Resolutions adopted by the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, June 1, 1852

Art. III. Resolutions unanimously adopted by the Democratic National Convention which assembled at Baltimore, June 1, 1852.

It is not so easy to comprehend American politics, and to form a tolerable judgment of the respective merits or demerits of the two great political parties which have divided, or now divide, the country, as many of our learned newspaper editors appear to imagine. We live under a complicated political system, - a general government for certain specified purposes, and State governments for all the remaining purposes of government. Under one aspect we are one independent national sovereignty, with only a single government; under another, we are thirty-one independent, sovereignties, with thirty-one independent governments. Foreigners, and even many native-born citizens, are very liable to mistake the mutual relation of the Union and the States, and to assume that the general is in all respects the supreme government of the country, and that the States are only prefectures or subordinate governments, dependent on the Union, deriving their powers from it, and instituted by it for the purposes of local administration. But such is not the case. The general government, both in law and in fact, is subsequent to the Slates, and in all respects their creature. It derives its existence, its constitution, and all its powers from them, not they theirs from it.

The two governments, again, vest on different bases, and demand different rules for the construction of their respective powers. The general government is founded by the States, originates in compact, and has only the powers expressed in the compact, and such incidental powers as are necessary to their exercise. The State governments originate in that social necessity in which all governments, in the last analysis, originate, and hold under the law of nature, or, more properly, under the law of God, from which all human governments derive their legitimacy, their legal powers, or their right to command and to coerce obedience. They have all the rightful powers of government not denied them by their own constitutions or expressly delegated to the Union. The general government, before acting, must inquire whether the power it proposes to exercise has been granted; the State government, before exercising a power, has only to inquire whether it has been forbidden.

The State governments have a character of their own, as republican, democratic, aristocratic, free states or slave states; the general government has no character of its own, and takes whatever character it has from the States creating it. It is not necessarily democratic or aristocratic, in favor of popular freedom or opposed to it. True, Congress is bound to guaranty to each State a republican constitution; but whether the guaranty is to the Union that each Stale shall be republican, or a guaranty of the Union to each State of a republican constitution, if such be its choice, may perhaps be a question. If the latter interpretation be admissible, the States may, if they choose, adopt the monarchical form of government, and the Union be thus a union of monarchical instead of simple republican states, without any change in its own character or constitution. Hut if this interpretation, as generally held, and most likely correctly held, be inadmissible, and it is obligatory on every State to adopt and maintain the republican form of government, still no State is bound to adopt a democratic constitution. A republican government does by no means necessarily imply a democratic government. Rome was a republic, but it was never a democracy; Venice was a republic, but it was an aristocracy, nearly, if not quite, an oligarchy; Switzerland and Holland were both republics at the time of our Revolution, but neither showed any inclination to a democracy. France, while we are writing, is a republic, but the whole positive power of the nation is vested in the prince-president, and the people have, even with universal suffrage, only a qualified negative on the acts of government, similar in its nature, though not in its form, to the tribunitial veto under the republican constitution of ancient Rome. According to the usage of writers on government at the time the Federal Constitution was framed and adopted, a republican government is any government without a king or emperor. Under any interpretation of the Constitution, then, the States have reserved to themselves the right to adopt any form of government not monarchical. They may vest the whole power of the state in an hereditary aristocracy, in the class of rich men, of poor men", in two or more classes combined, or governing as separate estates, or they may vest it in the whole people, whether noble or ignoble, learned or unlearned, rich or poor, and whichever they do the government will be republican, and perfectly compatible both with the letter and the spirit of the constitution of the Union.

Political parties, consequently, under our system, are to be considered in a twofold relation, - in relation to the general government, and in relation to the State governments, or, as we may say, to government in general. The two relations have no necessary dependence on one another. The principles and policy of a party in relation to the constitution and administration of the general government do not necessarily determine its principles and policy in relation to the constitution and administration of the State governments, nor the principles and policy of a party with regard to the latter determine its principles and policy with regard to the former. The terms republican, democratic, aristocratic, when applied to the general government, have no meaning, as the terms Federalist and Slate Rights have no meaning when applied to the several state governments. A national democratic party is under our system an absurdity, for all the questions which pertain to the constitution of government in general are reserved to the several State government!?. Questions of aristocracy, of democracy, oligarchy, of liberty or slavery, universal or restricted suffrage, social equality, and the like, belong to a party as a State party, not as a Federal or national party. To a national party can belong only such questions as relate to the respective powers of the general and State governments, to foreign policy, to commerce, finance, national defense, and the general welfare of the Union. It would save some confusion, and many serious mistakes, if the two classes of questions were kept distinct, and parties were considered separately in relation to each, and not as necessarily right or wrong in regard to the one because right or wrong in regard to the other.

The parties in this country were at first, after the Revolution, named in reference to the general government. From 1787 to 1798, they were named Federalists and Anti-Federalists; from 1798 to 1820, Federalists and Republicans; from 1820 to 1824, Republicans only; from 1824 to 1832, National Republicans and simply Republicans or Democratic Republicans; from 1832 to the present time, the two great leading parties have been called "Whigs and Democrats. Here the only party names in use since 1798 at all applicable to a national party, or a party in regard to the Union, are Federalist, and perhaps Whig. The other names designate, if any thing, the views of parties in relation to government; in general, and therefore belong to the parties only as State parties.

The names Federalist and Anti-Federalist originated at the time of the formation and adoption of the Federal Constitution. When the Colonies met in Congress and declared their independence of the British crown, they drew up and adopted certain Articles of Confederation. These articles were found by experience to be inadequate to the wants of the country, and wholly insufficient for the. purposes of a firm and efficent national government. The several States, consequently, appointed delegates to meet in convention to revise and amend them. The convention met in Philadelphia in 1787, and, instead of revising and amending the old Articles of Confederation, drew up and proposed to the States for their ratification a Federal Constitution, creating a union instead of a confederation of the States, - a general government empowered to act, within its prescribed sphere, immediately on the people of the several States, instead of a Congress able to act on them, as under the old Confederation, only through the medium of the several State governments, which it had no power to coerce into obedience. Those who were in favor of ratifying this Constitution by the several States were called Federalists; those who were opposed to it, as Patrick Henry in Virginia and Samuel Adams in Massachusetts, whether on the ground of its reserving too little power to the States or giving too much power to the Union, especially to the Federal executive, were called Anti-Federalists. The two parties, as parties with regard to the Union, were appropriately enough named, and the name Federalist designated a friend and supporter of the Union. Happily for the country, the Federalists were able to obtain the ratification of the Constitution by the several States, and to organize, in 1789, the government, under George Washington as President, and John Adams as Vice-President. They continued in power, and to administer the government, till March 4, 1801, when Mr. Jefferson and his party came in.

