New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-01-01
1.lh IN ANIERICA.

Inc year NllCD ms just CIUssu "P"" US '''V-e-'
So far as our domestic affairs are concerned, not
marked b. any events such as by mere contemporary
observers are estimated a. of the first class, may
stiu be set down as an historical year-still more
so in the Lew than in the old wOrld-a year that
Will hold distinguished place in our American an
mails. Ii cannot be doubted that with the reaction
the revul.on of feeling throughout the fEee North,
occasioned by the passage of the kansas-NeorasAa
bill great historical drama took its commence
ment in this country, compared with which even
that of our revolutionary struggle, great figure as
il makes not only in our history but in that OF the
world, will be esteemed by posterity as OF only
secondary mportance-little more indeed than
forerunner of greater things 10 come.
The great, the al-important question to us and
the world, upon the solution OF which we nave
now fairly entered, is no less than this: Is demo-
cratic government, based upon the acknowledge
ment of equal political and legal rights possible in
a wealthy, populous and wide-e1tended nation
Are the principles of democracy adequate IN such
a community 10 meet, encounter and put down the
principles of sristocracy-or is aristocracy, as
European statesmen pretend, sure, with the pro-
gress of wealth and population, to triumph over
and at last put down demOcracy-to drive it out
| and extinguish it
BY Democracy we understand Government adj
minstered according TO the views and IN the inter-
est of the mass of the people; by an Arlstocracy'
the government of a class, and of comparatively
small class. 1t is this class government, the con-
troll of the nation and its laws by comparatively
few. who esteem themselves better than their neigh
bors. and therefore entitled to govern them, that con-
sttutes the essence of aristocratcal government
however it may disguise itself under monarchlcal
forms, as in Great Britain, or under democratlcai
forms with us. 1t may base itself also upon quite
variety and even combination of class distinctions
blood, supposed supernatural priestly endowments,
wealth, military skill, bureaucratic skill, political
adrotness, all these combined; but Ii all these
cases still its essence is the same.
Our American Revolution is to be looked upon
under a double aspect-hrst as q mere revolt
against certain specific usurpations on the part OF
the mother country: secondly which gives it its
chief interest and historical importance-as re-
volt against the aristocratcal principles on which
the Government of the mother country and OF Eu-
rope generally was based and adminstered-prn.
ciples and practices which the ooionis'o "'u
brought with them from Great Britain, and which
at the time of the Revolution had become init
uateIy entwined with the whole system of colonial
institutions.
This revolution of principle, the substitution of
democracy for aristOcracy of course was not
thing TO be done in day. So far from that, it Is
net done yet, and it still remains query in many
minds if ever it will be. Those who hadupon their
hands the separation from the mother country the
establishment of independent Governments, State
and National, and the maintenance OF that separa-
ton by eight trying years of war and entangling
alliances, followed by nearly as many more OF pow
erty exhaustion and internal connections, could do
little as to the great and final object of the RevOu-
ton beyond the proclamation of general principles.
These they did proclaim in the broadcast terms, as
we'll in the national Declaration of Independence
as in the Bills of Rights generally prefxed to the
new State Constitutions.
Under the colonial laws aud Governments--apart
from the authority exercised over the Colonies by
the British Parliament and Ministry, which of course
came to an end with the Reyolution-the two points
in which the spirit Of aristocracy displayed itself
in the most open and unmistakabe manner, were
the existence in most of the Colonies OF State
churches, claiming exclusive privileges if not
monopoly of religious teaching and influence, and
the existence in all Of them to greater or less ex
tent of the institution of domestic Slavery. In
those two things, privileged church establishments
and domestic Slavery the fathers Of the Revolution
recognized two arstOcratical hydras, sure if left
uDdisturbed to swallow down the callow brood of
democracy-and accordingly, with characteristic
energy and bardihood, they assailed them with all
their might
Church establishments in the Southern States
had become comparatively unpopular, partly
through the influence Of atitudinariansm and
free thinking among the educated aud partly
through the upspringing of dissenting sects among
the poor; and throughout the Southern States the
democratic onslaught upon them, Jefferson and
Virginia taking the lead met with apparent sue
cess at a very early day. In NewEngland where
these establishments had strong bold on the
mass of the community, they maintained them
selves much longer They constituted in fact for
thirty years, the citadel Of the Federal party-till
very recently the only party in our politics that
ever openly protested anti-democratic ideas-and
it is to be noted that the final fall of the New
England Church establishments and of the Federal
party were almost simultaneous.
The other great obstacle in the way of American
democracy, the slayeholding system, had its chief
strength at the South. In Vermont and Massa-
chusets Slavery WAS abolished AT once In the 9th