Politics

“ If, in connection with these solid foundations for a natural religion, we add the important fact, that this is a republic, in which the wish of the majority, should become the law of the mass; we shall discover that politics become the natural channel, through which the wishes of the majority are expressed; that corrupt politics, result in bad government; that pure politics, insure good government; that a wise, just government, is the greatest political benefit which can be conferred on the people governed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In politics, my dear fellow, you know as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas — no feelings, but interests; in politics we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle — that is all. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How idle, then, even to think of politics as a subject by itself, or of the corruptions of the times as localized!
Politics gives what the chemists call a “mirror,” and shows the ingredients in the average man’s composition. But you must take your mind off politics if you want to understand America. ”

“ We mean to be perfectly understood on this point, and therefore openly disclaim all steel-traps,—all principle, as it is called,—all party,—all politics. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common-sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in every-day life. ”

“ Besides, you want not only to be elected, but, if elected, to do good service to the country and credit to yourself by your Administration. I think I am not entirely ignorant of politics. Let me make a prediction. No skill in nice balancing will save you from the necessity of choosing between two roads, one running in the reactionary tendencies and machine politics, and the other in the direction of intelligent, progressive and reformatory politics. ”

“ But politics, as a profession, as a separate and independent function of activity, has ceased to exist. The state or Government is run on the great universal principle of reciprocity which governs the entire community. It exists for the people, is administered by the people, and acts for the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must be obvious that, in a country without an aristocracy or House of Peers, without a State Church or denominational school system, without a standing army, a navy, a foreign policy, or a millionaire class, politics must concern themselves chiefly with economic questions, matters of administration, and reforms aiming at some improvement of public morals. ”

“ As a French writer has said, 'The great art in politics consists not in hearing those who speak, but in hearing those who are silent.' On such questions as those I have mentioned we may find the same statesman without any real inconsistency supporting the same measures in one part of the kingdom and [Pg 141] opposing them in another; ”

“ In a system in which all offices are elective, and in which elections are frequent, politics becomes a profession for those who subordinate their private interests to it, and who find it of personal advantage ”

“ Political ideals must be based upon ideals for the individual life. The aim of politics should be to make the lives of individuals as good as possible. ”

“ The moral view of politics teaches us to hold the idea of country superior to the utilities of party, to exact worthiness of public servants, and to place the common good above the interests of particular classes. ”

“ Then politics was a high-class business, and politicians devoted themselves to getting out the full party vote and to buying or cajoling to one side or the other the doubtful ten per cent that held the balance of power. ”

“ Politics are a field where action is one long second-best, and where the choice constantly lies between two blunders. ”

“ In politics it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses. ”

“ But what I chiefly admired, and thought altogether unaccountable, was the strong disposition I observed in them towards news and politics, perpetually inquiring into public affairs, giving their judgments in matters of state, and passionately disputing every inch of a party opinion. ”

“ Besides the organized institutions—visible as tools of industry or politics, or invisible in literature, science, settled and admitted principles of private morality or of public law,—which represent the history and achievements of mankind, they brought also ideas not organized in either form of institution, and sentiments not then translated into conscious thought. ”

“ When I say that this question is of a most complex and perplexing nature, I only assert what is known of all men.
I would not forget that the arguments for and against independent action on our part are based upon two parties or sets of principles. Principles are inherent in government by the people, and parties are engines created by the people through which to voice the principles they espouse. ”

“ Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. ”

“ "I have got so far as to lose the distinction between right and wrong. Isn't that the first step in politics?" ”

“ Actuated by no personal motives, but moved only by high and great constitutional considerations; which I will not attempt to explain, for they are really beneath the comprehension of those who have not made themselves masters, as I have, of the intricate and arduous study of politics; I would rather keep my seat, and intend doing so. ”

“ Therefore we should rather say that democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers, and oligarchy in which the rich; ”

“ Our conclusion, then, is that political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ A place where every interest and shade of opinion in the country can have its cause even passionately pleaded, in the face of the government and of all other interests and opinions, can compel them to listen, and either comply, or state clearly why they do not, is in itself, if it answered no other purpose, one of the most important political institutions that can exist any where, and one of the foremost benefits of free government. ”

“ Individuals highly educated in the science of government and the art of governing, fitted [360] for a field exclusively their own, would promote an agreement upon the complex questions that now agitate and endanger the peace of society by keeping at fever heat party differences that are magnified by designing politicians. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government, causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at becoming the government. ”

“ A weight of public opinion among the people for such a period, uniformly thrown into one scale so strongly, and so decisively, in the midst of all the extraordinary changes of parties, the events of peace and of war, and the trying conflicts of public policy and state interests, is perhaps unexampled in the history of all other free governments. ”

“ You know your own interest, but who has told you our interests, and what do you know about them?" For the business of every leader of government is to hear what the nation is saying and to know what the nation is enduring. ”

“ It is the essence of democratic government that disagreements in the upper echelons of that government shall be resolved by the action and the will of the governed. You, the people of the United States, have done just that. ”

“ If we want good government, is it not time that we should take our share in the struggle to secure it?” And hence that fresh political activity, that freedom of criticism, that breaking of party lines, that movement of independence all over the field, which makes political ringmasters tremble and patriotic citizens rejoice in new hope. ”

“ The era of elective government has come, and in the wise ordering of it so as to give public reason the upper hand, and to reduce, as far as possible, the influence of passion, class interest, selfish ambition, faction, and corruption, lies the political hope of the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the maxim, that the government of a country is what the social forces in existence compel it to be, is true only in the sense in which it favors, instead of discouraging, the attempt to exercise, among all forms of government practicable in the existing condition of society, a rational choice. ”

“ 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. ”