Political pressure

“ Who is he, that, generous and confiding towards power where it is most dangerous, and jealous only of those who can restrain it,—who is he, that, reversing the order of the state, and upheaving the base, would poise the pyramid of the political system upon its apex? ”

“ Why is it that the very bases of society have been sapped, and the conditions of good government despised, or denounced under the name of despotism? Why is it that social and political life is poisoned in its source, and the blood of the nation corrupted? ”

“ A demoralization of public sentiment more than ever fatal to public justice and eventually to public order and peace; unscrupulous struggles for the possession of power to be used in the exploitation of opportunities without regard to the rights of the defeated—that is, alternating despotisms. ”

“ When a long series of civil dissensions, of frauds upon the public, of treasons against the parties, of perjuries to principles, have mixed up men and things, blotted out the 'line between political groups, and confused all ideas, politics must become a genuine chaos. ”

“ The time was one, indeed, in which, on both sides, there were manifested the passion which is born of political excitement, and the violence which springs from terror. Timid people might be excused if, in such a mad world, they clung with desperation to existing authority as the only protection to society against revolution and anarchy. ”

“ The Government is in a wretched state of weakness, utterly ignorant whether it can scramble through the session, unable to assume a dignified attitude, to investigate with calm deliberation the moral and political condition of the country, and to act upon its convictions with firmness and resolution, tottering and staggering between one great party and one fierce faction, and just able to keep on its legs because both are, for different reasons, willing to wound but afraid to strike. ”

“ The cumulative effect of well-conducted and successful political defiance campaigns is to strengthen the resistance and to establish and expand areas of the society where the dictatorship faces limits on its effective control. ”

“ Another danger for the safety of our institutions, and perhaps the most formidable one, arises from the general propensity of political parties and public men to act on a policy of mere expediency, and to sacrifice principle to local and temporary success. ”

“ We too must pause in every keen emergency to cajole, to persuade, to placate, to reconcile conflicting interests, to humour conflicting opinions,—termed by those who hold them, "principles." We too must forever bear in mind the political party which is in power, and the political party which waits to get into power ”

“ It will be represented to him that no party can live without public plunder, and that the abolition of the spoils system will lead to the downfall of the Republic. From flattery to threats, from private appeals to open demonstrations of hostility in Congress, every means will be employed to induce him to break his word. And that opposition will be directed by able leaders, experienced in all the resources of political warfare. ”

“ The working out of this great result has led to certain habits in the assumption and exercise of political power which have to some extent disturbed those balances in which self-government finds its security. ”

“ Under the severe pressure of despotism the people rise in their fury, and snap their chains asunder. A republic follows; degenerating first into a rude and wild democracy; and thence into a cruel and more turbulent anarchy. ”

“ In consequence of the progress made by public opinion, and the happy subsidence of revolutionary agitations, the excessive governing has already diminished, and the disposition to it is rapidly declining. The annoyances inflicted by the political police are fast disappearing. ”

“ But if it fails, then greater than ever will be the danger—not of monarchy or imperialism, but that by a sort of dry-rot our institutions may gradually lose their vitality; that our time-honored Constitutional principles may be obliterated by abuses of power establishing themselves as precedents; that the machinery of administration may become more and more a mere instrument of ring-rule, a tool to manufacture majorities and to organize plunder; and that, in the hollow shell of republican forms, the Government will become the football of rapacious and despotic factions. ”

“ To menace the Legislature with hordes of the lowest of our people—to stop traffic and commerce—desecrate the Sabbath, and double the work of the Police Courts on the following day is called 'Peaceful agitation,' To copy the faults without the experience of foreign nations is deemed—'Political wisdom'—To assault principle after principle of our noble constitution, the accumulated wisdom of our forefathers, is regarded as the true characteristic of a 'Friend of the People. ”

“ Unrestricted immigration, universal suffrage, rotation in office, the subjection of many offices and measures to popular vote, the parliamentary system, government by political parties—all these customs and habits into which we have fallen have arrived at failure which presages disaster. ”

“ Moreover, the policy with which an administration charged with the duty of maintaining itself and preserving the Union shall conduct a civil war, must be confined always to the existing condition of political forces, and to the public sentiment of the whole country. ”

“ Her real danger lies in the pernicious activity of her dominant political leaders who perpetuate their control by overriding local and national authority to the diminution of both public and private security. ”

“ It is clear to me that the chief force which produced the result was the fear of patriotic business men that they could not safely entrust the country and its great material interests in the hands of a party so full of dangerous and reactionary tendencies as the present Democracy. ”

“ Against all practical rules of limitation—all rules limiting official conduct, there is a constant pressure from one side or the other. Honest differences of opinion as to the extent of power, arising from different points of view make this inevitable, to say nothing of those weaknesses and faults of human nature which lead men to press the exercise of power to the utmost under the influence of ambition, of impatience with opposition to their designs, of selfish interest and the arrogance of office. ”

“ The despotic government prevents and suppresses the utterance of every adverse opinion; it executes or imprisons every refractory individual; it encounters by summary proceedings every hostile intention, and while establishing by a system of constant and energetic pressure a state of general and complete submission, it restores at the same time the condition of things originally existing before the rebellion broke out. ”

