USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. V > Part 12
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which finally became so many and extreme that the whole American people revolted, fought a successful war against its masters, and established liberty upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The improvisation of a national government so regulated in practice as to reproduce and perpetuate the most objectionable feature of the old discarded institutions, did not and could not appeal to general public sentiment.
It was also considered that while the plan of the British constitution was an admirable one for England, the arguments for its automatic imitation by the United States were not convincing. The measurable development of British liberty had been the tedious and difficult process of centuries, continually hampered by king, nobles, and that formidable number of the underlings and adorers of the great who exhibited the strange tendency, common to kindred spirits in all countries (not excepting the America of either 1790 or 1920), of being more royalist than the king and more aristocratic than the aristocrats. But American national institutions were merely in formation-they were not under the compulsion of ages of custom and constraint as to their character either presently or potentially. Was it desirable to have them rooted in the principle of slow and painful progression to larger popular rights after strenuous contests to wrest from a hostile central government one "privilege" after another? That was the question when Jefferson founded the Democratic party in 1791.
During the entire period of the developments
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culminating in the organization of the government under Washington's Presidency-in fact, ever since 1784-Jefferson had been absent from the country as Minister to France. His observations and reflections derived from his contact with the tyrannical French monarchy and his constant personal investigations concerning the appalling distresses of its oppressed subjects, had intensified his hatred of all arbitrary rule and his passionate devotion to every principle and method of government calculated to be of advantage to the ordinary people. In letters written to friends he remarked that the people of France were "ground to powder by the vices of the form of government"; that such a government was one "of wolves over sheep, or kites over pigeons"; that the exalted persons who administered it were of the most astonishing vulgarity and incapacity; that the destiny of nineteen-twentieths of the people was utterly hopeless, etc., etc. He was in Paris throughout the prodigious events that ushered in the French Revolution, including the fall of the Bastile. Returning to the United States in the autumn of 1789, he was called by Washington to become the head of the cabinet, and in the spring of the following year he entered upon his new office.
Differences between Jefferson and Hamilton on account of the aggressive policies of the latter, all of which tended toward rigorous consolidation of the powers of the general government and amplification of its pretensions, led soon to a complete rupture. Both of those great statesmen, however, were far less con- cerned about immediate than permanent matters; and
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Jefferson was too powerful an intellectual leader, as well as too wise a politician, to consume any energy or time in the small diversions of factious opposition. He knew that the popular forces of resistance to the spirit and designs of the Federalist party stood ready, and, indeed, were impatient, to be moulded into an affirma- tive and compact political entity. There was no cere- mony, there were practically no preliminaries, in the formation of the Democratic party. It sprang into being, around the personality of Jefferson, on the aggressive and unalterable proposition that the govern- ment, in all its composition, scope, and business, was most certainly to be subject to the direct concern, scrutiny, approbation, and participation of the Ameri- can people without distinction of class or calculation of favor. It was one of Jefferson's most characteristic traits that he was unimpressed by superficial personal fortune, and to him in that respect the Democratic party conformed its whole character and texture, refusing utterly to accept pretensions of superior political right, with the sufficient and sole explanation that it did not want to and did not have to.
At its beginning the new organization took the title of "Democratic and Republican party," which was presently shortened to "Republican party." The preference for the name Republican was due to the circumstances and emotions of the times. The French Revolution was at its height, and sentiment on behalf of Republican France was extremely pronounced among the American masses. Republicanism, from the French association, was at that day synonymous with
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ultraism. This first settled name of the Jeffersonian organization was preserved throughout the existence of the Federalist party, and for a few years after. But the mighty element that it represented was always styled the Democracy-affectionately by its members, derisively by its antagonists ; and it will so be called in our various mentions of the party for the period of its early career, extending to about the year 1828, when, under the leadership of Andrew Jackson, it assumed the name of the Democratic party, by which it has since been known.
The principles and doctrines upon which the Jeffer- sonian Democracy was constructed were of such irrefutable truth and resistless appeal that many of them have become axiomatic sayings. Perhaps the most famous of these is, "Equal and exact justice to all, and special privileges to none." Another is, "Implicit confidence in the capacity of the people to govern themselves." A republic was defined by Jefferson as "A government by citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority." He declared the will of the majority to be "the natural law of every society, and the only sure guardian of the rights of man"; and, explicating this precept, added : "Perhaps even this may sometimes err; but its errors are honest, solitary, and short-lived. Let us, then, forever bow down to the general reason of society. We are safe with that, even in its deviations, for it soon returns again to the right way."
