Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-09-08

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This systsmhas been q thing Of gradual
and natural growth. In the national fisld,
TIE Congressional caucus grew up with the
decline Of the Virginia ''ring," which, after
furnishing Washington, Jefferson and
Madison, seemed exhausted with the
6 %, easy-gOing Monroe. The Congress
siona caucus did good in its day, and while
it flourished we heard nothing of that abuse
Of Presidential patronage since grown so
glazing. II sersedas a cheek, restraint,
on all such Presidential schemes. But il
gave way before the convention system,
simply because the latter was more in ac-
cord with the spirit of our institutions.
The county and State and national conven-
tons correspond with the County Court,
the State Legislature and the Federal Con-
gress. In the one as in the other, every
citizen finds bis part to perform at the pri-
maries or the precincts. And such is hui
man weakness that both are liable to pre-
ciseiy the same abuses. If conventions can
be packed, so can county courts and Legis-
latures, IS we know to our sorrow. Every
argument from theory or experience that
can be urged against the convention system
as party engine, may be urged with great
er force against representative Democracy
as a governmental mschine-with this vital
difference, that the rulings Of a convention
find their force only in the free assent of
those it seeks to govern; while there is
no such immediate escape from the rule of
a cnrrupt legislature, its grinding tax levies
must be met nolenS voLsnS, and our only
hope for relief lies in the distant future.
We say the convention system is natu-
raj outgrowth of our institutions, because
1t popularizes party machinery TO exactly
the same extent as our constitutions popu-
larize governmental machinery. Ours is not
q pure Democracy, but a representative one.
Ancient Athens was ruled By pure De-
mocracy, inasmuch as the laws were passed
by the multitude UirG uoce. Very similar
to this is the nomination Of candi-
date by the people en- maSse. But
such system Of government would
be intolerable in any except very small
community, and such system of nomina-
tons would render impossible In our coun-
try the very existence of parties. We
could no longer have any healthy opposi-
ton, restraining the dominant party, and
ready to succeed with all the machinery of
government, whenever it outrages popular
fOrbearance. So long as our government
remains what it is, representative democ-
racy-all opposition, however bitter, to the
convention system as system, will prove
evanescent.
We have said i5 is liable TO abuse as we'll
as our governmental machinery; and it is so
liable for the same reasons. Those reasons
exist outside of and beyond any system.
When the mammonites of New York city,
in their greed for gold, utterly neglect poll
tics, and leave all matters of government to
any man or devil that will run the machine
and just let them go on with their money
getting-they may expect that man or devil
to pay himself well for relieving them of the
burdens of government. They have no
one TO blame so much as themselves if
things 60 wrong when they NEGLECT their
own affairs of government. Their own
affair it is, by the constitution
they live under. So everywhere, our peo-
pie cannot expect the blessings Of Demo-
cratic government, If they shirk the bur-
dens that its maintenance imposes. Rest
assured that bad men will always rule,
where good men, loving ease, eyade the
duty. When election day comes, glass of
liquor draws out the last loafer from the
lowest slum, while good men are too busy
blowing or trading to even visit the polls,
to say nothing of working for the right. If
the people continue thus spathetic, it is
only question Of time when they viii
welcome an empire, to relieve them entire
ly from the cares Of state. @@g W
The duty of patriots is, therefore, not TO
denounce the convention system SO natu-
rally engrafted on our politics, but to seize
hold of its machinery and make it really
representative, and through it secure really
representative government. We have never
met good man abusing the convention
system but was obliged to confess that he
had never tried to better it. Let us, there
fore, fight abuses inside of the system, not
outside. If we let conventions go without
some other equally efficient system of Or
gsnization, we open the field for every up
start and bold incompetent; we invite
seething, boiling chaos, of which the scum
Will invariably come to the surface.