Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-04-13
PARTY ACHIEVEMENTS.

When the Democratic party first came into power the United States territory ex tended only to the Mississippi and dow1 to latitude 31 degs., leaving all Florids and the lower part of the Gulf states te other nations, when it went out of power our territory stretched from ocean tc ocean, from latitude 49 degs. to the Gulf and from the St. Croix to the Rio Grande. These are hard facts, which no party malice can obscure; they cannot be over thrown by all the casuistry of Sherman and all the "gall' of an Ingalls,. They consistently charge-and by persistent reiteration make some of their callow fol- lowers believe it-that Democracy is and always has been without brains," ''in- capable of governing the country, etc. ;'' but they take good care not to mention the facts that this much stigmatized party acquired all our territory worth having, made this the leading nation of the conti- nent, secured the present liberal constitu- tions for the states in the Mississippi val ley, completed the separation of church and state, established an independent treasury after paying two national debts, and, in short, made the country in size and capacities substantially what it is to- day. ...- ..
 While our opponents cannot get around these facts, it has lately become 8 fashion with them to deny the credit to Demo crats and claim these acquisitions as non- partisan. We purpose here to present just few proofs on that point. Incl dentally, however, we will say that the oFk was perfectly honest and the most natural thing in the world; for, according to their theory of centralizing government, a large territory would in very truth be an immense evil Indeed, two or three of the states are almost too large to be governed from one center; and if the Federalist doctrine had prevailed this nation could only have been governed as the Roman empire was. But on the true Democratic system continent can be governed as eff fciently as @ county; for that system is that the nation should do nothing which can safely be left to the state, the state nothing that can be trusted to the county and the county nothing that the local authorities can do; while neither nation, state nor county, should interfere with personal liberty further than is absolutely necessary, leaving each man to be as far as possible his own moral agent. And we must admit that the large extent of our country has greatly aided to enforce the Democratic principle of local self govern ment-so much so that even the Republi- can justices of the supreme court are getting back to it, despite all the central ization of the war period.
 When Thomas Jefferson acquired Louisiana the Federalists fell afoul of him with abuse, the reading of which now makes us think of Ingalls, as gentleman Josiah Quincy announced that the bonds of the Union were dissolved, and that Massachusetts, of which he was repre- sentative, ought to secede The believers in centralization were wise enough to see that such an addition of territory was hostile to their schemes, that the new states in the south and west would natu- rally be ardent for local self government. Young voters are apt to think that the habit of denouncing Democrats as signo- rant" 'sunpatriotic,' ''Jacobins, etc. !" has sprung up since the war; they may be surprised to learn that it was much worse long before, that Jefferson particu- larly was pictured as 8 demagogue, a libertine and an atheist, and that thou sands of 'old women of both sexes" actu- ally believed that they would have their Bibles taken from them and burned if he were elected president. Louisiana was admitted into the Union in 1911, against the protest of one-third of the members of the house of representatives, almost every one of them from the northeastern states. In 1919, by treaty with Spain, we acquired the whole of Florida and got an unquestioned title to the Gulf of the states between it and the Mississippi. Out of this and the expeditions of Gen. Jackson, which preceded it, grew per. sonal and party hatreds, which endured thirty years. Thereafter the Democrats voted almost solidly for the new states oi the west, while the opposing party was generally divided.