FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142  
143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   >>   >|  
ting barriers which democracy has found it more difficult to overcome. For more than a century the constitutional bulwarks which they raised against the rule of the numerical majority have obstructed and retarded the progress of the democratic movement. The force of public sentiment soon compelled, it is true, the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment, which in effect recognized the existence of political parties and made provision for the party candidate for President and Vice-President. At most, however, it merely allowed the party to name the executive without giving it any effective control over him after he was elected, since in other respects the general plan of the Constitution remained unchanged. The political party, it is true, has come to play an important role under our constitutional system; but its power and influence are of a negative rather than a positive character. It professes, of course, to stand for the principle of majority rule, but in practice it has become an additional and one of the most potent checks on the majority. To understand the peculiar features of the American party system one must bear in mind the constitutional arrangements under which it has developed. The party is simply a voluntary political association through which the people seek to formulate the policy of the government, select the officials who are to carry it out in the actual administration of public affairs, and hold them to strict accountability for so doing. Under any government which makes full provision for the political party, as in the English system of to-day, the party has not only the power to elect but the power to remove those who are entrusted with the execution of its policies. Having this complete control of the government, it can not escape responsibility for failure to carry out the promises by which it secured a majority at the polls. This is the essential difference between the English system on the one hand and the party under the American constitutional system on the other. The one well knows that if it carries the election it will be expected to make its promises good. The other makes certain promises with the knowledge that after the election is over it will probably have no power to carry them out. It is this lack of power to shape the entire policy of the government which, more than anything else, has given form and character to the party system of the United States. To the extent that the Constitu
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142  
143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
system
 

government

 

political

 

majority

 

constitutional

 
promises
 
control
 

President

 
election
 

policy


English

 

American

 
character
 

provision

 
public
 

remove

 
entrusted
 
overcome
 

Having

 

escape


complete

 

difficult

 

policies

 

century

 

execution

 

actual

 

administration

 

affairs

 

raised

 

select


officials

 
bulwarks
 

responsibility

 

strict

 

accountability

 
failure
 

knowledge

 
entire
 

States

 
extent

Constitu
 

United

 
expected
 
essential
 

difference

 

secured

 
carries
 

barriers

 
democracy
 

numerical