Jefferson's formulation of the purposes, extent, and limitations of government, which became the accepted
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Democratic creed, has been thus epitomized1 :
"First-Just government is a mere instrument for accomplishing certain useful and practical purposes which citizens in their other relations cannot accom- plish, and primarily and chiefly, to protect men as, without trespassing upon others, they pursue happiness in their own way. Every effort, by ceremonial or otherwise, to ascribe to government virtue or intelli- gence or invite to it honor, not belonging to the men who compose it, is an effort against the public welfare.
"Second-The less the government does, the more it leaves to individual citizens to do, the better. Every grant of power to government ought, therefore, to be strictly and jealously construed as impairing to some extent the natural rights of men.
"Third-There should be the maximum of local self- government. Where it is doubtful between the Federal government and a State, or between a State and a lesser community, which should exercise a power, the doubt ought to be solved in favor of the government nearer the home, and more closely under the eye, of the individual citizen.
"Fourth-It follows that the expenditure of money by the government ought to be the least possible; the collection and disbursement by public officials of money earned by other men tends to corruption not only in the jobbery and thievery more or less attending irrespon- sible expenditures of money, but perhaps more seriously in its tendency to create in the minds of citizens a sense of dependence upon government.
1Edward M. Shepard, The Democratic Party (1892).
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"Fifth-To sum up all the rest, the government should make the least possible demand upon the citizen, and the citizen the least possible demand upon the government. The citizen should never suppose that he can be made virtuous or kept virtuous by law, or that he ought to be helped to wealth or ease by those of his fellows who happen to hold the offices, and for that reason to be collectively called 'the government.' "
These declarations constituted the foundations of the Democracy in its bitter contest against Federalism. Considered as practical propositions of government, they were startling innovations at that time; to-day most people are disposed to regard them as mild generalizations illustrative of the elementary nature of early American political verities. Discussion of them would involve mainly theoretical questions that have long ceased to be subjects of difference between parties. It is sufficient to say that they defined the original position of the Democracy, led the party to success, and set it forward on its career with a character for identification with the masses of the people which was certain not only to prove its main reliance for the future, but to be insisted on as the permanent test of its merit in both prosperity and adversity.
SAMUEL JONES TILDEN
Samuel Jones Tilden, 28th governor (1875-1876) ; born at New Lebanon, Columbia county, February 9, 1814; entered first Yale college, afterward university of New York; graduated, 1837; admitted to the bar in 1841; member of state assembly, 1845; member of the constitutional convention, 1846; joined the free-soil movement, 1848; "soft shell" candidate for attorney general, 1855; made unrelenting war on the Tweed ring; founder of the New York state bar association and directed the impeachment of Judges Bernard and Cordozo in 1872; elected governor in 1874; nominated for president of the U. S. in 1876 and obtained a majority of the popular vote but was declared defeated by an electoral commission, which gave Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio the election; died Greystone, near Yonkers, August 4, 1886.
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were associated an entire popular predisposition and action.
Concerning the impossible situation in which the Federalist party elected to place itself by overweening pride and curious misconception of its capacity to successfully contend with the Democracy, it would be very unjust to animadvert in terms of stricture merely. The Federalist party is entitled to the everlasting respect of all Americans, and moreover to their grati- tude to no small degree. It was conspicuously able in its distinctive membership, and singly and passionately devoted to the honor and welfare of the country. Its leaders-Hamilton, President Adams, John Jay, Rufus King, Fisher Ames, the Pinckneys, and a host of others-were illustrious statesmen and pure patriots. The revered Washington gave it his undoubted prefer- ence, and, after the failure of his attempt to maintain a biparty cabinet, surrounded himself with Federalist advisers exclusively. Under Federalist auspices the government was from its earliest organization dis- tinguished by a masterly grasp of great questions and affairs, and conducted and sustained with distinction and dignity. By steadfast neutrality toward both France and England in the tremendous European struggle at that time raging ; by the courageous negotia- tion of the Jay treaty with England and unwavering adherence to it in spite of terrific public clamor ; by the vigorous suppression of domestic insurrection; and by firm, just, and successful insistence upon our chosen national policy in exceedingly serious disputes arising with France, the administrations of Washington and
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Adams signally illustrated the governing ability of the Federalists in directive respects.
