Essential Party Readings VI

Sen. John J. Ingalls of Kansas, a stalwart Republican, lecturing party reformers in 1890:

Government is force [and] politics is a battle for supremacy. Parties are the armies. The Decalogue and the golden rule have no place in the political campaign. The object is success.

I got that quote from Daniel DiSalvo's wonderful new book Engines of Change: Party Factions in American Politics, 1868-2010. It's a great look at party factions, looking at how groups like the Stalwart Republicans from a century ago or the New Democrats in more recent decades have pulled parties to the left or right and either aided or undermined the development of the federal government.