Political morality

“ For there is not one law of morality for the individual and another for public men, but they are both the same; and it is not so much the form of government as the tone of political morality, {171} and the character of politicians, that saves or ruins a State. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I advert to this, because there has been put forth, in modern times, the false maxim, that there is one morality for politics, and another morality for other things; that, in their political conduct to their opponents, men may say and do that which they would never think of saying or doing in the personal relations of private life. There has been openly announced a sentiment, which I consider as the very essence of false morality, which declares that "all is fair in politics." ”

“ We talk a good deal about the misdeeds of servants, and the difficulty there is in getting cooks; in my former world we talked a good deal about the unscrupulousness of politicians, and the difficulty there was in getting morality among statesmen—political morality I mean. ”

“ How, then, is it possible that the influence of this double spectacle, essentially incompatible as it is with any deep and permanent conviction, should not destroy all true political morality in the minds of those alike who take part in it or who view it with admiration? Private morality depends, fortunately, on many other general conditions besides fixity of opinion. Here, in ordinary cases, a true natural sentiment speaks much more powerfully than it does in regard to public relations. The disorganizing forces have, moreover, been counterbalanced to a great extent ”

“ It embraces and influences all other existences in the social world. Every art, science, or manufacture hinges upon this, and depends upon it for success or failure. Even morality itself is but a corollary of the political state, and crime a consequence of its bad organisation. The political status of a country is the main cause of its happiness or its misery. ”

“ Morality, in the first instance, is the observance of such regulations, and though a higher morality, the morality of the character governed by 'disinterested motives,' i.e. by interest in some form of human perfection, comes to differentiate itself from this primitive morality consisting in the observance of rules established for a common good, yet this outward morality is the presupposition of the higher morality. Morality and political subjection thus have a common source, 'political subjection' being distinguished from that of a slave, as a subjection which secures rights to the subject. ”

“ We do not agree with those who dissociate politics, and consequently war, from morals, who exalt political acts, especially of the masses, as something great, something above the small, private happenings in ordinary life, which are subject to the usual moral standards. ”

“ Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves.... ”

“ And let us remember that it is only religion, and morals, and knowledge, that can make men respectable and happy, under any form of government. Let us hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as individuals; that no government is respectable, which is not just; that without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no mere forms of government, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. ”

“ What I fear most is not a civil war,—for I think neither party is prepared for that,—but a condition of things completely upsetting our political morals. The moral sense even of good honest people is apt to become confused and blunted when there is such a complication of right and wrong on each side, that the path of duty is not clear. ”

“ Having but little influence in political government, they are the more likely to appreciate the need of a moral government, the special object of which it will be to protect them against the oppressive action of the temporal power. ”

“ I think it can be said without exaggeration that there has never been in the history of this Republic a political movement in which the purely moral motive was so strong—indeed, so dominant and decisive. ”

“ This theory of political morals, though subject to a limitless degradation in practice, underlies the argument of every man who pretends to regard the conduct of the State as a business affecting the conscience of citizens. ”

“ But grave as they are, still, in our present situation, we must, as American citizens, recognize it as our pressing duty to reëstablish the moral character of our Government and to elevate the tone of our political life. Honest government is the first condition of enduring National prosperity, power and freedom. Without the elementary virtues of political as well as social life decay will outstrip our progress. ”

“ Shall we not rather take the place to which we are entitled, as the leaders, rather than the followers, in the customs of society, turn back the tide of aristocratic inroads, and carry through the whole, not only of civil and political but of social and domestic life, the true principles of democratic freedom and equality? ”

“ The public men who teach such moral principles to the people educate the people for the contempt and abhorrence of mankind. The nation that accepts such moral principles cannot live. It will rot to death in the loathsome stew of its own corruption. If the nation accepting such moral principles be this Republic, it will deal a blow to the credit of democratic institutions from which the cause of free government will not recover for centuries. ”

“ By melting down the fetters of moral and republican principles in party confidence, we abolish the only known remedy against the evil qualities of human nature, abandon our experiment of political law founded in these principles, and rest for security on ignorant mobs, guided by a few designing leaders, or on cunning combinations, guided by avarice and ambition. ”

“ In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that, as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests; so, on another, that the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the pre-eminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. ”

“ A fair and dispassionate application of true and just principles is as essential to a right political judgment as to a correct moral decision, and he who allows himself to be led by passion, selfishness, prejudice, or a blind adoration of party, instead of the calm convictions of educated reason and conscience, thereby dishonors himself, and abdicates the right he possesses of acting for the best interests of himself and all. ”

