Читать книгу Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States - Martin Van Buren - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Gratifying Period in our History embraced by Administrations of Jefferson and Madison—The Caucus System and its Abandonment—The System useful to the Republican or Democratic Party, but not so to the Federalists—Questions proposed—Difficulties of the Subject—Two great Parties, under changing Names, have always divided the Country—Few and imperfect Attempts heretofore made to trace the Origin and Principles of those Parties—This the first Attempt with that object on the Republican or Democratic Side—The Sources of Differences in Opinion and Feeling which gave rise to our Political Divisions, and punctum temporis of their Rise—Principles established by the English Revolution of 1688—Application of those Principles to the Colonies—Grounds of the American Revolution—Abstract Opinions regain their Influence after the Settlement of the practical Questions involved in the Revolution—Diverse Character and Feelings of Emigrants to the different Colonies—Effect of that Diversity on Principles of Government and Administration in the New Governments—Repugnance of the People to any Revival of the System overthrown by the Revolution—Popular Reluctance to create an Executive Branch of the Government—Confederacy of the United Colonies of New England in 1643—Dr. Franklin's Plan of Union in 1755—The Sentiments of the Colonists those of the Whigs of the Revolution—Exceptions—Discordant Materials, in certain Respects, of which the Revolutionary Brotherhood was composed—Effects of that Discordance upon the subsequent Organization of Political Parties—The Confederation, and Parties for and against it—Perversion of Party Names—Conflicts and Questions in Controversy between Federalists and Anti-Federalists—The Constitutional Convention of 1787—Different Plans proposed before it—Motives and Views of the Authors of those Plans—The Views which determined Congress and the People to acquiesce in the Results of the Convention—Adoption of the Constitution and Extinction of the Anti-Federal Party as such.

There has been no period in our history, since the establishment of our Independence, to which the sincere friend of free institutions can turn with more unalloyed satisfaction, than to that embraced by the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, moved as they were by a common impulse. Mr. Jefferson commenced the discharge of his official duties by an act which, though one of form, involved matter of the highest moment. I allude to the decision and facility with which, in his intercourse with the other branches of the Government, he suppressed the observance of empty ceremonies which had been borrowed from foreign courts by officers who took an interest in such matters, and were reluctantly tolerated by Washington, who was himself above them. Instead of proceeding in state to the capitol to deliver a speech to the legislature, according to the custom of monarchs, he performed his constitutional duty by means of a message in writing, sent to each House by the hands of his private secretary, and they performed theirs by a reference of its contents to appropriate committees. The Executive procession, instead of marking the intercourse between the different branches of the Government, was reserved for the Inauguration, when the President appeared before the people themselves, and in their presence took the oath of office.

A step so appropriate and so much in harmony with our institutions, was naturally followed by efforts for the abolition of offices and official establishments not necessary to the public service, the reduction of the public expenses, and the repeal of odious internal taxes. To these he added the influence of his individual example to keep the organization and action of the Federal Government upon that simple and economical footing which is consistent with the Republican system. In this branch of his official conduct he established precedents of great value, from some of which his successors have not ventured to depart.

With the single exception of his approval of the Bank of the United States, the administration of Mr. Madison was one of great merit, and was made especially illustrious by conducting the country through a war imperishably honorable for its military achievements and the consequent elevation of our national character.

Jefferson and Madison were brought forward by caucus nominations; they, throughout, recognized and adhered to the political party that elected them; and they left it united and powerful, when, at the close of public life, they carried into their retirement, and always enjoyed, the respect, esteem, and confidence of all their countrymen.

Mr. Monroe's administration did not introduce any very disturbing public questions. The protective policy was, toward its close, generally acquiesced in at the North and West, and no part of the South as yet even contemplated the resistance which was subsequently attempted. The agitation in regard to internal improvements was yet for the most part speculative and too far in advance of any contemplated action to stir the public mind. The Bank of the United States was having its own way without question on the part of the Government, and with but little if any suspicion on the part of the people. No very embarrassing questions had arisen in our foreign relations; yet the first year of Mr. Monroe's second term had scarcely passed away before the political atmosphere became inflamed to an unprecedented extent. The Republican party, so long in the ascendant, and apparently so omnipotent, was literally shattered into fragments, and we had no fewer than five Republican Presidential candidates in the field.

In the place of two great parties arrayed against each other in a fair and open contest for the establishment of principles in the administration of Government which they respectively believed most conducive to the public interest, the country was overrun with personal factions. These having few higher motives for the selection of their candidates or stronger incentives to action than individual preferences or antipathies, moved the bitter waters of political agitation to their lowest depths.

The occurrence of scenes discreditable to all had for a long time been prevented by a steady adherence on the part of the Republican party to the caucus system; and if Mr. Monroe's views and feelings upon the subject had been the same as were those of Jefferson and Madison, the results to which I have alluded, and which were soon sincerely deprecated, might have been prevented by the same means. There was no difference in the political condition of the country between 1816—when Mr. Monroe received a caucus nomination, on a close vote between Mr. Crawford and himself, and was elected—and 1824, when the caucus system was appealed to by the supporters of Mr. Crawford, which called for its abandonment. The Federal party were on both occasions incapable of successfully resisting a candidate in whose favor the Republicans were united, and they were on each sufficiently strong to control the election when the support of their opponents was divided amongst several. Mr. Monroe and a majority of his cabinet were unfortunately influenced by different views, and pursued a course well designed to weaken the influence of the caucus system, and to cause its abandonment. Mr. Crawford was the only candidate who, it was believed, could be benefited by adhering to it, and the friends of all the others sustained the policy of the administration. Those of Jackson, Adams, Clay, and Calhoun, united in an address to the people condemning the practice of caucus nominations, and announcing their determination to disregard them. Already weakened through the adverse influence of the administration, the agency which had so long preserved the unity of the Republican party did not retain sufficient strength to resist the combined assault that was made upon it, and was overthrown. Mr. Crawford and his friends adhered to it to the last, and fell with it.

