Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/196



Sunday, on a day near the national anniversary, something was said of the relation which the American citizen bears to the State, and of the duties and rights which belong to that relation. Since then an event has occurred which suggests another topic of a public nature, and so I invite your attention to a discourse of the general position and duties of an American ruler, and in special of the late President Taylor. It is no pleasant task to rise to speak so often on such themes as this; but let us see what warning or guidance we can gather from this occasion.

In order that a man should be competent to become a complete political ruler and head of the American people, he ought to be distinguished above other men in three particulars.

First, he ought to have just political ideas in advance of the people, ideas not yet organized into institutions in the State. Then he will be a leader in ideas.

Next, he ought to have a superior power of organizing those ideas, of putting them into institutions in the State. Then he will be a leader in the matter of organizing ideas.

Then he ought to have a superior power of administering the institutions after they are made. Then he will be a leader in the matter of administering institutions.

An eminent degree of these three qualities constitutes genius for statesmanship, genius, too, of a very high order. A man who really and efficiently leads in politics must possess some or all of these qualities; without them, or any of them, he can only seem to lead. He and the