Under General Washington's first Presidential term party spirit did not run high in the country; but under his second term it raged with great violence, embittered by new questions which had been raised by the French Revolution, and the war between England and France growing out of that Revolution. Mr. Jefferson took the lead in the opposition, and in his private correspondence at home and abroad denounced the administration in no measured terms, hardly sparing, if indeed he did spare, the Father of his Country himself. The opposition to the Constitution had pretty much disappeared; several amendments had been proposed and adopted, which removed the principal objections of Mr. Jefferson and the Anti-Federalists; but opposition to the administration took the place of opposition to the Constitution, and in 1798, after the election of Mr. Adams instead of Mr. Jefferson to the Presidency, it became formidable. This opposition, organized under Mr. Jefferson's lead, took the name of Republican, a name that belongs, and under our system can properly belong, to no party in relation to the Union. The name was insidiously chosen, with the usual disingenuousness of party, and designed to imply, not only that the party bearing it were in favor of the republican form of government, which would have, been well enough, but that the Federalists, their opponents, were anti-republican, and in favor of monarchy. Here was gross injustice. Mr. Jefferson and his party were undoubtedly republicans, if not democrats; but so also were the Federalists. There never has been a monarchical party in this country. The people, indeed, did not make the Revolution and achieve national independence because opposed to monarchy, or for the purpose of establishing a republic; but they were, and from the first had been, republican. Even the Loyalists of the Revolution adhered to the mother country from loyalty, interest, habit, association, hopes or fears, not because they were attached to monarchy and opposed to republican government; at least this was true of the great majority of them. Individuals in the Federalist party may have held that a limited monarchy, like that of Great Britain, where practicable, is preferable to a republic, but none of them ever believed such a government to be practicable in the United States. Such was confessedly the case with Mr. Alexander Hamilton; but even he, as Mr. Jefferson himself acknowledges, held that a monarchy was wholly impracticable here, and that it would be the height of folly to attempt to introduce it. George Washington, John Adams, and some other eminent patriots and statesmen, no doubt, agreed with him in his monarchical preferences, but they were as firmly resolved to sustain the republic, and as ready to oppose every attempt to introduce monarchical institutions, as were Mr. Jefferson and his partisans themselves. Individuals, also, there may be now, and not a few too, who, when suffering some pique from the democracy, or alarmed at the mad policy of our radicals, fancy themselves to be in favor of monarchy; but there is not and never has been any monarchical party in the country, and never have our politics turned in any sense whatever on the questions between monarchy and republicanism.

Mr. Jefferson and his party, however, saw proper to accuse the old Federalists of being anti-republican, and of aiming at the establishment of monarchy. They succeeded but too well in making a large portion of the American people believe it, and the prejudices they created still linger in the minds of not a few of our citizens, He who should pronounce himself in favor of the old Federalists would stand a very good chance of being termed by the infallible American press a monarchist, and, as such, of being held up to public indignation. Yet the accusation was false, and known by Mr. Jefferson, as well as others, to be false. He himself confesses it, and says in his first Inaugural Address: " We have called brethren of the same faith by different names. We are all federalists; we are all republicans." Wherefore, then, had he charged his opponents with being monarchists? It was party injustice, and has to be put down to the unscrupulousness of party spirit, from which Mr. Jefferson, we are sorry to say, was not himself entirely free. Both parties, then, agreed as to their general principles of government. Both were republican, both held, after the fashion of the times, the origin of government in compact, in a real or imaginary popular convention, and both asserted the sovereignty of the people. Both, also, agreed that the union, instead of a mere confederation, of the States must be preserved. Wherein, then, did they differ? State governments, or government in general. In relation to the general government, the Federalists wished to consolidate its powers, and to give it as much the character of a supreme central government as could be done without transcending its constitutional limits. Their tendency was to develop and confirm the powers of the Union, rather than the reserved rights of the States. Their policy was to render the government strong and efficient at home, and respectable abroad; to protect commerce and navigation, to found a navy and to maintain an army to prevent national insults, and to protect our maritime and national rights. These were, in brief, the principles and policy of the Federalists. The Republicans were more intent on the reserved rights of the States than on the powers granted to the Union, were opposed to making the Federal government a strong government, and in favor of restricting its sphere, and diminishing the patronage of the executive, as far as possible under the Constitution. They clamored for "retrenchment and economy," opposed the accumulation of a national debt, the general fundholding system, the creation of a navy, the maintenance of an army, and the protection of commerce and navigation, otherwise than by diplomacy and bargain. They were in favor of leaving our commerce to foreigners, to be carried on in foreign vessels, and of pocketing national insults, instead of going to the expense of guarding against them or of redressing them. Mr. Jefferson had no very lively sensibility to national honor, and lived in mortal dread of war and national expenditures. If he had been a son of the cold, calculating North, instead of the warm, chivalric South, of Massachusetts instead of Virginia, it is probable we should never have heard the last of his tameness, his meanness of spirit, and his fear of expense; and certain it is, that we owe to him and his party much of that low national character which we still bear abroad,- that common belief among foreigners that an American will do any thing and put up with any thing- for money. Another war with Great Britain, perhaps, is needed to enable us to retrieve our character, and prove that there is something that Yankees prize more than money.

