And this, as I have before observed, is no accident, but the
natural effect of the situation. The eminent men of a party, in an
election extending to the whole country, are never its most
available candidates. All eminent men have made personal enemies, or
have done something, or at the lowest professed some opinion,
obnoxious to some local or other considerable division of the
community, and likely to tell with fatal effect upon the number of
votes; whereas a man without antecedents, of whom nothing is known but
that he professes the creed of the party, is readily voted for by
its entire strength. Another important consideration is the great
mischief of unintermitted electioneering. When the highest dignity
in the State is to be conferred by popular election once in every
few years, the whole intervening time is spent in what is virtually
a canvass. President, ministers, chiefs of parties, and their
followers, are all electioneerers: the whole community is kept
intent on the mere personalities of politics, and every public
question is discussed and decided with less reference to its merits
than to its expected bearing on the presidential election. If a system
had been devised to make party spirit the ruling principle of action
in all public affairs, and create an inducement not only to make every
question a party question, but to raise questions for the purpose of
founding parties upon them, it would have been difficult to contrive
any means better adapted to the purpose.
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