One of its [James A. Garfield's assassination] lessons, perhaps its most important lesson, is the folly, the wickedness, and the d...anger of the extreme and bitter partisanship which so largely prevails in our country. This partisan bitterness is greatly aggravated by that system of appointments and removals which deals with public offices as rewards for services rendered to political parties or to party leaders. Hence crowds of importunate place-hunters of whose dregs [the assassin] Guiteau is the type. The required reform [of the civil service] will be accomplished whenever the people imperatively demand it, not only of their Executive, but also of their legislative officers. With it, the class to which the assassin belongs will lose their occupation, and the temptation to try "to administer government by assassination" will be taken away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Another serious reverse. [Gen. Ambrose] Burnside's repulse at Fredericksburg.... Now remains our last card, the emancipation of th...e slaves. That may do it.... Our partisanship about generals is now rebuked. General [George B.] McClellan has serious faults or defects, but his friends can truly claim that if he had retained command, this disaster would not have occurred. The people and press would perhaps do well to cultivate patience. It is a virtue so needed in a struggle so equal as this. If the people can hold out, we shall find the right man after [a] while.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit.... The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more ca...ndor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to--no chance to reply to them.... The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The leadership qualities of Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower deserve special scrutiny because their common and contrasting... qualities illumine the nature of "charismatic" leadership in the Presidency. James M Burns, by calling his study of Roosevelt The Lion and the Fox, placed him in the tradition of Machiavellian strategy, and there is little question that Roosevelt used imaginative daring and pugnacity along with the cunning maneuver. Both qualities led him deep into party politics, where he fought the unfaithful ... and smote the heathen without. Eisenhower had less both of the lion and the fox; he was not savage in attack, but usually soft-spoken; and he affected the style of staying outside political involvement and keeping above the party battles.... He understood the deep American impulse toward the belittling of politics, and by seeming to avoid partisanship he could win more converts to his cause than the most partisan leader.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When we think offhand of a politician, we think of a man who works for a partial interest. At the worst it is his own pocket. At t...he best it may be his party, his class, or an institution with which he is identified. We never feel that he can or will take into account all the interests concerned, and because bias and partisanship are the qualities of his conduct, we feel, unless we are naively afflicted with the same bias, that he is not to be trusted too far. Now the word "statesman," when it is not mere pomposity, connotes a man whose mind is elevated sufficiently above the conflict of contending parties to enable him to adopt a course of action which takes into account a greater number of interests in the perspective of a longer period of time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Female Virtues are of a Domestick turn. The Family is the proper Province for Private Women to Shine in. If they must be showing t...heir Zeal for the Publick, let it not be against those who are perhaps of the same Family, or at least of the same Religion or Nation, but against those who are the open, professed, undoubted Enemies of their Faith, Liberty, and Country.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »