class parties. Once, in the midst of the long period of learning, the political
system failed totally. The result was civil war. The system must always fail
partially, since politics cannot rise above the mixed nature of man. "Gov-
ernment is a very rough business," said Sir George Cornewall Lewis to the
young Gladstone; "you must be content with very unsatisfactory results."
In a world condemned to such results the American political system de-
serves attention--especially that part of the system which combines com-
promise with energy, minority rights with government by a majority which
may live thousands of miles away. This is the special province of the un-
written constitution.

The written constitution has been unofficially revised, without the change
of a word or a comma, in several ways. First, the government which had
been planned as a very loose federation grew steadily more centralized.
Not even the most power-fearing statesmen could prevent this drift.

Second, the office of the presidency was captured by the emerging de-
mocracy--much to the surprise of the Fathers, who thought they had put
it beyond the clutches of what they called the "mob." The President, there-
after, was the one man elected by all the voters, ^* so when the country be-
came a thorough democracy the President became the voice of the people.
For the most part the members of the Senate and of the House must repre-
sent their own states and districts. It is not waywardness which makes
them do this; it is the nature of the federal system. The representatives
from Delaware do not and should not spend their time serving the inter-
ests of Idaho. Yet there may be occasions when the welfare of the national
majority conflicts with that of Idaho. It then becomes the duty of the con-
gressmen from Idaho to argue for their own region and to ask for com-
promise. But the President talks for the nation.

Third, when the President became the voice of the people it was impor-
tant that his voice carry weight. Under the written constitution, as inter-
preted from the days of Madison (who came to the White House in
1809) to those of J. Q. Adams (who left it in 1829), not even the most
popular President could impose a national policy. The Congress was "a
scuffle of local interests," and could make only desultory policy. So the
nation drifted: in and out of war, in and out of depression, in and out of
sectional strife. Thus came the demand for the third unwritten change,
which stabilized the others and saved the system from stagnation: the
modern political parties.

These parties are unique. They cannot be compared to the parties of
other nations. They serve a new purpose in a new way. Unforeseen and

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