The true Democrat., 1856-05-20

DERALIST-THE DEMOCRAT AND WHIG-THE
 DEMOCRAT AND KNOW NOTHING
 No. l.
 A truthful history of the political liberties of people will be found extremely interesting but it is the deeds of those people whose na- lures are brave and of long perseverng energy that furnish incidents which most excite our passions. Among such people the contest is carried on between parties whose natures are of the same unbending compositon-it is "Greek meeting Creek" The heroic deeds, the long suffering, the treachery, the acts of tyrants, the glorious deaths of devoted patrots-on the scaffod and on the battle field, and the thou sands of soul-stiring incidents that fill up the story-exhiblting through how much blood and toll the strongholds of oppression, one after another, have been gained forms, if faithfully portrayed, q deeply exciting subject The Eu- ropean races upon this continent and in Europe present to us noa0 every degree of advancement in the great struggle-from a condition of abso- lute sertdom up through every grade of pro- gression to the degree of olitical freedom en- joyed by the people of these United States which admits of no beyo,.d. Russia, Prussia, Spain, France, England, Switzerland and the land of the stars and stripes--some have just commenced the great drama-in others free dom has gained such strongholds, has so nearly sapped the foundations of tyranny that its ytcrnls merely tolerated, whilst here euen Me tormas have long since been blown to atoms
 The progress of our liberties may be compared to a river that has worked it's course from the smallest source, though all sorts of Instructions over large continent, widening its banks as it progressed until it reached the boundless ocean.
 We go back in time to that small beginning, when on the field of Runnymele, the monarch was compelled 10 admit the power of the class immediately outside the throne, to share with him the government of the country From that period down, 1t is the history of the struggles by which the various classes of society obtain ed admission to participate in the right of go- verniug, until at length, Aeye such is the mag nitude of the popular victory-that d perfect equality, an1ong aNc classes in the sovereign right to rule the country, is the constitutional law of the land.
 But the great elementary principles which underlie the several conditions of society and upon which these conditions grow and flourish, are neUeF destroyed the germ always remains, 1t is only the development that is mastered and sub dued, and 1t is hy virtue of uuwearied "yigi- lance" that the suhjection is continued. Mea- sures of policy change with the circumstances and peculiar condition of the country that gave them birth, but principles, whether democratic or antl-drmoCratic, are always the same. In Greece or in Rome or in the United States-in England or in Span democracy drives at one consumnation, to place every man upon poll tical equality, to make Me people the source of all political power. The antagonsm of demo- cracy seeks to make men unequal in the enjoy ment of political rights Where democracy has made smaaN progress its antagonist, under some name or other, strives to limit all power to the hands of the monarch; where it has made greater progress the enemy's effort is to contine political power to the king and nobility, and where democracy has made its q1tqtest pro- gross, os hee, the opposing aim is to clog and crip- pie, under some plausiJ(e pretext or other, the constitutional right of large classes of society to control, upon an equal footing, with the rest of the citizens, the policy of the government
 HAMPDEN.