by what has taken place, the Democratic party is preparing with great energy for the Presidential contest; and it is certain that the soberest of its members believe its chances of success at least equal to those of the Republican party, while its masses are confident of success. This is a condition of mind which often creates the success which is anticipated. A year ago, no man supposed the Democracy could look for victory in the campaign of 1868. Now, Republican journalists are pointing out the States they believe their candidates are certain of carrying, and their columns of names and figures are by no means of those great proportions which they would have assumed had they been made six months earlier. That the Republicans will elect their candidates in November we have no doubt; but it is evident that the battle will be, as Cromwell said of Worcester fight, "as stiff a business" as ever was seen in this country. We trust that, like Worcester fight, it will be, not only "a very glorious mercy," but a "crowning mercy." Such will be the result of the contest if the people are desirous of repose, and if they will but reflect on the history of the Democratic party, which is full of facts showing it to be a destructive faction, -- a rule or ruin faction, which abhors peace, and which is resolved that that blessing never shall be known to this nation unless under a Democratic despotism. That it now calls itself conservative is only another proof of its destructive nature and intentions; for there never yet existed a conservative party which did not turn out to be as thoroughly devoted to destruction as if it had been animated by the sentiments of barbarians moving through a civilized country.

The Democratic party came into existence more than seventy years since, when Washington was President. The material from which it was made had long existed, but some years passed before the party had a regularly organized existence. The nucleus of the or

ganization was that part of the people who had opposed first the formation and then the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Around these men gathered most of the foreign adventurers who had been attracted to the country by its success in the war of the Revolution, or who had been forced to leave their own countries through their attachment to the cause of revolutionary France, and who thought, with Mr. Jefferson, that the American Constitution was not sufficiently democratical in its character. Then came all the men who were opposed to paying the debts contracted during the Revolution, the predecessors of the Pendletonian Democrats of to-day, who would swamp the existing debt by an enormous issue of greenbacks. Then came the better portion of the party, men who sympathized with the French in their struggles against the monarchs and aristocrats of Europe, and who thought the national government's sympathies were with the enemies of France. party that was formed out of these various materials began to make itself felt early in the second term of Washington's presidency, and its temper was so rancorous and its action so un

The

acts wanting to show that violent opposition could be made to the administration of the Father of his Country. The Whiskey Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, in 1794, was the work of Democrats, and meant something more than mere hostility to an excise duty. Even Mr. Jefferson, who was a friend to the rebels throughout, admits that "there was, indeed, a meeting [of rebels] to consult about a separation"; but he is careful to add, "but to consult on a question does not amount to a determination of that question in the affirmative, still less to the acting on such a determination." Certainly not; but when men met, in 1794, "to consult about a separation" from the Union, their consultation showed what kind

of spirit animated them. Considering that consultation by the light of recent history, we see how great was the danger to which the country was exposed in 1794. Had the President been a bad, weak partisan, — had he been a Buchanan, 1795 would have been to 1794 what 1861 was to 1860. But George Washington was not the man to grasp nettles with a soft hand. He crushed the rebels at a blow. He summoned fifteen thousand men, who stamped out Democratic rebellion with their armed heels, and so there came no civil war. Had Mr. Buchanan been as energetic in 1860, civil war would not have come upon us in 1861. The difference between the conduct of the two men is as the difference between their characters. Washington was a great statesman and a pure patriot; Buchanan, a pettifogging politician and a mere partisan.

So vehement, bitter, and unscrupulous was the conduct of the Democratic party in Washington's time, that nothing short of the name and influence of Washington could have saved the Constitution from perishing even more rapidly than the Mexican Constitution perished not forty years later. John Adams, who succeeded him as President, not only had no such moral power as Washington possessed, but he was obnoxious as being a Northern man; for the Democratic party from the first day of its life exhibited that strong sectional character which it has steadily manifested throughout its entire existence; and in its youth as in its advanced years, it was the patron of slavery and the friend of slaveholders. Mr. Adams was doubly offensive to the Democracy, offensive as a Northern man, and offensive as a constitutional Federal statesman. Mr. Jefferson, though he was Vice-President of the United States, and might have been called upon at any moment to become President, was at the head of the opposition, and took the lead in action that looked to forcible resistance to the national government. He wrote in behalf of having Virginia pass a law

