The Portland daily press., 1876-01-28
A Century of Politics.

The centennial number, of the North
american Reuie,u, just out, gives up its en-
tire space to series of admirable reviews of
the course of American thought in religion,
politics, abstract science, economic science,
law, and education during the first century of
our national existence. Perhaps the most
entertaining of these articles, certainly the
one which will be most widely read, is that
bearing the caption, ''Politics in America,
1776-1S76," by Professor William G.. Sum-
ner of Yale. It is perhaps needless to say
that Prof. Sumner approaches his subject
from the Federalist side, and that his sympa-
thies are with John Adams and Jay, and
Hamilton. While many of his readers will be
unable to agree with him in certain of his
opinions, noticeably his estimate of Jefferson,
all will concede that the article is carefully
and conscientiously written, that it is very
entertaining, and that its author makes an
honest attempt at impartialty-an attempt
which not few will look upon as entirely
successful. Certainly he does not hesitate to
censure the men he loves, when their ac-
tions call for reproof, or to praise the men he
generally condemns, when their course calls
for approval.
Prof. Sumner finds the origin of the Anti
Federal, soon to become the Republican and
at later period the Democratic party, in
combination between class of active men
who had rebeled against the colonial bureau
cracy and who were eagerly desirous OF office
and power, the returning soldiers who found
their families in want while some of their
neighbors who had borne few of the sacri-
fees of war were enjoying its fruits, and the
Southern planters who were heavily indebted
TO foreign capitalists and saw in the treaty.
making power of a general government
power to compel them to pay their debts.
Joined TO these were those who had adopted,
on theoretical and philosophical grounds, the
enthusiasm for liberty then prevalent in both
hemispheres. The party thus made up con-
founded liberty with equality, power with
privilege, looked with indifference upon for
eign commerce, cherished bitter hatred of
England, and would have been glad to be iso-
lated from Europe. An opposing party, he
says, gradually formed itself of men of wider
information and superior training, who did
not consider that the war had altered the in
ternal institutions inherited from the mother
country, who sought development rather
than destruction and reconstruction, who
were conservative by property, education, ,and
character, who understood the necessity of
well regulated foreign relations, of foreign
commerce, of public credit, and who wished
indeed to establish liberty, but liberty under
law. These parties joined issue on the SUBJ
ject of a revision of the Articles of Confeder-
alton, and because of the manifest necessity
of that revision the Federalists triumphed.
The trainers of the Constitution, Prof.
Sumner says, were not Democrats. Though
they had no precise definition of a republic in
mind they knew well that it differed from
democracy. They meant to make Consti-
tuition in order to establish organized liberty,
with guarantees which should protect it from
popular tyranny as much as from personal
despotism. The essential feature of their
system was, that political power be conferred
under temporary and defeasible tenure.
That it be conferred by popular election is
not essential, although that method is the
one naturally indicated by the circumsta noes
of the United States. The system did not
pretend to give direct effect to public opinion
according to its fluctuations, but rather inter-
posed delays and checks to secure deibera-
ton, and aimed to give expression to public
opinion only after it was matured. The
other party, the Democratic Republican, had
for its essential feature equality, and the con-
ferring of power on numerical majority of
equal units. 1t held the divine right of the
sovereign majority to rule, the duty of pas
sive obedience in the minority, the dogma
that the majority can do no wrong. ''The
further Democracy was pushed, first in the
ory, then in practice, the more completely
was the belief in the equality of all lin rights
and privilegesl converted, in the minds of
the masses, into the belief in the equal ability
of all to decide political questions of every
kind.'
The result of the conflict was the over
throw of the Federalists in 1900. The rea-
sons for this overthrow Prof. Sumner finds
to be the fact that Democracy is deeply
rootedjn the physical and economic circum-
stances of the country, the impossibility of
sustaining the government above the level
Of public opinion, the lack of tact and sagac-
ity in the Federal leaders, and their failure to
see that the strength of a constitutional re-
public must be in the intelligent approval and
confidence of the citizens. Once overthrown
the party never rose again, partly because of
the odium which came upon it in conse-
quence Of the disreputable intrigue with Burr,
partly because its leaders withdrew from the
political life in which it was their duty as
good citizens to continue. The Constitution
al republic became Democratic republic.
The Federalsts fell into the position of Sin
dependent voters" throwing their aid now
with one and now with the other faction of
the majority; but, Prof. Sumner shrewdy
says, history does not show that they ever
forced either one or the other to ''adopt good
measures" for the obvious reason that the
majority possessed the initiative. Jefferson's
election, he further remarks, "was the first
triumph of the tendency towards Democracy
"a triumph which has never yet been re-
versed. The old conservatism of the former
administrations died out, and it is important
to observe that, from this time on, we have
not the same two parties in conflict as before,
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