The natural tendency of the Republican party, pushed to its extreme, would have too much restricted the powers of the general government, made the Union a mere rope of sand, and thrown the country back into that chaotic state from which the. Constitution had rescued it. Its policy would, if carried out, have rendered the government inefficient at home and contemptible abroad, exposed our trade, our maritime and national rights, to perpetual insult and injury, and prevented us from ever becoming a great commercial and manufacturing people. It was, therefore, a policy which, with such a bold and enterprising people, and in a country of such rich and varied natural resources as ours, could by no human possibility be practicable, except for a very brief period. The tendency of the Federalists, if pushed to its extreme, might have swallowed up the States in the Union, and deprived us of the advantages of that federative element so essential in our system of government. But the general policy of the party was unobjectionable, and has, with the exception of one or two particulars, been adopted to the letter by the Republican party, and become the settled policy of the country. There was, however, never much danger of the centralizing tendency of the Federalists being pushed to an extreme, and we have been unable to find an instance in which the party while in power transcended its constitutional limits or usurped for the Union any of the reserved rights of the States. The Republican party, after all, was, when in power, more of a State Rights party in profession than in practice. The Federalists may have, had the stronger tendency to centralization through the legislative and judicial departments of the government; but the Republicans had much the stronger tendency to it through the executive department; which shows that the Republicans were far more likely to develop into monarchists than were the Federalists whom they charged with being in favor of monarchy. No Federalist ever grasped more power for the Union than did Mr. Jefferson in his purchase of Louisiana, and his Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts. No Federalist document was ever issued containing stronger centralizing doctrines than those set forth in General Jackson's famous proclamation against the Southern Nullifiers. While, on the other hand, the Federalists in the Hartford Convention pushed the State Rights doctrines to the very verge of nullification. In fact, either party, when in power, tended to magnify the powers of the Union, and widen the sphere of the general government as much as possible, while either, in opposition, fell back more or less on the reserved rights of the. Slates.

In regard to those principles of government which find their application with us only within the sphere of the State governments, there were also important differences, as well as resemblances. Both, as we have said, were republican, both asserted the sovereignty of the people, and the origin of government in convention; but the Federalists inclined to a republic of the respectabilities, and the 'Republicans to a democracy. The difference between the two parties was analogous to that between the Girondins and the Mountain or Jacobins in France. Both agreed in rejecting monarchy and decapitating the king; but the Girondins were for retaining the power in the hands of the Bourgeoisie, - the merchants, manufacturers, tradesmen, and property-holders, who would supply the place of the old nobility; but the Jacobins insisted on placing the power of the state in the hands of the sans culottes or the populace, where it would be more generally at the service of the demagogues. The 'Republicans professed great confidence in popular instincts and judgments, and were in favor of leaving them free to manage the government as they should see proper, without any but self-imposed restrictions on their will, passions, or caprices; the Federalists held that the people might sometimes deceive themselves, and still oftener be deceived by the arts, intrigues, and declamations of demagogues, and therefore that some restrictions should be placed on their power, and some care should be taken to confine its exercise to those who could give a pledge to the public that they would not abuse it. The Republicans were intent on providing for the free and full expression of the popular will in the government; the Federalists thought more of providing against the abuses of power, and obtaining a reasonable security that the popular will in governing would govern justly. The Federalists loved liberty, and were as ready to make any sacrifice for it as were their opponents; but they and the Republicans did not mean the same thing by liberty. The Republican understood by liberty the liberty of the people, unrestrained by kings or nobles, to govern; the Federalist, as distinguished from him, understood by liberty the freedom of the subject, or his free possession and enjoyment of his natural and vested rights as inviolable in the face of political power. The Republican dreaded the tyranny of the few over the people as the ruling power; the Federalist, the tyranny of the many, and of power in whose hands soever lodged; the former sought the freedom of the people as government to rule, the latter the freedom, of the individual to possess. The Republican would remove all restrictions on the power of the people as sovereign, and establish absolute, unlimited government; the Federalist would limit their power as sovereign or as the state, and by wise and wholesome laws secure their freedom as individuals; the former would have a free state, the latter free men. The Republican, perhaps without knowing it, sought to establish social despotism, the Federalist personal freedom, for the state is as despotic when the power is lodged in the hands of the whole people, with full freedom to govern according to their arbitrary will, as when lodged in the hands of a single ruler, under an absolute monarchy. Properly speaking, then, the Federalists were the party of liberty, and the Republicans the party of despotism. The Federalist placed the sovereignty in the people regulated and restrained by law; the Republican placed it in the people without law, and therefore made the government a government of mere human will, which is the very essence of despotism.

Undoubtedly, the pretence, and, we willingly concede, the belief, of the Republican party was the reverse of all this. They no doubt imagined that, if the political power was vested in the whole people, and if all obstacles to the free and full expression of their will in the government were removed, not only the freedom of the people as the state, but the freedom of the people as individuals, that is, the freedom of the people distributively as well as collectively, would be secured. But they forgot that power, in whose hands soever lodged, is always liable to be abused; that there is always a large class of individuals, called courtiers in a monarchy, demagogues in a democratic republic, who make it their business to flatter and deceive the sovereign power, and induce it to abuse its trusts; and that every government of absolute will, whether the will of the many, the few, or the one, is essentially a despotism, and wholly incompatible with the individual liberty or the personal freedom of the subject. The objections to the modern democratic theory are twofold. One objection is, that it leads to anarchy, because it derives the right to govern from a human source, and denies the divine origin of all legal power. Before the law of nature, and even before the eternal law, all men are equal; and if all are equal, no one has any right to govern another, and consequently every government of man over man, or of men over men, must be founded in usurpation, and everyone has an indefeasible right to resist it whenever he pleases, which is anarchy. But this is not the greatest objection to the theory. The greatest objection is of a contrary character, namely, that pure, unlimited democracy is social despotism, and enslaves the people distributively to the people collectively. Under a pure democracy the individual has a certain nominal freedom as a part of the governing body, but not a particle as a part of the body governed. The will of the community, of the majority, is unlimited, and governs as absolutely as the will of an Oriental despot. There is no redress, whatever wrongs it may inflict on the individual, because it is all-powerful, and has no conscience, - as an individual despot may have, for conscience pertains to the individual, never to the people as a collective body. Hence, democratic governments are always the most arbitrary of all governments, and the most oppressive and merciless of all tyrants in every land are always the democrats who happen for a moment to find themselves in power, as was abundantly proved in the old French Revolution, and as has been fully confirmed by the horrors of the recent Red Republican revolutions. The world has no name for the complete democratic regime but the Reign of Terror. It must be so, because the heart of man in every individual is naturally corrupt, and men in masses are infinitely more corrupt than as individuals. Who knows not that men in crowds will do acts without compunction, from which, if thrown on their individual responsibility, they would shrink with horror?

