Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1853-11-23
A RECURRENCE TO FIRST
PRINCIPLES.


principles from which their conduct results.
They form habits, they indulge those habits,
and lose sight of their origin. Political parties
are apt to fall into this orgetfulness thanin
dividuals Psychologists tell us that men change
and are renewed every seven years; that in
flesh, blood, bones, and indeed in all the mate
rial elements that make the physical man, they
are entirely distinct from the persons they
were seven years before. This results from
law Of nature. They look the same they have
the same name, the same principles of action,
but they are essentially different persons.
This is also often true of political parties.
If they remain unchanged for seven years if
they maintain the same principles, the same
theories of government, and advocate the same
systems and measures of public policy, they
are not only consistent, but they must be vir-
tuous.
In oil the triumphs and disasters through
which they have passed-in JOY and in sorrow
through good and evil report, we are proud
to say that the great democratic party of the
country, has kept the faith, pure and untainted
1t holds the same principles now that it held at
first. It's Interpretation Of the Constitution has
not changed one jot or title. Its love of pop
ular liberty has not abated in the least. Its
sympathy with all honest efforts to affirm and
establish the rights of man, is as sincere now,
as it was the first day of its existence. In the
lapse of seven years it is unaffected. Seventy
times seven years may pass by, and we hope it
will still remain the same. 1t has now the
same characteristics, the same spirit, even the
same name that it had at first.
True, there are some differences between
what it is now, and what it was when first
ushered into existence-but they are such diff
ferences as exist between the pulling infant and
the lusty boy, the impulsive youth and the ma
tured man. The principles are the same the
sympathies the same the instincts the same
but new necessities, new wants develope them
selves, and there must be an expansive provi
dence and capacious policy for every devel-
opement and for every exigency In fact, it
cannot strictly be said that there is any differ
ence at all, since the principles applied to a
new state of facts, are the same principles that
have all along been applied.
There are many differences between the
democratic and the whig parties. Their in
stincts and sympathies vary as widely as their
principles These differences lead to conflicts
between them on questions of policy, not in
volving abstract constitutional principles.
But TO simplify as much as possible-the
great radical fundamental difference between
the two parties is this. The democracy regard
government as a necessity, the wings regard it
as positive disideratum. The democracy, re-
garding it as a necessity, would limit it as
much as possible. They would deprive indi-
viduals only Of such powers and such natural
rights as are requisite to good government.
The wings, on the contrary, regarding govern
ment as disideratum, would make it as strong
as possible. They look more to the govern
ment than to the individual. They look more
to the whole, as unit, than to the individuals
composing that whole.
In word, the democrats would abridge the
rights, the privileges, the natural liberties of
individuals, as little as possible. The wings
would make the government as strong as pos.
sible.
The democrats would make constitutions and
laws that would leave men free and untram-
meled, where they could be so left with safety
These constitutions and laws being thus made
democrats would construe them strictly, but
honestly. They would not give by construc-
ton what was literally denied. For to estab-
ish a latitudinous construction of charters, is
to incorporate in and add to those charters
new powers, not originally intended to be given.
When powers not natural are conferred, the
construction of the terms used, where there is
obscurity and doubt, should rather be in favor
OF the limit, than the extension of them. This
view explains what to some has appeared sim
gular, that most of the measures of public
policy proposed, have come from our opponents
They look upon the government as a parent
They expect it to provide by Legislative enact
ments for everything. They would neutralize
private enterprise-they would cramp private
energy. In word, their policy, if pursued,
would emasculate, enervate and paralyze the
individual, in order to make the government
strong.
In making constitutions and laws, they would
make them as strong as possible, and as hume.
rous as possible. In constituting them, they
would be for stretching, rather than combining
them. Under what they call the spirit of the
Constitution and laws, they would concede
powers never intended-never dreamed of.
Indeed, their mode of construction introduces a
new system that absolutely rises superior to
the instruments on which questions of con-
struction arise
The wars and conflicts that have taken place
have been between these two parties But in
the last conflict the democracy gained signal
and unprecedented victory.
1t is by the popularity of their principles that
parties must succeed in free country. It was
by the popularity of their principles that the
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