Inhaltsangabe
Excerpt from The Defeat of Party Despotism
For there will be caucuses and nominations still. The return of the republic to its original holding ground in majority govern ment, from which now these many years it has dragged its an chors, will not supersede the reasonable and salutary functions of parties and party councils. It will only take from these their ah solute and domineering power. But will not the caucuses and conventions still have power enough, in the name of reason, when the two parties no longer hold undisputed between them the complete control of all national, state, and municipal affairs, sub ject to no limitation but those imposed by their mutual rivalries or mutual collusions? And is the caucus likely to use its power, still formidable, less wisely and conscientiously for knowing that the nominations and projects of both parties not Of one or the other only are subject to be reviewed and negatived by free citizens at the polls? That, unless, between them, nominations are made which command the general respect of the citizens, the election day itself will be converted, under the Operation of a well-devised majority election law, into a great nominating con vention Of the whole body of citizens, acting under the strongest sanction and protection of law, for indicating the candidates who are to be voted for at a second balloting? The individual citizen, the scattering vote, will have come to its rights again. And, as a general rule, it is the intelligent and conscientious vote that scat ters; the ignorant and thoughtless vote is cast in blocks.
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Excerpt from The Defeat of Party Despotism
Fellow-Citizens of the Reform Club: -
In laying before you a plan for the defeat of party despotism I have the great advantage of being assured of your interest in the object proposed, and thus of being relieved of the burden of a large part of my argument. That party despotism exists, and is not much more tolerable for being nominally vested in two parties instead of one; and that it exists as a continual mischief and formidable peril to the commonwealth - these are propositions which, as a society for political reform, you will be ready to admit without protracted discussion. It is substantially true, and is growing every year to be more absolutely and exclusively true, that the American citizen is shut out from any effective share in political affairs, from municipal to national, except by virtue of his membership in, or his subserviency to, one of two great extra-constitutional and extra-legal organizations. Independently of his relation to one of these great combinations, the citizen is not only practically excluded from official functions, but even his freedom as a voter is narrowed down so near to the vanishing point that the exercise of the voter's franchise is getting to be more and more neglected, as an act merely formal and futile. And, to the great detriment of the republic and the degradation of its political life, this neglect of political duties tends to become more and more general among those classes of citizens who, by reason of superior intelligence and independence and conscientiousness of character, are the least likely to move in subserviency to the requirements of a party organization.
There are simple souls, no doubt, who will consider all objections to the supreme domination of parties to be completely met by asking, What, after all, are parties, but the people themselves dividing naturally, according to the opinions or predilections of each individual, on important questions as they emerge?
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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