Political order

“ In every country, and at all times, an order of things may be conceived—civil, political, penal and administrative laws—which would best conform to the general interest, and be the most favourable to the well-being and progress of the nation. ”

“ That is why, says the philosopher, all parties, without exception, as they affect power, are varieties of absolutism, and there will only be liberty for the citizens, order for society, union among the workers, when the renunciation of authority will have replaced in the political catechism faith in authority. ”

“ They go to the form and substance of government, not to its policy, as in America, where every party cry, radical or conservative, is attuned to the music of a republican federation, and which is the sine qua non to all political conclusions. How can a nation progress until its people have chosen, or are competent to choose, a stable form of government, and are satisfied with certain organic political principles? ”

“ 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 interest which lay behind Federalism was that of well-to-do citizens in a stable political and social order, and this interest aroused them to favor and to seek some form of political organization which was capable of protecting their property and promoting its interest. ”

“ Thus the general doctrine, that all kinds of government exercised over men were at first one government—that the political, the religious, and the ceremonial forms of control are divergent branches of a general and once indivisible control—begins to look tenable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 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? ”

“ But neither combination nor connection, in any moral and rational sense of the term, has anything to do with a system of government which perpetually sets up the great offices of state as the prizes of a contest between two organized factions, to one of which each citizen is bound to adhere, owing to his party an allegiance in fact higher than that which he owes to his political conscience or to the state. ”

“ It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force. ”

“ To imagine another contingency, perhaps more likely to be realized than the one last mentioned. There is confessedly a strong tendency in the modern world towards a democratic constitution of society, accompanied or not by popular political institutions. ”

“ The operations of all other governments must, in a great measure, be restrained by the will of the people, and by established laws; with them, physical and political force are necessarily separate considerations: they have not only to calculate what can be borne, but what will be submitted to ”

“ The sole object of this national, non-partisan, non-sectarian, popular, and permanent institution, is to voice these maxims, to inspire the spirit and give force to the principles which should111 have supreme control in affairs of government, citizenship, and social order. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But an analogous mistake lurks in all static forms of democracy. The bestowal and the exercise of political and civil rights are merely a method of organization, which if used in proper subordination to the ultimate democratic purpose, may achieve in action something of the authority of a popular Sovereign will. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In contests of this nature, where a considerable body of people who have attempted to free themselves of the control of the superior government have reached such point in occupation of territory, in power, and in general organization as to constitute in fact a body politic ”

“ 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. ”

“ What has been passing under my eyes has, with much greater vividness and force than I can convey in such a brief sketch, appeared to me to show the play of the same forces that have over and over again brought despotism out of freedom, anarchy out of order, and turned progress into retrogression. Popular government is not a new thing. All government in its beginning must have been popular government. And under all forms of government the people are the source of power. ”

“ If peace and unanimity are cherished, and the equalization of liberty, and the equity and energy of law maintain by harmony and justice, the present representative government may stand for ages, a luminous monument of republican wisdom, virtue, and integrity. ”

“ The Constitution was the expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears. It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the bulwark of certain individual and local rights. ”

“ Sir, in granting Congress the power to raise armies, the People have granted all the means which are ordinary & usual, & which are consistent with the liberties & security of the People themselves; & they have granted no others. To talk about the unlimited power of the Government over the means to execute its authority, is to hold a language which is true only in regard to despotism. ”

“ The patriot, the philosopher, and the statesman, look to this spot, where the legislative authority of the Republic has an uncontrolled operation, for that perfect system of laws, which shall at once develope the wisdom of the government, and display the justice and benevolence of its policy. ”

“ Payment of representatives. Abolition of all limitation of political rights, except in the case of disfranchisement.
‘2. Direct legislation through the people, by means of the right of proposal and rejection. Self-government of the people in Empire, State, Province, and Commune. Officials to be elected by the people; responsibility of officials. Yearly granting of taxes.
‘3. Training in universal military duty. A people’s army in place of the standing armies, decision on peace and war by the representatives of the people. Settlement of all international differences by arbitration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the dissolution of the ties of allegiance, the assumption of sovereign power, and the institution of civil government, are all acts of transcendent authority, which the people alone are competent to perform ”

“ This case teaches us, that legislation can change the nature of a government, without changing its form; that the numerical analysis, being unable to discern such changes, describes a government by the same name, after it has undergone a material change; that without understanding the moral principles of laws, nations can neither foresee nor regulate revolutions; and that neither party principles, merits nor names, are a good security for the continuance of party patriotism. ”

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

“ He must exhibit the nature of the government, the manners, the administration of law, the state of useful and fine arts, of commerce, of foreign relations. He must let us see the decay and rise of great principles and conditions—till we look on a tottering sovereignty, a rising creed, an incipient war, as distinctly as, by turning to the highway, we can see the old man, the vigorous youth, or the infant child. He must paint—the council robed in its hall—the priest in his temple—the conspirator—the outlaw—the judge—the general—the martyr. ”

“ How much more sublime is the idea of forming a great nation, by a chain of republicks, subordinate to publick good, than by a chain of satraps subordinate to imperial will, or of chartered companies subordinate to selfish avarice? Such a system stands upon national interest. No people, except ourselves, have seriously attempted to make this interest the basis of civil government. ”

“ Civil power, properly organized and exerted, is capable of diffusing its force to a very great extent; and can, in a manner, reproduce itself in every part of a great empire, by a judicious arrangement of subordinate institutions. ”

“ With reference to the establishment of government by the people and the various administrative measures to be drawn up, I am most anxious to exert my utmost strength in spreading and supporting the republican spirit; to scour out the flaws and filth of autocratic rule; to observe the constitutional laws in accordance with the will of the people; and to associate our State with peaceable and powerful countries, so that the five great members [1] of our nation may one and all derive happiness and profit therefrom. ”

“ But though we may be proud of these conquests, we are compelled in the last analysis of our institutions, to return to a few fundamental notions of our government. We must continue the representative idea based upon the doctrine of the equality of rights and exercised by representative assemblies founded on popular elections; and after our most pleasing contemplation of the institutions of America, we must return to the people, the foundation of our government. Their wisdom and self-control, and these alone, will impart to our institutions that strength which insures their perpetuity. ”

“ But from this grant I infer, as before hath been touched, that the sovereign, original, and foundation of civil power, lies in the people—whom they must needs mean by the civil power distinct from the government set up: and if so, that a people may erect and establish what form of government seems to them most meet for their civil condition. ”

“ than to see the Easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and to observe the implicite Submission with which Men resign their own Sentiments and Passions to those of their Rulers. When we enquire by what Means this Wonder is brought about, we shall find, that as Force is always on the Side of the Governed, the Governors have nothing to support them but Opinion. 'Tis therefore, on Opinion only that Government is founded; and this Maxim extends to the most despotick and most military Governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. ”