But the form of the governing minority develops steadily from that of the Estate, through that of the Party, towards that of the Individual 's following. The outward sign of the end of Democracy and its transition into Cæsarism is not, for example, the disappearance of the party of the Tiers État, the Liberal, but the disappearance of party itself as a form. The sentiments, the popular aim, the abstract ideals that characterize all genuine party politics, dissolve and are supplanted by private politics, the unchecked will-to-power of the race-strong few. An Estate has instincts, a party has a program, but a following has a master. That was the course of events from Patricians and Plebeians, through Optimates and Populares, to Pompeians and Cæsarians. The period of real party government covers scarcely two centuries, and in our own case is, since the World War, well on the decline. That the entire mass of the electorate, actuated by a common impulse, should send up men who are capable of managing their affairs — which is the naive assumption in all constitutions — is a possibility only in the first rush, and presupposes that not even the rudiments of organization by definite groups exists. So it was in France in 1789 and in 1848. An assembly has only to be, and tactical units will form at once within it, whose cohesion depends upon the will to maintain the dominant position once won, and which, so far from regarding themselves as the mouthpieces of their constituents, set about making all the expedients of agitation amenable to their influence and usable for their purposes. A tendency that has organized itself in the people, has already ipso facto become the tool of the organization, and continues steadily along the same path until the organization also becomes in turn the tool of the leader. The will-to-power is stronger than any theory. In the beginning the leading and the apparatus come into existence for the sake of the program. Then they are held on to defensively by their incumbents for the sake of power and booty — as is already universally the case to-day, for thousands in every country live on the party and the offices and functions that it distributes. Lastly the program vanishes from memory, and the organization works for its own sake alone.
With the elder Scipio or Quinctius Flamininus comradeship on campaign is still the implication when we speak of their "friends." But the younger Scipio went further and his "Conors Amicorum" was no doubt the first example of an organized following whose activity extended to the law-courts and the elections.[1] In the same way the old purely patriarchal and aristocratic relation of loyalty between patron and client evolved into a community of interest based on very material foundations, and even before Cæsar there were written compacts between candidates and electors with specific provisions as to payment and performances. On the other side, just as in present-day America,[2] clubs and
- ↑ For what follows see M. Gelzer, Die Nobilität d. röm. Republik (1912), pp. 43, et seq.; A. Rosenberg, Untersuchungen zur röm. Centurienverfassung (1911), pp. 62, et seq.
- ↑ The reputation of Tammany Hall in New York is universal, but the relations approximate to this condition in all countries ruled by parties. The American Caucus, which first distributes the
