A. SOME WORDS OF POLITICAL WISDOM: 1. Burke, Works: (1) The Present Discontents, Conciliation with America. 2. Lieber, Political Ethics, vol. ii. book iv. chap. ii. 3. Washington, Works: Farewell Address. 4. Emerson, Fortunes of the Republic. Also, Poli 5. Mill, On Liberty, chap. iii. 6. Channing, Works: The Union. 7. Bagehot, Physics and Politics, chap. iii., iv., v. 11. John Morley, Compromise, chap. iii., v. 14. Diman, Orations, etc.: The Alienation of Educa 15. Whipple, Outlooks, etc.: American Principles. 16. De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. fourth book. 17. Fiske, American Political Ideas. B. CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: 1. Eaton, Civil Service in Great Britain, chap. x xxxiii. 2. Bryce, The American Commonwealth, vol. ii. ch lv.-lxxv. 3. Articles in No. Am. Rev. cxii.-81; cxxiv.-111; 4. Clarke, Spoils System in American Politics, C temporary Review, vol. xl. p. 633. 5. Articles in Journal of Social Science, viii.-54; -36; xviii.-178. 6. Roosevelt, Present Position of Civil Service Refo New Princeton Review, vol. i. p. 362. 7. Articles in New York Nation, xxxv.-396; xxx -522; xli.-443; xlii.-172. 8. Godkin, Office-holding Aristocracy, Century, ii.9. Articles in Unitarian Review. x.-105: xxvii —206 THE POLITICAL CONSCIENCE. DMUND BURKE marked a new era in EDM political history by demanding a more strict and thorough application of morality to governmental affairs than it had been thought necessary for statesmen to profess or politicians to practise. His biographer, John Morley, England's rising statesman,- well says of him: "With none of the mental exclusiveness of the moralist by profession, he fills every page with solemn reference and meaning; with none of the mechanical bustle of the common politician, he is everywhere conscious of the mastery of laws, institutions, and government over the character and happiness of men. . . . Burke has the sacred gift of inspiring men to use a grave diligence in caring for high things and in making their lives at once d austere." Burke's fundamental postulate was this: "Men are in public life as in private, some good, some evil. The elevation of the one, and the depression of the other, are the first object of all true policy." describes the work of the statesman or tician thus: "It is the business of the po cian, who is the philosopher in action, to out proper means toward those [moral] e [of government], and to employ them w effect. . . . Such a generous contention power, on such manly and honorable maxi will easily be distinguished from the m and interested struggle for place and em ment." The true politician, he conter must represent the best public sentime "Those knots of men who have got toget avowedly without any public principle, order to sell their conjunct iniquity at highest rate, and are therefore univers odious, ought never to be suffered to do neer in the State; because they have no o nection with the sentiments and opinions the people." He describes a political pa as the means toward some great natio good, its object lying quite apart from aggrandizement of its members. His pred definition Young America may well lay heart: "A party is a body of men united promoting by their joint endeavors the tional interest, upon some particular princi in which they all agree." And respecting the spirit and method of party action he teaches: While "all government. is founded upon compromise. yet that you are blindly to follow the opinions of your party, when in direct opposition to your own clear ideas, is a degree of servitude that no worthy man could bear the thought of submitting to; and such as, I believe, no [party] connections ever could be so senselessly tyrannical as to impose." Burke expressed his profound concern for high morality in public affairs, more strongly than anywhere else, in his speech on "Conciliation with America," of which the following is a specimen: "The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable; but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do." Burke used his voice for fourteen years against Warren Hastings in one prolonged and eloquent plea for justice and humanity in all national policies between one people and another; and though, as Morley says, "Hastings was acquitted, yet the lesson of his impeachment had been taught with sufficiently impressive force,—the great les |