Parties are formed, one hardly knows how, and controlled, no one
knows by whom; but usually by demagogues, men who have some
private or personal purposes, for which they wish, through party
to use the government. Parties have no conscience, no
responsibility, and their very reason of being is, the
usurpation and concentration of power. The real practical
tendency of universal suffrage is to democratic, instead of an
imperial, centralism. What is to guard against this centralism?
Not universal suffrage, for that tends to create it;, and if the
government is left to it, the government becomes practically the
will of an ever shifting and irresponsible majority. Is the
remedy in written or paper constitutions? Party can break
through them, and by making the judges elective by party, for
short terms, and re-eligible, can do so with impunity. In
several of the States, the dominant majority have gained the
power to govern at will, without any let or hindrance. Besides,
constitutions can be altered, and have been altered, very nearly
at the will of the majority. No mere paper constitutions are
any protection against the usurpations of party, for party will
always grasp all the power it can.
Yet the evil is not so great as it seems, for in most of the
States the principle of division of powers is carried into the
bosom of the State itself; in some States further than in
others, but in all it obtains to some extent.
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