from and independent of themselves in order to carry their provisions into effect.

In some states the government may at will resolve itself into a constituent convention to the extent at least of making important changes in the constitution. This is true of England, France, and Germany. The result is greatly to strengthen government and to increase correspondingly the risk of encroachment upon the prerogatives of the state. Such states therefore stand in special need of some primary form of organization by which they can hold their governments in subjection.

The most effective of the several devices for accomplishing this end is party. Slowly and clumsily it was fashioned during the quarrels between Cavalier and Roundhead. Awkwardly it began to claim and to fill its place under the later Stuarts and William III. But during the reigns of the first and second Georges, it came to be so well established that it could withstand the reaction led by George III. The American colonies received the institution of party, as they did most of their political outfit, from the mother country. But in their hands it underwent after the formation of the Union a marked development, and to-day the American party system presents a perfection of organization not elsewhere to be found.

How does party accomplish this task of holding government in subjection to the state? Its more obvious functions are two; it educates and organizes public opinion, and it administers the government. Public opinion is what the people think and feel in respect to public questions; not what they think and feel when such questions are first presented; but their well-considered thought and their clarified feeling after they have studied these questions well, and have attained the mood which is favorable to wise judgment. Party is by far the most important of the agencies through which the crude first thoughts and blind first feelings of the people are transformed into the rational thinking and feeling which is public opinion. In the first place, party keeps the people fully informed in regard to public matters. What one party fails to discover or wishes to conceal, its rival is sure to unearth and proclaim. In

the second place, party discusses with freedom and thoroughness every public question in the presence of the people. In the third place, party discusses such questions not merely on the ground of a surface expediency but in the light of great principles. Indeed the ultimate end of party is to secure as the basis of public policy the adoption of the principles which it professes. The dissemination of these principles is therefore one of its chief employments, and enters largely into the discussions which it conducts. But the principles of the different parties considered collectively are the principles of the people. Despite the many objectionable features which mark the contests of parties, such as narrowness, exaggeration, and downright misrepresentation, the result of these contests is to bring the people closer to the fundamental truths of politics, and to make them sounder as well as better informed judges of what concerns the public welfare. In the fourth place, party not only secures the discussion of public questions before the people, but, what is more important, discussion by the people. In this way party lifts the common citizen out of the ranks of private life and imparts to him in some degree a public character. Lastly, party organizes the public opinion which it helps to form. It provides the means by which those who hold like views in regard to public questions can act together effectively in their support. It is able to do this because it possesses and exercises the right to designate those who fill the posts of government; and because, in the second place, it must take into its own hands the direction of every movement by which the constitution is modified.

The second of the two functions named is to administer the government. In the performance of this function the party in power, under the system of party government, holds the position and does the work which falls to the king under a system which is really not nominally as in England - monarchical. In the discharge of this function the duty of the party in power as well as of the king is to apply in the wisest possible way the public resources to the satisfaction of the public wants, and to do this according to the

methods and with strict regard to the limitations prescribed by the constitution. It is not necessary to discuss here the debatable question whether party government in itself is a good form of government. It will suffice to direct attention to one remarkable difference between it and other forms of government. The party in power, in other words the government, is removable at will. In England this can be done at any moment when Parliament is in session; in the United States it can be done at least once in every four years. Moreover, in all countries where party government exists, the state is constantly checking, rebuking, or encouraging the party in power; and the party in power, that is the government, listens respectfully and obediently to every manifestation of its master's will. That this is not true under other forms of government is sufficiently obvious. States which are ruled by monarchs or oligarchies are usually forced to resort to revolution whenever it becomes necessary to depose the agent who governs.

To what place in the political system do these functions entitle party? The answer to this question is that party, or rather the party system, constitutes an informal but real and powerful primary organization of the state. Party stands closer to the state than any other factor of the political system. It is the first to interpret, and the first to give expression to the will of the state. And when that will is once made manifest party superintends its execution. If the state wills a change in the constitution, party puts in motion the constitutional machinery by which the change is effected. If the state wills a change in the policy of government, party takes the steps by which this, too, is accomplished. In short, it seems to me, that the obedience of government which the state used to secure at long intervals and for short periods, at great cost and very imperfectly by means of revolution and constituent assemblies, it now secures easily and far more durably and perfectly by means of party.

F

II

WHAT IS A PARTY? 1

ROM the beginning political development has depended on party. "The castes of the ancient world are the

fossilized remains" of parties once active in a world still more ancient. The political interest of early Hebrew history centers in the struggle of an intensely national party, which sought to exclude foreign influences altogether, with a party which looked to Egypt and to the more civilized states of western Asia for ideas and support. And so it is always and everywhere; party is the manifestation of political life, and the indispensable means of its growth. In recent times, moreover, every advanced people has come to look to party — to an extent already great, and everywhere increasing - for government. But in order that political development may be sufficiently rapid and at the same time rightly proportioned and healthful, and that party government may be good government, it is necessary that the people, as well as the philosopher and the student, should have just ideas concerning this agent whose conduct so profoundly influences their welfare.

Without attempting to include every point that may properly enter into a complete definition, I offer, in reply to the question, What is a party? the following as a summary of its most important characteristics: A party is a durable organization which, in its simplest form, consists of a single group of citizens united by common principles, but, in its more complex forms, of two or more such groups held together by the weaker.. bond of a common policy; and which, contrary to the view

1 The Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XI, March, 1896.

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usually held, has for its immediate end the advancement of the interests and the realization of the ideals, not of the people as a whole, but of the particular group or groups which it represents.

The definition rests upon, and in part gives expression to, a theory of party which deviates widely from those now current. Let us examine each of its propositions.

I. ORGANIZATION

Organization is the process which, for the purpose of effective work, converts many into one. In the case of party it is the birth-process; for, however large the number of those who think and feel alike may be, they cannot, until organized, do anything noteworthy in support of their common interests. There is, however, no particular form nor any definable amount of organization which is always requisite to the formation of a party. The form varies as greatly as does that of government; and the amount which will suffice under one set of conditions may prove quite inadequate under another. At times a loosely associated crowd, acting in the main from fitful impulse, has performed the functions, and therefore has deserved the name, of party; but in the more advanced states of the modern world this is no longer possible. Without a high degree of organization the largest body of citizens cannot at the present day do the proper work of party. The change which has taken place within a century seems almost startling. In respect to organization there is as little resemblance between the parties of the Federalist period and their compact, highly disciplined successors of to-day, as between the feudal levies of the crusading period and the armies which established the unity of the German empire. To go further back, the parties of classic antiquity impress the reader of history, and still more the modern party manager, as unwieldy and undependable in the extreme. This is true particularly of the ancient democratic parties. The followers — it would hardly do to call them the supporters—of the Gracchi seem more