Excerpt from The American System of Government: Its Character and Workings, Its Defects, Outside Party
It is more than forty years since I commenced the study of the law. All the great changes in the State constitutions, and in the modes of electing State, County, City, and other local officers, as well as in the election of presidential electors, have been made since my recollection. The first partisan State nominating convention was held in the year 1824, in the State of New York; and the first partisan national convention was held in the year 1832.
For more than forty years I have been an attentive observer of the current of events; of the workings of our system of government - of our political, religious, educational, industrial, and philanthropic institutions, and of our great corporations and partisan organizations. I have participated sufficiently in the practice of courts, in official life, in practical business of various kinds, and in partisan politics, party committees, party meetings and conventions, and witnessed enough of such matters, to enable me to judge pretty accurately of the current reports of events which I did not witness. My mind has been much exercised with such matters, and in forming opinions in relation to them; and more particularly when I was editing a newspaper, and preparing information and comments for my readers - both during the great rebellion and since its close. I have, to a large extent, witnessed the facts and current of events which form the judicial, legal, constitutional, political, industrial, commercial, railroad, and banking history of our country, or learned them contemporaneously, for about forty years past; and have witnessed the political agitations, the mutations of public opinion, the growth and development in our country of party organizations, from a very weak and imperfect state, to their present form, extent, and power.
Having studied the institutions and history of our country, observed and inquired carefully into the workings of our complicated dual system of government, and the outside party machinery now in use to carry it on, have discovered, or think I have discovered, great defects in our representative and elective systems, and have sought to point them out to my readers, and to suggest suitable remedies.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The American System of Government (Ezra Champion Seaman)