It is a striking fact in our political history that the sagacious leaders of the Federal party, as well under that name as under others by which it has at different times been known, have always been desirous to bring every usage or plan designed to secure party unity into disrepute with the people, and in proportion to their success in that has been their success in the elections. When they have found such usage too strong to be overthrown for the time being, they have adopted it themselves, but only to return to their denunciations of it after every defeat. It would, on first impression, seem that a practice which is good for one political party must be good for another; but when the matter is more closely looked into, it will be discovered that the policy of the Federal leaders referred to, like most of the acts of those far-seeing men, rested upon substantial foundations. It originated, beyond doubt, in the conviction, on the part of the early Federalists, that a political organization in support of the particular principles which they advocated, and to which they intended to adhere, did not stand as much in need of extraneous means to secure harmony in its ranks as did that of their opponents.

The results of general elections for more than half a century have served to confirm this opinion. With the exception of a single instance, susceptible of easy explanation, the Republican, now Democratic party, whenever it has been wise enough to employ the caucus or convention system, and to use in good faith the influence it is capable of imparting to the popular cause, has been successful, and it has been defeated whenever that system has been laid aside or employed unfairly. With the Federal party and its successors the results have been widely different; with or without the caucus system they have generally found no difficulty in uniting whenever union promised success.

Why is it that a system or practice open to both parties, occasionally used by both, and apparently equally useful to both, is in fact so much less necessary to one than to the other? If this consequence springs from a corresponding difference in the principles for the defense and spread of which they have respectively been formed, what are those principles, whence are they derived, and what is their history?

These are grave questions, which have often presented themselves to the minds of our public men, and to answer which satisfactorily is neither an easy nor a short task.

Histories of struggles for power between individual men or families, long involved in obscurity, are becoming more frequent than they were, and far more satisfactory. Aided by a comparatively free access to public and private papers—a privilege formerly sturdily refused, but which the liberal spirit of the age has now made common—the literary men of most countries, with improved capacities to weigh conflicting statements as well as to narrate the results of their researches with simplicity and perspicuity, are probing the most hidden recesses of the past, and describing with reliable accuracy transactions of great interest, the causes and particular circumstances of which have been hitherto little or not at all understood. But to define the origin and trace the history of national parties is an undertaking of extraordinary difficulty; one from which, in view of the embarrassments that surround it in the case of our own political divisions, I have more than once retired in despair, and on which I now enter with only slight hopes of success. Yet it is due as well to the memories of the past as to actual interests, that a subject which has exerted so great an influence and which may be made so instructive, should be made plain, if that be practicable, to the understandings of the present and succeeding generations; and if my imperfect effort shall have a tendency to turn stronger minds and abler pens in that direction it will not have been made in vain.

The two great parties of this country, with occasional changes in their names only, have, for the principal part of a century, occupied antagonistic positions upon all important political questions. They have maintained an unbroken succession, and have, throughout, been composed respectively of men agreeing in their party passions and preferences, and entertaining, with rare exceptions, similar general views on the subjects of government and its administration. Sons have generally followed in the footsteps of their fathers, and families originally differing have in regular succession received, maintained, and transmitted this opposition. Neither the influences of marriage connections, nor of sectarian prejudices, nor any of the strong motives which often determine the ordinary actions of men, have, with limited exceptions, been sufficient to override the bias of party organization and sympathy, devotion to which has, on both sides, as a rule, been a master-passion of their members.

The names of these parties, like those of their predecessors in older countries, have from time to time been changed, from suggestions of policy or from accidental causes. Men of similar and substantially unchanged views and principles have, at different periods of English history, been distinguished as Cavaliers or Roundheads, as Jacobites or Puritans and Presbyterians, as Whigs or Tories. Here, with corresponding consistency in principle, the same men have at different periods been known as Federalists, Federal Republicans, and Whigs, or as Anti-Federalists, Republicans, and Democrats. But no changes of name have indicated—certainly not until very recently, and the depth and duration of the exception remain to be seen—a change or material modification of the true character and principles of the parties themselves. The difference between the old Republican and the Anti-Federal parties, arising out of the questions in regard to the new Constitution, was by far the greatest variation that has occurred.

Several hasty and but slightly considered attempts have been made to define the origin, and to mark the progress, of our national parties. But, with a single exception—namely, that made by ex-President John Quincy Adams, in his Jubilee Discourse before the New York Historical Society, on the 30th of April, 1839, being the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States—they have not professed, so far as they have fallen under my notice, to do more than glance at the subject.

