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 check upon hasty legislation; like some second chambers in
Europe, it is the representative of powers whose preservation in their
dignity is essential to the preservation of the form of our government
itself.
We pursue the same distribution of power and responsibility when we pass
to the States. The federal government is not to interfere in what the
State can do and ought to do for itself; the State is not to meddle with
what the county can best do for itself; nor the county in the affairs
best administered by the town and the municipality. And so we come to the
individual citizen. He cannot delegate his responsibility. The government
even of the smallest community must be, at least is, run by parties and
by party machinery. But if he wants good government, he must pay as
careful attention to the machinery,--call it caucus, primary, convention,
town-meeting,--as he does to the machinery of his own business. If he
hands it over to bosses, who make politics a trade for their own
livelihood, he will find himself in the condition of stockholders of a
bank whose directors are mere dummies, when some day the cashier packs
the assets and goes on a foreign journey for his health.
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