that would have put the authority of the United States under the ban in the Ancient Dominion, and have punished any Virginian seeking justice in the national courts. He wrote the celebrated Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, which, after being modified by Mr. George Nichols, were adopted by the Kentucky Legislature; while the same year the yet more celebrated Virginia Resolutions were adopted. These were from the pen of Mr. Madison, who stood next to Mr. Jefferson as a leader of the Democracy, but who was not a member of the government against which the resolutions were directed. These resolutions became the creed of the Democratic party, as well they might, for they contain the heresy of nullification, and declare that the Constitution is a compact between States; and it is not difficult to find the principle of secession plainly expressed in the Kentucky Resolutions, and it is implied in those of Virginia. The course of South Carolina in 1832 was in strict accordance with the "Democratic platform" laid down in 1798; and the reason why the Democrats were so hostile to the national cause during the late civil war is to be found in their adherence to the principles of their party as expounded by its two greatest doctors, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. No man who believes in the resolutions of '98- and they have embodied the Democratic faith for sixtynine years can honestly say that he believes the American people were right when they coerced their government to begin and to complete the work of coercing the States that seceded. All parties are faithful to their original principles, when once those principles are fairly called in question; and in 1860-1865 the question at issue was between the national principle and the Democratic principle. The States that seceded after President Lincoln issued his first proclamation calling for volunteers, did so because they believed he meant to compel the return of States that had seceded under the encouragement afforded to rebellion by the Bu

chanan administration, the last Democratic administration the country has known, and the last it ever should know. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas were faithful to Democratic principles, and false to the country, when they joined the Confederacy; and the Democratic leaders of the North also were faithful to those principles when they upheld the proceedings of the revolting States, and did all they could to embarrass the national government throughout the civil war. The mob that held possession of most of New York City in July, 1863, was faithful to Democratic principles; and it acted under their influence, and would have converted a riot into a revolution, had not its action been postponed by the news from Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The "principles of '98" led to rebellion, secession, and civil war, and to rioting and murder in the streets of our cities. Replace the Democratic party in power, and we shall see repeated all that followed from that party's anger when the North refused to permit the introduction of slavery into all the free States. That was the specific end at which the Northern branch of the Democracy aimed in 1860, and they hoped to gain it by alarming that large class of useless citizens who are known as "timid men," and who would have sold even their own small souls at less than their value, if anything less than that can be imagined, rather than consent to make war on the slaveholders. It was fortunate for the country that this class of men, though numerous, became of no account, except to be taxed, as soon as a patriotic spirit was roused. The same cowardice that would have made them most useful instruments in the hands of the destructive Democracy, acting in accordance with the "principles of '98," caused them to side with patriots as soon as it was clear that the country was not to be destroyed without a fight for its preservation. The Democracy were cowed by the exhibition of popular feeling that followed from the taking of Fort Sumter, and had for the moment to aban

don the open advocacy of their principles; and during that moment they lost the support of the "timid men," never to regain it in full, though it was given to them again in part whenever the rebels made an unusually good hit in the field. Had the people been cold when the flag went down that had floated over Fort Sumter, nine tenths of the Democrats would have gone over to the enemy openly, as they were already with him in their hearts.

Virginia went almost as far in support of rebellion in 1798-99 as South Carolina went some sixty years later. She sought to obtain the co-operation of other States, to which she sent her resolutions of rebellion; and she "collected arms, and made other preparations to repel force by force," her intention being to wage war against the general government. That she did not go as far as South Carolina saw fit to go, at the close of 1860, was owing to the fact that she received no such assurances of assistance as the latter obtained. The Old Dominion could get no promise that, if she would go over Niagara, there would be many fools to follow her. The Palmetto State was given to understand that her lead to destruction would be followed handsomely, and over she went. Moreover, the men leading Virginia on the road to ruin soon saw that it was possible to obtain possession of the general government, which they could manage to their liking. As they were not fools, as they did not bear any mental resemblance to those Democrats who threw away national power in 1860, they resolved, before making treasonable things of their rebellious words, upon a vigorous effort to pull down Mr. Adams, and to place Mr. Jefferson in the Presidential chair. They succeeded in preventing Mr. Adams's re-election, but the House of Representatives had to decide whether Mr. Jefferson or Colonel Burr should be his successor; and had that body made Colonel Burr President, the Southern Democracy would have resisted his government, though he would

have been as legally elected to the national chief magistracy as Mr. Jefferson himself was elected in February, 1801. Not only was it necessary that the Democrats should triumph, if the country's peace was to be preserved, but it was equally necessary that Mr. Jefferson should be made President. Yet it was to Colonel Burr that the party owed its victory. His peculiar labors secured for it the electoral votes of New York; the giving of which for the Federal party's candidates would have secured Mr. Adams a second term, and bestowed the Vice-Presidency on Mr. Pinckney.