To say that this discourse of one hundred and twenty pages was written with Mr. Adams's accustomed ability, would be a commendation short of its merits. It was more. The political condition of the country, and the near approach of the memorable struggle of 1840, superadded to the stirring considerations connected with the occasion, seem to have persuaded that distinguished man that he was called upon to make an extraordinary effort. A severe philippic against his and his father's political enemies, this discourse, judged in the sense in which such performances are naturally estimated by contemporaries imbued with similar feelings, could not fail to be regarded as an eloquent and able production; but I deceive myself if it can be deemed by a single ingenuous mind either a dispassionate or an impartial review of the origin and course of parties in the United States. Such minds will be more likely to receive a paper, written so long after the transactions of which it speaks, with feelings of regret at the strong evidence it affords that the rage of party spirit, upon the assumed extinguishment of which its author had, years before, exultingly congratulated the people from the Presidential chair, was yet so active in his own breast. I say this more in sorrow than in anger. Other portions of this work[1] will, I am sure, exonerate me from the suspicion of cherishing the slightest sentiment of unkindness toward the memory of John Quincy Adams. When my personal acquaintance with him was but slight, and when our political relations were unfavorable to the cultivation of friendly feelings, my dispositions toward him were to an unusual extent free from the prejudices commonly engendered by party differences. In the later periods of our acquaintance, continuing to the end of his life, I regarded him with entire personal respect and kindness; and notwithstanding the occasional fierceness of our political collisions, I have never heard of any unfriendly expression by him in respect to myself personally.

It is not a little remarkable, though in harmony with other striking features in the relations of our parties, that no serious attempt has ever been made to trace their origin except by members of the same political school with Mr. Adams. If I am right in this, mine will at least have the weight, whatever that may be, due to the narration of one who, from the beginning to the end of an extended political career, has been an invariable and ardent member of the opposite school.

The author of the life of Hamilton confidently pronounces what occurred on the appointment of Washington as Commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary army, to be the true source of the party divisions that have so long and so extensively prevailed in this country. President John Quincy Adams, in his Inaugural Address, attributes them to the conflicting prejudices and preferences of the people for and against Great Britain and France at the commencement of the present government, and the discontinuance of them to the effects produced by the excesses of the French Revolution. Matthew L. Davis—a man of much note and cleverness, who commenced his career an active member of the old Republican party, became the especial champion of Colonel Burr, and, soon seceding from the party to which he was at first attached, spent the remainder of his life in opposition to it—in his life of Aaron Burr, attributes the origin of our two great political parties to the proceedings of the Federal Constitutional Convention and of the State Conventions which passed upon the question of ratification.

These various versions of the matter I shall hereafter notice, contenting myself, for the present, with the remark that party divisions which have extended to every corner of a country as large as our own, and have endured so long, could not spring from slight or even limited causes. No differences in the views of men on isolated questions temporary in their nature, could, it seems to me, have produced such results. Questions of such a character are either finally settled, with more or less satisfaction, or in time lose their interest, notwithstanding momentary excitement, and the temporary organizations springing from them give place in turn to others equally short-lived.

But when men are brought under one government who differ radically in opinion as to its proper form, as to the uses for which governments should be established, as to the spirit in which they should be administered, as to the best way in which the happiness of those who are subject to them can be promoted, no less than in regard to the capacity of the people for self-government, we may well look for party divisions and political organizations of a deeper foundation and a more enduring existence.

Ours arose at the close of the Revolution, and the leading parties to them were the Whigs, through whose instrumentality, under favor of Providence, our Independence had been established. They and the Tories constituted our entire population, and the latter had at first, for obvious reasons, but little to do in the formation of parties, save to throw themselves in a body into the ranks of one of them. It became at once evident that great differences of opinion existed among the Whigs in respect to the character of the government that should be substituted for that which had been overthrown, and also in respect to the spirit and principles which should control the administration of that which might be established. These spread through the country with great rapidity, and were respectively maintained with a zeal and determination which proved that they were not produced by the feelings or impulses of the moment. To ascertain the origin of those differences, and to trace their effects, we can adopt no safer course than to look to the antecedents of the actors in the stirring political scenes that followed the close of the war, to the characters and opinions of their ancestors, from whom they had naturally imbibed their first ideas of government either directly or traditionally, and to the incidents of the memorable struggle from which the country had just emerged.

The great principle first formally avowed by Rousseau, "that the right to exercise sovereignty belongs inalienably to the people," sprung up spontaneously in the hearts of the colonists, and silently influenced all their acts from the beginning. The condition of the country in which they settled—a wilderness occupied besides themselves only by savage tribes—to which many of them were driven by the fiercest persecutions ever known to the civilized world, and the stern self-reliance and independent spirit which most of them had acquired in contests with iron fortune that preceded their exile, combined to induce the cultivation and to secure the permanent growth of such a sentiment. Not being, however, for several generations, in a suitable condition, and from counteracting inducements not even disposed to dispute the pretensions of the Crown to their allegiance, they were content to look principally to its patents and other concessions for the measure of their rights. But their views were greatly changed, and their advance on the road to freedom materially accelerated, by the English Revolution of 1688. The final overthrow of James II., from whose tyrannical acts, as well in the character of Duke of York as in that of King, they had severely suffered, was not the greatest advantage the colonists derived from that Revolution. The principles upon which that most important of European movements was founded, and the doctrines it consecrated, paved the way to a result which, though not upon their tongues, or perhaps to any great extent the subject of their meditations as immediately practicable, was, doubtless, from that time, within their contemplation.

