party system is one of the characteristic features of American public life, it is a singular fact that no systematic description or discussion of the party developed until one hundred years after the system had been established. The critical study of

a necessary evil in free governments." The formal and legalistic discussion of political problems, which dated from Austin and Lieber and was carried forward in the work of Burgess, was occupied with legal and constitutional phases of government. Naturally, these writers were little concerned with the extra-legal political party. Friedrich and Theodor Rohmer, in the Theory of Political Parties, 1844, reflected the tendency to personify the state, which was characteristic of much of the political theory of the second third of the last century. Johann Kaspar Bluntschli, the distinguished German political scientist of the last century, accepted Rohmer's doctrines but added to them the analogy between the state and the organism and discussed political institutions, including the party, in what might now be considered exaggerated biological terms. Walter Bagehot proved that the party system was inevitable in representative government. Woodrow Wilson analyzed the actual working of the extra-constitutional party system in his Congressional Government, published in 1885. Considerable campaign literature on parties and party leaders had appeared. Finally, Bryce, in his American Commonwealth, 1888, described the American party system at some length, particularly examining the nature, development and operation of the party machine and the boss. But Bryce made little attempt to present a theory of the function of the party in modern political life.

Since 1891 there have been, of course, many contributions to the historical and analytical study of parties. J. P. Gordy's History of Political Parties in the United States, 1895, was a study of political history, including the programs of political parties in this country particularly from 1790 to 1815. President Lowell published his well known descriptive work on The Governments and Parties of Continental Europe in 1896. Henry Jones Ford's stimulating book, The Rise and Growth of American Politics, with special attention to English precedents, was first published in 1898. In 1900 appeared Professor Jesse Macy's book, Political Parties in the United States 1846-1861, which contained not only a careful study of the fall of the Whig party in America but also an analysis of the origin and nature of the modern political party. Frank J. Goodnow's notable work Politics and Administrations was published in 1900. This book is one of the most forceful statements of the importance of the party in American political life and of the necessity of according it public and legal recognition. In 1900 there also appeared Frederick W. Maitland's translation of Gierke's Political Theories of the Middle Ages, a lawyer's book which analyzed with the precision of a jurist the likeness of the state to the corporation, partnership or trust. This important book, together with some of the essays of Maitland, brought to the serious consideration of English readers the conception of the "Group Person" with a "Group Will." M. Ostrogorski in his Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, 1902, carried still further the investigations

the party and its philosophy is practically the creation of the twentieth century." 1

"1

The failure of the general treatises on political science written before 1891 to deal with the important subject of the political party was noted by Morse and explained by him as due to the fact that modern political parties were not only comparatively recent in origin but were also in a sense still extra-legal. Despite the fact that the party, from a practical point of view, was that instrumentality of the people through which "the citizen receives the largest share of his political education " and through which he discharges "the larger portion of his political duties," it had been treated as an outlaw,1 and, being treated as an outlaw, "it behaved as an outlaw." The political party in practice had been for some generations the most important agency in making the governments of the highly civilized states function. And yet, in the view of political philosophers and constitutional lawyers, it was not a part of the state at all. Students were usually absorbed in the recognized legal provisions of the constitutional system. The political party, although well developed by this time, was still an innovation. Like all enduring social and political institutions it had gradually evolved to meet an indispensable need of modern political life. Only long after it had established itself did it receive some degree of legal and constitutional recognition in the civilized countries and come more and more to be a subject for careful and significant analysis by political scientists and sociologists.2

Party," Sir Henry Maine tells us, " is probably nothing, more than a survival and a consequence of the primitive combativeness of mankind. It is war without the city transmuted into war within the city, but mitigated in the process. The best historical justification which can be offered for it is that it has often enabled portions of the nation, who would otherwise be armed enemies, to be only factions." 3 Morse's treatment of party deals very little with the fundamental differences which make men combative. While he recognized the deep roots of these differences, he was more directly concerned with the historical process which, to use Maine's

words, had changed "armed enemies" within a state into "only factions."

When Morse speaks of party he is thinking of the durable organization which consciously appeals to a general electorate for the right to administer the government of a state. There was, of course, no party organization in this sense in the ancient theocracies or military despotisms. "Under governments which rest on force as well as under governments that base their claims on divine right, there is no room for party. Such governments see in party a denial of their pretensions and an aspirant to their seats." 1 In the Greek city-states, especially in Athens, there were political parties or factions, and Aristotle made a critical analysis of the genesis and nature of party and class activity, both of which he deplored. But there was no permanent party organization in Athenian democracy, much less any recognition of the party as a governing factor in political society. The Romans produced vigorous parties or political factions, as Ferrero and others have explained in detail. Perhaps the situation at the time of the brothers Gracchi is as representative of the Roman party development as any period which might be chosen. But here again political factions and interests shifted rapidly. "The followers - it would hardly do to call them the supporters - of the Gracchi seem more like mobs than parties." 3

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, when the world broke up into the feudal system, with a great church and the unifying tradition of Rome furnishing such world-order as existed, there was still no place for party government. The political relations of the Middle Ages were based chiefly upon personal allegiance, a condition somewhat intermediate between the bond of blood relationship, real or fictitious, in primitive society, and the political status of developed civil society. The chief struggle during the Middle Ages was that between the church and the state, but this conflict was mainly univer1 Infra, p. 1.

sal, and even its local expressions rarely produced any permanent party alignment upon the particular questions at issue. Guelph and Ghibelline, while originally referring to local Italian factions, were really representative of the western European struggle between imperialism and localism, and between secular and ecclesiastical authority. It is only when we come to the self-governing national state that we find any place for the modern political party. The contemporary political party consciously aims to administer the government by appeal to the electorate. Until there is an electorate, that is to say, until the people to some extent become participants in the conduct of the government, there is no place for party. The fundamental idea in Morse's theory of party is that historically party is a substitute for revolution. From the time that the Greeks began the study of political science and no theory of political science could possibly grow up until long after a political life had developed - the political philosophers have puzzled over the question of how to deal with an intolerable government. Whether the governor is one man or a group of men or representatives of the whole people, the question constantly recurs: how is the state to govern the governor? What is to happen when the governor becomes so unjust that men prefer the anarchy which goes with armed conflict rather than submit longer? Ever since the Middle Ages, when the church and the secular authorities constantly came in conflict, we find at one time the churchmen and at another the laymen trying to find a satisfactory theory to justify revolution. Sometimes, as in the theories of Manegold and John of Salisbury, the right is based upon the violation by the unjust governor of a contract with God. Therefore, the church must needs excommunicate him. Sometimes, as in the doctrine of Buchanan, Althusius and Locke, the right of revolution is based upon breach of contract, real or assumed, between the governor and governed. Therefore, the governed must needs revolt. Sometimes as with Kant, revolution is justified only as a moral right, with a frank admission that a legal right to revolt from the law-making authority is a contradiction in