The true Democrat., 1856-06-17

DEMOCRAT AND KNOW NOTHING.
 No. ".
 The constitution set at rest or was intended to set at rest for ever, in the UateR States, all those great questions respecting political liberty which had, for the previous century, divided the Anglo saxon family into the whig and tory parties. It was the final judgment, rendered by the people, after full hearing of all the arguments on both sides for upwards of hun dred years. There is no principle of political llberty-civil or relig gious-which the people of the United States have. in the constitution, de- clared to be inalienable rights of the citizens, but what hai been in controversy between the whg and tory parties; but. notwithstanding such was the fact, we must bear in mind, as before ntimated, that laws however solemnly enacted can never root up those human passions upon which liberty and oppression grow and hourish-the progress of the age cultivates their developments and gives them character somewhere between the extremes of barbarity and refinement. Religion may no longer fear faggot the prison or the whipping post-the advocates of liberty no longer fear the scaffold and the block. Biggots, tyrannical citizens or ignorant fanatcal politicians of to-day may no longer demand for these supposed evils such extreme remedies as did their predecessors but like their predecessors they would be as op pressive as the times will permit Our political parties undergo a cultivation good deal like some of our vegetables. The novice would scarcely believe that the bulky cabbage e-head is the lineal descendant of q worthless looking know upon an exhibition of the two extremes, that from such mean ancestor a descendant could be brought to such degree of t0lerabltlty, yet it is even go; and whether drum-head or early york be the specimen, or specimen which 1 French chemical art has brought out with blue and yellow leaves-the botanist would find but little difficulty in detecting its true character. It is so with toryism-the progress of the times has driven it to a considerable state of cutiva- 1 ton, notwithstanding its name may be changed with every revolution, and be popularized with every fashionable decoration-the intelligent politician, like the botanist in the cabbage case, will not fail upon close inspection to detect its true nature.
 | There are two great fields of action upon either of which a man may distinguish him. self in the estimation of his countryman as c patriot, defending the independence Of his country against foreign enemies or defending the liberties of the people against domestic op- pression. Some of the greatest aristocratS have ranke ed high among the first named class of pa triots-men who have given their lives and 1 their fortunes in the defence of their country, but upon this account, 1t by no means follows, that they had in their veins one drop of demo- cratic or republican blood. The revolution of 1776, and the great political events that trans- pred few years afterwards produced many distinguished patriots of both classes. The po- ltical questions that divided the whig and tory parties before the revolution were absorbed by tie question of colonial dependence-upon that issue most of the tories fell into the whig ranks-suspending all other political contests until the great struggle for national independ- ence had terminated.
 From the nature of the case these two great parties never did nor ever can hold any other than c relative position towards each other governed by the particular issues of the day. The precise point betwixt the two extremes of democracy and ant-democracy. of separation between the two parties, must depend upon the position first takeu by either and the pro- gressive state of the cause. In the revolution, the distance from the ultimatum of democracy to the line of separation formed by the issue, between the whigs and tories, aoas uery qreat- upon such an extensive platform a tory of Charles the hrst's reign could have stood with out surrendering monarchial principle. The most radical democrat and the monarchist fought shoulder to shouder-aaot for the politi. cal rights of the people, but for the freedom of the nation Whig and tory being the names that the people had been used to, by which to designate the two parties in the great contest
 for political freedom--they naturally enough
 continued them through the revolution, and a:
 appropriately as ever; but from the peculiar na
 ture of the issue, and the terrible character O 3 the contest-the name tory became so odiou l that those who advocated arbitrary principles o 2 government could no more afford to rally un der it-the last tory measure gave it such ; thick coat of black that it was banished fo
 ever from the political vocabulary in the United
 States; in England however, where the revolu tion did not have SO disasterous an effect upor it-it continued 10 be used, and the war fol