That Revolution, which shattered, "past all surgery," the blasphemous and absurd dogma of the divine right of kings; which replaced the slavish doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance with the principle that the authority of the monarch was no other than a trust founded on an assumed agreement between him and his subjects that the power conferred upon him should be used for their advantage, for the faithful execution of which he was individually responsible, and for a breach of which resistance to his authority, as a last resort, was a constitutional remedy; which for the supremacy of the Crown substituted the supremacy of Parliament; which made the King as well as his subjects responsible to its authority, and which abrogated the right of the Crown to govern the colonies in virtue of its prerogative, and vested that power in Parliament, placed the colonists upon a footing widely different from that they had theretofore occupied.

The general principle that they were, by the laws and statutes of England, entitled to the political rights that appertained to British subjects, could not be denied, but commercial rivalry and political jealousies acting upon their excited feelings, soon generated questions of the gravest import, both as to the extent of the power of Parliament to legislate for them, and as to the participation in representation essential to authorize the exercise of that power.

The subjects of taxation and the regulation of trade by Parliamentary authority, excited the greatest interest on both sides of the Atlantic. In respect to the latter, the question was not a little embarrassed by an alleged acquiescence on the part of the colonists, and the consequent force of precedents. This circumstance, in connection with the consideration that, if the right to regulate the trade of the colonies was denied to the mother country, the allegiance conceded to be due would be paid to a barren sceptre, was calculated to deprive the cause of the colonists of the favorable opinion of those just men in England whose countenance and support were of so much service to them in the sequel. Duly appreciating the obstacles to success which there was reason to apprehend from this source, with the prudence and good sense that belonged to their character, and without waiving any of their rights, they placed their cause principally upon a ground that lay at the foundation of the Revolution, and was thoroughly immovable, viz., that by the fundamental laws of property no taxes could be levied upon the people but by their own consent or that of their authorized agents, and that by consequence the connection was indissoluble between taxation and representation.

In the justice and constitutionality of this position they were openly sustained by Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, Burke, Fox, and others—men who were in their day and have since been regarded as leading minds of England. With but little of public sentiment against them beyond what was influenced by the inveterate hatred and the insane obstinacy of the King, wielding at will the majority of a notoriously corrupt Parliament and the brute force of the kingdom, the colonists appealed to the God of Battles in defense of a sacred principle of freedom, and in resistance to tyrannical acts of the most odious and oppressive character, and they were victorious. It is now, and will be in all time, a source of satisfaction to the people of these States, that the decision of the sword is not their only nor their highest title to the liberty they enjoy. The colonists were right in the contest. Of this no serious doubt is now entertained in any honest and well-informed quarter. The idea of virtual representation, and the attempt to justify one wrong by the practice of another, namely, the taxing other British subjects without giving them an adequate representation in Parliament—the only replies that were made to the claim of constitutional rights—are now well understood, and, it gives me pleasure to say, generally disavowed in England. Lord Derby, the manly and highly gifted leader of what is left of the old Tory party, not long since, in a speech delivered in the presence of an American minister, unreservedly admitted that we were right in the Revolutionary contest; and, if that question were now submitted to the free judgment of the people of England, such would be found to be the public sense of that great nation.

The only way in which the right in respect to taxation set up by the English Parliament could have been sustained consistently with the English Constitution, would have been by a joint government, securing to the colonies the representation in that body to which they were entitled as British subjects—a plan to which both the mother country and the colonies were equally decided in their dislike, but for very different reasons. If a similar question were presented at this day it would, according to the present state of public opinion in both countries, be at once settled by an alliance of peace and friendship, substituting fraternal relations for those of parent and children.

Well would it have been for the interests of both and of humanity if the matter had been thus adjusted.

The immediate question upon which the Revolution turned was, of course, forever extinguished by its results. But it has been far otherwise with the opinions, doubtless of various shades and equally sincere, in regard to the nature of government, the uses to which it could be properly applied, and the manner and spirit of its application, with which the colonists entered into the contest, and with the feelings engendered by those opinions and developed by the war. Upon these points the characters and successive conditions of the early emigrants exerted a great influence. Those to Virginia were first in point of time, and certainly not inferior to any in the elements of character adapted to the difficulties they were destined to encounter. History, doubtless authentic, records that the first emigration to that State was a measure of the patriotic party in England, and sprung from a desire to make an offering to liberty in the wilderness which the stringency of power had prevented them from making at home. The accomplishment of that design, whatever may have been the aid subsequently derived from its authors, has been eminently successful. Whether as colonists, as citizens of a free State, or as a part of our great Confederacy, the emigrants to Virginia, their successors and descendants, have done all that men could do to realize the anticipations and designs of the founders of that ancient colony.

Fully equal to them in devotion to liberty, with the additional merit of having made greater sacrifices in its defense, stood the Puritans, whose descendants are said to constitute at this time one fifth (I believe it is) of the people of the United States. It would be superfluous to describe either the persecutions to which they were subjected by arbitrary power or their fidelity to their principles. Their story is known, and their early character understood, throughout the civilized world.

The Huguenots entered largely into the early settlement of several of the colonies, and their descendants now constitute numerous portions of several of our States. Indeed, the very first European colony established in this country was composed of Huguenots, who were exterminated by the Spaniards—an event which, indirectly, contributed greatly to the emigration to Virginia under Sir Walter Raleigh. Fugitives from the most cruel as well as the most obstinate persecutions, hunted like wild beasts on account of their devotion to religious freedom and the right of opinion, they fled to our shores, detesting irresponsible power of every description, and ready to do their utmost to prevent its re-incorporation in our virgin system.

