nation, but to live the best sort
of life that can be lived.

We think that our form of government is the one best calculated to attain
this end. It is of all others yet tried in this world the one least felt
by the people, least felt as an interference in the affairs of private
life, in opinion, in conscience, in our freedom to attain position, to
make money, to move from place to place, and to follow any career that is
open to our ability. In order to maintain this freedom of action, this
non-interference, we are bound to resist centralization of power; for a
central power in a republic, grasped and administered by bosses, is no
more tolerable than central power in a despotism, grasped and
administered by a hereditary aristocrat. Let us not be deceived by names.
Government by the consent of the people is the best government, but it is
not government by the people when it is in the hands of political bosses,
who juggle with the theory of majority rule. What republics have most to
fear is the rule of the boss, who is a tyrant without responsibility. He
makes the nominations, he dickers and trades for the elections, and at
the end he divides the spoils. The operation is more uncertain than a
horse race, which is not decided by the speed of the horses, but by the
state of the wagers and the manipulation of the jockeys. We strike
directly at his power for mischief when we organize the entire civil
service of the nation and of the States on capacity, integrity,
experience, and not on political power.

And if we look further, considering the danger of concentration of power
in irresponsible hands, we see a new cause for alarm in undue federal
mastery and interference. This we can only resist by the constant
assertion of the rights, the power, the dignity of the individual State,
all that it has not surrendered in the fundamental constitution of the
Republic. This means the full weight of the State, as a State, as a
political unit, in the election of President; and the full weight of the
State, as a State, as a political unit, without regard to its population,
in the senate of the United States. The senate, as it stands, as it was
meant to be in the Constitution, is the strongest safeguard which the
fundamental law established against centralization, against the tyranny
of mere majorities, against the destruction of liberty, in such a
diversity of climates and conditions as we have in our vast continent. It
is not a mere che