The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-26 00:00:00

AMERICAN REPIFBLICAN-DEMOCRAT.

(From the Times.)
Among other important results of the late Pre-
sidential election in the United States may be
ranked the fusion into two opposite camps of all
the previous existing divisions of parties. The
American Republic now possesses what for many
years England possessed, and now can show no
longer—two parties differing not merely in name
but in principles, and sworn to strive to the utter-
most on an issue the most momentous that can
stimulate the passions or enlist the sympathies of
the human mind. The smallness of the number of
votes for Fillmore most convincingly proved how
completely the old Whig and Know-nothing parties
had been pulverised and destroyed in the shock of
conflicting opinions which the great Presidential
conflict has called forth. The conduct of the
Whigs during the recent election is such as to re-
mind us:very forcibly of that of the Peelite party
iu our own House of Commons. Both had, in
some degree, lost the confidence of the public by
an affectation of superior refinement ill-calculated
to win on public sympathy, and each had an op-
portunity of retrieving its position—the one by
supporting public feeling in favour of the war, and
the other by placing itself at the head of the popu-
lar excitement against the extension of slavery
.in
Kansas. Both American Whig and English Peehte
were wanting to their destiny. The opportunity
has passed them by, and they must wait, probably
in vain, for the recurrence of another occasion, and.
. undergo in the meanwhile the disintegration which
never fails to operate rapidly on successful politi-
cal parties. The Know-nothings, a party founded
on a secret organisation, and professing principles
adverse to that free emigration to which America
owes her wealth, her population, and her public
.works—have also been annihilated, and American
history henceforth will probably know bu t two parties
—the Republicans of the North and the Democrats
of the South. In such a case names go for very little,
and the most popular is scrambled for and adopted
without the slightest reference to the principles or
professions of the party that fight under it. The
word " Republican" only pledges to a republican
form of government, which may be either oligarchic
or democratic, while the term " Democrat" means
a Republican free from all oligarchical taint. The
first is generic, and properly includes both parties ;
the second is specific, and, properly understood,
excludes the oligarchy of the South, who have suc-
ceeded in pre-occupying the name and applying it
to themselves. If "Whig" and " Tory" be a per-
petuation of the barbarous slang of obscure factions,
" Democrat" and "Republican" are a standing
monument of the confusion of ideas so apt to wait
on vehement party excitement.
The Republican party may be said at present to
be confined to the Northern States of the Union.
Those who, in spite of the terrorii,m of the South,
dare to dissent from the shibboleth prescribed to
them generally arrange themselves under the now
obsolete name of Whig or Know-nothing, and the
rise of a Republican party south of Mason and
Dixon's line is a phenomenon yet far distant.
This local circumspection has been employed in
the late contest to fasten on the Republicans the
charge of " sectionalism," a word of undefined
meaning, the import of which iu controversy is
destroyed as soon as it is paraphrased. If "section-
alism" means that the opinion is confined to a par-
ticular' part of the Union the Republicans are
sectionalists. If " sectionalism" means opinions
arising from narrow local and personal views, in
which sense alone it is a term of reproach, then it
is the South, and not the North, the Democrats,
and not the Republicans, that are sectionalists.
The one tenet of the Republican party is resist-
ance to the extension of slavery. It has sprung
into existence to meet a particular emergency,
and has not yet either formulated its principles
or regulated its internal discipline, two defects
to which it principally owes its recent defeat.
But it is too numerous and too enthusiastic, too
firmly convinced of the justice of its cause, and too
confident in ultimate victory, to he disheartened by
such a result, and it is not unreasonable to expect
that it will acquire in the coming struggle that
confidence in itself, that coherence, and that disci-
pline which, whether in the Capitol at Washington
or on some future field of battle, will enable it to
do justice to its cause and its convictions. Growth
and increase are on the side of the North, and if
the South is to counteract them it must be by a
succession of manoeuvres such as that which has
Just se signally succeeded, each of which will be-
come at once more perilous to the North, and
more certain to exalt the exasperation of its
inhabitants and promote their union and their
energy.
The position of the South is at this moment a
very peculiar one. For the 45 years preceding
1854 its attitude was that of men content to re-
main on the defensive, and satisfied to forego the
increase of their territory towards the North in
consideration of being allowed full scope for their
operations towards the South and South-west.
Such an attitude was thoroughly consistent with
the maintenance of the Union and the preservation
of slavery from all attacks on the part of the Fede-
ral Government. Bat the North was growing
apace, and it was felt that the unprecedented pie
press of the North in population rendered the trans-
ference of supreme power into its hands only a ques-
tion of time, and in 1854 Congress destroyed this
wise and statesmanlike compromise on the motion of
Mr. Douglas, of Illinois. From this moment the
whole career and politics of the South were altered.
Disdaining, and, indeed, openly violating former
compacts and agreements, the Southern party de-
termined to take advantage to the utmost of the
predominance which they possessed, and, by a
series of bold and. well-combined manoeuvres, to
preserve the balance of the Constitution still in
their favour. The strength of the South rests on
technical and artificial advantages arising from
the letter of the Constitution. The strength of
the North is in its wealth, its population,
and its industry, advantages which the Constitu-
tion did not give, and which its abrogation will
not take away. When the contest, therefore, has
reached its ultimate conditions, the South will find
in the Constitution a shield, and the North an ob-
stacle, and the positions of the two parties with re-
spect to it are therefore likely to be reversed. The
South is embarked in a career in which it cannot
stop. It has scorned compromise, and boldly aims
at supremacy. The point must be reached at last
at which the North will concede no further, and it
will then be seen if the Constitution is strong
enough to restrain the furious antipathies hitherto
content to fight within its limits.