Political privilege

“ The word itself means two things: a government by the best and most able citizens and, to quote a standard dictionary "Persons noted for superiority in any character or quality, taken collectively." There is no harm here, but the harm comes, and the odium also, and justly, when an aristocratic government degenerates into an oligarchy of privilege without responsibility, and when socially it is not "superiority in character or quality" but political cunning, opulence and sycophancy that are the touchstones to recognition and acceptance. ”

“ Every step in political improvement renders it more so, by removing the sources of opposition of interest, and levelling those inequalities of legal privilege between individuals or classes, owing to which there are large portions of mankind whose happiness it is still practicable to disregard. ”

“ The advocates of exclusive political privileges reason on this circumstance by assuming, that as nature has made differences between men, those institutions which create political orders, are no more than carrying out the great designs of providence. ”

“ He viewed this practical political activity of the individual citizen, not only as one of the most effectual means of training the social feelings and practical intelligence of the people, so important in themselves and so indispensable to good government, but also as the specific counteractive to some of the characteristic infirmities of democracy, and a necessary protection against its degenerating into the only despotism of which, in the modern world, there is real danger—the absolute rule of the head of the executive over a congregation of isolated individuals, all equals but all slaves. ”

“ Are there no party contests stirring the popular mind to its very depth? And now, in the freest of all countries, where the people in the largest sense are called to govern themselves, where the people owe so much to their democratic institutions and are said to be so proud of them, here there should not be patriotism and public spirit enough, here it should require the sordid allurement of spoils and plunder to inspire the citizens with an active interest in their own affairs? ”

“ It is the extreme of political error to say that if political power is only taken away from generals, nobles, priests, millionaires, and scholars, and given to artisans and peasants, these latter may be trusted to do only right and justice, and never to abuse the power; that they will repress all excess in others, and commit none themselves. ”

“ They serve to raise up systematically a race of unprincipled, self-seeking, mercenary politicians, and to repel from public life men who with patriotic ambition wish to serve the public welfare according to their honest convictions. ”

“ 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? ”

“ I hold, moreover, sir that inasmuch as every man is, by force of circumstances beyond his own control, a subject of government somewhere, he is, by the very constitution of human society, entitled to share equally in the conferring of political power on those who wield it, if he is not disqualified by crime; that in a despotic government he ought to be allowed arms, in a free government the ballot or the open vote, as a means of self-protection against unendurable oppression. ”

“ It is power and opportunity enjoyed without being earned which help to damage the individual—both the individuals who benefit and the individuals who consent—and which tend to loosen the ultimate social bond. A democracy, no less than a monarchy or an aristocracy, must recognize political, economic, and social discriminations, but it must also manage to withdraw its consent whenever these discriminations show any tendency to excessive endurance. ”

“ The manifest weakness in popular government lies in the temptation to appeal to group citizenship for political advantage. There is no greater peril. The Constitution contemplates no class and recognizes no group. ”

“ Under a pure despotism, the morals of politics would make but a very short chapter. Mercy in the ruler; obedience in his officers, with, perhaps, an occasional stroke of remonstrance; and taxpaying in the people, would comprehend the whole. Among a self-governing people, who profess to take human equality for their great common principle, and the golden rule for their political vow, a long chapter of many sections is required. ”

“ Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. ”

“ We ought not to be badgered and annoyed by the preaching and exhortation of a restless, troublesome set of men, who continually urge upon us the duty of active and affirmative participation in public affairs. Why should we be charged with neglect of political obligations? ”

“ It springs, like a thousand other evils of a worse, because of a political complexion, from that constitution of society which, notwithstanding its being in opposition to all the interests of the land and the character of our institutions, is founded in, and perpetuated by, the folly of the richer classes. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Not a man in all its ranks that is not influenced by prejudice or bought by privilege.
What a spectacle, my countrymen! This free Republic in the hands of a party that withdraws sovereignty from the people that its own authority may be made supreme—that fans the smouldering embers of war, and loosing among the people the dogs of privilege and monopoly to hunt, and harrow and rend, that its lines may be made stronger and its ramparts fortified. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Their posterity, in times more polished, have repressed the civil disorders in which the activity of earlier ages chiefly consisted; but they employ the calm they have gained, not in fostering a zeal for those laws, and that constitution of government, to which they owe their protection, but in practising apart, and each for himself, the several arts of personal advancement, or profit, which their political establishments may enable them to pursue with success. ”

