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Fascism should more
properly be called corporatism since it is
the merger of
state and corporate power

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales left open the possibility yesterday that President Bush could order warrantless wiretaps on telephone calls occurring solely within the United States -- a move that would dramatically expand the reach of a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.

In response to a question from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales suggested that the administration could decide it was legal to listen in on a domestic call without supervision if it were related to al-Qaeda.

In the past, Gonzales and other officials refused to say whether they had the legal authority to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on domestic calls, and have stressed that the NSA eavesdropping program is focused only on international communications.

In December of 2005, the press revealed that the government had instituted a comprehensive and warrantless electronic surveillance program that ignored the careful safeguards set forth by Congress. This surveillance program, purportedly authorized by the President at least as early as 2001 and primarily undertaken by the NSA, intercepts and analyzes the communications of millions of ordinary Americans.

In the largest "fishing expedition" ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to "data-mine" the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers, and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and emailing whom in order to identify persons who may be "linked" to "suspicious activities", suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly.

But the government did not act-and is not acting-alone. The government requires the collaboration of major telecommunications companies to implement its unprecedented and illegal domestic spying program.

AT&T Corp. (which was recently acquired by the new AT&T, Inc,. formerly known as SBC Communications) maintains domestic telecommunications facilities over which millions of Americans' telephone and Internet communications pass every day. It also manages some of the largest databases in the world, containing records of most or all communications made through its myriad telecommunications services.

The lawsuit alleges that AT&T Corp. has opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and/or other government agencies, thereby disclosing to the government the contents of its customers' communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers, including the lawsuit's class members.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T has given the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte "Daytona" database of caller information -- one of the largest databases in the world. Moreover, by opening its network and databases to wholesale surveillance by the NSA, EFF alleges that AT&T has violated the privacy of its customers and the people they call and email, as well as broken longstanding communications privacy laws.

“[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the [I]nternet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents, such as “reoccurring instigators at protests” or “vehicle descriptions.”

Two years ago, the Defense Department directed a little known agency, Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, to establish and “maintain a domestic law enforcement database that includes information related to potential terrorist threats directed against the Department of Defense.” Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz also established a new reporting mechanism known as a TALON or Threat and Local Observation Notice report. TALONs now provide “non-validated domestic threat information” from military units throughout the United States that are collected and retained in a CIFA database.

CIFA is becoming the superpower of data mining within the U.S. national security community. Its “operational and analytical records” include “reports of investigation, collection reports, statements of individuals, affidavits, correspondence, and other documentation pertaining to investigative or analytical efforts” by the DOD and other U.S. government agencies to identify terrorist and other threats. Since March 2004, CIFA has awarded at least $33 million in contracts to corporate giants Lockheed Martin, Unisys Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation and Northrop Grumman to develop databases that comb through classified and unclassified government data, commercial information and Internet chatter to help sniff out terrorists, saboteurs and spies.

In yesterday's testimony, Gonzales reiterated earlier hints that there may be another facet to the NSA program that has not been revealed publicly, or even another program that has prompted dissension within the government. While acknowledging disagreements among officials over the monitoring efforts, Gonzales disputed published reports that have detailed the arguments.

"They did not relate to the program the president disclosed," Gonzales testified. "They related to something else, and I can't get into that."

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.” [Speech at CIA, 4/26/99]

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.

And so I welcome the investigation. I -- I'm absolutely confident that the Justice Department will do a very good job. There's a special division of career Justice Department officials who are tasked with doing this kind of work; they have done this kind of work before in Washington this year. I have told our administration, people in my administration to be fully cooperative.

I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business.

Libby, 55, testified in 2003 that he provided reporter Judith Miller with information from a classified National Intelligence Estimate after being told by Cheney that Bush "specifically had authorized" him to "disclose certain information in the NIE." Libby also testified that Cheney specifically directed him to speak to other reporters about information in the classified NIE (which addressed Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction programs) as well as a cable authored by Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. The leaking of the classified material was apparently done in an effort to counter claims made by Wilson regarding the White House's justification for invading Iraq. The Fitzgerald filing also notes that Libby told grand jurors that he conferred with David Addington, Cheney's counsel, about the leak directive and that Addington told him "that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

For months before taking his second oath of office, the resolute Mr. Bush has done exactly what he promised he would. He has raced full-throttle to expand his Middle East Crusade, this time against Iran, number two on his Axis of Evil.

