[Sidenote:  Tariff, Internal Improvements, and National Bank.] It is not my purpose here to give a sketch of the history of American parties.  Such a sketch, if given in due relative proportion, would double the size of this little book, of which the main purpose is to treat of civil government in the United States with reference to its origins.  But it may here be said in general that the practical questions which have divided the two great parties have been concerned with the powers of the national government as to (1) the Tariff; (2) the making of roads, improving rivers and harbours, etc., under the general head of Internal Improvements; and (3) the establishment of a National Bank, with the national government as partner holding shares in it and taking a leading part in the direction of its affairs.  On the question of such a national bank the Democratic party achieved a complete and decisive victory under President Tyler.  On the question of internal improvements the opposite party still holds the ground, but most of its details have been settled by the great development of the powers of private enterprise during the past sixty years, and it is not at present a “burning question.”  The question of the tariff, however, remains to-day as a “burning question,” but it is no longer argued on grounds of constitutional law, but on grounds of political economy.  Hamilton’s construction of the Elastic Clause has to this extent prevailed, and mainly for the reason that a liberal construction of that clause was needed in order to give the national government enough power to restrict the spread of slavery and suppress the great rebellion of which slavery was the exciting cause.

[Sidenote:  Civil service reform.] Another political question, more important, if possible, than that of the Tariff, is to-day the question of the reform of the Civil Service; but it is not avowedly made a party question.  Twenty years ago both parties laughed at it; now both try to treat it with a show of respect and to render unto it lip-homage; and the control of the immediate political future probably lies with the party which treats it most seriously.  It is a question that was not distinctly foreseen in the days of Hamilton and Jefferson, when the Constitution was made and adopted; otherwise, one is inclined to believe, the framers of the Constitution would have had something to say about it.  The question as to the Civil Service arises from the fact that the president has the power of appointing a vast number of petty officials, chiefly postmasters and officials concerned with the collection of the federal revenue.  Such officials have properly nothing to do with politics; they are simply the agents or clerks or servants of the national government in conducting its business; and if the business of the national government is to be managed on such ordinary principles of prudence as prevail in the management of private business, such servants ought to be selected for personal merit and retained for life or during good behaviour.  It did not occur to our earlier presidents to regard the management of the public business in any other light than this.