directly. All the citizens of the state cannot come together to nominate
the party candidate for governor. For this purpose, therefore, electors
have to be chosen, every one by a strict majority vote, and these meet
to fix finally on the candidates of the party. And when it comes to the
President of the whole country, the voting public elects a congress of
electors, and these in turn choose other electors, and this twice-sifted
body of delegates meets in national convention to name the candidate
whom the party will support in the final, popular elections. Through
such a strict programme for nominations the duties of the voters towards
their party are just doubled, and it becomes an art considerably beyond
the ability of the average citizen to move through this regressive chain
of elections without losing his way. It requires, in short, an
established and well articulated organization to arrange and conduct the
popular convocations, to deliberate carefully on the candidates to be
proposed for nomination, and to carry the infinitely complicated and yet
unavoidable operations through to their conclusion.
Finally, another factor enters in, which is once more quite foreign to
the political life of Germany. Every American election is strictly
local, in the sense that the candidate is invariably chosen from among
the voters. In Germany, when a provincial city is about to send a
representative to the Reichstag, the party in power accounts it a
specially favourable circumstance if the candidates are not men of that
very city, to suffer the proverbial dishonour of prophets in their own
country, and prefers to see on the ballot the names of great party
leaders from some other part of the empire. And when Berlin, for
example, selects a mayor, the city is glad to call him from Breslau or
Königsberg. This is inconceivable to the American. It is a corollary to
the doctrine of self-determination that whenever a political district,
whether village or city, selects a representative, the citizens shall
not only nominate and elect their candidate, but that they shall also
choose him from their own midst. But this makes it at once necessary for
the party to have its organized branches in every nook and corner of the
country. A single central organization graciously to provide candidates
for the whole land is not to be thought of. The party organization must
be everywhere efficient, and quick to select and weigh for the purposes
of the party such material as is at hand. It is obvious that this is a
very intricate and exacting task, and that if the organization were
sentimental, loose, or undisciplined, it would go to pieces by reason of
the personal and other opposing interests which exist within it. And if
it were less widely branched or less machine-like in its intricate
workings, it would not be able to do its daily work, pick candidates for
posts of responsibility, nominate electors, and elect its nominees; and
eventually it would sink out of sight. The American political party is
thus an essentially complete and independent organization.
Two evils are necessarily occasioned by this invulnerable organization
of party activities, both of which are peculiar and of such undoubtedly
bad consequences as to strike the most superficial observer, and
specially the foreigner; and yet both of which on closer view are seen
to be much less serious than one might have supposed at first. After a
party has grown up and become well organized in its purpose of
representing these or those political principles and of defending and
propagating them, it may at length cease to be only the means to an end,
and become an end unto itself. There is the danger that it will come to
look on its duties as being nothing else than to keep itself in power,
even by denying or opposing the principles with which it has grown up.
Moreover, such an organization exacts a colossal amount of labour which
must be rewarded in some form or other; and so it will find it
expedient, quite apart from the political ideals of the party, to exert
its influence in the patronage of state and other offices. The result is
that the rewards and honours conferred necessarily draw men into the
service of the party who care less for its ideals than for the
emoluments they are to derive. And thus two evils spring up together;
firstly, the parties lose their principles, and, secondly, take into
their service professional politicians who have no principles to lose.
We must consider both matters more in detail, the party ideals and the
politicians.
America has two great parties, the Republican, which is just now in
power, and the Democratic. Other parties, as, for instance, the
Populist, are small, and while they may for a while secure a meagre
representation in Congress, they are too insignificant to have any
chance of success in the presidential elections: although, to be sure,
this does not prevent various groups of over-enthusiastic persons from
seizing the politically unfitting and impracticable occasion to set up
their own presidential candidate as a sort of figure-head. Any political
amateur, who finds no place in the official parties, may gather a few
friends under his banner and start a new, independent party; but the
bubble bursts in a few days. And even if it is a person like Admiral
Dewey, whose party banner is the flag under which he has sent an enemy’s
fleet to the bottom, he will succeed only in being amusing. The regular,
organized parties are the only ones which seriously count in politics.
