New-York tribune., 1906-06-19
FIFTY YEARS OF REPUBLIC4NISM.

Philadelphia Is celebrating this week the
fftieth anniversary of the FremontDayton
national convention the historic gathering
which put the first Republican national ticket
in the field. The jubilation has been of a local
rather than general character yet the country
at large may well be interested in the COM
memoration of the entry into national politics
OF the party which, of ali our parties, has, on
the whole. developed the greatest capacity for
government and exercised the most potent infu-
ence on our political life Compared with its
forerunners and rivals the Republican party
has, indeed enjoyed an astonishing measure of
success. Its first experimental campaign In 1856
resulted nominally in failure But it was
failure which carried with it inspiration not
Encouragement, and which cleared the way for
victory four years later OF the thirteen Presi-
Dental contests in which the party has been en-
gagged 1t has lost only three, and from 1860 TO
1906 there have been only two years-1S93- -'95-
in which it has lost control simultaneously Of
the Presidency and of both houses of Congress.
No other American party has ever been so long
or so firmly intrenched in power.
But success is not the Republican party's real
claim to remembrance. 1t has done more than
any rival to set and keep the nation In its true
course-to fit II for its work as nation and as
q democracy. The Federalist party, under Ham,
ilton and Marshall did admirable service in
cementing a discordant Union and in emphasiZ-
ing the Importance of the federal powers through
whose exercise the states could be and should
be held together But the Federalists failed to
appreciate the strength of the Democratic forces
which the struggle for independence had de-
veloped, and were swept away as a party when
jefferson began TO preach his doctrines of indi-
vidualism and equality. Jefferson's ideas left
lasting impress on our political, social and
economic Development But, insisting too
strongly on the individuals initiative and free
dom from governmental restraints he greatly
undervalued the functions which a central gov
ernment could adyantageousy exercise and
failed TO recognize the instinct which has stead
lily driven us toward closer and more effective
union. The party he founded as instrument
of democracy was captured by an aristocratic
property interest bent on perpetuating slavery
an institution which absolutely blocked the
path of democratic progress. For more than fifty
years it abjured its ideals and was the plant
tool Of a section; and it lives now chiefly as an
aggregation of warning interests at one only in
their profession Of loyalty to prophet too long
dead TO worry over their differences.
If the Democratic party only gradually
changed its character, the old Whig party
Topped overnight from one position to another
1t had no stability and no thought beyond sue
cess in the next election. 1t was the Republican
pdItg greatest IDerlt IndL IL was Dorn out or
deep and sincere convictlon-the conviction of
thousands of Northern Wings and Democrats
that the nation could not exist half slave and
half free, that compromises and evasions must
be dropped and slavery must be crushed before
1t crushed the Republic. The party of Fremont
and Lincoln has taken as its task TO make the
country first free and then one; and in accom-
plishing that task it has perfected the work of
Jefferson as well as of Hamilton. Slavery was
blight and menace both to unity and to demo
cratic progress. But now, after fifty years of
Republcanism, we are people industrially free
and politically reunited. Sectionalism has been
exercised from politics and we can set to work
to solve the problems which have accumulated
during the long struggle TO extrpate slavery and
create homogeneous and compact nation.