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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



other nations from the British Constitution, the 

 most palpably absurd and calamitous, in its gen- 

 eral application, is the system of party, which 

 sets up the great offices of state as the prizes of 

 a perpetual conflict between two organized par- 

 ties, and relies upon the perpetual existence of 

 these two parties and the ceaseless continuance 

 of their conflict as the only available means of 

 carrying on constitutional government. It is 

 strange that any one should have fallen into such 

 a trap who had studied the parliamentary history 

 of England. In this country there have through- 

 out been two parliamentary parties, and two only ; 

 while the objects sought by both have been so 

 definite and of such importance as at once to in- 

 sure cohesion, and to justify, in some degree at 

 least, allegiance to the party standard. The con- 

 flict of parties has, in fact, been the means of 

 carrying on and regulating a series of organic 

 changes and reforms in a democratic, or at least 

 in a popular, direction. The adherents of each 

 party have been able to say, with truth, that they 

 were contending for the ascendency of certain 

 definite principles in government and legislation. 

 At the same time there have been certain princi- 

 ples common to both parties, which, with the re- 

 markable aptitude of the nation, and the reten- 

 tion of the leadership on both sides by a section 

 of the aristocracy, have always, in modern times, 

 kept the contest within bounds. Even so, party 

 has often shown that it is but a fine name for 

 faction ; and in the pauses of progress, when 

 there was no great question before the country, 

 the generous emulation of party leaders has sunk 

 into a personal struggle for place with all its ran- 

 cor and all its meanness. Such, however, as 

 it is, the ground for the existence of the party 

 system is peculiar to England, and has its ex- 

 planation in her political history : the attempt 

 to reproduce the system in other countries, with- 

 out the ground for its existence, will be not 

 only senseless, but noxious in the highest de- 

 gree. To divide a nation forever into two fac- 

 tions, and to set these factions to wage a per- 

 petual war, such a war as that of factions al- 

 ways is, and with the usual weapons of intrigue, 

 mutual calumny, and corruption, is surely the 

 strangest plan ever deliberately adopted by a 

 political architect ; and, if we could be convinced 

 that this was the only possible mode of carrying 

 on constitutional government, we should regard 

 the case of constitutional government as hopeless. 

 How can our political salvation be found in a 

 system of which it is the inherent tendency, one 

 might almost say the avowed object, to stir up 



discord, to excite unpatriotic passions, to stimu- 

 late selfish ambitions, to deprave political charac- 

 ter, to destroy that reasonable loyalty to the na- 

 tional government on which the very existence 

 of a free community depends ? If the absurdity 

 of such a theory is not manifest enough in itself, 

 let inquiry be made into the working of the sys- 

 tem of party in the British colonies, where it has 

 been retained for the personal benefit of groups 

 of politicians, when, all organic questions having 

 been settled, the public grounds for such com- 

 binations and for allegiance to party have ceased 

 to exist ; it will soon become manifest what are 

 its effects upon the efficiency, purity, and stabili- 

 ty of government, on the morality of public life, 

 on the political character of the people. In the 

 United States there was ground enough, and more 

 than enough, for the existence of party while the 

 nation was divided on the question of slavery; 

 and it is not surprising the party spirit should 

 have prevailed over allegiance to the nation, or 

 that there should have been a party conflict of 

 the utmost bitterness, which, being brought to a 

 head by an election to the presidency, ended in a 

 civil war. But the old materials for party having 

 been thus exhausted, and new materials not pre- 

 senting themselves, the combinations are break- 

 ing up, the lines are becoming confused, and the 

 present Government, in undertaking the work of 

 administrative reform, hardly relies more on the 

 support of its own party, the regular managers 

 of which are all against it, than on that of the 

 best section of the other party, and less on either 

 than on that of the nation at large. 



The historian of parliamentary government 

 in France, M. Duvergier de Hauranne, who tacit- 

 ly assumes throughout his work the necessity of 

 the party system, states its theory thus: "In 

 free countries, where liberty is not of yesterday, 

 there always exist, in the bosom of society, two 

 principal tendencies, one toward liberty, the other 

 toward authority, which manifest themselves in 

 all legal ways, above all in the way of elections, 

 and which usually produce two parties, having 

 each its principles, its opinions, its flag. Of 

 these 'parties one has the majority, and governs, 

 not directly but indirectly, by the influence which 

 it exercises, the choices which it indicates, the 

 measures which it defends or combats. The other 

 becomes the Opposition, and watches the Govern- 

 ment, controls it, keeps it up to the mark, till 

 such time as faults or a movement of public 

 opinion change the relative position of the par- 

 ties, and give it in its turn the right and the 

 power of governing." Two tendencies, according 