The great objection to the old Republican party was its tendency to establish the unlimited authority of the people as the governing power, and therefore social despotism. Its activity was constantly exerted to render the government a government of supreme popular will instead of a government of law. It labored incessantly to abolish all the restrictions it found established by law on the will of the people, and to reduce all to a common level. It would suffer nothing to remain inviolable, or above the power of the people as the state. Thus it attacked and sought to abolish all vested rights. It reduced all corporations to the same category, and maintained that their charters, for whatever purpose granted, might be altered, modified, repealed, or vacated at the will of the legislature. And because the Common Law protected vested rights, it proposed its abolition, and with it, that there might be no power in the state to limit the omnipotence of the sovereign people, they sought, and their continuators still seek, to destroy the independence of the judiciary, by making the judges elective by popular suffrage for a short term of office, and reeligible. Their doctrine, carried out, would place all vested rights, and indeed the possessions of every man, at the mercy of the sovereign people, or rather of the unprincipled and noisy demagogues who for the most part control them. The Federalists, on the contrary, asserted the sacredness of vested rights, the inviolability of contracts, the whole Common Law doctrine of corporations, and the obligation of the government to protect and vindicate the rights of property. They contended for the Common Law and an independent judiciary, as the surest, and in fact the only, safeguard for personal freedom against the encroachments of power, and in so doing justly deserved against the Republicans the title of the party of freedom.

Such were the two great parties, and such their respective tendencies, principles, and policies, - their agreement, and their differences. The Republican party, after a violent struggle, came into power, as we have said, in 1801, under the lead of the sage of Monticello, and they or their successors have remained in power most of the time since. The war with Great Britain, in 1812, compelled them to abandon Mr. Jefferson's policy, his gun-boat system and all, and to adopt substantially, as to the general government, the policy of Washington and Adams, the old Federalist policy. In consequence of the adoption of their policy by the general government, the Federalists, after the peace of 1815, offered them but a feeble opposition, and in 1820, on the reelection of Mr. Monroe, disbanded, and have since ceased to exist as a party. Under Mr. Monroe's second term, and during the election of his successor, in 1824, there was, nominally, only one party, the Republican, in the country. All the divisions claimed to be Republican, and all the candidates voted for in the Presidential election, Mr. Crawford of Georgia, Henry Clay of Kentucky, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, were all members of the Republican party, and only the last mentioned had ever been a member of the Federalist party. After the election of Mr. Adams, the administration party began to be called National Republicans, and the opposition, who rallied under the lead of General Jackson as a second Jefferson, were called simply Republicans, and occasionally Democratic Republicans. Both parties continued to be designated by these names till 1832, when, on the reelection of President Jackson, the National Republicans assumed the name of Whigs, and the Republicans became Democratic Republicans and simply Democrats, as at present.

The Whigs are only the National Republicans, and the Democrats only the Democratic Republicans, under other names; but the Whigs are not precisely the same with the old Federalists, nor do the Democrats continue in all respects the old Republicans. In their principles and policy as to the general government the Democrats stand on the old Federalist platform, except in one or two particulars, which we shall soon mention; but in regard to government in general, they are the old Republicans developed, or come to maturity, that is, as we find them in the Northern, Western, and Middle States. The Whigs, in relation to the general government, adopt in the main the old Federalist policy, especially those portions of it not adopted by the Democrats ; in regard to government in general, they are divided : a respectable minority of them adopt the conservative views of the old Federalists, but the rest are as radical as their Democratic opponents.

The Federalists originally represented the commercial, and in general the business interests of the country; the Republicans the farming and planting or agricultural interests. The Federalists may be said to have been the urban party; the Republicans, the rural or country party, and if the landed estates had not in general been small and nearly equally divided, they would have corresponded to the Tory party in England in the reign of Queen Anne. They were for an economical government, and opposed to the fundholding and banking system, and consequently to the accumulation of a national debt. They wished the people to live independently on their own lands, cared little for trade and commerce, and looked with distrust; on the system of industry inaugurated by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which has placed Great Britain at the head of the industrial world, and nearly ruined the agricultural class in all Western Europe. This was the good side of the Re-publican party, that which gave it its preponderance, and has hitherto maintained it in power. The agricultural interests were, and perhaps still are, - at the polls, - the stronger interests of the country. It was the fact that the Democratic party, in 1838, took decidedly its stand on the side of the landed interests, and sought to arrest the growth of the modern industrial system, which must sooner or later ruin every nation that encourages it, that led us to give it our own feeble support, although in most other respects we had not, and never had had, much sympathy with it.

We have spoken of the good points in the Federalist policy ; but that policy, after all, had its objectionable features. The Federalists wished to consolidate the government, to render it strong and efficient, and to check the tendency to democratic excess. Bo far they were right. But, unhappily, they were bred in the school of English Whiggism, and sought to strengthen the government, to consolidate the Union, and to guard against the excesses of democracy, mainly by means of the moneyed, as distinguished from the landed, interests of the country. They were not the aristocratic party properly so called against the democratic party, the party of the rich against the poor, but properly the business men against the producers. They were conservative, but they sought the conservative force needed by subjecting the government to fundholders, bankers, brokers, traders, merchants, manufacturers,- in a word, to what we call the business classes of the community, and in making it the instrument of their special interests. This policy, avowedly the policy of Mr. Alexander Hamilton, and a dominant tendency in the whole Federalist party, has been fully developed and adopted by the present Whig party, though the Democrats in the Northern, Western, and Middle States also adopt it, to no inconsiderable extent. It is an exceedingly objectionable policy. The business classes of society, merchants, traders, manufacturers, bankers, stock-brokers, &c., may be as honest and as intelligent as the other classes of society, but they arc not a permanent class, with always the same general interests. They and their interests fluctuate with all the fluctuations of trade, change with the ever-changing markets of the world. They can never be relied on as an independent national party, because their interests are rarely identical with those of the nation. They are mixed up with the interests of the corresponding classes of other nations, and affected by every measure of government which a fleets the business interests of a foreign country. In the Revolution they were patriotic, ardently devoted to national independence, because they were the chief sufferers by the colonial policy of the mother country; during the European wars growing out of the French Revolution of 1789, they urged upon Congress the importance of maintaining a navy, and protecting our maritime rights, because it was their particular interests that were exposed, and would thus be protected; but they would be the last to support the government in case it had serious injuries to redress against Great Britain, or any other nation whose business interests are intimately connected with our own.

