is in the hands of political bosses,
who juggle with the theory of majority rule. What republics have most to
fear is the rule of the boss, who is a tyrant without responsibility. He
makes the nominations, he dickers and trades for the elections, and at
the end he divides the spoils. The operation is more uncertain than a
horse race, which is not decided by the speed of the horses, but by the
state of the wagers and the manipulation of the jockeys. We strike
directly at his power for mischief when we organize the entire civil
service of the nation and of the States on capacity, integrity,
experience, and not on political power.

And if we look further, considering the danger of concentration of power
in irresponsible hands, we see a new cause for alarm in undue federal
mastery and interference. This we can only resist by the constant
assertion of the rights, the power, the dignity of the individual State,
all that it has not surrendered in the fundamental constitution of the
Republic. This means the full weight of the State, as a State, as a
political unit, in the election of President; and the full weight of the
State, as a State, as a political unit, without regard to its population,
in the senate of the United States. 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 th