Year: 1876

Party Names.


1t has often been thought good joke that
the st. Louis Democrat Is a Republican pa
per while the Republican of the same city has


always been of the extreme Democratic faith.


In Maine we have, always appreciated the hu-
NOR of publishing decidedly positive-albeit
often funny-DemocTatic views weekly at
Belfast under the head of Belfast Republican,


The Oxford Democrat on the other hand is a
sound Republican paper. These apparent
misnomers took their rise in accidental cir
cumstances connected with the history of
parties, which are well understood, and they


certainly involve nothing more than verbal


inconsistency. For the Republican party is
the only organized democratic party in this
country; and even that is so only relatively
and in qualified sense. But relatively the
Republican is the democratic party, and that
is the reason why it has been sixteen years in
power and why it will elect representative
Democrat to be President from the fourth of
next March. Indeed this is but repeating the
history of the country from the retirement of
the first Adams, since whose administration
the party which for the time being has been
most advanced in its democracy has succeeded
in all except two or three general elections.
The name "democratic' misappropriated by
the present avowedly conservative party goes
for little. Greece and Rome are often spoken


of as democracies, in the former of which only
one in forty of the inhabitants had voice in
the government, while in the latter only one
in fifty enjoyed the franchise. In monarchical
England one inhabitant out of every twenty


was a voter before the enlargement of the
franchise under Dsraeli's first ministry. Ex-
isting institutions in the Republic of the


United States give the ballot to about one
person in six. A genuine political democra-
cy, including woman in the body polite,


would of course double the ratio of voters TO
population, and make the governing class
one-third of the whole people, excluding only
persons whose disabilities are natural.


Some time since much commendation was
bestowed upon the recreant French Liberal


M. Olivier, Louis Napoleon's last prime min
lister, for his definition of the word republic"


The French Academy, while at work on its
dictionary of the French language. had been


unable after protracted discussion to agree


upon suitable meaning when the minister,


who was almost as little favorite with his
confreres as the Emperor himself, proposed to
say in effect that republic is kind of gov
ernment in which the rulers owe their posi-


tions to election and not to birth. This def


milton was unanimously adopted. A republic


then may or may not be a democracy, ac-
cording as it confers the power to elect on all


or part OF its adult citizens. The republic


which establishes the broadest basis of citi-
zenship and excludes the smallest proportion


of citizens from the ballot box approaches de-


mocracy most nearly. The fourteenth amend


ment to the constitution extended citizenship


almost to the limits of native population and


the fifteenth amendment made nearly all
adult male citizens voters.


The party which favors the largest body
polite is so far democratic; while the party
which resists the admission of new classes to
the ballot-box is generally aristocratic and at
best, is only republican. And this is the po-
sition of the two parties in this country. The
Republicans are the logical successors of the
Jefersonian Democrats in the matter of aim.
ing at institutions genuinely popular, such as
were foreshadowed by the Declaration of In
dependence. The conservative Democracy
accept and ratify in their platforms all that
has been done by their opponents to make
fhio q Of fba L,k LII.
conduct in those states where the newly en-
franchised voters live shows how little genu-
ineDess there is in their professions. Nor is
this all. However liberal the franchise, there
are certain collateral matters that must re-
ceive attention in order to maintain it in its
purity when once established. In such a
government all men are rulers and all men,
accordingly, must be fitted for their position
by education; they must, so far as possible,
be temperate, sober, and reared with definite
convictions of the paramount claims of the
civil government to their allegiance. Now
the Democratic party is not anywhere con-
spicuous friend of that prominently demo-
cratic institution, the school-house. In all
the states where it has been in power since
Republican ascendency began, its attitude on
this question has been always conservative
and often destructive. So far as temperance


is concerned neither party, as a national Or
ganization, can boast of having occupied very
radical ground; but so far as local political
action has been taken favorable to the good
cause, it has been due to Republicans who
give at least theoretical assent to the sound
democratic doctrine of prohibition. Finally,
| the so called Democratic party includes sub
stantially all the citizens of this country who
are so far from friendly to institutions even
moderately republican that they acknowledge
as their master in affairs both temporal and
| spiritual, foreign potentate who has within


a few years placed under his ban not only all
| liberal institutions, but also that enlighten-


ment of the human mind by education which


alone renders such institutions possible.


| Talk of stealing THE Democrats have


stolen even the name which the real Demo-


Gratis of Jackson's time rightfully assumed.


That name on the reorganization of parties


in 1S54-5 belonged to what are now called


Republicans. The party from which the So


called Democrats of the present time falsely


Claim descent the party of Jefferson, Mad


ison and Monroe-went by the name of Re-


publican til Jackson's time, when the REM


nant of the old Federalists were also called


National Republicans. The suggestion has


been made that the parties ''swap" names 10


conform more nearly 10 the present situation


but the term 'Democrat" has become so OBJ.