The success of the Democracy, in 1801, was final, as against the Federal party of the first generation of the Republic under the existing Constitution. For twenty-four years they held the Presidency, the Presidents being all Southern men and Virginians. Therefore they were under no temptation to resist the national government. Mr. J. Q. Adams became President in 1825; and he, being a Northern man, encountered a bitter and an unprincipled opposition, though his administration was one of the most constitutional character, no attacks being made on the States. But the Democracy had declared, through the mouth of one of their leaders, that Mr. Adams's administration must be "put down, though it were as pure as the angels which stand at the right hand of God," and they acted in accord ance with this strong declaration. The celebrated Rufus King, then a Senator from New York, brought forward a resolution to provide that, after the payment of the public debt, the net proceeds from the sales of the public lands should be appropriated, in aid of the emancipation of slaves and the colonization of colored persons, when such action should be allowed by the laws of the States. The Democracy, at that time trying to make an arrangement with England for the return of slaves who should seek refuge in Canada, took up this matter as if it were an attack on human liberty; and they

made the administration responsible for what Mr. King had done on his own responsibility. The matter was also taken up by Southern legislatures, and as much was said about the meddling of fanatics with the local rights of Southern States as ever was said twenty years later, when Mr. Garrison had become a power in the land. Governor Troup, who will be remembered by some of our readers as an insatiable fire-eater, spoke most fiercely on the subject in a message to the Legislature of Georgia, which body he entreated "to temporize no longer." "I entreat you," he proceeded to say, "most sincerely, now that it is not too late to step forth, and having exhausted the argument, to stand by your arms." This message was referred to a committee of fire-eaters, who responded: "The hour is come, or is rapidly approaching, when the States, from Virginia to Georgia, from Missouri to Louisiana, must confederate, and as one man say to the Union: 'We will no longer submit our retained rights to the snivelling insinuations of bad men on the floor of Congress,' and to the decision of judicial benches.' 'As Athens, as Sparta, as Rome was, we will be: they held slaves; we hold them.'" This inflammatory nonsense was greatly applauded by the Democracy, who were ever glad to see attacks made on the general government when it was not in the hands of their chiefs.

Governor Troup, with the approval of the Democracy, resisted the general government when it protected the Indians whose lands were sought by Georgians. He went to the very verge of treason, if he did not actually step over the thin line that separates the loyalist from the traitor., But government refused to be governed by the mad governor, and enforced its decrees, much to the disgust of all Democrats, whose creed it is that a State can do no wrong,-unless it be an anti-Democratic Northern State, which changes the moral and legal bearings of the question altogether.

During Mr. Adams's term of service, the nullification movement began, and plots were formed in South Carolina for the dissolution of the Union. It originated in hostility to a protective tariff, and would have become important as early as 1828, had not Mr. Adams failed of a re-election that year. Supposing that General Jackson was more friendly to their views than Mr. Adams was, and expecting to have control of the national government after the General's inauguration as President of the United States, the Carolinian leaders, most of whom were men of great talents, would not allow the question to proceed to extremities in 1828. President Jackson not only did not do what they expected of him, but he did many things adversely to them and their personal interests, that no one could have counted upon. He quarrelled with Mr. Calhoun, who had expected to be his successor in the Presidential chair. This quarrel precipitated rebellion. South Carolina prepared to nullify the laws of the nation, which differed in nothing essential from rebellion; and the President prepared to flog her back to her duty. His vast personal popularity made him the best possible champion of the national cause; and had he led the Democrats against the Carolinians, they would have had to pitch to the dogs State rights, and "the principles of '98," and all the rest of that budget of anarchical fancies which makes up what long has been known as "Democratic principles." Those principles have survived all the attacks that have been made on them. They have outlived the defeats of 1840 and 1848, and also the far greater defeats they met with on the bloody battle-fields of 1861-1865; but they could not have survived the attacks that would have been made upon them by the Democrats themselves, had Andrew Jackson been permitted to lead his party against the nullifiers. Unfortunately, Mr. Clay was enabled to patch up a compromise, the famous Compromise of 1833,through the temporary success of which the inevitable quarrel was postponed for

This was

about twenty-eight years. exactly the worst thing that could have happened, for it was highly necessary that the Democratic party should be blooded in a war against Southern rebels. Then they would have become as good Federalists as even Washington could have desired to see them,— as good Federalists as James Madison himself could have wished to see them when, speaking of New York's proposition to enter the Union with the reserved right to leave it whenever she should think proper to do so, he said, "The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, AND FOREVER," and that a State could not enter the Union as New York wished to enter it. Not only, however, was the Democratic party prevented from being placed in an attitude of intense hostility to its disorganizing dogmas by the success of Mr. Clay's compromise, but from that time it began to show a fondness for Southern ideas that never had been known to the Jeffersonian Democracy. Beginning to change about 1835, it changed fast, and marched far in its desire to get out of sight and hearing of what it had done, under the grand lead of President Jackson, against traitors and treason. It was heartily ashamed of the best thing to be found in its history. In fact, it was not the Democratic party that put down nullification, but Andrew Jackson, who stands out as honorably and brightly in contrast with most of the Democrats of 1832-1833, as John Knox stands out in contrast with the Scottish reforming nobility of three hundred years ago. Had Mr. Adams been re-elected in 182829, nullification would have been a success; for the Democrats would have sided with the rebels, who did not go in the least beyond the doctrines laid down in "the resolutions of '98." As it was, almost the whole of the two opposition parties - the National Republicans and the Anti-Masons, — rallied to the support of President Jackson, by whom they had just been beaten badly in a great national contest. The leading champion of the Union cause, and as