or efficacy."1 The active participants in parliamentary life began to learn from rude experience that " no men could act with effect who did not act in concert; that no men could act in concert, who did not act with confidence; that no men could act with confidence, who were not bound together by common opinions, common affections, and common interests." 2

Precisely at what time a group of men acting in concert in political action attained an aim and a degree of organization entitling them to be called a political party is impossible to state. The extra-legal character of the party and the inability to agree upon a definition of it make it easy, as was shown above, to choose any one of a number of dates. Morse makes no effort to fix the beginning of party government at a definite time. He does, however, make this interesting comment: "Slowly and clumsily it (party) was fashioned during the quarrels between Cavalier and Roundhead. Awkwardly it began to claim and to fill its place under the later Stuarts and William III. But during the reign of the first and second Georges it came to be so well established that it could withstand the reaction led by George III." 3

But party government in parliament did not necessarily mean party organization of the electorate. English government was not sufficiently representative to make this possible. The relatively small number of people who voted were appealed to by the rival parliamentary parties, sometimes with reason and argument, sometimes with money or other material rewards. With the fall of Walpole in 1742 the first Whig party fell into disorganization. Its work was largely finished. After a period of confusion under lesser men, the first Pitt ruled England for several years, governing by genius rather than by party. His success at home was due in no small

4

measure to the outside pressure of the foreign wars. He revived and stimulated the national sentiment of England and prepared the way for his son's appeal to the country. But England was not to enjoy the glories of a one-man government without paying the price. If a Patriot Minister, ruling almost alone, could govern the people, why could not one who thought himself a Patriot King do the same thing? George III tried to dominate parliament. The effort, which succeeded for a while, ended with the American Revolution, and then England settled down to a recognition of the principle that the ministers were responsible to parliament for the conduct of the business of the government, even though this business still continued to be called, for historical and sentimental reasons, the king's business.

The next important stage in the development of the English party and representative system came after the Reform Bill of 1832, which did away with the rotten boroughs and slightly widened the suffrage. It introduced the modern system of representative government in England. After that time, when there was a clash between ministry and parliament and an appeal was taken to the constituencies, the ministry resigned if the election went against them. In 1835, with the resignation of the Peel Ministry, we have the first clear instance of a whole ministry resigning after failing to obtain the support of the country in the general elections. Both the ministry and the House of Commons were thereafter directly responsible to the electorate.1

But the electorate of 1835 was far different from the electorate of today in England. Even after the Reform Bill of 1832 only the property-owning classes or the more prosperous tenants could vote. The two important extensions of the suffrage granted by Disraeli and Gladstone in 1867 and 1884 tended to make control by the electorate more nearly identical with control by the people. These suffrage acts, particularly that of 1867, also had an important effect upon the development of English party organization. In order to circumvent a

clause in the act of 1867 the radicals of Birmingham, under the leadership of Mr. William Harris, organized in October, 1867, the famous "Birmingham Caucus." This scheme achieved remarkable success as a type of local political machinery. It came to be known as the Local Liberal Association and was widely imitated throughout England. Because of its success the Conservatives were also compelled to develop a similar type of local party machinery, and the Birmingham Caucus thus became the prototype of the more important forms of democratic party organization as it exists in England to-day.

The American colonies took their political ideas from the mother country but rapidly modified them to meet the novel conditions of colonial life. There was, of course, no widespread organization of parties until after the adoption of the Constitution. But the people were obtaining a constant training in political action. England helped the American colonies by what Burke so happily called a "wise and salutary neglect." The result was that for several generations the colonists had an invaluable training in local politics. Moreover, in America as in England, the extra-legal "Association" was used in the 17th and 18th centuries for effecting political ends. In 1689 the Protestant citizens of Maryland signed an "Association " in defense of William and Mary. Sir Rowland Gwyn's Association to protect William III was signed not only " by the rude fisherman of the Scilly Rocks" but also by the "citizens of New York and the tobacco planters of Virginia." 1 In 1745 Governor Gooch, of Virginia, proposed in his opening address to the House of Burgesses that the burgesses and inhabitants of Virginia enter into an Association to defend George II from the perils of the Jacobite rising. The period of agitation from 1763-1775 was particularly productive of associations. In 1769, when the Virginia House of Burgesses was dissolved by Governor Botetourt, an "Association" was formed and signed to refrain from the use of importations, and in 1774 one of the first acts of the First Continental Congress was the preparation, the signing and the circulation of an "Association" in the nature of a non-importation agreement.1

Although there was little place for party government in the colonies, groups, whether called parties or factions, existed from the beginning. As John Adams expressed it: "You say our divisions began with federalism and anti-federalism? Alas! they began with human nature; they have existed in America from its first plantation. In every colony, divisions always prevailed. In New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Massachusetts, and all the rest, a court and country party has always contended." 2

At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and for some time thereafter the political leaders in America looked upon factions or parties as detrimental. In this they followed in the footsteps of their English forefathers. Not only was there no provision in the Constitution for political parties, but the framers of the Constitution expressly tried to guard against them. They provided for an electoral college system to secure the election of the president, and seemed to expect that this would operate in a non-partisan manner. No mention of parties exists in the Constitution. James Madison, in the famous No. X of the Federalist, indicated that he believed parties and factions to be a leading menace to the new government:

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it.

Madison took especial pride in stating that the new government contemplated for the American nation provided unusual safeguards against the detrimental influence of parties and factions. Other examples of the contemporary dislike and distrust of parties may readily be found.1

Yet the system of government created by the constitution was one which inevitably necessitated the origin and development of the party system. There was not only a division of political authority and responsibility between the federal and state governments, but, following the dictum of Montesquieu, there was a strict separation of the three phases of governmental power in the federal government. The executive, legislative and judicial departments were, in formal theory at least, sharply separated and balanced against each other. It was necessary to have some form of organization which would give unity of policy and action in state and federal governments and would unify the three formally separated departments of government in the federal government. The party has been the organization which has served this double purpose. Finally, the new government was one in which there were a vast number of elective offices, which were of real importance. An organization was essential to provide candidates for these offices and to secure their election. The party also fulfilled this need.2

Washington took the members of his cabinets from both parties, as William III and Anne had done almost one hundred years before. The legitimate function of an opposition