Government by party is not an ideal regimen. Like everything else it contains both good and evil. A political organisation, indeed, that avoided all strife and all waste would certainly be impossible, and would probably, by relaxing effort and sapping the springs of human nature, prove undesirable. As yet it is too early to strike a final balance between the merits and the defects of the party system in England, and it would be hopeless to attempt it here. Both good and evil will appear more fully as we proceed.
FOOTNOTES:
[435:1] Rohmer's Lehre von den politischen Parteien, which attempts to explain the division into parties by natural differences of temperament corresponding to the four periods of man's life, is highly suggestive, but is rather philosophic than psychological; and like most philosophical treatises on political subjects it is based upon the writer's own time and place rather than upon a study of human nature under different conditions.
[436:1] In his oft-quoted, but very brief, remarks in the "Observations on 'The Present State of the Nation,'" and "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents." But twenty-five years later in a letter to Richard Burke he falls into the current talk about the evils of domination by a faction.
[437:1] E.g. Redlich, Recht und Technik, 74-79.
[437:2] Cf. Review of his unpublished "Recollections of a Long Life," in the Edinburgh Review, April, 1871, p. 301.
[438:1] Neither in France nor in Italy does the constitution really perform that service; because in each case it does little more than fix the framework of the government, without placing an effective restraint upon legislative action; and because the constitution itself is not felt to be morally binding by the irreconcilables.
[439:1] For the views of these men on the relation of parties or "factions" to public life see "The Federalist," No. 10, written by Madison.
[440:1] Professor Max Farrand has pointed out to me that the question of having the electors for the whole country meet in one place was discussed in the Constitutional Convention, and was rejected in favour of the present plan, because under the latter, "As the Electors would vote at the same time throughout the U.S. and at so great a distance from each other, the great evil of cabal was avoided." G. Hunt's "Writings of Madison," IV., 365-66. Cabal had a vague and spectral meaning, but covered anything in the nature of party. The exclusion from the electoral college of members of Congress and federal office-holders was defended on the same ground. Cf. "The Federalist," No. 68.