As many of us in the chattering classes have long warned, and as Sy Hersh reports in this week's New Yorker, the president is already marching to war.

"The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer," Hersh writes. "Much of the focus is on the accumulation of intelligence and targeting information on Iranian nuclear, chemical, and missile sites, both declared and suspected."

"The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids."

As one of his sources told Hersh, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."

Perhaps as early as his State of the Union address, Mr. Bush will promote this pre-emptive attack as the cutting edge of his "War on Terror." In fact, he knows that Iran and its Ayatollahs had nothing to do with 9/11. But neither did Saddam Hussein.

From a year ago, April:

As the United States gears up for an attack on Iran, one thing is certain: the Bush administration will never mention oil as a reason for going to war. As in the case of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will be cited as the principal justification for an American assault. "We will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon [by Iran]," is the way President Bush put it in a much-quoted 2003 statement. But just as the failure to discover illicit weapons in Iraq undermined the administration's use of WMD as the paramount reason for its invasion, so its claim that an attack on Iran would be justified because of its alleged nuclear potential should invite widespread skepticism. More important, any serious assessment of Iran's strategic importance to the United States should focus on its role in the global energy equation.

Shortly after 9/11, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith began coordinating Pentagon planning for an invasion of Iraq. The challenge facing Feith, the No. 3 civilian in the Defense Department, was to establish a policy rationale for the attack. At the same time, Feith's ideological cohorts in the Pentagon began planning to take the administration's "global war on terrorism:' not only to Baghdad, but also to Damascus and Tehran.

In August it was revealed that one of Feith's Middle East policy wonks, Lawrence Franklin, shared classified documents-including a draft National Security Presidential Directive formulated in Feith's office that outlines a more aggressive US. national security strategy regarding Iran-with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Israeli officials. The FBI is investigating the document transfer as a case of espionage.

This spy scandal raises two concerns for US. diplomats and foreign policy experts from across the political spectrum. One, that US. Middle East policy is being directed by neoconservative ideologues variously employed, coordinated or sanctioned by Feith's Pentagon office. And two, that US. Middle East policy is too closely aligned with that of Israeli hardliners close to US. neoconservatives.

Feith is joined in reshaping a U.S. foreign Middle East policy-one that mirrors or complements the policies of the hardliners in Israel-by a web of neoconservative policy institutes, pressure groups and think tanks. These include the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), Center for Security Policy (CSP) and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA)-all groups with which Feith has been or still is closely associated.

First Iraq, now Iran

In the months after 9/11, rather than relying on the CIA, State Department or the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency for intelligence about Iraq's ties to international terrorists and its development of weapons of mass destruction, neoconservatives in the Pentagon set up a special intelligence shop called the Office of Special Plans (OSP). The founders, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Feith, are fervent advocates of a regional restructuring in the

Middle East that includes regime change in Iran, Syria and, ultimately, Saudi Arabia.

BERLIN (AFX) - Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear program, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reported in its latest edition, citing Western security sources.

It says that during the Haj pilgrimages to Mecca in 2003 through 2005, Pakistani scientists posed as pilgrims to come to Saudi Arabia.

Between October 2004 and January 2005, some of them slipped off from pilgrimages, sometimes for up to three weeks, the report quoted German security expert Udo Ulfkotte as saying.

According to Western security services, the magazine added, Saudi scientists have been working since the mid-1990s in Pakistan, a nuclear power since 1998.

Cicero, which will appear on newstands tomorrow, also quoted a US military analyst, John Pike, as saying that Saudi bar codes can be found on half of Pakistan's nuclear weapons 'because it is Saudi Arabia which ultimately co-financed the Pakistani atomic nuclear program.'

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

Senator Russell D. Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who proposed the censure motion and is considering a 2008 presidential run, argued that the Bush administration's insistence that it needed no Congressional approval for its wiretapping program implied that "we no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government; we have a monarchy.""If we in the Congress don't stand up for ourselves and for the American people, we become complicit in the lawbreaking," Mr. Feingold said.