It sometimes happens, however, that a few months before the elections a
small band of politically or industrially influential men will meet to
consider the project of a third party, while their real aim is to create
a little organization whose voting power will be coveted by both of the
great parties. In this way the founders plan to force one or both of
these to make concessions to the principles of their little group, since
the most important feature is that Republicans and Democrats are so
nearly equally balanced that only a slight force is needed to turn the
scales to either side. In recent elections McKinley and Cleveland have
each been elected twice to the Presidency, and no one can say whether
the next presidential majority will be Republican or Democrat. On
Cleveland’s second election the Democrats had 5,556,918, and the
Republicans 5,176,108 votes, while the Populists made a showing of one
million votes. But four years later the tables were turned, and McKinley
won on 7,106,199 votes, while Bryan lost on 6,502,685. It is clear,
therefore, that neither of the parties has to fear that a third party
will elect its candidate; nor can either rest on old laurels, for any
remission of effort is a certain victory for the other side. A third
party is dangerous only in so far as it is likely to split up one of the
two parties and so weaken it in an otherwise almost equal competition.
What, now, are the principles and aims of the Republican and Democratic
parties? Their names are not significant, since neither do the
Republicans wish to do away with American democracy, nor do the
Democrats have any designs on the republican form of government. At the
opening of the nineteenth century the present Democrats were called
“Democratic-Republicans,” and this long abandoned name could just as
well be given to all surviving parties. Neither aristocracy nor monarchy
nor anarchy nor plutocracy has ever so far appeared on a party
programme, and however hotly the battle may be waged between Republicans
and Democrats, it is forever certain that both opponents are at once
Democrats and Republicans. Wherein, then, do they differ?
The true party politician of America does not philosophize overmuch
about the parties; it is enough for him that one party has taken or is
likely to take this, and the other party that position on the living
questions, and beyond this his interest is absorbed by special problems.
He is reluctant enough when it comes to taking up the nicer question of
deducing logically from the general principles of a party what attitude
it ought to take on this or that special issue. The nearest he would
come to this would be conversely to point out that the attitude of his
opponents directly refutes their party’s most sacred doctrines. Those
who philosophize are mostly outsiders, either sojourners in the country,
or indigenous critics who are considerably more alive to the unavoidable
evils of party politics than to the merits. From such opponents of
parties as well as from foreigners, one hears again and again that the
parties do not really stand for any general principles at the present
time, that their separate existence has lost whatever political
significance it may have had, and that to-day they are merely two
organizations preserving a semblance of individuality and taking such
attitude toward the issues of the day as is likely to secure the largest
number of votes, in order to distribute among their members the fruits
of victory. The present parties, say these critics, were formed in that
struggle of intellectual forces which took place during the third
quarter of the last century; it was the dispute over slavery which led
to the Civil War. The Republican party was the party of the Northern
States in their anti-slavery zeal; the Democratic was the party of the
slave-holding Southern States; and the opposition had political
significance as long as the effects of the war lasted, and it was
necessary to work for the conciliation and renewed participation of the
defeated Confederacy. But all this is long past. Harrison, Cleveland,
Blaine, Bryan, McKinley, and Roosevelt became the standard-bearers of
their respective parties long after the wounds of the war had healed.
And it is no outcome from the original, distinguishing principles of the
parties, if the slave-holding party takes the side of free-trade, silver
currency and anti-imperialism, while the anti-slavery elements stay
together in behalf of the gold standard, protection, and expansion.
It looks, rather, as if the doctrines had migrated each to the other’s
habitat. The party which was against slavery was supporting the rights
of the individual; how comes it, then, to be bitterly opposing the
freedom of trade? And how do the friends of slavery happen to champion
the cause of free-trade, or, more remarkably, to oppose so passionately
to-day the oppression of the people of the Philippines? And what have
these questions to do with the monetary standard? It looks as if the
organization had become a body without a soul. Each party tries to keep
the dignity of its historic traditions and at every new juncture bobs
and ducks before the interests and prejudices of its habitual clientèle,
while it seeks to outwit the opposite party by popular agitation against
persistent wrongs and abuses or by new campaign catch-words and other
devices. But there is no further thought of consistently standing by any
fundamental principles. This hap-hazard propping up of the party
programme is evinced by the fact that either party is divided on almost
every question, and the preference of the majority becomes the policy of
the party only through the strict discipline and suppression of the
minority. The Republicans won in their campaign for imperialism, and yet
no anti-imperialist raised his voice more loudly than the Republican
Senator Hoar. The Democrats acclaimed the silver schemes of Bryan, but
the Gold Democrats numbered on their side really all the best men of the
party. Again, on other important issues both parties will adopt the same
platform as soon as they see that the masses are bound to vote that way.