The grand error of the Federalists was not in seeking to restrain the democratic excesses, for that is what every party in favor of liberty should seek, but in seeking the necessary restraints in the business classes and moneyed interests of the country, instead of seeking them in a powerful and permanent class of landed proprietors; - not indeed because landholders are wiser or more honest than business men, but because they are more independent in their position, and their interests are less fluctuating, subject to fewer sudden changes, and more permanent. It was natural that the Federalists should fall into this error, for they were at the time, as we have said, the representatives of the business interests of the country, and were, moreover, perverted by the urban system of the English Whigs. But the error was none the less grave on that account. The government can never be stable and permanent, save when it reposes on the stable and permanent interests of land, and perhaps one of the greatest mistakes of American legislation has been in throwing land into the market as a mere article of merchandise.

Experience has sufficiently proved that no state can long survive as a free and well-ordered state, which makes no account of families. A nation of isolated individuals, or of families which in one generation emerge from obscurity to fall into obscurity again in the next, stands on the brink of ruin, if not ruined already. We are in this country rapidly approaching this state of things. We have no families; we are little more than a huge mass of individuals, without family influence, family ties, affections, or associations. We have no ancestors; we can hope for no descendants. We have no ancestral home or fame to preserve, and can count on no posterity to whom we can leave our own worth or glory as an inheritance. Few of us had grandfathers, few of us will have grandsons. Many of us are early torn from the home of our parents, and live, though in our own country, in the midst of strangers. Even the very wife we press to our bosom not unfrequently was a stranger to our youth, and has no early associations and affections in common with us. The warm household feelings and the love of home are early withered or stunted in their growth; we grow up cold and solitary, and seek indemnification for the pleasures of the heart, in the gross and loathsome pleasures of the senses. No fear of breaking a father's or a mother's heart, no dread of disgracing ourselves in the eyes of the companions of our early life, restrains the great, active mass of our community ; and we find ourselves ready for any adventure that offers,- open to every vice or crime that tempts us. Such we are, or are hastening to become, and therefore have we lost, or are rapidly losing, all those family ties, family affections, those moral elements of character, without which it is impossible to maintain stable, permanent, wise, and efficient government.

The principal remedy for the frightful state to which we are so rapidly hastening is in a speedy and ample provision for the permanence and influence of families. Our statesmen believed that they were doing wisely in abolishing the old colonial laws which favored the growth and influence of families, in passing statutes of distribution, and in providing for the equal distribution of intestate property. They saw that in so doing they prevented the growth of a landed aristocracy; but they did not sufficiently consider, that, in guarding against one evil, we not unfrequently open the door to another and still greater. A republic no more than a monarchy, nay, far less than a monarchy, can subsist without a numerous and permanent class of landed proprietors, with a distinct representation in the state. The consequences of the hostility to a landed aristocracy, early manifested by our statesmen, have been, to subject the country to what may be called the urban aristocracy, the aristocracy of business, cotton-mills, and money-bags, and to substitute soulless corporations for living and breathing families. The effect has been to destroy the only tolerable aristocracy, and to build up the most intolerable aristocracy that is easily conceived. There is no use in making wry faces at this, or calling hard names; the fact is as we state it, and any man with half an eye can see it, if he will.

The true policy in such a country as ours, destined to be a great commercial and manufacturing as well as a great agricultural country, is not in universal suffrage, as the Democrats hold, nor in restricted suffrage, as the Federalists contended; but, as we hold to be very certain, in separating the business classes and the agricultural, and representing them in the government as distinct estates, each with a negative on the other. A proposition of this sort was made by Mr. Governor Morris in the Convention which framed the Federal Constitution. In a speech on the basis of the Federal Senate, speaking of the business - whom he regards as the wealthy-classes of the community, he remarked that we must expect them to abuse power if they can get it, for that is in human nature, and get it they surely will, if you leave them to mingle and vote with the other and poorer classes. To prevent their undue influence, you must form them into a separate interest, that is, in principle, erect them into a separate estate, which would prevent them from being enslaved by the democracy, and also from establishing their exclusive dominion and enslaving the rest.^[*] The speech proves that Mr. Morris had hit upon a principle both true and profound; but it is very clear from the application he proposed to make of it, that he was far from having fully mastered it. To have constituted the Federal Senate on property with members for life would have done nothing to restrain either the democracy or the business classes in the several State governments, where is to be sought the source of both dangers. The danger in either respect is to be guarded against principally by the mode of constituting the several State governments, not by the Constitution of the Union, - a fact which too many of our statesmen overlook.