The States General and the Dutch West India Company, although the former were perhaps not more favorable to popular sovereignty, in our sense of these words, than the Stuarts, and the latter altogether mercenary, yet introduced into this country, in the colonization of New Netherlands, emigrants especially adapted, by character and disposition, to the scenes through which they were destined to pass. This happy result was attributable to the peculiar conjuncture of affairs at home when the establishment of that colony was undertaken. It was during the continuance of the truce in their War of Independence—the first that was granted to them by Philip II., after that barbarous contest had already lasted forty years—that the attention of the United Provinces was directed to this country. The revolting cruelties which Philip had caused to be inflicted upon the Dutch, through the instrumentality of Alva, are as notorious to the world as are those to which the Huguenots were subjected by Charles IX. and Louis XIV.; and the spirit of resistance to arbitrary power, whether ecclesiastical or political, was branded as by fire upon the hearts of both.

To colonists of these descriptions were from time to time added numerous other Protestants, who had fled to Holland, as well after the massacre of St. Bartholomew as from other and kindred demonstrations of political and priestly despotism in various parts of Europe, with an infusion of descendants of the disciples of the Bohemian martyr, John Huss, who, from the stake to which he had been doomed for his resistance to papal tyranny, conjured his followers not to put their trust in princes.

The mass of the early colonists having been sufferers at home, as well from social and political inequalities as from the heavy hand of power applied to themselves, having left behind them much that they dreaded and nothing that they approved in the management of public affairs, were exposed to no influences that could disincline them to the establishment of just and equal governments in the land of their adoption. Nothing could therefore be more natural than that they and their immediate descendants, made familiar with the wrongs and outrages practiced on their fathers by absolute tyrants, should have been jealous of their liberties, and disposed to be rigid in their restrictions upon the grant and exercise of delegated authority. From this disposition sprang the principles to which they always adhered in the administration of public affairs, and in the defense of which they appear to have been always ready to make any necessary sacrifice. These, on the part of by far the largest portions of the original colonists and their descendants, were an insurmountable opposition to hereditary political power in any shape and under any circumstances; a suspicious watchfulness of all official authority, proportioned to their knowledge of its liability to be abused; a consequent indisposition to concede more than was indispensable to good government; the establishment of a certain, and, as they called it, a swift responsibility for the exercise of that which was granted; an habitual distrust, exhibited on various occasions in their history, of every offer of special privileges by government, and an unwillingness to confer the power to grant them—the former springing from suspicion that they were designed to impair their independence, and the latter from conviction, fully justified by experience, that such a power will always end in favoritism; and an early and strong appreciation of the value of union among themselves and between the colonies, originating in the necessity for their protection against the savages, and kept alive by perpetual machinations from the mother country to weaken and restrict their freedom.

These and kindred feelings and principles were, as I have said, natural to men whose antecedents, as well as those of their ancestors, had been such as I have described; and they remained throughout the prevailing features of colonial politics. They were not only the views of men prominent in their respective communities, but the matured convictions of the masses in respect to the line of policy necessary to their welfare, and therefore the more likely to be perpetuated, for it has been well and truly said, that "it is the masses alone that live." These opinions might occasionally and for a season lie dormant, or be made to yield to power, but neither corruption nor force could eradicate them. With occasional but brief intermissions, they controlled the action of the colonial legislatures; were embraced by a majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; directed the course of the Revolutionary Congress as well as that of the Government of the Confederation subsequent to the recognition of our Independence, and were in truth always the real sentiments of a majority of the people.

It will be hereafter seen when they were for a season rendered powerless, and when and how their control over the action of the government was restored.

The materials for tracing the action of the public mind, and the proceedings of public bodies during the early periods of our history, are, in comparison with those applicable to modern times, quite imperfect. But aided by the facts which the historians of our day, with great industry and in most cases with equal fidelity, have drawn from oblivion, and still more by the recent very general publication of the papers of eminent deceased statesmen, the work has become less difficult.

The fidelity of the Puritans to their well-known principles in respect to hereditary power, was soon exposed to a severe trial. During the residence of Sir Henry Vane in the Colony of Massachusetts, several English peers, induced by a desire to remove to that colony and to make it their place of permanent residence, offered to do so if changes could be effected in its government, by which the General Court should be divided into two bodies, and their hereditary right to seats in the upper branch allowed to them. Strong as was the wish of the colonists for the acquisition of those distinguished men, they yet declined a compliance with their wishes. All that they could be induced to allow was a life-tenure, and they actually made some appointments of that character; but of this they soon repented, and attached to the offices held by that tenure a condition which made the concession nugatory by making it valueless. It is perhaps not assuming too much to suppose that the regret they experienced at this momentary forgetfulness of their principles—a regret exhibited in various ways—had no small influence in inducing them to limit the terms of offices in the New England States to very short periods, as is still the custom there.

Similar conduct and feeling were disclosed by the colonists on every occasion that presented itself for their display, but the necessity for their exhibition was in a great measure superseded by the Declaration of Independence and the war that succeeded, during the continuance of which sentiments favorable to hereditary power were regarded by the country as crimes to be punished.

Our Independence was scarcely established when a circumstance occurred which exhibited in a very striking manner the fixed aversion of the great body of the people to hereditary distinctions.

The officers of the army, desirous of perpetuating the memory of the relations of respect and friendship which had grown up among them during the trying and momentous scenes through which they had passed, established, in May, 1783, the "Society of the Cincinnati," and made the honor of membership hereditary. It has not appeared that General Washington was consulted upon the subject in the first instance, but conscious of the purity of his own motives, and confiding fully in those of his military associates, he allowed his name to be placed at the head of the list of members and consented to be its president.

