The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1886-08-19


multitude, whose condition is humble in the
contrast, to believe that this disparity should
/ be enlarged, confirmed and protected by posi-
tive institutions. 1t is to effect this object
/ that in all free governments a strife is inces-
sanity carried to withdraw power from
the greater and combine it in the smaller
community. But how is this to be done in a
country like ours? By what means can the
smaller or aristocratic body hope to succeed?
The present contest is an answer to this ques-
tion, ana this hope to make evident before
I have done by adverting to facts known to
you all.
The security of freedom will be found to
consist in the universal confidence enter
| tanned by the people in their own ability to
direct public affairs through agents selected
| by themselves; in the exemption of the vot-
ers when exercising the elective franchise
from the coercion of imroper influences, and
in the fidelity with which delegated power is
exercised in reference only to the general well
fare. Those, therefore. who desire a change or
/ modification of the Government will seek to
| impair that confidence, to corrupt those agents
and to establish a system of artificial in1u-
ences which may be extended through all the
relations of life until it becomes apparently
the present interest, though it be the ultimate
and certain ruin of the people, to yield to
this system and surrender the Government to
| in our country a party entertaining such
| views as tnese is question that may be
| tested by the further inquiry whether any
| body of men has ever persevered in a sys-'
tematIc opposition to the known and Oft
| repeated will of the nation, attempted to
| thwart the operations of the Government
and to acquire power by acting upon public
| agents and by the aid of a system such as that
l have described.
A-@l, Y Ill
and ask if such party does not exist, and
has not existed from the beginning of the
| Government? appeal to the history of the
| past and to our present condition in evidence
| of the doiugs and motives of this party.
| ask the venerable men of this mbly-you
whose bleached locks announce a life coeval
| with the liberties of your country-I ask you
what party was that, what men were they,
who at the commencement attempted to
stretch the Federal Constitution over the SOW
ereignty of the States, and to reduce the
whole body of the nation under the stern
| tyranny of one consolidated Government?
What men were they who, having the admin
| istration of National affairs, Illuminated their
alien and sedition edicts against the people
OF the country, who silenced the press with
| the terrors of the Jail, who struck down the
| citizen into the dungeon for daring to ques-
| ton their official acts, for the crime of be-
a
his suspicious? Was il not the same party
who, when rebuked by the National voice for
these their acts and dIslodged from power,
| turned upon the people, in all the desperation
| of detected guilt, and boldly attempted to re-
gain authority by open and downright usur-
pation2 Yes, in contempt of the popular
| will, and at the hazard of civil war, did this
| party, day after day and night after night,
plot, ballot and in trigue, in the House of Rep
| ant To r11 Pr1rr . n haod dof
the Government AS If determined to crush
our infant institutions at a single blow. they
| toiled to vest the Chief Magistracy in a man
who had not received one vote for the Office,
and who, at that very moment, was cherish
| ing treason in his heart. This they did to
| exclude Mr.. Jefferson, upon whom the
| people had bestowed their sunrages.
Why, therefore, should we be surprised that
the same party who then reviled that man
with the deep rancor of personal malignity,
who sought to deter him from the perform
ance of duty by the threat of impeachment;
why should we be surprised, 1 ask, that the
| same party now luxuriate in the defamation
| OF his memory, and that the same vampire
spirit still broods over the emtoInbed patriot
of Monticello? But. fellow-cttizens, what did
! this party when foiled in these Vaccinations?
| Did they say to the people, you have elected
Mr.. Jefferson-we opposed the deed-you have
| willed it-and therefore we will await his
| measures, and test the man by the standard
OF his acts? No, from the first moment of his
Administration he was assaiied with fury
that never abated. They denounced his meas
ures, first in anticipation. and again after
| time and trial had most clearly evlnced their
| justice and policy. 1t was in vain that the
| people, by their elections year after year,
peated and reaff1rmed their confidence in the
| President, and their approval of his meas
ures. The Federal party redoubled their re-
sistance as often as the country renewed its
| appreciation. Mr.. Jefferson was proclaimed
a Jacobin. The intense horrors of the French
Revolution, the ferocious guilIotine with its
murderous ak, its bleeding platform, its
mangled heaps of assassinated men and
/ women all the appalling incidents of that
dreadful scene were grouped together and
| displayed before the American people as so
many black and bloody witnesses against
Democracy, IL excesses, its turbulence, its
| dangers-against the right and intelligence of
| the people to govern themselves.
| Ms. Madison, who succeeded Mr.. JEFF
| ferson in the confidence of his country, and
| IN the honors of its first Magistracy, sue
ceeded him likewise in the hatred of the
\ aristocratic party. He, too, incurred their
pious and impious malediotions. No mat
| ter how obvious might be the justice, the
policy, necessity of his measures, they
were resisted with violence proportion
ate to their effect in promoting the common
| welfare, for no other reason than because
such result would justify and confirm the
| nations confidence in the President. War
was declared against Great Britain, and the
more desperate of this party eagerly seized
an opportunity, SO auspicious, to signalize
their friendship for the enemies of their
country. 1t was a war originating in a sense
| of public wrong, and declared by the voice of
/ an injured nation. No wonder. then, that the
Hartford Convention should emble, under
the approving smiles of England, to con-
centrate all the British feeling that existed
and direct it against our Government. with
the full force of disciplined power. But the
nation triumphed; and these malcontents,
doomed to see the arms of their foreign ally
expelled from our shores, shrunk back to
elude the indignation their conduct had ex-
| cited.
Thus, after sixteen years of the most fu-
rious opposition to the will of the people,
so often expressed, did this party, upon the
election of Mr.. Monroe, retire in shame and
dishonor from the contest. But though re-
| tired, they did not despair. Their troops,
beaten and exhausted, were withdrawn,
only to await the period when the people,
trium phant and apparently secure, might re-
lax their vigilance and be more successfully
| assailed by the secret concert of an enemy,
who, from being silent and invisible, seemed
no longer to exist. That period soon arrived.
| The public will being neutralized by a di-
vision, the Presidential election was, in 1924,
| transferred from the nation to the House of
Representatives. There was no Burr to elect,
but there was q jackson to defeat. The peo-
pie were once more helpless, and another op-
portunity was presented of grasping power
in defiance of them, which did not escape the
/ ever vigilant ambition of their enemies
The Federal Government was thus usurped
by the aristocracy, who, having strengthened
themselves by an alliance with men hitherto
among the favorites of the country, now
laid 1t down as a fundamental article of their
faith that the representative was no longer
to be paralyzed by the will of his constituents
To avert the public eye from the scrutiny of
their conduct, the attention of the people