Some respect, we dare assert, is due to the experience of mankind, and that experience in all countries and in all ages has directed them to seek the independence of the state and the freedom of the subject in organizing the government as a government of estates. Nothing hinders us, if we choose, from so organizing our own several State-governments. We have in the possessions, conditions, and occupations of our people lying ready to our hand the elements of three estates, which we may term respectively the Agricultural, the Urban, and the Proletarian, understanding by this last term the laboring classes, as distinguished, on the one hand, from the urban or business classes, - the Bourgeoisie, - and, on the other, from the landed proprietors, whether large or small. The professional classes may rank, the clergy with the agricultural class, and the lawyers and medical practitioners with the urban. These three estates should sit, not in one house, but each estate in a house of its own, with a negative on the other two. Suffrage might still be universal, but each class should vote only for members of its own house. Representatives in Congress might be chosen indifferently from any one of the classes, by the concurring vote of all three estates; the President of the United States, and the Governors of the several States might be chosen by all the classes voting in common, as now, and the other officers of government, State or national, might be appointed by the executive, the legislature, or the executive and legislative branches in concurrence, very much as they have been hitherto. Such a constitution would not be essentially different from the one really intended by our fathers, and would have its root in what is the internal constitution of American society. It would be only rendering significant, and practical the principle which led to the separation of the legislature in all the States into two houses, and would incorporate into our system of government the best features of the English system, and of the constitution of ancient Republican Rome, while it would give to the laboring classes a security, a protection, and an importance, which, so far as we are informed, they have never yet enjoyed under any system of government. Such a modification of our constitution of government would protect the rights of all classes, and restrain us from the excesses in either direction into which we are now running. But we cannot expect our statesmen to favor it, or even to entertain it for consideration, and therefore, though we suggest it in passing, we take good care not to propose it as something to be seriously contended for. The framers of our constitutions, placing an undue confidence in written constitutions, which experience proves, in so far as they are only written constitutions, to be worth less than the parchment on which they are engrossed, thought they might secure the great ends of government in a different way. It is pretty evident now that they erred. The Federalists erred in seeking to provide for the preponderance of the urban classes; the Republicans erred still more in opposing a government of estates, in laboring to prevent the growth and permanence of families, and in seeking, as far as possible, the division and the equalization of landed property. Equality of political rights is, perhaps, practicable, but equality in property, in social position, and in influence, is an idle dream, - never was realized in any civilized community, and never can be. It is not only idle, but undesirable, and the degree of equality we have attained in this country has been attained only by levelling downwards, and producing a lower general average of manners, morals, intelligence, and worth. The business of life must go on, and if it does, some must be up and some down, some must be captains and some common soldiers, and some presidents, governors, and judges, and some cooks and shoeblacks, and those qualified for the higher stations will be disqualified for the lower, and those qualified for the lower will not be qualified for the higher. Place your whole community on a level with its topmost round, and society must come to an end through default of classes to perform its lower offices; and place all on a level at the lowest, and it must also come to an end through default of classes qualified to perform its higher offices. In government both property and men should be represented, and so represented that the one cannot swallow up the other. In order to secure this end, you must classify and represent both property and men, so that each class may have the means of protecting itself against the other. It is then always rather the equality of classes we should aim at than the equality of individuals, save in mere personal rights, in regard to which the lowest should be placed on the same footing with the highest. The sooner, therefore, we give up our dreams of an equality of social condition and influence, the better for all concerned.

But the Federalists, though they took in some respects a wrong direction, were not so exclusively wedded to the business interests of the country as are the present "Whigs. The Whigs on purely constitutional questions are, as a federal party, at least as sound as the Democratic party, and we find in their platform as drawn up by their late Baltimore Convention very little to object to on this head. The grand objection to the Whigs is, that they seek to administer the government too exclusively in favor of the business interests of the country, to make it in some sense the slave of the money power, or rather of that huge credit system through which the Rothschilds, the Barings, and other great bankers, principally Jews, become the real sovereigns of the modern world, and bring the destinies of nations to be decided on 'Change, - the meanest and the most ruinous system ever invented, - the most fatal to the independence of the nation and to the freedom of the subject, as well as to public and private morals. We do not object to the Whigs because they are in favor of a protective tariff'. The question of protection or free trade admits of no universal solution. It is a practical question, to be decided by each nation for itself, according to its particular interests and circumstances at the time. Whenever its circumstances permit, it is no doubt the duty of every nation to encourage and protect its own industry, so as to render its well-being as independent of foreign nations as possible. We are not in favor of co-partnerships with nations for copartners, and we look with as little affection on the commercial brotherhood of nations preached by Cobden, Bright, & Co., as on the Jacobinical brotherhood contended for by Messrs. Mazzini, Kossuth, & Co. Then, again, the Democratic party do not on the question of a protective tariff differ in principle from the Whigs. The protective system, or the American system, as it was called, originated with the Republican party, and was fastened on the country in opposition to the Federalists, especially of New England, who were, as their interests led them to be, freetraders. The Democratic party, when in power, with individual exceptions, have always supported a protective tariff. The present tariff, imposed by a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress, is a protective tariff, and the only difference on the subject between the two parties, at least in the Northern, Middle, and Western States, is merely a difference of more and less. The Whigs would be satisfied with the present tariff, if home valuation for foreign, and specific for ad valorem duties, were substituted, two changes which, we confess, we are not prepared to oppose. No; the real objection to the Whig party is that it is the business party, the party of the fundholders, bankers, brokers, traders, and manufacturers,-in a word, of the modern credit and industrial systems, against which we are bound to be on our guard.

But this same objection applies, at present, with nearly equal force to the Democratic party, unless it be in the slaveholding or planting States. The urban system, the system of the English Whigs under the reign of Queen Anne, so strenuously, but ineffectually, opposed by Swift and Bolingbroke, has been adopted by both parties, and in respect to this system the two parties are mere divisions of one and the same party. The main question at issue between them is, which shall get the lion's share of the spoils. The country party, save in the planting States, has ceased to exist. The agricultural interest has no representative out of those States, and though it still counts for something in the election of President, it has little power to influence the general policy of the administration, or to determine the action of Congress. The policy of the government rests on the business interests of the country, and will, let which party may succeed in the election, be determined by Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. The present election, under this point of view, is of comparatively little importance, and it makes little difference which party succeeds. The reasons which should decide us to vote for the one party rather than the other must be sought elsewhere.

A respectable minority of the Whig party, as we have said, is conservative in the good sense of the term; but these are unable to decide the action of that party. The action of the Whig party will be determined by the majority, and that majority adopt as radical views of government as the Democratic party, and in some sections even more so. The Democratic party in their resolutions avow the purely democratic theory, without a single qualification. So here we are. Which party shall we support? Really, if we were not in some sense obliged to support one party or the other, or throw away our votes, we would support neither. Indeed, there is now no organized party in the country that a really intelligent and loyal citizen can support without great reluctance. The Democrats proclaim in their creed the whole Jacobinical theory of government without any reserve, and in principle declare illegal and tyrannical all the governments of the world not democratic, that is, all except our own, and, consequently, the right of the people, in every country except ours, to resist and overthrow the existing government, and of our own government and people to run, whenever we choose, to their assistance. They lay down the principle that authorizes the Jacobinical intervention preached by Kossuth, and as many fillibuster expeditions against Cuba, Mexico, or any other country, as the desperadoes among us, foreign and native, may find themselves able or disposed to fit out. They also adopt a resolution asserting the justice of the late Mexican war, so that whoever votes for the party candidates must subscribe to the assertion that that most unnecessary and iniquitous war was just. The Whig platform in these respects is less objectionable, and asserts no abstract doctrines, or general principles, that we cannot, without much difficulty, accept. Both parties profess adhesion to the Compromise Measures, which is well; but the fact is, that the professions of neither party, save in so far as they favor radicalism either at home or abroad, are deserving of much reliance. The Democrats will be radical from instinct, and the Whigs from policy, in order to outbid the Democrats and obtain the suffrages of the people for themselves. The principal dangers the country has to apprehend are such as result from democratic excess or the abuse of republicanism. They are, in regard to the Union, on the one hand, the danger of consolidation, and on the other, of dissolution; in regard to the States or government in general, they are the tendency to fanatical legislation, which, under pretence of checking vice and promoting virtue, strikes at the rights of persons and property, and establishes social despotism, and the clamor for law reform, which would change the essential elements of the Common Law, destroy its excellence as a system for the protection of private rights, whether of persons or of things, and with it the last conservative institution now remaining in the country, the independent judiciary. Here are the dangers we have to apprehend in regard to our domestic or internal relations. In our foreign relations, the dangers to be apprehended arise from the spirit of democratic or republican propagandism, manifesting itself in piratical expeditions like those against Cuba, and in popular and governmental intervention in the internal affairs of foreign nations, to aid the Red Republican revolutionists in overthrowing monarchical institutions and establishing - the Reign of Terror. The question to be decided by every loyal American citizen is, Which of the two parties will afford us the best protection against these several dangers? or which is likely to do the least to increase them?