The principle of hereditary distinctions could not well have been placed before the people in a less exceptionable form, and yet there were but few occurrences during the war by which the public mind was so deeply excited as that by which the officers intended to grace the closing scenes of their meritorious career. The measure was assailed in all the forms in which an offended public opinion usually finds vent. In addition to able and eloquent attacks from American pens, the movement was severely criticised in a pamphlet published in France and written by Mirabeau, entitled, "Thoughts on the Order of Cincinnatus."

General Washington informed himself of the extent to which the subject was agitating the public mind, and, justly alarmed at the consequences it might produce, determined to do all in his power to arrest its progress. He wrote to Mr. Jefferson in April, 1784, asking his opinion and the probable views of Congress (of which Mr. Jefferson was a member) upon the subject, and his advice in respect to the most eligible measures to be adopted by the society at their next meeting, which was to be held in the ensuing month of May. This letter does not appear in the published writings of Washington, but an extract from it is given by Mr. Sparks, from which and from Jefferson's reply its contents as stated are gathered. Mr. Jefferson's answer, containing an unreserved communication of his opinions in the matter, may be found in Vol. I. of his Correspondence. He stated at length the objections that were made to the society, the unfriendliness of Congress to it, and added, in conclusion, that if, rather than decide themselves upon the best course to be pursued, the members should, at their approaching meeting, refer the question to Congress, such a reference would "infallibly produce a recommendation of total discontinuance."

General Washington attended the meeting in May, and proposed several changes in the constitution, and among them, in his own words, taken by Mr. Sparks from memoranda in his own handwriting, "to discontinue the hereditary part in all its connections, absolutely, without any substitution which can be construed into concealment or a change of ground only, for this would, in my opinion, increase rather than allay suspicion." This amendment, and others having a similar bearing, were adopted.

In Mr. Jefferson's letter to myself, accompanying this volume,[2] to which, as it was prepared with great care, and avowedly designed "to throw light on history and to recall that into the path of truth," I shall have frequent occasion to refer, will be found a highly interesting account of what took place between himself and General Washington, on his way to the meeting in Philadelphia, and on his return, in May, 1784.

Some of the State societies rejected these modifications in toto, and others only agreed to them partially. The agitation of the subject was thus continued for several years, and as late as 1787 no State had yet so far yielded its prejudices as to grant the charter for which the constitution of the society made it the duty of the State meetings to apply. Whatever opinion may at this day be formed in regard to the sufficiency of the reasons for the alarm which this transaction produced, it cannot be doubted that the proceedings in regard to it afford strong proof that there was, down to the spring of 1787, a settled aversion in the minds of a majority of the people to any measure or course of measures which were indicative of the slightest desire to return in any degree to the system which they had overthrown; and that as early as 1783 strong suspicion existed that such desires were concealed in the minds of many who had previously stood faithfully by the country in all its perils.

The intense hostility of the colonists and their successors to monarchical institutions, and the recollection of the cruelties inflicted upon them and upon their predecessors under the authority of kings, had produced a determined repugnance on their part to the concentration of power in the hands of single magistrates. Their minds had become thoroughly impressed with a conviction that the disposition to abuse power by those who were intrusted with it was not only inherent and invariable, but incurable, and that it was therefore unwise to grant more than was actually indispensable to the management of public affairs. At no period anterior to the adoption of the present Constitution, could a majority be obtained in Congress for the creation of an executive branch of the Government, or an impression be made upon the public mind favorable to such a measure. The inconveniences experienced from a want of it during a protracted war, and which were again encountered in the public service after the recognition of our independence, were not sufficient to overcome this repugnance. The tenacity with which they adhered to an equal representation and influence for the colonies before, and for the States after, the Declaration of Independence, in the confederacies and governments they formed, sprang from like considerations. They could not be brought to believe that a State, to which was allowed a greater power than was reserved to its confederates, could be restrained from the ultimate exercise of her superior power to depress her smaller confederates and to elevate herself.

Proofs of the existence and force of these opinions are spread through every portion of our early history.

In 1643 the New England Colonies, with the exception of those "who ran a different course" from the Puritans, entered into a Confederacy. Its avowed design was the better advancement of their general interests, but its real object was to provide greater security against the savages by whom they were menaced. It was called the "United Colonies of New England." The plan was for a season defeated, because Massachusetts claimed more power than she was willing to concede to the other colonies; but it was finally established upon principles of perfect equality, no more power or influence being conceded to Massachusetts, by far the largest, than to New Haven, the smallest colony. The management of affairs was intrusted to commissioners, of which each colony had two, but no executive power was conferred upon them. They might deliberate and recommend, but the colonies alone could carry their recommendations into effect. This Confederacy endured for nearly half a century, and worked well.

In 1755 a convention of delegates from the colonies was held at Albany, under the stimulus of French encroachments, and a plan of union, drawn up by Dr. Franklin, was agreed upon and submitted to the colonies for their approval. The plan, as was to be expected from the character of its author, distributed the powers of the government between the people and the prerogatives of the Crown, much more favorably to the popular side than it would seem the latter might, in the then condition of things, have reasonably hoped for. Still the attachments of the colonists to their local governments, and, above all, their distrust and dread of a central government, which was provided for, were sufficient to deprive the plan of their favor, and to cause its ultimate abandonment.

