Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-04-10
JEFFERSON
NOT THE FATHER OF THE DEMOCRATIC
pARTV

NOT THE FATHER OF THE DEMOCRATIC
PARTY.
New York Mail and Express.
1t has been the habit of Democratic
politicians and orators to talk about JET.
ferson as the father of their party, and
the speeches and editorials that will to-
morrow celebrate the birthday of Jeffer-
son as a great occasion for uniting that
party in devotion to the memory and
services of Jefferson will undoubtedly
seek to perpetuate the paternity idea.
Unfortunately for this theory the
foundations of the organization of op-
position to American Constitutional
Government were laid by other men than
Jefferson, who was in Paris from 1884
to 1889, and who did not get to this city,
then the seat of the Federal Govern
ment, as Secretary of State, until March,
1870.
He took no part in the great contro-
versies over the formation and adoption
of the Federal Constitution which dis
closed the division of the statesmen of
that fundamental and formative period
into two great parties, which, under va
rious names, have ruled the country ev-
er since.
All the trustworthy accounts as to the
course of Jefferson after he became a
member of Washington's Cabinet show
that the opposition to Washington's and
Hamilton's and jays views was well de-
fined and ably led before Jefferson took
an active part in the conflict. He was,
in fact, more French Republican than
an American Republican, with general
views in regard to the nature of gov
eminent that were afterward carried out
in France with most tragic and deplora-
BILE results. He was a theOrist and a
maker of epigrams.
But an epigrammatic political theorist
stands in about the same relation to a
great constructive and creative states
man like Hamilton that man like Col.
Robert G. Ingerson might hold toward
the founder of great religious organi
cation, like Luther or Calvin.
In Washington's Cabinet Jefferson was
the one man who had little confidence
in the Costitution that has stood, sub
staDtially unchanged, for a longer peri
cd than any other Constitution in Christ
endom has remained without very mate
rial changes. He was the negative
member of the Cabinet, the doubter of,
or disbeliver in, the Constitution that
was so largely the work of those great
creative statesmen, Hamilton, Madison
and Jay, tie immortal authors of that
imperishable series of matchless essays
known as the "Federalist"
1t was not Jefferson who led or form
ulated the policy of the opposition while
he was in Washington's Cabinet. Jeal-
ousy of Hamilton's greatly superior ge-
MUS for government intensified his ma
tural predisposition in favor of weak
government, and he finally endeavored
to make himself the leader and sage of
the opposition that had come into ex-
istence without his help or direction.
A long while afterward the Democrat
ic opposition to Jackson as its leader
and idol, and Jefferson was merely
memory, not an inspiration. Finally,
when the majority of the Democratic
party went into rebellion, it was follow
ing the precepts of Calhoun, while the
Northern Rump of the party consisted
of toadies to the Slave Power and of
followers of Douglas.
During no great crisis of the Repub-
lie did Jefferson actually lead his party,
save when he was President, and even
then his ideas were less influential with
the mass of the party than those of 9th
er leaders of the opposition.
He was theoretical lover of univer-
sal freedom and hurled epigrams at
slavery and sold his own flesh and blood.
He was sage who never founded
but bankrupt university, not
even the Democratic party, and who as
President violated all his teachings by
the purchase of Louisiana, his best Off
cial act, and by the inscriptions use of
the whole power of the Executive to
oOnyict Rurr Of treason