As to foreign revolutionism, the Whigs, as a party, are naturally the least dangerous, but being the weaker party, or at least the less popular party, in the country, and the general sentiment of the country being democratic, they are constantly tempted to court support at home by encouraging the popular party abroad. On nearly all domestic questions, Mr. Webster is conservative, but no Democratic Secretary of State ever proved himself with regard to the foreign revolutionists more radical than he has. The section of the party which has triumphed in the nomination of General Scott is as strong in its sympathies with the foreign revolutionists as is any section of the Democratic party. Mr. Seward of New York, one of its most prominent and influential leaders, is a thorough-going radical, domestic and foreign, and was in 1829 - and he boasted to us, not a great while since, that he had not changed - very much of a Fanny Wright man, and a supporter of the wild schemes of what was called "the Workingmen's Party." The leading Scott papers in New York, the Tribune and Times, are the organs of the Kossuth party and policy. It was also under a Whig administration that the piratical expeditions were fitted out against Cuba, against which the government took such intellectual precautions, and none of the actors in which has it brought to punishment. It was this same administration that brought Kossuth here, and greeted his arrival with a national salute. It is this same administration that is busy, apparently, in getting up a quarrel with Mexico about the right oi' way across the Isthmus of Te-huantepec, and preparing another war with that distracted republic, and the annexation of another slice of its territory to the Union. We cannot see, then, in the success of the Whigs any real security for a wise, just, and neutral foreign policy, although we are disposed to think that, as it regards the internal troubles of other nations, we should have, upon the whole, less to fear from a Whig than from a Democratic administration. A large portion of the Whig party certainly retain a respect for the policy of Washington and Adams, and we have seen in General Scott no Kossuth tendency and no piratical propensities. He is said to be a vain man, but he is a gentleman, a gallant soldier, and an able and accomplished military oilicer, and his military habits must render him averse to all encouragement of disloyalty and revolutionism, either at home or abroad. The country, as a general rule, is safer under the presidency of a real - we do not mean a sham - military man than under a civilian, - less likely to be involved in war, and less likely to transcend the line of its duty towards foreign powers. Other things being equal, we should in a country like ours, where the deference to the mob is so great, and so few have the habits of authority, always prefer an eminent military man for the executive, to an eminent civilian, for his training is more likely to bring out the proper executive qualities. Vox the candidate of the Democratic party we have personally great affection and esteem; we know him to be a man of ability, honesty, and warm feelings; but we fear that he will be a mere executive of the will of his party, and that he will feel it his duty to follow rather than to lead it. He has given in his unqualified adhesion to the Baltimore platform, which, save as to the Compromise Measures, at least so far as it is any thing more than abstract nonsense or unmeaning declamation, every American citizen should abominate. We fear that his administration will accept the policy urged upon us by Ludwig Kossuth, alias Alexander Smith, the Vice-President of the American Bible Society. He is warmly supported by Senator Douglas, the pet candidate of the Fillibusters, and by that organ of the foreign radicals and revolutionists who have fled hither to save their necks from the halter they so richly merit for their deeds in their own country, - the Democratic Review. We do not suppose the government will send its fleet to Hungary, for Hungary proper, we believe, has no seaport, or that it will declare war either against Austria or Russia; but all that it can do to support the revolutionists of Europe, short of actual armed intervention, we fear it would do, in case of the success of the Democratic party. All appearances indicate that a Democratic administration would favor secretly, if not openly, effective measures to revolutionize Cuba, and detach it from Spain, and very likely kindle another war with Mexico, and annex the greater part of its territory to the Union. It would most likely seek to rival in this respect the Polk administration, and would, without any doubt, find the sentiment of the country sustaining it. "Expansive Democracy" would be in power, and the government would be conducted on the " manifest destiny" principle. We may be mistaken in all this, we shall be most happy to find that we are; but we fear we are not. Under this point of view, a point of view of especial importance to us as Catholics, for the red revolutions and fillibuster campaigns are all primarily directed against the Church of God, we think the danger would be somewhat less under a Whig than a Democratic administration. We must also remember, and we beg our Catholic friends not to forget, that it was not a Whig, but a leading Democrat, Mr. Polk's Secretary of the Treasury, who raised the cry of " the Anglo-Saxon Alliance," which, if effected, would prove simply an alliance of the Protestant world against the Catholic.

