Unintentionally,
patronage did for a large electorate what Hamilton's fiscal measures
had done for the upper classes. We often fail to realize how much of
the stability of our government we owe to patronage. For it was
patronage that weaned natural leaders from too much attachment to the
self-centered community, it was patronage that weakened the local
spirit and brought together in some kind of peaceful cooperation, the
very men who, as provincial celebrities, would, in the absence of a
sense of common interest, have torn the union apart.
But of course, the democratic theory was not supposed to produce a new
governing class, and it has never accommodated itself to the fact.
When the democrat wanted to abolish monopoly of offices, to have
rotation and short terms, he was thinking of the township where anyone
could do a public service, and return humbly to his own farm. The idea
of a special class of politicians was just what the democrat did not
like. But he could not have what he did like, because his theory was
derived from an ideal environment, and he was living in a real one.
The more deeply he felt the moral impulse of democracy, the less ready
he was to see the profound truth of Hamilton's statement that
communities deliberating at a distance and under different impressions
could not long co?perate in the same views and pursuits. For that
truth postpones anything like the full realization of democracy in
public affairs until the art of obtaining common consent has been
radically improved.
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