“ In states where property, distinction, and pleasure, are thrown out as baits to the imagination, and incentives to passion, the public seems to rely for the preservation of its political life, on the degree of emulation and jealousy with which parties mutually oppose and restrain each other. The desires of preferment and profit in the breast of the citizen, are the motives from which he excited to enter on public affairs, and are the considerations which direct his political conduct. ”

“ It becomes a grave question how far we may safely give political power to those who entertain views so erroneous respecting fundamental social relations; and who so pertinaciously struggle to enforce these erroneous views. ”

“ Those acts of the state, which have hitherto been considered as the sure anchors of privilege and of property, will become the sport of every varying gust of politics, and will float wildly backwards and forwards on the irregular and impetuous tides of party and faction. ”

“ For it was indeed "the Establishment of barbarous Manners, carried into Permanency by political Institutions." That Mankind should be carry'd back to This, from a State of Humanity and Civilization;—that they should quit private Property, Money, Commerce, Decency, domestic Comforts, Wives and Children, and give them up to the Possession of the Public, is a Contradiction to all the known Powers and Passions of the human Mind. ”

“ And if you study our social problems without prejudice you will find that just this is one of the most valuable results of that Constitutional revolution which so sorely distresses the Democratic mind. ”

“ Ten years of peace, at home and abroad, have assuaged the animosities of political contention and blended into harmony the most discordant elements of public opinion There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals throughout the nation who have heretofore followed the standards of political party. ”

“ Such is the progress of society, that conversation, social manners, and the incitements of example, now combine in furtherance of personal culture.
Our Political Institutions present, likewise, eminent incentives to a higher self-training than has ever yet been witnessed. The republican principle not only gives scope for individual freedom of thought and action, but awakens associated effort. ”

“ It is true the political trickster whose whole statesmanship consists in the art of political barter, and the patriot whose whole public spirit springs from a desire to be fed at the public crib—they will be sadly discouraged and chilled ”

“ This is the position in which, according to the principles we have laid down, the rich and the poor, the much and the little educated, and all the other classes and denominations which divide society between them, ought as far as practicable to be placed; and by combining this principle with the otherwise just one of allowing superiority of weight to superiority of mental qualities, a political constitution would realize that kind of relative perfection which is alone compatible with the complicated nature of human affairs. ”

“ But the problems this generation has to solve render the development of honest self-criticism and individual independence inside of parties peculiarly indispensable. We have just issued from a social and political revolution which has essentially changed the relations of the elementary forces of society and the distribution of political powers. The political rights of the individual, formerly at the mercy of the States, have been in a great measure placed under the safeguard of the National authority. ”

“ In these political nostrums has been revived the crude notion that the masses, inexperienced as they are in the [Pg 40] difficult and complex problems of government, are instinctively better qualified to guide than the educated few who are trained, instructed and competent, and who, acting as the representatives of all, are bound in good conscience and sound policy to consider and protect the rights of the minority, of the individual, of the humble and weak, against the arbitrary will or selfish interest or prejudice of the majority. ”

“ Now, likewise, the trouble with our present political condition is that we need some man who has not been associated with the governing classes and the governing influences of this country to stand up and speak for us; we need to hear a voice from the outside calling upon the American people to assert again their rights and prerogatives in the possession of their own government. ”

“ The question inevitably arises, Is this a consequence of our political system? and if so, is political liberty worth having, are democratic principles worth establishing, if the price to be paid for them is increased insecurity of life and greater wretchedness among the poor? If the origin of these evils is to be found in the incompetency of the government or the inefficiency of individuals in a democracy, a remedy must be applied, or the whole system must be changed. ”

“ When the world is banded to sustain prescriptive power against popular privilege, shall not we of the model republic be permitted to sympathize with our neighbors in their struggles for constitutional liberty, which, by our example, we have been accused of inciting? ”

“ Instead of opening his heart to an exalted patriotism and the obligation of public duty, it awakens and nourishes in him the disposition to use a public function for his own interest, pleasure, or caprice; the same feelings and purposes, on a humbler scale, which actuate a despot and oppressor. Now an ordinary citizen in any public position, or on whom there devolves any social function, is certain to think and feel, respecting the obligations it imposes on him, exactly what society appears to think and feel in conferring it. ”

“ Though I am a party man, to me parties are valuable only as they subserve the ends of good government. When they persistently violate the fundamental rights of the humblest and weakest in the land, I scout them, despise them, and leave them.
We boast of our riches, power, and glory as a nation, and we have reason to do so. ”