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^■s
 

PREFACE
 

This work is intended to be a coatribution to the history of
partisan poHtics in the United States. Its primary purpose is
to deal with the machinery and methods used by a certain
great pohtical organization which has played a part in Amer-
can history. The issues upon which that movement based
itself are also treated, but it has not been the purpose of the
writer either to advocate, defend or condemn them. They are
dealt with just to the extent that seems necessary to make in¬
telligible the story of the organization that worked in their
name.

The partisan system of the American people is the link be¬
tween the people and the government which both rules and
serves them. It is a mechanism that has grown up from the
needs of the nation, altering from time to time as conditions
change. Its duty is to respond to public sentiment on vital
questions of the hour, to test the strength of such sentiment
at the polls, and to enact the sentiment into law or admin¬
istration if the people so express themselves. There have
been times in American history when the partisan system
failed to meet its duty squarely, and those are times of politi¬
cal confusion and re-arrangement. It was in one of these per¬
iods that the nativist movement came into state and national
politics. Its experience is full of suggestion for those who like
to trace the reasons of political changes. The story of the
brief and stormy career of the Know-Nothing movement
shows how an issue rejected by the regular parties can strug¬
gle into power despite them and to their hurt. It shows how
public sentiment can cast aside an old political organization
and build a new fabric when needs require. The issue of
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