The Boss and the Machine: A Chronicle of the Politicians and Party Organization
- Pages
- about 133
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2.4 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
The party system is an essential instrument of Democracy. Wherever
government rests upon the popular will, there the party is the organ of
expression and the agency of the ultimate power. The party is, moreover,
a forerunner of Democracy, for parties have everywhere preceded free
government. Long before Democracy as now understood was anywhere
established, long before the American colonies became the United
States, England was divided between Tory and Whig. And it was only after
centuries of bitter political strife, during which a change of ministry
would not infrequently be accompanied by bloodshed or voluntary exile,
that England finally emerged with a government deriving its powers from
the consent of the governed.
The functions of the party, both as a forerunner and as a necessary
organ of Democracy, are well exemplified in American experience. Before
the Revolution, Tory and Whig were party names used in the colonies to
designate in a rough way two ideals of political doctrine. The Tories
believed in the supremacy of the Executive, or the King; the Whigs in
the supremacy of Parliament. The Tories, by their rigorous and ruthless
acts giving effect to the will of an un-English King, soon drove the
Whigs in the colonies to revolt, and by the time of the Stamp Act (1765)
a well-knit party of colonial patriots was organized through committees
of correspondence and under the stimulus of local clubs called "Sons of
Liberty." Within a few years, these patriots became the Revolutionists,
and the Tories became the Loyalists. As always happens in a successful
revolution, the party of opposition vanished, and when the peace of
1783 finally put the stamp of reality upon the Declaration of 1776, the
patriot party had won its cause and had served its day.
Immediately thereafter a new issue, and a very significant one, began to
divide the thought of the people.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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