government have exceeded their power; has the right to declare null and void an act of the legislature of the national Government; has the right to have disregarded the action of the executive when it is beyond his power; and has the further right to say when the states have exceeded their sovereign powers. That is the greatest power ever given to a tribunal and it is as I have said the one great characteristic of the American constitution, and to it we owe more of the stability and grandeur of this country than to any other provision in that instrument. . . . There have been times when the decisions of this court in the performance of its great functions have aroused great excitement and at times great indignation; but with the exception of the Dred Scott case nearly every decision of that court undertaking to lay down the limits of national and state power has met with the final approval of the American people; and to-day it may not be inappropriate when it has become the fashion of some of those in high places to criticize the judiciary, to call attention to these facts. Certainly, no man from my section of the country should ever care to utter a condemnation of the judiciary, for when passion ran riot, when men had lost their judgment, when the results of four years of bitter war produced legislation aimed not at justice, but frequently at punishment, it was the Supreme Court that stood between the citizen and his liberties and the passion of the hour and I trust the day will never come when the American people will not be willing to submit respectfully and gladly to the decrees of that august tribunal. Temporarily they may seem to thwart the will of the people but in their final analysis they will make as they have made for orderly government, for government of laws and not of men, and we may be sure that the Supreme Court in the pure atmosphere of judicial inquiry that has always surrounded it will arrive at a better interpretation of the powers of both state and national governments than can be possibly hoped for in a forum like this where popular prejudice and the passions of the hour affect all of us whether we will or no.

385. The Supreme Court in the future. Justice Brewer outlines the following as the most important questions with which the Supreme Court must deal in the future:

As admitted by all careful students of history, the Supreme Court, whose organization and powers constitute the most striking and distinguishing feature of the Constitution, has been a most potent factor in shaping the course of national events. It stands to-day a quiet but confessedly mighty power, whose action all wait for, and whose decisions all abide. Turning to the future, every thoughtful man wonders what is

coming to the republic, and many inquire what the Supreme Court will do in shaping that future, and how its decisions may affect the national life.

The questions which now seem likely to arise and to be pressed upon judicial attention may be grouped in four classes: First, those growing out of the controversies between labor and capital; second, those that will spring from the manifest efforts to increase and concentrate the power of the nation and to lessen the powers of the States; third, those arising out of our new possessions, separate from us by so long distances and with so large a population, not merely of foreign tongue, but of a civilization essentially different from that of the Anglo-Saxon; and, fourth, those which will come because our relations to all other nations have grown to be so close and will surely increase in intimacy.

CHAPTER XXI

POLITICAL PARTIES

I. FUNCTIONS OF POLITICAL PARTIES

386. Functions of political parties. Bryce outlines as follows the aims of party organization :

The aims of a party organization, be it local or general, seem to be four in number

Union to keep the party together and prevent it from wasting its strength by dissensions and schisms.

Recruiting to bring in new voters, e.g. immigrants when they obtain citizenship, young men as they reach the age of suffrage, newcomers, or residents hitherto indifferent or hostile.

Enthusiasm

to excite the voters by the sympathy of numbers, and the sense of a common purpose, rousing them by speeches or literature. Instruction to give the voters some knowledge of the political issues they have to decide, to inform them of the virtues of their leaders and the crimes of their opponents.

These aims, or at least the first three of them, are pursued by the party organizations of America with eminent success. But they are less important than a fifth object which has been little regarded in Europe, though in America it is the mainspring of the whole mechanism. This is the selection of party candidates; and it is important not only because the elective places are so numerous, far more numerous than in any European country, but because they are tenable for short terms, so that elections frequently recur. Since the parties, having of late had no really distinctive principles, and therefore no well-defined aims in the direction of legislation or administration, exist practically for the sake of filling certain offices, and carrying on the machinery of government, the choice of those members of the party whom the party is to reward, and who are to strengthen it by the winning of the offices, becomes a main end of its being.

387. Relation of party strength to governmental organization. Goodnow points out the functions performed by political parties in 1 By permission of The Macmillan Company.

remedying too great separation or division of governmental powers, their strength depending in large degree upon the unity or lack of unity in the governmental system: 1

In what has already been said, the attempt has been made to show that the two primary functions of the state were to express and execute its will, and that if the expression of this will were to be something more than a philosophical statement of belief, a counsel of perfection, there must be a coördination of these functions, i.e. that the execution of the will of the state must be subjected to the control of the body which expresses it. This coördination, it has been shown, may be brought about in the governmental system by subjecting all administrative offices to the control of a superior governmental authority which is intrusted ultimately with the expression of the will of the state. In order that this control may be effective and may be found in the governmental system, the administrative system must be considerably centralized. If this coördination of the expression and the execution of the will of the state is not brought about in the governmental system, it must be provided for outside of the government. Where it is found outside of the government, it is to be found in the political party. It must of necessity be found there if the administrative system is not considerably centralized and under ultimate and effective legislative control.

If provision is not made for this coördination in the governmental system, the work of the party is much greater than it is where the governmental organization provides for this coördination. Inasmuch as the party organization is in all cases formed in order to do the work which is devolved upon it by the governmental system, the party organization will be much less complicated and much less centralized under a governmental system which is so formed as to permit the body, charged ultimately with the expression of the will of the state, to exercise an effective control over the agents charged with its execution. .

Further, if in a given state the relations of central and local government are such that the localities have largely in their hands the execution of state laws, the state parties must, if they are to discharge their necessary functions, have to do not merely with the expression and execution of the state will by state officers, but also with the execution of that will by local authorities. State parties must, in such a case, concern themselves with local politics. The differentiation of state and local parties, if such differentiation is ever possible, is conditioned upon a differentiation of state and local politics. Such a differentiation is possible only where local bodies cease to act as independent state agents.

1 Copyright, 1900, by The Macmillan Company.

Party organization is thus based on the character and amount of the work the party has to do; and the work the party has to do depends very largely on the relations existing both between the different organs of the central government and between the central and the local governments. If the system of government is at the same time unconcentrated from the point of view of the relations of the different departments of the general government, and decentralized from the point of view of the relations of the central and the local governments, the work of the party is very great, and to do this work the party organization must be correspondingly strong and permanent.

388. The function of third parties. While usually considered undesirable and dangerous, third parties perform services of some value.

Much has been said with reference to third parties and their desirability. In the great democratic countries, England and the United States, two chief parties exist. If a special issue comes up, such as slavery, or the prohibition of the liquor traffic, or special labor legislation, and neither of the great parties finds it wise or convenient to take up this issue, the question arises as to whether a third party ought to be organized. In many instances the best way to promulgate an idea is to organize a third party and to work as vigorously as possible to get into power. If the issue is really one of prime importance, as was the question of the extension of slavery into the territories before the Civil War, the third party is likely to secure such influence that either the question must be taken up by one of the existing large parties, or the third party becomes the dominant one as did the Republican party after the outbreak of the Civil War. But unless the third party within a comparatively short time becomes itself very prominent or has its policies adopted by one of the great parties, it is a reasonable assumption that its issue is not of prime importance. Under those circumstances is it worth while to devote one's time and energies and money to further discussion of the question, or would it be better, after the matter has been fully tested for a few years, to relinquish one's efforts for the time being and to devote one's energies rather to carrying through one of the issues of the day which is prominent enough so that one's influence may count? This question ought to be very seriously considered by persons of unselfish, devoted natures who try year after year to carry their ideas into effect and find that they are making practically no headway. May it not well be true that energy so expended is thrown away and that a person by following this small third party may be practically wasting his time instead of using