Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-07-14
Aa.s,aslri tlltelliqenrcr.
FRIDAY EVENING, JULY IA, 1859.


FhAOAX 6V6NAN0s JULY IT, IO01s
Fundamental DiRerences.
The history of political parties in the
United States is full of interest for the
calm reflection of every citizen. When
the union of the states was formed by
the adoption of the federal constitution,
the powers of government conferred
upon the national legislature, by that
instrument, and those reserved to the
states and people, naturally awakened
inquiry, and the question of loose or
strict construction of the constitution
Immediately divided the political opin-
ions and sentiments of the nation.
Those who believed in a loose, or as it
was termed, liberal construction of the
constitution, were denominated Feder-
alists, and the friends of a strict con-
struction of the constitution were known
as Republicans, and afterwards as Dem
ocrats. Upon the first election of pres
ident after the adoption Of the c0nstitu-
tion, no issues had yet arisen to divide
the public sentiment of the country
no principle of free government, nor
any measure of governmental policy, en-
tered into the first presidential election.
Gen. Washington, alone of all the great
men which the Revolution had devel-
oped, was before the people for the first
Office in their gift, and he was elected.
He was again reelected in 1892 without
a rival. But during the eight years of
Washlngton's administration numerous
questions of constitutional government
arose, and as they were brought to the
view of the people two great parties
sprang up, and from that day to the pre-
sent they have divided the political sen
timents of the people and will naturally
divide them SO long as the constitution
of the country remains the supreme law
of the land. The Democratic party, as
the party of constitutional government,
and founded on the largest liberty of the
citizen, opposed to the aggrandizement
of the few at the expense of the many,
opposed to special privileges, and de
manding the equality of every citizen in
the advantages which our unique system
of government cOnfers upon him, has
withstOOd the shock of nearly one hun
dred years, and its principles are to day
as deeply rooted in the hearts of the peo-
pie as they were when first proclaimed
by Thomas jefferson in his opinions as
member of Washington's cabinet and
chrystalizcd in his first inaugural ad-
dress. Its name has never been changed.
1t has never had occasion to pander to
popular prejudice, or to that fanaticism
which is too often engendered by relig.
ious or moral zeal. But the party which
first opposed the Democracy, the Fed
eral party, saw both its principles and
its professed measures of policy melt
away before the genial warmth which
the principles of the Democracy had in
fused into the great body polite, until
there was scarcely an organized body
of Federalism left in any state in the
union. The alien and seditiOn laws of
the elder Adams, and the disunionism of
the Hartford convention, rendered the
Federal party SO odious that it could no
longer maintain itself under that name.
1t abandoned its name, but its princi-
pies survived, and rallying at successive
times under the names of anti-Masons,
Wings, Native Americans, Know
Nothings, Abolitionists, and lastly Re-
publicans, it finally succeeded in again
getting into power. When it had at
tanned power, it was its boast that the
democratic party was dead-dead for
ever" But how vain the boast. The
Democratic party can never die. 1t may
for a brief time, while sentiment is
stronger than reason, lose its hold upon
the people. but as the passions and pref
udices of the time pass away its princi-
pies sustain it and it again assumes its
power for the good of the people and as
a safeguard of the rights of man. Nor
is it strange that in the order of things
it should not he subject to change. The
sun may for time he obscured by the
transit of = cloud across its disk, but the
great recuperative power with which the
Creator of all things has impressed upon
his creation in time dispels the gloom
that may enshroud the great luminary
of day, and it shines forth again with its
accustomed splendor. So, too, with the
moral laws by which the world is gov
erned. The principles of human free
dom and the equality of right are CO.
eval and co-extensive with mankind and
SO strongly impressed upon the human
heart that they will ever assert them
selves. These principles being the fun.
damental basis of the Democratic party,
it is impossible for this party ever to be-
come disintegrated, but, OH the contrary,
it must ever move on and, gathering in
creased power with its onward motion,
lead the country to higher and nobler
destiny. But how different it is with the
disintegration of the Federal party, with
its successive names, embodying the prin-
ciples of Federalism! Who can look back
upon the old anti Masonic party without
wonder and astOnishment that intelli
gent men could for a moment suppose