upon them, and has remained the designation of that part of the House to this day. They agreed to ask me to become leader, and I determined, with the aid of the best men of our opinions, in and out of the House, to give the democratic party a definite creed.
I had come from a country experienced in political organisation, and had gained some repute there as an organiser, and I naturally aimed to turn this inorganic mass into a disciplined body. Party organisation has grievous drawbacks. It sometimes teaches men to stifle their consciences, and to prefer the interest of their faction to the interest of the country. But where there is not party the necessary alternative is apathy or corruption.
There was in this Opposition, as there is in every political Opposition, men to whom the main question was when they would arrive at office; but the whole connection was sincerely possessed of the convictions for which they contended. Their fundamental principles got gradually determined in private debates, and on the whole were not ungenerous or unjust. They believed democratic institutions were the natural organisation of a new country where something approaching social equality existed—that by opening the way to political success to men in humble position they influenced the character of a whole population. Every boy might hope to do what others starting from his standpoint had done, and the best of them would educate and train themselves to be able to do it effectually. None of them had any doubt that there must be a great extension of the suffrage, not so much on the ground of abstract right as from the conviction that in a community so constituted as ours the great creators of wealth could not be kept in a subject condition. The spirit of enterprise which led men to select such a pursuit as gold digging, and the sense of personal independence which it fostered, were guarantees that the mining constituencies would require, and were in a certain degree fitted to exercise this trust.
Among our confederates outside there were a few philosophical thinkers who sympathised with social equality, and formulated lofty ideas of public duty, but understood imperfectly what the people actually wanted. They dreamed