“ It is not indeed to be expected, that physical and political truth should meet with equal acceptance, or gain ground upon the world with equal facility. The notions of the naturalist find mankind in a state of neutrality, or at worst have nothing to encounter but prejudice and vanity; prejudice without malignity, and vanity without interest. But the politician’s improvements are opposed by every passion that can exclude conviction or suppress it; by ambition, by avarice, by hope, and by terrour, by public faction, and private animosity. ”

“ Those characteristic traits of our nation, which have been so often misrepresented as signs of an aversion to a republic, and which may be more properly called civic virtues; as, for example, our respect for law, our antipathy to untried political theories, our attachment to traditional customs, and our pride in the history of our country, are no obstacles to, but rather guarantees, and even conditions of a republic, which is to be national and enduring. ”

“ As against them, on the dogmatic side, they believed in a spiritual world and in an established moral order, and on the political their rule was to abstain from politics, except in so far as they might injuriously affect the life and interests of the nation ”

“ After having raised the banner of moral independence to-day, they are certainly not prepared to surrender it again to-morrow. They will follow the lead of political honesty, as long as it is true honesty that leads them. [Cheers.] They have stood up for the defence of the principles of liberty, and they will remain true to that cause, so long as it is genuine and true liberty which claims their support. ”

“ They derive, from their union and joint opposition to foreign enemies, a zeal for their own community, and courage to maintain its rights. If the frequent neglect of virtue, as a political object, tend to discredit the understandings of men, its lustre, and its frequency, as a spontaneous offspring of the heart, will restore the honours of our nature. ”

“ Those who have lived under a democracy, or a full civil, mental, and religious freedom like our own, well know the crudity, the perversity, the persistency, the conceits and idiosyncrasies into which individualism will run on civil, social, and political matters of private and public interest. ”

“ Reason in man, like the will of the community in the political world, was intended to give law to his whole conduct, and to be the supreme controuling power within him. The passions are subordinate powers, or an executive force under the direction of reason, kindly given to be, as it were, wind and tide to the vessel of life in its course through this world to future honour and felicity.—How different from this is the actual state of man?—Those powers which were destined to govern are made to serve; and those powers which were destined to serve, are allowed to govern. Passion guides human life ”

“ The successful cooperation of honest men, without distinction of party, to which it at last succumbed, indicated the commencement of a moral revolution in politics, and nothing could be more desirable than that this revolution should not be confined to the limits of one State or one political organization. An imperative demand for honest government is indeed beginning to be heard all over the land. ”

“ Now you have shown to me the means by which you deem it possible that government might become no longer odious to the subject; you have shown how man may be induced to obey. But there are duties and interests for man beyond political obedience, and social comfort, and national greatness, higher interests and greater duties. ”

“ Governments again are disobeyed, political factions plot against the state, dignities are evil spoken of; and, strong in their own conceit, heady and high-minded men regard their own intellect as their only guide, and their own will as their only law. ”

“ With an instinctive passion for freedom, a profound faith in social and humanitary progress, and an ardent devotion to the interests of the masses, irrespective of artificial and temporary distinctions, he has long watched the conflict of opinions and the development of ideas with reference to their bearing on the great American principle of political justice and individual right. ”

“ And above all, is not our private life as morally beautiful and good—is not our public life as politically right, as indicative of the brightest prospects of humanity, and therefore as inspiring of the highest conceptions? ”

“ If we did but turn our eyes in the right direction we would find the very men we have elected our guardians, protecting the vicious, whose power they covet-sacrificing their high trust to a low political ambition. You cannot serve a political end by committing a wrong without inflicting a moral degradation on some one. ”

“ The Liberal who no longer feels at the bottom of his heart a sympathy with the rebel who chafes against the institutions of society, whether religious, political, social or economic, is well on the road to the other camp. But the dynamic force of Liberty, that great motive power of progress, though a good servant, may be a bad master; and the perennial problem of society is to harmonise its aims with those of the common good. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The most independent scholars made no attempt to disguise the fact that the course which political affairs had taken was the clearest proof of the moral degeneration which had set in, and they pronounced an equally bold and merciless criticism upon the government in all its departments. ”

“ It includes those whose suffrages decide the principles of our government; on whose conduct rests the reputation of our country; and whose mere breath is the tenure by which we hold all our dearest political, religious, and social rights. How ineffably important it is, then, that the intelligence of these "lower classes" should be cultivated; that their moral sense should be quickened ”

“ The want of moral fibre in his volatile character, an absence of dignity, and an inability to accept a fixed political creed, prevented him from acquiring the confidence of his associates or of the public. ”