ace of public resort in this or any other
land.

The principles which have now been presented must not be confined to
individual action. They should also control the associated energy
which makes politics the scene of its efforts. Political parties
should respect these principles. Any organization or enterprise in
which they are disregarded should meet with instant rebuke. The
existence of parties may not be regretted. They are useful, and they
are inseparable from any system of government which gives to the
people an interest in the management of public affairs, or which even
permits discussion upon public measures. Where men form and express
opinions, variety of opinion will be sure to spring up; discussion
will elicit sympathy and enkindle debate. Here we have at once the
elements of party. Its advantages, in the more thorough examination to
which measures of general or local importance are subjected, and in
the restrictions which reciprocal vigilance imposes upon the use of
power or opportunity, are as great as they are obvious. It is, then,
both foolish and useless to inveigh against parties as in themselves
evil. Let them be formed on correct principles, and conducted in a
right spirit, and they will be found among the best securities of
liberty and the most effectual means of intelligence. But let them be
formed on unsound principles, or without principle, or let them be
conducted in a greedy or vindictive spirit, and they will become the
occasions of incalculable mischief. When falsehood and violence are
the weapons which one party provokes another to adopt; when the
passions of men are addressed, and their prejudices are fostered
instead of being enlightened; when the aim is not to serve the country
so much as on the one side to get, and on the other to retain power;
when recourse is had to means for baffling an opponent or securing a
triumph, which the very men who guide the party would be ashamed to
use as private individuals; when excitement is made the great
instrument of success, and the people are carried along blindfold by
sympathy, like a herd of animals, moved by an impulse which they are
unable to explain and care not to understand; when office is the prize
that stimulates exertion, and worldly gain the object which lies at
the heart of party strife; then is that which might be a blessing
converted into a curse. Vice and ruin are its fruits. A despotism
could not inflict on a country greater evils th