"Wartime is not a time to weaken the commander in chief,"

In short, impeachment trials require Senators to act, wherever possible, with principled political neutrality. One question I have repeatedly asked myself during this scandal - when faced with questions concerning the interpretation of the relevant law, the process, the calls for resignation, or forgiveness - has been whether I would have taken the same position were this a Republican President. I have done this throughout the past year and I expect many of my colleagues have done the same.

Of great concern to me is what the standard should be for impeachment in this and future trials. The President's Counsel has argued that the President can only be removed for constituting, what Oliver Wendell Holmes termed in free speech cases, a "clear and present danger." It was contended that a President can only be removed if he is a danger to the Constitution. As such, according to the President's Counsel, removable conduct must relate to egregious conduct related to performance in office. Even if the House's allegation -- that President Clinton committed acts of perjury and obstruction of justice is proven true -- it was argued -- than such behavior does not rise to impeachable offenses because it was private, not public, conduct. In this case an inappropriate sexual relation with a subordinate employee -- was the predicate of the charged offenses.

But such a standard establishes an impossibly high bar as to render impotent the impeachment clauses of the Constitution. I hope that no matter the outcome of this trial, President Clinton's view of what constitutes an impeachable offense does not become precedent. If it does, I fear the moral framework of our Republic will be frayed. If it does, the legitimacy of our institutions may very well become tattered. It would create the paradox of being able to convict and jail an official for committing, let's say, homicide, but not to be able to remove that official from holding positions of public trust.Committing crimes of moral turpitude, such as perjury and obstruction of justice, go to the very heart of qualification for public office.

The overwhelming consensus of both legal and historical scholars is that the Constitution mandates the removal of the "President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States" -- which includes federal judges -- "upon impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate of "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors." (U.S. Const. Art. II. Sec. 4). The precise meaning of this latter clause is critical to the outcome of the impeachment trial.

The President's advocates agree with their critics that this standard is the sole standard for presidential impeachment, but contend that the "or other" phrase indicates that grounds for impeachment must be criminal in nature because treason and bribery are crimes or acts committed against the state.

Such crimes or acts must be heinous, they contend, because the term "crimes and misdemeanors" is preceded by the descriptive adjective "high" in the impeachment clause. These advocates also claim that there exists no proof of criminal wrongdoing, that we have evidence of only a private affair unrelated to performance in public office, and that abuse of power related to official conduct -- not present here -- is a prerequisite for impeachment.

Many learned scholars oppose this view. Looking at the debates in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, they note that the Convention originally chose treason and bribery as the sole standard for impeachment. George Mason argued that this standard was too stringent and advocated that "maladministration" be added to the list. James Madison objected, believing that no coherent definition of "maladministration" existed and that such a lenient standard would make the President a pawn of the Senate. The Convention, as a result, settled on the phrase "treason, bribery or other high crime or misdemeanor." It is clear that the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" was considered by the Framers to have a more narrow and specific meaning and, indeed, it is a term taken from English precedent.

Accordingly, many scholars, including Raoul Berger, the dean of impeachment scholars (Impeachment: the Constitutional Problems (1973) ), contend that the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" is a common law term of art that reaches both private and public behavior. Treason and bribery are acts that harm society in that they constitute a corruption on the body politic. Consequently, "other high crimes and misdemeanors" encompasses similar acts of corruption or betrayals of trust, and need not constitute formal crimes. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 65 makes clear that impeachment is political, not criminal, in nature and reaches conduct that goes to reputation and character. In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries the term "misdemeanor" refers not to a petty crime, but to bad demeanor.

History thus demonstrates that acts or conduct that demeans the integrity of the office, or harms an individual's reputation in such a way as to engender a lack of public confidence in the office holder or the political system is an impeachable offense. Justice Joseph Story, in his celebrated Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 762 (1835), made this abundantly clear when he wrote that impeachment lies for private behavior that harms the society or demeans its institutions:

In the first place, the nature of the functions to be performed: The offences, to which the power of impeachment has been, and is ordinarily applied, as a remedy, are of a political character. Not but that crimes of a strictly legal character fall within the scope of the power, (for, as we shall presently see, treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors are expressly within it;) but that it has a more enlarged operation, and reaches, what are aptly termed, political offences, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests, in the discharge of the duties of political office.

