e disadvantages of such a system--its division of
responsibility and the possible lack of cooeperation among the several
departments--were mitigated to a considerable, if not to a sufficient,
extent. National parties came into existence with the function of
assuming a responsibility which no single group of Federal officials
possessed; and in their management of national affairs, the partisan
leaders were prompted by a certain amount of patriotism and interest in
the public welfare. Even at Washington the system works badly enough in
certain respects; but in general the dominant party can be held to a
measure of responsibility; and effective cooeperation is frequently
obtained in matters of foreign policy and the like through the action of
patriotic and disinterested motives.

In the state governments the advantages of a system of checks and
balances were of small importance, while its disadvantages were
magnified. The state governments had no reason to sacrifice concentrated
efficiency to safety, because in a Federal organization the temporary
exercise of arbitrary executive or legislative power in one locality
would not have entailed any irretrievable consequences, and could not
impair the fundamental integrity of the American system. But if a state
had less to lose from a betrayal by a legislature or an executive of a
substantially complete responsibility for the public welfare, it was not
protected to the same extent as the central government against the
abuses of a diffused responsibility. In the state capitals, as at
Washington, the national parties did, indeed, make themselves
responsible for the management of public affairs and for the harmonious
cooeperation of the executive and the legislature; but in their conduct
of local business the national parties retained scarcely a vestige of
national patriotism. Their behavior was dictated by the most selfish
factional and personal motives. They did, indeed, secure the cooeperation
of the different branches of the government, but largely for corrupt or
undesirable purposes; and after the work was done the real authors of it
could hide behind the official division of responsibility.

If the foregoing analysis is correct, the partial failure of American
state governments is to be imputed chiefly to their lack of a
centralized responsible organization. In their case a very simple and
very efficient legislative and administrative system is the more
necessary, because onl