The privilege of "Government within themselves," as "their undoubted right in the sight of God and man," and "to be governed by rulers of their own choosing and laws of their own making," were from the beginning objects of absorbing solicitude with the colonists and their Revolutionary successors.

The principles and sentiments I have attempted to define, which had sprung up at the earliest period in the colonies, and had grown with their growth and strengthened with their strength, and in explanation of which I have referred to a few of the many illustrations with which their history abounds, were doubtless those also of a great majority of the Whigs of the Revolution, in whose breasts was not wanting the feeling which rarely fails to be seen in those political divisions that lead to civil war—a thorough antagonism to the general opinions, as well as to the particular policy of the power or party opposed; but it is equally true that those were far from being the principles or feelings of all by whose efforts the Revolution was achieved. A numerous portion of the Whigs of the Revolution, many of them greatly distinguished for their talents, high characters, and great public services, neither concurred in the principles nor sympathized with the feelings I have described, but were in a great measure driven by other considerations to take active parts in the struggle. The number thus influenced was, fortunately for the result of the contest, increased by specific tyrannical acts, which a prudent government would have avoided, but which were forced on the ministry and Parliament of the mother country by the obstinacy and bigotry of the king. Within a year after his accession to the throne he wound up a series of unnecessary interferences with the administration of justice in the colonies, by changing the tenure of office, which had till that period prevailed in relation to the colonial judges, from that of good behavior to that of the will and pleasure of the Crown. By thus using his prerogative to create a distinction in different parts of the realm degrading to the colonies, he left the colonial lawyers no other course consistent with self-respect, to say nothing of patriotism, than to unite with those engaged in other pursuits in an effort to overthrow a government capable of such practices. While subjecting the legal profession to such humiliating proofs of the royal displeasure, his government commenced its assaults upon that portion of his subjects engaged in commerce. His indignation against those who scouted the doctrine of the British Constitution, "that the king can do no wrong," was intense and unappeasable in proportion to their presumed intelligence. It was in this spirit that he appears to have selected judges, professional men, and merchants, as special objects of his wrath, and having exerted his power against the first two classes, he turned his attention toward the latter.

The Navigation Acts, as they stood at the period of his accession, had been framed in the illiberal and selfish spirit which characterized the legislation of the age. But though they had proved injurious to the trade of the colonies, and humiliating to the colonial merchants, in consequence of the extent to which they made their interests subservient to those of the mother country, yet their prejudicial effects had in neither respect been fully developed, in consequence of the remissness which had prevailed in their execution. This had in a great degree been occasioned by illicit contrivances between the colonists engaged in trade and navigation and the officers of government stationed in the colonies. A vigorous execution of the existing laws not only was determined upon, but new acts were passed imposing additional restrictions, and superadding cumulative penalties upon those who disregarded them. To enforce this vindictive policy the Government resorted to a measure at once the most arbitrary and odious of any that had ever been known to the public service—that of "Writs of Assistance,"—and converted the army and navy into a police establishment to aid in the detection and punishment of the colonial offenders.

By thus giving vent to his persecuting spirit—a spirit always blind to its own interests—this infatuated Prince drove into the front rank of the Revolution two classes of the colonists who were, from the nature of their pursuits, least likely to embark in popular outbreaks, and most inclined to favor a strong government—classes which are usually caressed by more sagacious rulers, and which had been so here before the reign of George III. All orders of the colonists, save a few favorites, were by these and similar means united, as a band of brothers, in a movement such as the world had never before, and has never since seen, for the overthrow of a government by which they were so sorely oppressed.

This union was in other respects composed of very discordant materials. It consisted, on the one hand, of men and the descendants of men on whose hearts the fires of persecution had burned a hatred of royalty too deep to be erased and too zealous to be trifled with; of men who were at the same time too conversant with human nature to allow themselves to believe that the love of power and the proneness to its abuse were confined to its hereditary possessors, and who were therefore anxious to restrict grants of authority to their public functionaries to the lowest point consistent with good government, and to subject what they did grant to the most stringent responsibilities. They continued, also, to cherish the same preference for their local organizations, and to entertain the same distrust of an overshadowing central government, for which the great body of the people had long been distinguished. They were men whose highest ambition and desire for themselves and the country was that it should have a plain, simple, and cheap government for the management of the affairs of the Confederacy, republican in its construction and democratic in its spirit—a government that should, as far as practicable, be deprived of the power of creating artificial distinctions in society, and of corrupting and thus subverting the independence of the people by the possession of a redundant patronage. Such a government had long been the subject of their meditations, and they braved the hazards and encountered the hardships of the Revolutionary contest for the opportunity of establishing it.

The Revolutionary brotherhood by which the recognition of our Independence was enforced, contained, on the other hand, men respectable in numbers, and distinguished by talent, public service, and high social position, who dissented from many (I may say from most) of these views, and who regarded them as Utopian in themselves, or as too contracted for the exigencies of the public service.

This difference in the opinions of men who had been engaged in such a contest was all but unavoidable, and was never absent from any political struggle of sufficient importance to be compared with it. It results, besides those which have been indicated as peculiar to our own condition and history, from simple but potent causes of universal operation, such as diversities in social condition, in education, in the influence and tendencies of previous pursuits, and in individual character and temperament, producing diversities of views on such occasions.