Thus neither party will openly come out for trusts, but both parties
boast of deprecating them; and both profess likewise to uphold
civil-service reform. This is so much the case that it has often been
observed that within a wide range the programmes of the two parties in
no way conflict. One party extols that which the other has never
opposed, and the semblance of a difference is kept up only by such
insistent vociferation of the policy as implies some sly and powerful
gainsayer. And then with the same histrionic rage comes the other party
and pounces on some scandal which the first had never thought of
sanctioning. In short, there are no parties to-day but the powerful
election organizations which have no other end in view than to come into
power at whatever cost. It should seem better wholly to give up the
outlived issues, and to have only independent candidates who, without
regard to party pressure, would be grouped according to their attitude
on the chief problems of the day.
And yet, after the worst has thus been said, we find ourselves still far
removed from the facts. Each separate charge may be true, but the whole
be false and misleading: even although many a party adherent admits the
justness of the characterization, and declares that the party must
decide every case “on its merits,” and that to hold to principles is
inexpedient in politics. For the principles exist, nevertheless, and
have existed, and they dominate mightily the great to and fro of party
movements. Just as there have always been persons who pretend to deduce
the entire history of Europe from petty court intrigues and jealousies
of the ante-room or the boudoir, so there will always be wise-heads in
America to see through party doings, and deduce everything from the
speculative manipulations of a couple of banking houses or the private
schemes of a sugar magnate or a silver king. Such explanations never go
begging for a credulous public, since mankind has a deep-rooted craving
to see lowness put on exhibition. No man is a hero, it is said, in the
eyes of his valet. Nations, too, have their valets; and with them, too,
the fact is not that there are no heroes, but that a valet can see only
with the eyes of a valet.
It is true that the party lines of to-day have developed from the
conflicting motives of the Civil War. But the fundamental error which
prevents all insight into the deeper connections, lies in supposing that
the anti-slavery party was first inspired by the individual fate of the
negro, or in general the freedom of the individual. We must recall some
of the facts of history. The question of slavery did not make its first
appearance in the year 1860, when the Republican party became important.
The contrast between the plantation owners of the South, to whom slave
labour was apparently indispensable, and the industry and trade of the
North, which had no need of slaves, had existed from the beginning of
the century and was in itself no reason for the formation of political
parties. It was mainly an economic question which, together with many
other factors, led to a far-reaching opposition between the New England
States and the South, an opposition which was strengthened, to be sure,
by the moral scruples of the Puritanical North. But the earlier parties
were not marked off by degrees of latitude, and furthermore the
Southerner was by no means lacking in personal sympathy for the negro.
The question first came into politics indirectly. It was in those years
when the Union was pushing out into the West, taking in new territories
and then making them into states by act of Congress, according to the
provisions of the Constitution. In 1819 the question came up of
admitting Missouri to the Union, and now for the first time Congress
faced the problem as to whether slavery should be allowed in a new
state. The South wished it and the North opposed it. Congress finally
decided that Missouri should be a slave state, but that in the future
slavery should be forbidden north of a certain geographical line. Thus
slavery came to be recognized as a question within the jurisdiction of
the federal Congress. Wherewith, if Congress should vote against slavery
by a sufficient majority, it could forbid the practice in all the
Southern states. And this would mean their ruin.
It came thus to be for the interest of the Southern states, which at
that time had a majority, to see to it that for every free state
admitted to the Union there should be at least one new slave state; this
in order to hold their majority in Congress. Now it happened at that
time that the territories which, by reason of their population, would
have next to be admitted, lay all north of the appointed boundary and
would, therefore, be free states. Therefore the slave-holders
promulgated the theory that Congress had exceeded its jurisdiction and
interfered with the rights of the individual states. The matter was
brought before the Supreme Court, and in 1857 a verdict was given which
upheld the new theory. Thus Congress, that is, the Union as a whole,
could not forbid slavery in any place, but must leave the matter for
each state to decide. Herewith an important political issue was created,
and a part of the country stood out for the rights of the Union, a part
for those of the individual states. The group of men who at that time
foresaw that the whole Union was threatened, if so far-reaching rights
were to be conceded to the states, was the Republican party. It rose up
defiantly for the might and right of the federation, and would not
permit one of the most important social and economic questions to be
taken out of the hands of the central government and left to local
choice. It was, of course, not a matter of chance that slavery became
the occasion of dispute, but the real question at issue was the
jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The federal party won, under the
leadership of Abraham Lincoln. His election was the signal for the slave
states to secede, South Carolina being the first. In February, 1861,
these states formed a Confederation, and the Union was formally cleft.