“ This is especially true in a time of political upheaval, such as that through which this country is now passing, when new lines of cleavage have been introduced into public life, and numbers of sincere thinkers on both sides of politics have been compelled with anxious thought to reconsider the ground of their party allegiance. ”

“ She must undertake it for another reason,—because she alone can perform the work peaceably. If this fearful problem is left to take its course as a tfiere political question, to be ground out between the upper and nether millstones of political parties, then what will avert agitation, angry collisions, and the desperate rending the Union? ”

“ The growth of representative governments is the growth of arrangements made to prevent the gross abuse of irresponsible power. Each of our political struggles, ending in a further development of free institutions, has been made to put an encl to some particular gross abuse of irresponsible power. ”

“ Unexpected collisions of interest or passion or ambition may at any time mar the prospects, and in great democracies largely influenced by demagogues and by an irresponsible and anonymous Press there are always powerful agencies that do not make for peace. ”

“ At the beginning of a new campaign to undermine the dictatorship, the first more specifically political actions may be limited in scope. They should be designed in part to test and influence the mood of the population, and to prepare them for continuing struggle through noncooperation and political defiance. ”

“ The discontent gradually grew so general, the storm of petitions so violent, the repugnance of the people to the police-despotism so menacing, that the old parade of the absolute kingly power would no longer suffice, and some new step in the direction of liberal innovations seemed imperatively necessary. ”

“ The dubious and vacillating Powers frittering away their political forces, espousing every contradiction in succession, and turning in weariness from the disgusting scenes in which they will have reluctantly participated, will in all probability leave the path open for their neighbours who have steadier aims and fewer scruples. ”

“ It will influence and control the rise and fall of political parties, each doing the work all unconsciously of forces which it does not understand. It will lead in various ways, and through all oppositions and reactions, towards an organised society profoundly differing from our own. ”

“ Such manifestations of the temper of the masses strengthen the hands of the Opposition by engendering a fear of resistance in the Government, and so making for the considerate treatment at which we aim. ”

“ Political causes are those connected with the organization of government or the actions of the governing power. In this case the dissatisfaction arises from the failure of the individual or group to secure what is believed to be a rightful share in the control of the government, or in some positive repressive or persecuting measures on the part of the governing body toward some of its citizens. Hence we may look for motives of infringed liberty, lack of freedom, or the feeling of oppression. ”

“ It should seem, to my way of conceiving such matters, that there is a very wide difference in reason and policy between the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or even of bands of men, who disturb order within the State, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to time, on great questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great empire. ”

“ In the present juncture of affairs it is needful that you should appear to be in sympathy with the liberals, and that whatever reforms you attempt should seem the result of popular pressure rather than of your own free choice. ”

“ But half a century elapses and this free government is ruled by a despotic interest; the Republic sinks into the mire of slavery and corruption, sinks deeper and deeper, and the hope of humanity sinks with it. ”

“ So obvious are these difficulties, that lie in the way of procuring redress of grievances by force of arms, that I think we may say, without exception, that in all cases of hostile opposition to government, the people must have been in the right; and that nothing but very great oppression could drive them to such desperate measures. ”

“ When this burden of oppression becomes too galling, efforts, raw, crude, more or less inarticulate and confused, will be made in quest of relief, with a slim chance of success. Discontent with the inexorable autocracy will spread and seize upon the superior intelligence of the country, which will be inspired with a restless ambition to have a share in the government. ”

“ Even without decided advantage on either side, the simultaneous exhaustion of military and financial resources of the belligerents, the intervention of large capitalists, existing pressure upon the head of some neutral State, the inquietude of politicians fearing the electoral effect upon their parties, will hasten the end of the conflict. ”

“ Now for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century, in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us with peace and tranquility accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed is the height of madness, folly and wickedness to which I will neither lend my sanction nor my vote. ”

“ There they were, in the midst of sixty thousand picked men, trembling for the consequences of their own misgovernment; for they saw that the whole country was in the hands of the citizens, and that it would be impossible much longer to continue a resistance. ”

“ Our allies—the politicians that work openly, that employ the first method—prepare the way for us, loosen the foundations of tyranny in Parliament. Then we come—we that employ the second method, and complete their work.... ”

“ It must have the authority of an outraged nation to justify it, and raise it above the tactics of mere party strife, and the strength of a banded nation to maintain it if it were violently suppressed. ”

“ Is it not at least as true here, that the influence of exclusive privileges and extravagance in our governments, has increased, is increasing, and ought also to be diminished? Which is most oppressive, the influence of one man, or the influence of a combination between several thousand men, to rule and plunder a nation? ”

“ Every public discussion, that would tend, directly or indirectly, to diminish the confidence we ought to have in its arrangements, would be a misfortune to the state: we should find ourselves in the midst of shoals, without a compass, and without a chart. The crisis in which we are engaged is violent. ”

“ The favourite Subject of its Clamours will be the Misconduct of Those who govern. And in a Country where Liberty is justly ranked among the greatest national Blessings, the most plausible Pretence of Faction will be, "to load the executive Power with the Charge of Despotism." ”

“ You can overthrow every institution that was ever made, but you will never set up in its place a Government that will bring again the order you have destroyed. You can pull the Empire to pieces with dissensions and conspiracies, but—once down—you will never build it up again. ”