Leonard Henry Courtney Quotes

In England, a Majority of Citizens does not elect the Majority of Representatives.

The virtue, spirit, and essence of a House of Commons consists in its being the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was not instituted to be a control upon the people, as of late it has been taught

Representative democracy has for its characteristic object and effect…securing its members against oppression and depredation at the hands of those functionaries which it employs for its defense.

The Members of the Parliament shall be bound solely by their own conscience and not by any directions given by their electors.

There is a character of mind which does not look up to any one; which thinks no other person's opinion much better than its own, or nearly so good as that of a hundred or a thousand persons like itself. Where this is the turn of mind of the electors, they will elect no one who is not or at least who does not profess to be, the image of their own sentiments, and will continue him no longer than while he reflects those sentiments in his conduct.

… a permanent Council of the ablest men chosen by the people

Annual Parliaments, Universal Suffrage and Votes by Ballot.

Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads, but the principle is exactly the same... The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority.

Whereas the constitution of … Holland is in its principles a popular representation, it is necessary that the right of the people be duly ascertained; that the members of the States be rendered responsible to them for their conduct and be precluded from taking any decisive step without their consent …

It is necessary to have lived in this insulator which is called the national assembly, in order to perceive how the men who are the most completely ignorant of the state of the country are almost always the ones who represent it.

The worst thing I can say about democracy is that it has tolerated the right hon. Gentleman for four and a half years.

American capitalism is predatory, and American politics are corrupt: The same thing is true in England and the same in France; but in all these three countries the dominating fact is that whatever the people get ready to change the government, they can change it. The same thing is not true of Germany

No one can deny that the Americans are more democratic than the English; yet the government of England feels more directly than that of the United States the force of public opinion. Each has its check on the action of the popular will. In the United States the check is found in narrowing and lengthening the channels by which that will reaches the governing powers; in England it consists of an hereditary crown and an hereditary nobility, which can restrain but cannot thwart the people.

We may define a republic to be … a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior.

The House is composed of very good men, not shining, but honest and reasonably well-informed, and in time will be found to improve, and not much inferior in eloquence, science, and dignity, to the British Commons. They are patriotic enough, and I believe there are more stupid (as well as more shining) people in the latter, in proportion.

How is it the community can check ? The community can act only when assembled; and when assembled, it is incapable of acting. The community, however, can choose representatives.

I have great respect for British political institutions. I regard the British Parliament as the most democratic institution in the world, and the independence and impartiality of its judiciary never fail to arouse my admiration.

Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.

In youth one believes in democracy, later on, one has to accept it.

The framers of the American Constitution were far from wishing or intending to found a democracy in the strict sense of the word, though, as was inevitable, every expansion of the scheme of government they elaborated has been in a democratical direction. But this has been generally the slow result of growth, and not the sudden innovation of theory…

The people have grown tired of the monotony of being served for 20, 30—or 40 years by the same men in Parliament…. Let the Irish people replace us, by all means, by other, and I hope, better men, if they so choose.

All lawful authority, legislative, and executive, originates from the people.

… in order to emerge from a state of nullity, the [Dutch] bourgeois are asking to take part in government; the most extreme among them wish to participate in all deliberations on public matters …. The more moderate ask only to elect their regents and to have representatives to watch over the maintenance of their rights …

The lamentations of good men on the subject of party are vain; parties are inseparable from every free government; and you must either have parties with all their good and bad effects, or no freedom of thought or speech, as in Turkey, or any other state where parties are not to be found.

Political power is now widely diffused; and whatever may be the evils of democracy, this good has come of it, that it has forced men to open their eyes to the misery of the masses, and to inquire more zealously as to the possibility of a better distribution of wealth.