The direction of government, however, is secondary to the basis of government, and the basis of government rests upon the spirit and course of parties in their declared relations to public institutions and policy. It is no conclusive recommendation of a government or party to say that it is competent. In the case of a party, even the virtue of competence cannot safely be awarded until it is seen whether the party has the ability to react from defeat and maintain an intelligent and efficient opposition. As a recent example, the late Progressive party of Roosevelt was supposed to be preeminently competent until it failed to win the first and only election that it contested, when it died out almost as quickly as it had risen-entirely because it had not the power of endurance in opposition. The Federalists, with their undeniable merits, could not have failed to prove themselves continuingly valuable to the country if they had been content to assume the function of a true opposition; and it is impossible to revert to their melancholy history without regretting the stagnation into which their organization fell, and always languished, after its defeat in 1800. The services of its numerous excellent men were consequently either lost to the public or concerned with the merest futilities, such as detraction and invective, efforts to sow discord among the Democracy, fusions for temporary purposes with factional elements of the latter, resistance to the prosecution of the War of 1812, and general dissidence and obstruction unregulated by any important original
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conceptions of policy. Thoroughly disliked by the people at large on account of its exclusive character, the Federalist party had become still further dis- credited by its enactment of the intolerant Alien and Sedition laws during Adams's administration. Those measures authorized the summary deportation of all foreigners and the punishment of all citizens considered politically objectionable by the government, and were especially aimed at French republicans and the aggressive newspaper writers of the opposed party. Unjustified by either the existence of a state of war or any other public necessity appealing to reasonable minds, they were felt to be not only despotic, but symptomatic of an ultimate unbridled assumption of dictatorial authority by the central government if the
Federalists should be continued in power. The Democracy responded by adopting the famous Ken- tucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798-99 in assertion of the rights of the States and the liberties of the people.
Following the victory of Jefferson, and the installa- tion of the Democracy in complete control of the government in 1801, it was expected by the Federalists that the interloping and inexpert new party would so misdirect and bungle affairs, confound public order, and dislocate approved institutions that the country would soon be eager to get rid of it. None of those results happened, but precisely contrary ones. The two administrations of Jefferson (1801-9) were of immense value to the country for their firm and enterprising statesmanship with its accomplishments of magnificent territorial development by the Louisiana purchase,
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dispatch of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific, and enforcement of the honor and power of the nation by the war on the piratical states of the Mediterranean. But of even greater-inestimably greater-consequence, benefit, and blessing was the complete success of the democratic principle and system of government which those administrations established beyond all possibility of further dispute. The venerable conception of the indispensability of a superior governing element based upon social selectness and class egotism and solidarity, was thus made incapable of any continuing maintenance in the sphere of practical politics and dismissed forever to the private enjoyment of its only proper protagonists, that "limited circle of important gentlemen" referred to by Mr. Schurz. In its place was substituted, confirmed, and permanently guaranteed the principle of Character and Ability as the sole recognizable qualifications and attributes for acceptable public service or permissible public authority.
Character and Ability. Not Character, Ability, and formal "Importance." Character and Ability, enough. These include all the rightful importance that can be ascribed to anyone, and they exclude all the superficial pretensions of importance that are arrogated or pre- sumed on account of mere fortunate personal elevation. They are to be found in every variety and condition of men and women, and they alone are pertinent to a claim to position or influence under popular government. They always assume the concomitants of training, in- formation, and judgment, of course in varying degrees,
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as also is the case among the formally well-born, rich, and "important." They generally include personal suc- cess, and frequently personal wealth-of which the Democracy hoped to perceive, and in truth has ever per- ceived, an abundant share among its loving supporters.
The favor of the Democracy for "the masses of the people" was never designed, and has never been prac- tically directed, toward setting up a distinction. This favor was designed to obliterate a distinction in the body politic, at once functioned successfully to that end, and has since continually operated politically to neutralize, so far as possible, those factors demanding distinctions on behalf of special interests which, as everyone knows, have always persisted and were never more self-conscious, more highly organized, or more active than at this present day. Representative of such special interests have been and are, on the one hand, the miscellaneous aggregations of theorists and particular- ists, and, on the other, the great and powerful forces by some called "predatory," by others "reactionary," that perpetuate the spirit of Federalism though by no means its blundering methods. Arrayed against all these interests-theoretical, particularist, and preda- tory-has stood, and stands now, the Democratic party as the party of the masses of the people, and therefore, considered in its permanent capacity, the major political constituency of the nation.
