Mercy Otis Warren Quotes
A Senate chosen for six years will, in most instances, be an appointment for life, as the influence of such a body over the minds of the people will be coequal to the extensive powers with which they are vested, and they will not only forget, but be forgotten by their constituents.
Originally it was published in Boston under the name “A Columbian Patriot.” She was right about the lifetime tenure of a senator, but it is the power of incumbency and not the senator getting forgotten that causes it. So she made an accurate prediction but gave the wrong reason.
Mercy Otis Warren, 1748-1814, American Revolutionary Political Writer, Observations on the new Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions, 1788
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
She was one of the very few remaining bi Partisan Republicans. There had been a de facto purge of liberal Republicans from the party.
In Dolgoff’s era, his argument was that the political parties were so powerful that it was they who controlled who held public office, not the voters. And the parties were controlled by a few party leaders. However, when the system was reformed in the latter part of the 20th century, the individual incumbent member of Congress in America was so hard to dislodge due to the role of money and the advantage of incumbency, that the class of professional politicians was still very powerful. Reform had reduced the control of political parties but not politicians.
The state senator had voted to override his own party governor's veto of a popular solid waste disposal project. The governor retaliated by withdrawing nominations for appointments in the senator's district.
This is a formal codification of the position that was made by the great orator Edmund Burke: {194922}.
Some Senators stated that in good conscience they could not vote to curtail freedom of speech or expression. See Edmund Burke {194922} for one of the great statements on the legislator’s obligation.
He was right but his timing was a little early.
Mercy Otis Warren was a poet, playwright and pamphleteer during the American Revolution. During the years before the American Revolution, Warren published poems and plays that attacked royal authority in Massachusetts and urged colonists to resist British infringements on colonial rights and liberties. She was married to James Warren, who was likewise heavily active in the independence movement.
