XI THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC THE NATIONAL Democratic party came into being during the first administration of Washington, and T is, therefore, more than a century old. What were the circumstances of its birth? The answer carries us back to the long period between the first settlements in British America and the Revolution. In each colony there showed itself very early a tendency on the part of the common people to demand for themselves a share in the government; and this demand grew larger as time went on. The result was that in most of the colonies the basis of government, both civil and ecclesiastical, was broadened by the inclusion of a large popular element. In the course of this movement, each colony developed a democratic party, organized, it is true, less perfectly than the parties of to-day, but still sufficiently to accomplish its proper ends. John Adams, who knew the facts and understood the meaning of earlier American history better than any other statesman of his time, wrote in 1812: "You say our divisions began with federalism and anti-federalism? Alas! they began with human nature; they have existed in America from its first plantation. In every colony, divisions always prevailed. In New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Massachusetts, and all the rest, a court and country party has always contended." " 2 The significance of these local democratic parties in colonial politics is that they aided in the political development of the 1 The International Monthly, Vol. II, October, 1900. 2 Life and Works, X, 23. an people by impressing upon them democratic ideas, and by giving them an invaluable training in practical politics, education which more than anything else explains their success in the greater struggles that were to follow. Taking the record as a whole, it is surprising that there was so little error in political theory and so little political misconduct on the part of the masses during the five or more generations which cover the colonial period. In explanation, it should be said that, owing to the strong and in general wisely exercised influence of the colonial aristocracy, and to the prudence of the English government these young democracies were entrusted with public responsibilities quite gradually, and never completely. The popular leadership, as a rule, was wise and strong. The early development of democracy in the colonies was affected but little by philosophical speculations, home or foreign; the persecutions of the Stuart period, political and ecclesiastical, sifted out those Englishmen who were most democratically inclined, and sent them to the New World, where they came under influences which stimulated in every man the impulse to make the most of himself; this impulse thus strengthened acting upon the colonial masses is the source of American democracy. Looked at from another standpoint, the significance of the colonial democratic parties is that, owing to their work, the political ideas and character of Americans had become at the close of the Seven Years' War very unlike those of their kindred in the mother country, so unlike in fact that the aristocratic and monarchical system of England was no longer adapted to their wants and was soon to be regarded as intolerable. -- The Revolution made a deep and lasting impression upon American democracy and American democratic parties. The revolutionary period is generally supposed to terminate with the close of the war, but a broader view would extend it to the adoption of the Constitution, that is, to 1789; for the full significance of the Revolution is not seen if we regard it merely or mainly as a military struggle; it was a movement which abolished or modified every part of the system under which Americans were living at the time of the Stamp Act, and created every part of the new system which was to take its place. In this creative work the most difficult and, in some respects, the most admirable portion was that government of the Union which more than replaced the rejected British government; but this was not devised until 1787, and was not established until 1789. The Revolution should, therefore, be considered as extending from the Stamp Act to the inauguration of Washington, a period that covers nearly a quarter of a century. How and to what extent did the Revolution affect American democracy and democratic parties? In the first place, the Revolution was a democratic movement; its controlling motive was attachment to democratic ideas; the centre of resistance in each colony was not in governor, council, or senate, — they, as a rule, were for submission, but in the democratic assemblies. All of the typical revolutionary utterances, the gravest and weightiest, as well as the most passionate and vapid, breathe throughout the spirit of democracy. With this, the declarations and resolves of the different revolutionary bodies, from the Continental to those of the New England towns, are filled to overflowing; it is the essential and living element in the Declaration of Independence, in Paine's Common Sense, in popular song and caricature. Moreover, in the early stages of the Revolution the work of governing fell into the hands of the people and was performed by them until the new constitutions established state governments in place of the colonial. During much of the period the New England town-meeting assumed the higher functions of a politically sovereign body. Not elsewhere, unless we except Athens and Switzerland, has the ordinary citizen ever exercised an influence so decisive on the determination of great matters. The undemocratic elements, namely the official classes, and that large section of the colonial aristocracy which was unfriendly to the Revolution, speedily lost their influence and became the object of a fierce persecution, every act of which gave impetus to the democratic movement. This embittered struggle with the Loyalists or Tories during the war and their expulsion at its close deepened meas urably the democratic impress upon American society and politics, for the Tories were the strongest upholders of conservatism, and of that regard for birth and culture which distinguishes the colonial from the post-revolutionary aristocracy. Further evidence of advance of democracy during and in consequence of the Revolution can be found in the character of the new state constitutions, in the working of the Articles of Confederation, in the legislation of the several States, and, it must be added, in the general decline of good government. In fact, the Revolution through weakening the force that hitherto had exercised a wholesomely restraining influence, gave to democracy a stronger impetus than it could bear. In large measure the misgovernment of the closing years of the period was due, as democrats like Gerry conceded in the Philadelphia Convention, to an "excess of democracy." In brief the lesson of the American Revolution, like that of the greater revolution which followed soon in France, is that at the close of the eighteenth century the democracy, without the aid and coöperation of the conservative classes, was not yet fit to be entrusted with the full control of government. The first truly national or federalist period began in 1787 with the framing of the Constitution and extended to the party revolution of 1800. Its political characteristic was conservative reaction; the democratic masses had few representatives in the Convention of 1787, and the Constitution itself, particularly in its first unamended form, in some of its most distinctive features, is undemocratic. This was recognized in the debates of the convention and was the ground on which some of the members refused their signatures. It was the chief ground also of the strong and nearly successful opposition to ratification. This opposition which, had it been well organized, would have defeated the Constitution, must be recorded as an error, grave indeed, but more significant of political immaturity than of incapacity. Hitherto the democratic masses had concerned themselves with public interests either narrowly local or at most provincial; they had not yet learned to "think continentally." At the beginning of Washington's first administration the conservative and wealthy classes were again in control; Hamilton was the chief motive power of the new government, Washington its balance wheel. Democratic dissatisfaction with the Constitution was in part appeased by the incorporation of the first amendments, — a substantial bill of rights, — and by successful opposition to the undemocratic official etiquette which the high Federalists wished to introduce. It was early in this period that the reaction against the policy of the new government began, which, through consolidating the democratic parties already existing in the several States, led to the formation of the National Democratic party of the Union. One cause of this reaction was the series of famous measures by which Hamilton undertook to restore public credit and, at the same time, to strengthen the moral foundation of the new general government while weakening that of the States. A second cause was the administration's policy of peace with England, - a policy that involved large concessions to a hated enemy, and a strict neutrality towards France, our generous ally in the War of Independence, now laboring in the throes of a revolution which gave her the ardent sympathy of every American democrat. Of the two, the scheme of Hamilton for the restoration of public credit had the greater influence; most of the measures which it embraced were well calculated to arouse democratic opposition; they tended to strengthen the federal government over which the people had comparatively little influence, and to weaken correspondingly that of the States where they had full control; moreover, their manifest tendency was to foster the growth of a moneyed aristocracy and to make it the permanent ally of the government; and lastly, one feature of the scheme, namely, that of a national bank, prepared the way for that doctrine of "implied powers” which threatened to destroy those limitations upon the general government that democrats regarded as the crowning merit of the Constitution. The leader of this reaction and the founder of the National Democratic party was Thomas Jefferson. |
