Political Science Of The State

546 POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Nobles and the class of capitalists and manufacturers were
alike divided between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. In
many other cases a political faith has consisted of quite a
number of articles. Thus the tory party at its origin not
only supported the established church and the monarchy, as
of divine appointment, but gave to the monarch prerogatives
which could not be resisted except by a passive refusal to
obey commands which were thought to be contrary to the
scriptures. The whigs, on the other hand, supported the state
church—many of them, at least—on grounds of mere expedi-
ency ; rejected the Jus divinum of kings, defended the revo-
lution of 1688 on the plea that the king had broken the
original contract with the people, and in reality regarded
the people as the only ultimate source of power.
Parties are sometimes broken up, and reorganized upon a
Parties with a sin- single article of political faith, but it must be
gie principle. Q^Q Qf grca^ importance, and which makes
strong appeals to the feelings of multitudes. In modern
times questions of humanity and of morals, which a whole
people can understand, enlist minds of a fervid temper, and
awaken in many an enthusiasm that breaks over all antece-
dent party ties. Such has been the movement for preventing
the sale of spirituous liquors in several of the states of the
American Union, which, however, after various legislative
experiments, has done little besides dividing the better part
of the community into two hostile factions, while the worse
part was unaffected by the agitations. The abolition of slav-
ery on moral and religious grounds took a far deeper hold o'f
a more widespread and an almost national party. This party
taught nothing which Quakers and other philanthropists had
not insisted upon since the middle of the eighteenth century.
But it had not entered into politics until the South, by oppo-
sition to it, forced men to look at it and to take sides. Then
it was that the power of a single opinion drawn into the arena
of party conflict became manifest. The Southern states, dread-
ing the opinion which gave birth to the anti-slavery party,
both because they half admitted its truth, and because slavery