In his inaugural speech of the following March, Lincoln firmly declared
that the Union must be preserved at all cost. The Civil War began in
April, and after fearful fighting the secessionists were returned to the
Union, all slaves were freed, and the Southern states were reconstructed
after the ideas of the Republican party. The opposing party, the
Democratic, was the party of decentralization. Its programme was the
freedom of the individual state but not the servitude of the individual
man.
When one understands in this way the difference between the two parties,
one sees that the Republicans were not for freedom nor the Democrats for
slavery, but the Republicans were for a more complete subordination of
the states to the federation and the Democrats were for the converse.
This is a very different point of view, and from it very much which
seems incompatible with the attitude of the two parties toward the
question of slavery may now be seen as a necessary historical
consequence.
If we cast a glance at foregoing decades, we see that ever since the
early days of the republic there has been hardly a time when these two
forces, the centralizing and the decentralizing, have not been in play.
It has lain deep in the nature of Teutonic peoples to pull apart from
one another, while at the same time the struggle for existence has
forced them to strong and well unified organization, so that scarcely a
single Teutonic people has been spared that same opposition of social
forces which is found in America. The origin of the Constitution itself
can be understood only with reference to these antagonistic tendencies.
The country wanted to be free of the miserable uncertainty, the internal
discord and outward weakness which followed the Declaration of
Independence; it wanted the strength of unity. And yet every single
state guarded jealously its own rights, suspected every other state, and
wished to be ensured against any encroachment of the federal power. And
so the Constitution was drawn up with special precautions ensuring the
equilibrium of power. At once, in Washington’s cabinet, both tendencies
were distinctly and notably represented. There sat the distinguished
Hamilton, the minister of finance and framer of the Constitution, who
was a tireless champion of the federal spirit, and beside him sat
Jefferson, the minister of state, who would have preferred to have the
federation transact nothing but foreign affairs and who believed in
general the less the legislation the better for the people. The
adherents of Hamilton’s policy formed the federalist party, while
Jefferson’s supporters were called the Democratic Republicans. The names
have changed and the special issues have altered with the progress of
events; indeed, apparently the centralist party has gone twice out of
existence, yet it was actually this party of which Lincoln became the
leader. Jefferson’s party, on the other hand, in spite of its change of
name, has never as an organization ceased to exist. The Democrats who,
in 1860, wished to submit the question of slavery to the individual
states, were the immediate heirs of the anti-federalists who had elected
their first president in 1800.
Now if the centralizing and decentralizing character of the two parties
is borne in mind, their further development down to the present day can
be understood. This development seems disconnected and contradictory
only when the slavery question is thought to be the main feature and the
Republicans are accounted the champions of freedom and the Democrats of
slavery. Even Bryce, who has furnished by far the best account of the
American party system, underestimates somewhat the inner continuity of
the parties. Even he believes that the chief mission of the Republican
party has been to do away with slavery and to reconstruct the Southern
states, and that since this end was accomplished as far back as in the
seventies, new parties ought naturally to have been formed by this time.
Although the old organizations have in fact persisted, a certain
vagueness and lack of vitality can be detected, he says, in both
parties. According to that conception, however, it would be
incomprehensible why those who formerly went forth to put an end to
slavery now advance to bring the Filipinos into subjection, and to
detain the poor man from purchasing his necessities where they are the
cheapest.
As we have seen, the Democrats were the party which was true to the
Jeffersonian principles, and in opposition to the supporters of
congressional authority defended the rights and free play of the
individual states. And the Republicans were those who wished to exalt
beyond any other the authority of the Federal Government. This is the
key to everything which has since come to pass. At the last presidential
elections there were three great party issues—the tariff, the currency,
and the question of expansion. In deciding on all three of these points,
the parties have conformed to their old principles. Free-trade versus
protective tariff was not a new bone of contention. Jefferson’s party
had urged free-trade with all the nations of the earth at the very
beginning of the century, and, of course, a decentralizing party which
likes as little supervision and paternalism as possible, will always
concede to the individual his right to buy what he requires where it
will cost the least. The Democrats did not oppose a tariff for revenue,
to help defray the public expenses, but they objected on principle to
that further tariff which was laid on goods in order to keep the prices
of them high and so to protect home industries. The centralists, that
is, the whigs or the Republicans, on the contrary, by their supreme
confidence in the one national government, had early been led to expect
from it a certain protection of the national market and some regulation
of the economic struggle for existence. And protective tariff was one of
the main planks in their platform early in the century.