Eastern times., 1856-04-10
The Democratic Party as it is.

1
history, and to see how parties now stand, and
how differently individuals are affected TO-
wards them. We are led to this from the re-
marks which are now and then made by a few
disappointed, restless persons who have for
saken their old associations and are not con-
tented with their new alliance. "Ah - say
they, "if we could have the old democratic
party, all would be right and we should be
with you; !" they then will urge that the par
ty has sadly changed, and are always ready
10 assert that the party has left them, and not
they the party. Such cant is no less amusing
than it is ridiculous, for If you note these
men. YOU will at once discover that their po-
li,ical ties extend no farther than self; that
when some party patronage has been stopped,
or some political aspirations blighted, or in
palmer terms, when they did not succeed, then
parties had wonderfully changed, and the old
party had left them out in the cold. To such
men we would put the question, in what man
ner has the democratic party changed /! II we
read history correctly, we end that party the
same to-day as it was under the guidance OF
Jefferson. II is the same party which elected
Madison and stood by the country during his
administration, and has continued the same
through all the successive administrations 10
the present. 1t embodies the same great and
fundamental principles now that /; ever has
1t is true that it is party of progress, 1t ac-
complishes ends and enunciates new political
theories, but they are always democratic, con-
stitutional and national. The issues which
were raised during the administration of Jack
son have ceased TO be agitated, and it is now
universally acknowledged that the principles
which then constituted the democratic plat
form were correct, and all parties have acced-
ed to them. Other measures have from time
to time been advanced, discussed and opposed,
but have prevailed. They are not really new
principles, but the position of affairs, or the
exIgencies of the times presented them in diff
ferent forms. 1t would be quite ridiculous 10
assert that the democratic party of the present
is not the same as it was ten or twenty years
since, because it does not denounce or sustain
the same measures or questions that it then
did. Would it not be absurd TO censure the
administration because it does not oppose the
National Bank, or approve the former favor
ite measures of the party, which have long
since been acknowledged TO be sound, and
ceased 10 be discussed.
The measures of the present administration
are as purely democratic as those of any for
mer one. Had the occasion required it, We
should have found "Old Hickory sustaining
them with his iron will no less firmly than has
Franklin Pierce. The Kansas-Nebraska act
would have met the approval and sanction Of
any democratic administration, and lis oppos-
ers, though shielded by the fact that they had
once voted the democratic ticket, would have
called down upon them the ire of Andrew
jackson, full as vehemently as did the friends
of the Bank, foe the abstract principles en-
braced in that bill have time and again been
passed upon, and endorsed by the democratic
party. Then what is there of difference in
the party of the present, and of former years.
We take the administration for our exponent,
and we could have no better, and challenge
any one TO join the issue.
We say that the democratic party now oc
eupies the same broad platform that it has ever
stood upon, that in it there has been ''no
change or shadow of turning" that it is the
same party, which, resting upon the constilu-
tion, has stood by the country and made it
what it is.
Those few discontented. restless persons
who are wont 10 find fault with it, never were
democrats they were always sectionalists of
the most limited description. Their section
allsm is not even broad enough to be confined
to the North or the South-it extends no
farther than the narrow compass of self.