Although an aversion to royalty and opposition to hereditary government in any form, were sentiments that pervaded the masses and exercised a controlling influence in the Revolution, there were not a few, of the character I have described, who, though they doubtless did not at the moment design the reintegration of those institutions after the overthrow of the actual Government, could yet contemplate, without great revulsion of feeling, their ultimate establishment in this country. Prompt to resist tyranny in any shape, and stung by the oppressions practiced upon the colonies by the British Government, they hesitated not to peril their lives for its subversion here, whilst theoretically they not only tolerated its form and constitution, but regarded them as the best that could be devised to promote the welfare and to secure the happiness of mankind. Of the existence of this opinion on the part of many sincere friends and able advocates of the Revolutionary cause, in every stage of the contest and for years after its close, we have indubitable evidence. I will notice a few cases of this description, on account of the influence exerted on the formation of political parties by the knowledge of the existence of such opinions, and by the suspicions, perhaps unjust, and in some respects certainly so, as to the extent to which those who held them were willing to carry them out. In so doing, it is by no means my design to cast reproach upon the memories of the great men who entertained them, and who stood by their country in her severest extremity, and established the highest claims to her gratitude and favor.

No ingenuous mind can doubt that a large majority of the Whigs were opposed to the substitution of a government similar either in form or spirit to that from which they had emancipated themselves. Our Revolutionary creed was, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter and abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

Under such a creed all were entitled as of right to a perfect freedom of choice in regard to the character of the new government. Neither for the formation of their opinions, however erroneous these may have been, nor for the maintenance of them by lawful means, did any subject themselves to just reproach, or to other forfeiture than perhaps a loss of the confidence of those who thought differently.

James Otis, Stephen Hopkins, John Adams, Gouverneur Morris, and Alexander Hamilton, may be selected from many others as representatives of the principles of that class to which I have referred as dissenting from the popular or preponderating ideas of the time.

I select them the more readily from a desire to avoid mistakes, as they were possessed of temperaments too sanguine and too fearless to be deterred from advancing openly opinions they honestly entertained, by their unpopularity.

There were certainly not many individuals, if there was one, who did more to set the ball of the Revolution in motion than James Otis; and if his career had not been cut short by the hand of violence he would have taken high rank among the great and good men who survived the struggle. His speech against the issuing of the Writs of Assistance had an effect corresponding to those of Patrick Henry. Yet this highly gifted man, whose patriotic spirit was sufficiently aroused by the oppressions of the mother country, while yet in their incipiency, to induce him to peril his life in acts of resistance, was an enthusiastic admirer of the principles of the English system, and honestly believed, as he said, "that the British Constitution came nearest the idea of perfection of any that had been reduced to practice."

The patriotic Hopkins, one of the Rhode Island Representatives in the General Congress, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote—and that colony authoritatively published its concurrence in the declaration—that "The glorious Constitution of Great Britain is the best that ever existed among men."

Gouverneur Morris's unyielding hostility to democratic principles, and his preference for aristocratic and monarchical institutions, were often exhibited and unreservedly avowed, as well on the floor of the Federal Convention as elsewhere, and have become familiar among his countrymen as household words. There were not many, if indeed there was a single one of his contemporaries, who went beyond him in hostility to the State governments. "State attachments and State importance," said he in the Federal Convention, "have been the bane of this country! We cannot annihilate them, but we may, perhaps, take out the teeth of the serpents." Such as were his principles at the commencement of his career they remained to the close of his life.

But the opinions of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, from their larger agency in the politics of the country, in the administration of its government, and in the actual formation of parties, are of still greater importance. A full exposition of these, beyond the single point upon which there existed the greatest jealousy at the period at which we have now arrived—that of their preference for the English system—will be best postponed until we come to consider the times and occasions which were presented for an ampler display of them. I will, therefore, only refer at this place to the contents of a statement prepared and signed by Thomas Jefferson, in February, 1818, and designed to explain a portion of his writings. In this he says, among other things: "But Hamilton was not only a monarchist, but for a monarchy bottomed on corruption. In proof of this I will relate an anecdote for the truth of which I attest the God who made me. Before the President set out upon his Southern tour, in April, 1791, he addressed a letter of the 4th of that month, from Mount Vernon, to the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and War, desiring that if any serious and important cases should arise during his absence they would consult and act on them, and he requested that the Vice-President should also be consulted. This was the only occasion on which that officer was ever requested to take part in a Cabinet question. Some occasion for consultation arising, I invited those gentlemen (and the Attorney-General, as well as I remember) to dine with me, in order to confer on the subject. After the cloth was removed, and our question argued and dismissed, conversation began on other matters, and by some circumstance was led to the British Constitution, on which Mr. Adams observed—'Purge that Constitution of its corruption and give to its popular branch equality of representation, and it would become the most perfect Constitution ever devised by the wit of man.' Hamilton paused and said—'Purge it of its corruptions and give to its popular branch equality of representation, and it would become an impracticable government: as it stands at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most perfect which ever existed.'"

The solemn responsibility under which this statement was made, the high character of its author, the time when it was recorded—after one of the principal parties had passed from earth, and the two remaining were on the brink of the grave; when the passions excited by personal and political rivalry had died away, and friendly relations had been restored between the survivors—would of themselves be sufficient to establish its accuracy, even if its description of the opinions of Adams and Hamilton had not been, as it will be seen that they were, abundantly confirmed as well by the speeches and writings of the parties themselves as by the recorded declarations of associates and friends who possessed the best opportunities to become acquainted with their real sentiments.