that we can perceive most distinctly the several parts of which a political body consists; and observe that concurrence or opposition of interests, which serve to unite or to separate different orders of men, and lead them, by maintaining their several claims, to establish a variety of political forms. ”

“ But not until recently have we been able to see the full effects of thus sending men to legislate for us at capitals distant the breadth of a continent. It makes the leaders of our politics, many of them, mere names to our consciousness instead of real persons whom we have seen and heard, and whom we know. ”

“ Let us endeavor to comprehend in all its magnitude, and to feel in all its importance, the part assigned to us in the great drama of human affairs. We are placed at the head of the system of representative and popular governments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Where the States, so forming themselves into one body politic, retain for certain purposes a distinct name and character, their position in the body politic, of which they form a part, is precisely the same with that of the individual citizens in an ordinary community. ”

“ The great game of the government was to sow, if not dissension, at least distrust, in the ranks of the national party,—to chill the ardor of patriotism, and, wherever possible, to excite different views, and different roads to success, amongst the popular leaders of the time. ”

“ With us, politics chiefly engage the attention of those who stand foremost in the community, which, indeed, arises from the freedom and peculiar excellence of our constitution, without which even the spirit of men of letters in general, and of philosophers in particular, who never directly interfere in matters of government, would languish. ”

“ Men of this sort, who, while sharing the democratic feelings of the working classes, judged political questions for themselves, and had courage to assert their individual convictions against popular opposition, were needed, as it seemed to me, in Parliament, and I did not think that Mr. ”

“ That the government which we thus set up in a perfectly normal manner has nevertheless changed greatly under our hands, by reason both of growth and of the operation of the general democratic forces,—the European, or rather worldwide, democratic forces of which I have spoken. ”

“ The nation is a democratic organisation—each individual is called, each one may make himself felt;—while the state is an aristocratic organisation, compelling, supressing: democratic states are only now arising. ”

“ The highest political watchword is not Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, nor yet Solidarity, but Service. ”

“ The staunch principles of the man who is to direct the destinies of his country for the next four years are voiced in his declaration: “I intend to be the head of the nation, not the head of a party.” ”

“ A true republic, the function of which is administration in the interests of the whole community—in contrast to a pure democracy, which in last analysis is the rule of the demos or a majority in its own interests—should be, and often is, the medium of selection for the technical task of government of those best qualified by antecedents, character and education, in short, of experts. ”

“ If the balance incline towards a more liberal form of government, towards democratic institutions, and therefore towards self-government, and the participation of the many rather than of the few in the affairs of the State, I am not to blame, nor is it my ordinance, but that of History and of Providence. ”

“ In the eyes of reason, governments and parties are merely the mise en scène of the fundamental concepts of society, a realization of abstractions, a metaphysical pantomime, from which the direction is Liberty. ”

“ The clever politicians had this ideal of state before themselves, where the interest of the state, as self centered as the interest of the state's subjects, were so artificially linked that the two mutually support one another. ”

“ The second, in pursuing the true and common interest of the nation they govern, without espousing those of any party or faction; or if these are so formed in a state, that they must incline to one or other, then to chuse and favour that which is most popular, or wherein the greatest or strongest part of the people appear to be engaged. ”

“ Principles are inherent in government by the people, and parties are engines created by the people through which to voice the principles they espouse. Parties have divided on one line in this country from the beginning of our national existence to the present time. ”

“ In one part of the country—and that the greater in numbers, in wealth, in enterprise and vigor, in average intelligence and intellectual achievements—the sentiments he had espoused were professed and believed by a great party which prided itself upon its intelligence, purity, respectability, and devotion to principle. ”

“ A completely popular government is the only polity which can make out any claim to this character. It is pre-eminent in both the departments between which the excellence of a political Constitution is divided. It is both more favorable to present good government, and promotes a better and higher form of national character than any other polity whatsoever.
Its superiority in reference to present well-being rests upon two principles, of as universal truth and applicability as any general propositions which can be laid down respecting human affairs. ”

“ The objects to which our faculties are applied have a necessary influence over our minds. How diminutive, nay, pitiful, those appear which now engross public attention and for which parties contend, when compared with those for which the founders of the republic staked their fortunes and their lives!—the creation of a great independent nation and the organization of a national yet restricted government. ”

“ Government within the State has widened down from autocratic authority to authority broad-based upon a people's will. The expansion of the principle of representation is responsible for that development. ”