Even though the Framers rejected the English model of impeachment as a form of punishment and promulgated removal as the remedy for conviction, most scholars contend that the Framers looked to English precedent to define "high crimes and misdemeanors." There is a wealth of evidence that a betrayal of public trust or reckless conduct that places a high office in disrepute constitutes "high misdemeanors." The modifier "high" refers to acts against the state or commonwealth. In the eighteenth century, the term "political" also encompassed our modern term of "social." So conduct that harmed society as a whole, or denigrated the public respect and confidence in governmental institutions, constituted "high crimes and misdemeanors."

As such, both English and American officials have been impeached for drunkenness, for frequenting prostitutes, even for insanity, in other words private conduct that is unrelated to official acts. Such behavior is seen as defaming the office that the accused held and diminishing the people's faith in government. Impeachment is thus seen by many scholars as a means of removing unqualified office holders.

Thus, impeachment and removal does not have to be predicated upon commission of a crime. Consequently, impeachment and removal is not in essentially a criminal punishment, a conclusion that is also textually demonstrated by the fact that the Framers expressly provided for later indictment and criminal conviction of an impeached and removed President.

A high crime and misdemeanor -- according to this view -- does not have to amount to a crime or be related to official conduct. Even if President Clinton's acts of perjury were predicated upon lying about a private sexual relation, they still must be considered high crimes and misdemeanors. The fact that the underlying behavior was private in its genesis is irrelevant. Such private acts demean the Office of the President, and betray public trust. Those acts therefore are impeachable.

But I must emphasize that even if the President's Counsel is correct in that private acts unrelated to performance in office are not impeachable offenses, I believe the gravamen of what President Clinton committed are public, not private, acts that are unambiguous breaches of public trust. Perjury and particularly obstruction of justice are conduct that attack the very veracity of our justice system. (Furthermore, I vehemently disagree that the underlying conduct was a purely private concern because the conduct involved a federal employee in a work environment).

Lying under oath, hiding evidence, and tampering with witnesses destroy the truth-finding function of our investigatory and trial system. Perjury and obstruction of justice are particularly pernicious if committed by a President of the United States, who has sworn pursuant to the oath of office to protect the Constitution and laws of the United States. Whether perjury and obstruction of justice can be considered private or public acts is of no moment. They are twin "high crimes" harming the political order and requiring impeachment and removal from office.

A related argument made by the President's Counsel is that a President should be held to a less stringent standard than federal judges in impeachment trials. Because many judges have been removed for conduct unrelated to performance in office, such as Judges Claiborne and Nixon, who were convicted and removed for perjurious statements unrelated to their performance in office, the President is almost compelled to make this argument.

In essence, The President's Counsel contend that Article III's requirement that judges hold office for "good behavior" is not simply a description of the term of office, but a grounds for impeachment if violated. Presidents -- and other civil officers -- are subject to the more stringent high crimes and misdemeanor standard.

Most scholars reject this view. For instance, Michael J. Gerhardt (The Federal Impeachment Process(1996)) testified in the House Constitutional Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee in November that the impeachment standard of high crimes and misdemeanors applies to all civil officers, including judges as well as the President. This is the sole constitutional ground for impeachment. Article III's good behavior provision for judges simply sets the duration for judicial office (lifetime unless impeached). There are simply no differing standards for judges and the President.

06/12/05 "The Times" - - MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

Manning wrote, "The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin."

Both acknowledged that no WMDs had been found in Iraq. Bush raised the possibility of provoking a confrontation with Saddam Hussein. One idea he proposed was placing UN colors on an American U-2 spy plane that would fly over Iraq and draw fire from Iraqi forces. Bush also discussed the possibility of assassinating Saddam Hussein.

Bush did say that he would help Blair win a second UN resolution--and "would twist arms and even threaten," as the memo put it--but that if that effort failed he would still invade Iraq.

Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.c

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged.