tive public opinion. “The characteristics of a nation capable of public opinion,” says Mr. Bagehot, most sagacious of political critics, “is that . . . parties will be organized; in each there will be a leader, in each there will be some looked up to, and many who look up to them; the opinion of the party will be formed and suggested by the few, it will be criticised and accepted by the many.”[1] And this is just the sort of party organization which we have not. Our parties have titular leaders at the polls in the persons of candidates, and nominal creeds in the resolutions of conventions, but no select few in whom to trust for guidance in the general policy of legislation, or to whom to look for suggestions of opinion. What man, what group of men, can speak for the Republican party or for the Democratic party? When our most conspicuous and influential politicians say anything about future legislation, no one supposes that they are speaking for their party, as those who have authority; they are known to speak only for themselves and their small immediate following of colleagues and friends.
The present relations between Congress and public opinion remind us of that time, in the reign of George III., when “the bulk of the English people found itself powerless to con-
- ↑ Essays on Parliamentary Reform.
