The Portland daily press., 1865-07-11
A "REMINISCENCES OF oLDnr POLL

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A "REMINISCENCES OF oLDEN POLL
a3iss TICS wnUOnO9sT
People of the present generation, who have
shared in the excitements occasioned by the
modern organizations of "Black Republicans"
and sCopperheads," or the preceding "WhigsY
and Democrats, can hardly realize the in
tense, nay dangerous hostilities of the original
parties Of "Federalistsp and Republicans All
The excitement produced by the Non-lnter-
course, Embargo and War measures OF Jener-
son and Madison, from 1907 to 1873, can hard
" be conceived by men Of the present day. It
not only brought voters IN angry conflict at the
ballot-box, but in many cases put up a bar
against the religious fellowship of whole sects
like the Congregationalists and Baptists, which
took opposite political grounds, and even de-
stroyed social intercourse and personal friend
ships. If there was one earnest prayer Of
my heart in those times, it was, that might
live to see the day, (which never expected to
be blest with the sightof) when, the terrible
lines of demarkation erected between Federal
lists and Republicans, might pass away, and
our citizens and their families might meet and
associate together free from the bitterness of
partisan hatred. Itseemed as if the hostility
was as inbred and infexible, as the national
dislikes ofEnglishmen and Erenchmen Indeed
the politics of those times partook strongly of
British and Gallician influences. In the Revo-
luton led by the First Napoleon, Washington
had issued his Neutrality Proclamation, which
was offensive to Mr. Jefferson, who was menu
Der of his cabinet, and who took occasion
therefrom to make much political capital out
of it in his own favor, against the existing adj
ministration. France, he said, had been our
friend, and we now must be hers; England
was our old enemy, and we owed her a grudge
now to be gratifed. Washington said the war
with England was over, and we need not now
cherish sentiments Of hostility towards the
mother land. France favored us in the Revolu-
ton only from interested motives, and we were
not now IN condition to help her Directory ID
its war with Great Britain. Perhaps it was
upon this point, more than upon the earlier
question of q Federal or Confederate Consti-
tuition, that the two parties arose or at least
this was the point on which they madly split
pending the election Of the Federal President
Adams The foreign policy Of his successful
rival, Mr.. Jefferson, was represented BY the
Federalists, as a French policy, instigated by
Bonaparte, whose tool Jefferson was, with a
view to involve us in his quarrels with England.
Opposition to this policy was alleged by the
Republicans, as friendship for England, and as
old Toryism revived in America Thus the
parties had it-one as French Jacobin, and
the other as an English Tory party; and there
was too much truth in the mutual examinations.
No doubt the Federalists felt the force of the
administration measures the Non Inter-
course, Embargo and War of 1912, very severely
especially did they bear hard upon New Eng
land whose commercial prosperity had been
great under Washington and Adams, but which
came to fatal end under Jefferson and Mad.
ison; New England then wasmostIg engaged
in commerce and navigation, and the Restric-
tive measures soon brought her people 10 see
the ships rotting at our wharvessour cities and
towns grown over to grass, and the people
generally suffering vastly more thauthe North
has suffered during the late civitwar.
This state Of things produced deadly hos
tility to the National Administrations hostil-
ty that, by means of the Hartford Convention,
might have produced a secession earlier than
that lately attempted by South Carolina. This
hostility became not only political, but person
al. Federalists and Republicans could hardly
associate together In the ordinary relations Of