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632 which divides the two parties from each other. Civil-service reform, the burning question of the hour, divides the Republicans into two bitterly hostile sections, while it unites the reform Republicans to the reform Democrats; and free trade, the question next in importance, though less burning, is equally regardless of the party lines, the Republicans of the West being commonly free traders, while among the Democrats of Pennsylvania there has always been a protectionist element strong enough to prevent the party as a whole from moving effectively in favor of free trade. Thus in the United States too, the death of party as a connection sustained by distinctive principle, and the survival of mere faction, seem to be in sight. In England, no doubt, there are still organic questions, such as the extension of the franchise, the Established Church, and the House of Lords; yet even in England the symptoms of dissolution have begun to appear, and in the last century there was an interval of political stagnation during which the party system degenerated into a struggle for power carried on between unprincipled connections with the usual accompaniments—intrigue, calumny, and corruption.

There are some, including grave historians, who fancy that party has its everlasting source and justification in a natural line dividing the political temperament of mankind. But can anybody seriously maintain that a thing so multiplex, varied by such infinite shades, and so mutable, even in the individual man, as temperament, is capable of this sharp and permanent bisection? Can any instance be named in history of a party founded on temperament, not on interest or connection? In politics, as in other things, age, no doubt, as a rule, is cautious, and youth hopeful; yet what reactionists are more violent than the younger members of an aristocratic faction? Is not this evidently a theory of human nature constructed to underprop a falling system? And be it observed that, to make the system work, there must be two parties, and two only. If parties multiply, as multiply they do, and will do in increasing measure, parliamentary anarchy must ensue, and the Government will be left without a sufficient basis. In France the number of fractions, each of which is really a separate party, has for some time past rendered ministries rickety and short-lived. In Italy, to give Government a sufficiently broad foundation, a double ministry, the Cairoli-Depretis, was formed, but with no satisfactory result. The German Parliament is split into at least six parties, not one of which has anything like a majority. In England the unity of what is called the Liberal party, and with its unity its ability to sustain a government, are now in great measure lost, as would appear at once if the commanding influence of its present chief were removed. The Tory party preserves its solidity, but this is because it is a party of interest, the tendency of which is always to unite, while the tendency of opinion is to divide, and to divide in proportion to the activity of intelligence and the amount of moral independence; so that one necessary result