American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1881-01-22
The Foundation On Which Our Politi-
cal Parties Rest.


the political history of the United States
in general and Of the Democratic party.
Senator Edmunds is not and does not
affect 20 be Il historian. He thinks and
he admits that he thinks the Democratic
party to be wholly wrong alike in its
aims and its methods. and the Repub-
lican party to be wholly right. Of
course this vitiates the views of Senator
Edmunds, but it does not necessarily
vitiatc the value of these views to
thoughtful men who will bear the po-
sition of Senator Edmunds well in
mind.
/, Senator Edmunds divides the life of
the country under our existing Consti-
tuition into three periods-the first be-
ginning with the Administration of
Washington and ending with that of
John Quincy Adams, the second begin
ming with Andrew jackson and ending
with James Buchanan, and the third be-
ginning with Abraham Lincoln to end
with Rutherford b. Hayes. In the first
period Mr.. Edmunds thinks that party
divisions "arose from necessary and
intelligent differences of opinion about
the rights and duties of the several
States which had established American
independence on the one hand, and
the new Government created by them
on the other hand. In his treatment
of the second period, the partisan
ship of MIR. Edmunds becomes flagrant.
He assumes the Democratic party to
have been devoted from 1929 to 1861 to
the protection or extension of slave
labor, to free trade '.under which," as
he grotesquely says, lit was supposed
that the slaveholding cotton grower
could exchange his products for those
of the underpaid labor of Europe with
out giving any encouragement to the
free labor and free schools of the nom
slaveholding States;' to the confine-
ment of Federal authority within the
narrowest limits, and finally to seces-
sion and civil war. The first and fourth
of these objects, Senator Edmunds half
admits, are no longer held in view by
the Democratic party, but the second
and third endure. He considers the
Democracy in Congress to be ''still in
favor of laying customs duties in such a
way as to produce the greatest revenue
from a given commodity, without any
reference to securing the labor of our
citizens against unfair and injurious
competition in foreign countries"
Would that there were no doubt as to
this! The Democratic hostility to Ma
tonal authority Mr.. Edmunds discovers
in the present Democratic resistance
to Federal laws intended to regulate,
in a Republican sense, the choice of
members of Congress by the several
States.
He steers WIDE of the differences be-
tween the white and black races, and
also of the rather important fact that
President Grants Administrations con-
stantly sought to use the negro vote in
the South Us a party instrument. What
would Senator Edmunds have said if the
tremendous machinery of the Federal
Government had been employed in Yer
mont and in New England year after
year to array the Canadian vote, the
Irish vote and the Catholic vote against
the native New England Protestant Re-
publican vote9 The time may yet come
when this will be done. And what will
Senator Edmunds say if the power of
General Gariield's Administration shall
be exercised to aid the manufacturing
industry of the land to organize its
workmen against tariff reform?
AS a matter of fact Senator Edmunds
admits, by his line of thought, that po-
litical parties in this country, as in En-
gland, rest upon historical and natural
foundations, and not on any temporary
and artificial foundation. The modern
Conservative and Liberal parties in En-
gland rest on the same foundations in
English history and in certain antithet-
zeal forms in which the human mind is
cast with the Wing and Tory parties of
the past. Just as parties divided on
State rights in the Presidential election
of 1900 in the United States, SO do
they divide to-day. What but Con-
stitutional principle underlies the tariff
question, which involves the right of
the Federal Government to substitute
Industry Has Congress the Constitu-
tional right to legislate solely for that
surd than to speak of State rights as an
outcome of slave labor? Was Josiah
Quincy ave-owner? Was the Hart
ford Convention n convention of slave
owners? Slave labor was indicated
in the Southern. States because it was
under the protection of the Constitu-
ton. A division of opinion in England
respecting the paramount authority of
Parliament over the sources of legality
found expression in the parties known
as Wing and Tory, and is still partially
reproduced in the antagonism of the
Liberals and the Conservatives, and Il
division of political opinion in the
United States respecting the paramount
authority of Congress and the Federal
Government over the several States
found expression alike in the election
of 1900 and in the election of 1880. Are
not nearly all of our party differences
to-day, which are based on principle, |
referrable to the question of State
rights9 What is the question of legal |
tender in its legal aspect but question
of Constitutional powerp
1t is easy to speak of Democratic lib
crafty about internal improvements
as a modern thing, but was not the
Democracy always intensely NATIONAL
about objects deemed to be really g. Ma
tionar'? Did not the Democracy in
1S53-'54 begin in Congress the surveys
and inaugurate the work for the con
struction of the Pacific railways? Did
it not carry on war thirty years ago to
enlarge the National domain? Did it
not strain the Constitution, against the
protest of State-rights Massachusetts,
for the g NATIONAL objects of acquiring
the Floridas, Louisiana, Texas. Califor
MIA and New Mexico? In word. do
not our present party differences turn
on 4 disagreement as to what is Ma
tional and what is local?
1t would be well if Senator Edmunds
would employ a few leisure moments in
making 4 candid exposition of the pros
poets of the ballot in this country as
exhibited in the late election. With
what hopes or fears is he inspired as
he contemplates the power exer-
cised over the ballots of their work