Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-08-03
The journal EuIOai aizes the Oid


Federal party and, secondly, OF, course, to
abuse>of the Democratic party. 1nNpraise
of old fashioned Federalism, it says:
'.The old Federal party, in its earlier and
better days, counted among its numbers
the brightest intellects and the,purest pat
riots of the revolutionary era; the Federal
Constitution is, mainly, the work OF its
| hands; it ordained, established, adminls-
tered and consolidated the Government of
the United States; restored the finances; ;
fostered industry and commerce laid the
foundations of public and private credit
and prosperity upon an enduring basis, and
completed the work of the fathers by Civ
ing to the young nation its real indepen7
dence, not only of Great Britain, but of all
foreign powers: 1t is the glory of the Fed
eral party to have done all these things
For these purposes the party was organ
lied tor these ends it labored /; and so COM
plete was its success, that after it had ad-
ministered the Government twelve years,
the great chief of the opposition, Thomas
Jefferson, whom chosen President, said in
his inaugural address-'We are all Feder-
alists.'"
Mr.. JEFFERSON, in his Inaugural address,
said no. such thing. In,
The old Federal party, thus praised, had
for itsplatform of principles, strong Gov
ernment-many of its leaders preferriug o
monarchy to Republican Gov ernment.-
1t is the same party that passed the Alien
and Sedition laws. By the former, the
President had the right to order any for
eigner in the United States to depart forth
with, and by the latter, criticism against
the President or Congress was punishable
with fine and imprisonment. In later
days, it was the party that opposed the
War of 1912 against England, the
main. cause of the War being to pre-
vent the impressment of oseamen from
American vessels. In the midst OF
the conflict it held its treasona-
BILE convention at Hartford, Conuecti-
cut,-the delegates to which were ap-
pointed by the Federal Legislatures of the
New England States-whieh convention
sat with closed doors and deliberated on
their reasonable designs in secret. Years
after, when the Secretary of the Convention
gave his version of the affair, it appeared
that the fostering care of the Democratic
| Administration of JAMES MADIso ON, to Ohio
and other Western States and Territory,
was one of the great causes of complaint
urged by New England Federalism against
the Union, was, because, as the Convention
alleged, that it had tendency to des-
troy the .'balance of power held by the
original thirteen States.
About the time that war was declared,
the Administration got possession of a
series of letters written by an agent of the
British Government, sent to the United
States to arrange with the Federal leaders
of Massachusetts the terms of separation
and the withdrawal of the New England
States from the Union, in which the leaders,
deemed by the Journal as the ''brightest
intellect and purest patriots of the Revolu-
tionary era" stand fully committed to the
English Government in favor of disrup-
tion of the American Confederacy and a
return of Massachusetts and other New
England States, to the allegiance of Great
Britain, in the event Of war being declared
by the United States.
Such was the .'old Federal party" that
now claims the admiration OF the Journal
and an eulogy in its editorial columns. 1t
did not ordain or establish the Govern
ment of the United States, and except dur
ing the Alien and Sedition Law Admins
tration of the elder ADAMS it did not ad-
minister the Government.
So far from the Federal party restoring
| the finances of the Republic, when the
Government was about being wrecked for
want of money to pay off the debt due the
Revolutionary soldiers, the State of Vir-
ginia gave her lands in the territory north
p,aet of tba rivar, Ohio q, frna oift RI the
United States, in order to replenish the
Treasury.
For years the Federal party labored, by
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, its ablest financier,
to entail a perpetual national debt, like
that of England, upon the United States,
under the pretext that national debt was
national blessing.
In the Convention which framed the
Constitution of, the United States, there
were sections so in accordance with Fed
eral notions that it was with difficulty that
that the master mind of MADISON could in
duce sufficient number of States to agree
to its adoption. This they did, with the
distinct understanding that these Federal
notions should be eradicated, and for this
| purpose, Immediately after its adoption,
the States, in numbers sufficient, agreed to
amendments to the Constitution which
cured it of all Capitalization, and it is a
fact worthy of note, that since the party of
which the Journal is the organ, assumed
control of the National Government, euerg
one of these amendments, in letter and in
spirit, haUesbeen UiOzGted! s...
Federalism, after the war of 1872, pre-
tended to die-it was only sleeping. In
1851 it again came into power, not, it is
true, as Federal party, but as its oppo-
site, the very Convention that nominated
its candidates tor President resolving in
favor of State Rights. In Office, amid the
convulsions of civil war, it assu med more
power for the President than any of Eng
lands Kings for the last four centuries
dared to claim, and did acts more flagrant-
ly outrageous than that which consigned
one King to the block and another to ban
ishment. And now, like the Parliament of
whom PRAIsE-BE-To-GoD BAREBoNEs was
the presiding genius, the present Rump
C,pgress assumes despotic power, and by its
acts avows claim to be above all Constitu-
'tional law.
1t is the old Federal feeling, increased
and intensified by years OF banishment
from Office, that causes the Union to be
discovered by denying to ten States of the
South their rights within the Republic.
The men who, in the days of the elder
ADAMS, were representative men of the old
Federal party are pow dead. Their descen-
dants from the same section now control
the so-called Republican party, and they
find fitting advocate for their excesses
and euIogist in the columns of the Morn
ing Journal. Tl.-...s