Again, the Democracy's inclination to the masses has at no time signified a superior preference for that particular division of the public, any more than for any other division. The masses were rejected by the
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Federalists as not seriously to be considered in connec- tion with the essential organization and business of government ; but they were accepted and encouraged by the Democracy, the same as all other elements-not more, not less,-in the spirit of the words of the Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal." So created in the respect of natural rights, and so to be recognized and treated by government; what they make of themselves privately and for public value is another matter, dependent partly upon their indi- vidual natures and capacities, partly upon varied conditions. It became at once, and remained, a fixed determination of the Democracy to give and hold for the masses an equal place at the foundation of govern- ment, specifically as to the right of suffrage; to deny them nothing in the respect of preferment that they were qualified, by character and ability, to acquire; to have a favorable impulse toward them uniformly; but to expect them, equally with all others, to work out their own salvation.
Moreover, the Democracy in its influence with the masses has invariably been a zealous and strict con- servator of traditional American institutions. Of course we all know that in the violent imaginings of some of its persistent detractors the Democracy seethes with diabolical instincts and designs contem- plating the disruption and annihilation of the treasured system of the fathers. This is assuredly the very strangest of all strange obsessions, worthy of serious notice only in a History of Great Slanders and Defamations-a work that it is to be hoped will some
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day be written. From the outset of the government there never has been a moment when the Democracy could not, if so disposed, have led a powerful attack upon that time-honored system both in particular and general. And there never has been a moment when the Democracy has not been heart and soul, to the uttermost extremity, its defender and guarantor. All historians have observed that a generally strict, as against a latitudinarian, construction of the Constitution was from the earliest days advocated by the Democracy in order to prevent not only arbitrary infractions of its terms but loose, hasty, and revolutionary political ac- tions in contempt of them. During the sixty consecutive years when, with but two brief intervals, the party exer- cised national power, only one amendment to the Constitution (reforming the manner of electing the President and Vice-President) was adopted. Both in office and in opposition the Democracy's performance of its responsibilities has been characterized most of all by a steadying influence because of its assured posses- sion, in all circumstances, of a concentrated vote, which, while not invulnerable to onslaughts by extremist opponents of one kind or other, has nevertheless been of such homogeneous character as to give it at least the equilibrium. Subject frequently to energetic pressure as to matters of policy, the party has at times shown divisions in its councils, naturally to be expected in the career of a great and intensely virile popular organiza- tion. But these divisions, so far as they have affected its course, have marked only conflicting opinions among its own elements, opinions in time reconciled by the
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rule of the majority, whereupon the party has gathered new vigor, not as the resultant of any interaction with it by external forces, but by virtue of its indestructible vitality and positive position and leadership, which, appealing to dispassionate minds, have drawn to it new accessions.
The foregoing reflections, fundamental to a general view, description, and estimate of the Democratic party in its elemental character, pertain equally to its practical action in control of the government under its first President, Jefferson. One of the most conspicuous facts about the Democracy is, that it was not a gradual growth but attained substantially its perfect develop- ment immediately.
In his first inaugural (March 4, 1801) Jefferson said : "We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undis- turbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know indeed some honest men have feared that a republican government cannot be strong-that this government is not strong enough. . . I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law; would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern."
The conduct of the government by Jefferson, his very able cabinet, and a Congress at all times heavily Demo- cratic in both houses, gave such satisfaction to the
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country that the Federalist opposition shrank to insig- nificance. Commenting upon this result he expressed serious concern, as he believed that a primary require- ment of our institutions was a balanced party system, with vigilant and unrelaxing criticism of the party in power. In the interest of his own party, the Democracy, he took no means and sought no ends except those of service to the nation altogether uninfluenced by prejudice or passion and free from mere experiments and expedients. While abolishing the pomp and solemnity with which the Presidential office had been invested, and introducing simplicity into all the depart- ments of administration, he left the constructive work of the Federalists undisturbed.
At the Presidential election of 1804 he was chosen for a second term by 162 Electoral votes to 14 for the Federalist candidate, Charles C. Pinckney.
The great question of those times centered in the embarrassments and difficulties of the national govern- ment consequent upon violations of our neutral rights by the belligerents in the Napoleonic wars. American maritime commerce was continually interfered with, especially by England, and there was an unprovoked attack on an American frigate by a British ship of war. Jefferson, disinclined to the extremity of hostilities, sought, with the support of Congress, a solution of the trouble by suspending intercourse with the warring European nations, and the noted embargo of 1807 was the result. Without reference to the question of the merits of that measure as a substitute for war in the circumstances, its adoption by the administration
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