Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/185

 ON PARTY.

It is commonly said that political parties are necessary to liberty. This is one of the mistaken opinions that have been inherited from those who, living under governments in which there is no true political liberty, have fancied that the struggles which are inseparable from their condition, must be common to the conditions of all others.

England, the country from which this people is derived, and, until the establishment of our own form of government, the freest nation of Christendom, enjoys no other liberty than that which has been obtained by the struggles of parties. Still retaining in the bosom of the state, a power in theory, which, if carried out in practice, would effectually overshadow all the other powers of the state, it may truly be necessary to hold such a force in check, by the combinations of political parties. But the condition of America, in no respect, resembles this. Here, the base of the government is the constituencies, and its balance is in the divided action of their representatives, checked as the latter are by frequent elections. As these constituencies are popular, the result is a free, or a popular government.

Under such a system, in which the fundamental laws are settled by a written compact, it is not easy to see what good can be done by parties, while it is easy to see that they may effect much harm. It is the object of this article, to point out a few of the more prominent evils that originate from such a source.