The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-11-08
MOTLEY ON PARTY SPIRIT.

The ablest and most philosophical speech
on the Republican side in the recent presi-
Dental canvass, was, in spite of its fallacies,
a lecture delivered by Mr.. ]. Lathrop Motley,
of Massachusetts,, late United States minister
to Austria, and author of 'sThe Rise of the
Dutch Republic" We must add that this
credit belongs 10 it in an abstract point of
view simply; for, as regards its application
to politics as they now stand in this country,
it will not bear analysis for moment. Mr.
Motley has passed the best part of his life
abroad, enjoying literary leisure, or prose-
cutting historical studies and projects, sur
rounded by the magnificent libraries, and by
the ancient, venerable archives of Europe.
Though he has come back to his native home,
his intellectual habitation is still on the other
side of the Atlantic while, in respect to
American affairs, he keeps with him huge
bundle of political prejudices from which to
draw his opinions of parties, public men
and public measures. Very naturally, there
fore, the best passages of the lecture referred
to, if taken as arguments on behalf of the
party in power, are about as opposite and
congruous in that relation as the praises and
caresses bestowed by Queen Titania on the
enchanted Bottom. Among such passages and
such arguments one of the most notable we
here quote. Certainly" says Mr.. Motley,
"there have been bitterly contested elections
in this country before. Party spirit is always
rife, and in such vivid, excitable, disputatious
communities as ours are, and, trust, always
will be, it is the very soul of freedom. To
those who reflect upon the means and ends of
popular government, nothing seems more
stupid than in grand generalties to deprecate
party spirit. Why, government by parties
and through party machinery is the only pos
sible method by which free republic can ac-
complish the purpose of its existence The
old republics of the past may be said to have
fallen, not because of party spirit, but be-
cause there was no adequate machinery by
which party spirit could develop itself with
facility and regularity"
No further evidence than this is needed to
prove that Mr.. Motley has not watched the
career of the Republican party with the vigil
lance of patriotic citizen, or reviewed its his
tory in the temper of philosophical student
Weagree with him that, in a republic, nothing
is" more stupid than in grand generalities to
deprecate party spirit" but we would add,
as he might with equal truth have added,
that, in republic, nothing is more wicked
than for party to carry party rule so far, and
with so high hand, as to use power for the
purpose of trampling out the elements of OPP
position in order to render its own ascendancy
absolute and perpetual. And precisely this,
conformity with corrupt schemes of personal
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, has been the work of the
Republican leaders within the past four years.
They have exhausted the resources of sophis-
try, of demagoguery, of fanaticism, of sec
tional hatred, of partisan bigotry of personal
ambition, in their desperate efforts to accom-
plish that end. All their slogans and catch
words have assumed opposition to the party
in power to be synonymous with treason and
rebellion ; and the plain intent of their legis-
lative policy has been to destroy the po-
hticaf conditions by which il would be
possible for such opposition to be
at once effectud and peaceful. Hence,
in SO far as they have succeeded, they
have eliminated from politics the whole
some principle indicated by Mr.. Motley when
he says that government by parties and
through party machinery is the only possible