The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-05-29

the respective parties and the tendency OF
their principles when applied to the affairs
| OF government, must look back of the
present; backward beyond the establish
ment of our constitution, or even the De-
claration of Independence 1t is not even
too much to say that our American politics
Is as old as the struggle between authority
and liberty-the prerogrtive of kings and
the rights of the people. A writer of some
standing recently said:
1t has become a commonplace of the text
books that the making of the constitution was
essentially Republican adaptation of the
traditional English government by king. lords
and commons but the fact is not sufficiently
observed that we got our politics also by in
her1tance- The leaders of the Revolution were
an advanced section or the English Wings, fully
recognized as such. The Wing colors of buff
and blue we're those of the uniform of WASH
INGToN'S troops, toward whom the party felt
as the Wings of JAMES Seconds time felt to-
ward the army of WILLIAM of Orange. When
news came of WAsHINGToN's defeat on Loas
Island and the American struggle seemed hope
less, CHARLES Fox wrote to Lord ROCKING
HAM:
I'VE shall never desert those who have acted
unsuccessfully upon Wing principles, while we
continue to profess an Admiration OF those who
succeeded in the same principles in the wear
1885,
The year 1858 was the year in which the
great English revolution reached a success
full termination for the people of England
as against the authority of the king. It
marked an epoch in that great struggle of
the people with centralized power. 1t is at
the beginning OF that struggle that the prin-
ciples embodied in the Democratic and Re-
publican parties respectively began the
conflict which is still going on 1t is true
that new conditions modify the conflict in
our day, but democratic principles are still
contending against the powers of despot-
ism. Under the plea of protecting society.
by placing checks upon the impulses and
passions OF the people; under the plea of
sternly regulating liberty by law, the Re-
publican party stands for those principles
which tend to Capitalization of power in the
government; while on the other hand the
Democratic party contends for the indie
pendence and liberty of the individual, the
right Of the precinct, the city, the county
and the state to be sovereign in the man
agement of affairs peculiar to each indiyid
ual or group of individuals named above.
The barons of England who, early in the
thirteenth century, under the leadership of
STEPHEN LANGDoN, compelled King JOHN
to sign the Magma Charta-which ever since
those days has been esteemed the palladium
OF English hbertles-were the Democrats
OF their day, because they insisted that the
individual should be free from the oppres-
sion of the centralized power in the person
of the King. They said to the King. Won
shall not tax US without our consent: and
provided that every individual
OF the nation should be in the free eniov-
ment of his life. his liberty and his prom
erty, unless declared to be forfeited by the
Judgment OF his peers or the law of the land.
The men who wrested SO much liberty for
the people from the hands of centraljze]
power were very good Democrats for their
day. From that time on, al through the
history of England, wherever the people
are found struggling for the maintenance
Of the liberties named and guaranteed in
the great charter, or opposing the epcroach
ments OF the usurped authority of CEN
tralized power there will be seen the
spirit Of democracy; while on the
other hand, wherever in that
protracted struggle between the king and |
the people-between authority and liberty
power and the right of the peo |
ple--wherever men are seen in that contro |
versy urging the maintenance of power in |
the hands Of the king under the specious
plea of restraining the impulses and pas
'ions of the people, or under the plea of i
for the peace and security of So
,iety, closing its eyes to the fact that the |
power which it was hoped would secure |
peace and provide security has ever been |
more faithful in oppression than either Sc |
curing the one or providing for the other. |
here may be seen the spirit of the Repub- |
ican party. The one is more anxious for !