There is no question, if we turn from the foreign to the internal affairs of the Union, that the tendency of the Whigs is rather to centralization, and that of a section of the Democratic party to an exaggerated view of State rights. But this tendency of either can be pushed to a dangerous extreme only by the financial measures of the government and continued Abolition or Free Soil agitation. The financial policy of the government, we may safely predict, will be substantially the same, let which party will succeed in the election, and therefore calls here for no particular discussion. The Abolition or Free Soil agitation is a serious affair, and if continued will lead either to a dissolution, or, what is more probable, to a centralization, of the Union. Both parties are indeed pledged against this agitation, but perhaps both are not equally likely to keep the pledge. The Abolition or Free Soil section of the Whig party have got their candidate for the Presidency, and are the controlling section of that party. General Scott personally, no doubt, is opposed to the agitation, and in favor of sustaining the Fugitive Slave Law; but the Free Soil section of his party must be the principal recipients of the executive patronage, and have the preponderating influence in his administration. He will be obliged to administer the government very much in accordance with their views, and consequently there is great danger of its being too favorable to Free Soil agitation. The Democratic party, though strongly tinctured at the North with Abolitionism, is less likely, we think, to break its pledges than the Whig party. General Pierce is well known to be opposed to Abolitionism, and in favor of leaving the whole question of slavery to the States in which slavery exists. His doctrine was, when we knew him personally, and we have no reason to suppose that it has changed since, that slavery is a question the disposal of which has never been conceded to the Union, therefore is reserved to the States, and with it we who live in the Free States have no more to do than we have with it in Cuba or Constantinople. His doctrine here is sound, and so is the doctrine of the leading Democrats in all sections of the Union. So far as the question of slavery is concerned, we feel that the Union will be less unsafe in the hands of the Democrats than in the hands of the Whigs. In regard to foreign intervention or democratic propagandism, whether officially or otherwise, we should give the preference, under existing circumstances, to the Whigs; and with regard to the domestic or internal affairs of the Union, to the Democrats.

In regard to the principles and measures of government in general, and which with us find their application in the individual States, the minority of the Whig party are undoubtedly the soundest part of our citizens, at least in this Commonwealth. As it concerns fanatical legislation, of which the Maine Liquor Law is a specimen, both parties are implicated, but perhaps the Whig party to the greatest extent. Properly speaking, this sort of legislation is neither Whig nor Democratic, but Puritanic. It is only a revival of old Massachusetts Colonial legislation, and part and parcel of that policy which was adopted, and so rigorously enforced in Geneva, by John Calvin. The system aims to effect by legislation what can be effected only by moral suasion and the influence of religion on the heart and conscience. It strikes at the first principles of individual freedom, and establishes a most, odious social despotism. It is in perfect accordance with the political principles of the Democratic party, but, as parties are rarely consistent throughout, probably, so far as it is concerned, it makes not much difference which party is in power. In both parties are men who oppose it; in both are men who will support it from conviction, and a still larger number, who, while despising it, will support it because they believe it popular, or fear that it would be unpopular to oppose it.

With regard to law reform and the judiciary the Whigs are generally less unsound and more conservative than the Democrats. In this State the Whig party on these questions takes the right side; the Democrats generally are as wrong as men well can be. These questions are especially important to us as Catholics, for we are in the minority, and our religion is odious to the majority. We could have no safety under the Democratic doctrine of law, and the power of the legislature over vested rights. The security of our interests, our rights of property, our churches, and our burying-grounds, depends only on the Common Law and the independence and purity of the judiciary, both of which it is a part of the Democratic policy to sweep away, and which it is as yet a part of the Whig policy to preserve. We must be utterly blind to our own interests as Catholics, as well as to the interests of the Commonwealth, if we yield our support to the Democratic party in this State as a State party. As matters now stand, the Whigs, as a State party, seem to us to deserve the preference. Of the party in other States, as a State party, we are not qualified to speak.

As to the questions raised about Protestant test laws, Native Americanism, &c, we have little to say. Catholics as such have nothing to hope from either Scott or Pierce, and no more to fear from the one than from the other. Neither is a Catholic, and neither is a bigot. Pierce is from a State which retains for certain offices a Protestant test, which practically amounts to nothing; but he is well known to have exerted himself to abolish it, though without success. As Catholics, we owe no gratitude to those zealous demagogues who, in order to induce Catholics to vote for Scott against him, make him responsible for it. We think just as much of them as we do of those other demagogues who labor to enlist Protestant prejudice against Scott, because one of his daughters, and we know not but two, has received the grace to become Catholic. We regret to see such things brought into our political contests, and we despise the demagogues who introduce them; but, alas ! the fools are not all dead yet, and a new brood is hatched every year. Scott has been accused of Native Americanism, and on this ground it has been attempted to prejudice our citizens of foreign birth against him, and to secure their votes for his competitor; but we have no reason to believe him unduly American. We are not at all disturbed by the pettish letter he is said to have written some years ago, but which he has sufficiently retracted. This question of Native Americanism is one that requires to be treated with great delicacy, and our friends of foreign birth must be careful how they touch it, lest they bring about the very evil they seek to guard against. We, as our readers well know, have, not the least conceivable sympathy with political Native Americanism; but, nevertheless, we are American, American born and reared, as our ancestors for a hundred and fifty years before us. We share largely in the American nationality, and we are very much disposed to believe that American interests should dictate and control American politics. Now, there are two classes of foreigners who leave their own country to settle here, towards which we have very different feelings. The peaceful, industrious, and laborious foreigners, like the great mass of the Irish and German emigrants, who come hither to seek a home for themselves and their children, and who quietly study to learn and discharge their duties as American citizens, we greet with a hearty welcome, and would admit them at an early moment to all the rights and immunities of native-born citizens. But there is another class of emigrants, demagogues, revolutionists, desperadoes, who, after having failed to revolutionize their own countries, fly hither either to save their necks from the merited halter, or to abuse the liberty granted them by our government and laws, to renew their anti-social and liberticide projects, and to carry away our government and people in a vain and mischievous attempt to realize their mad schemes, either here or in the countries they have left behind. These unprincipled and crazy spirits congregate in our cities, form secret societies all through our land, affiliated to like societies all over Europe, gather around our journalists, get. the control of newspapers, corrupt the public mind, and through their own countrymen of the other class, naturalized hero, attempt to control our politics and shape the whole policy of the government, foreign and domestic. They uniformly attach themselves to the extreme radical party of the country, and hurry it on in the most dangerous direction. Foreigners of this description have been the curse of this country, from the miserable Callender, the foul-mouthed libeller of the government under the elder Adams, to the Hungarian speech-maker, Kossuth, and the radical writers for the Democratic Review. Now we grant our American spirit burns, and our American blood boils, to be made in our country, on our own native soil, the slaves or the tools of these foreign desperadoes and cutthroats, who are controlled by the greater criminals they have left in the Old World. If General Scott's Native Americanism strikes only at these, and is intended merely to reduce this political rabble to silence and insignificance, we share it with him, and instead of looking upon it as an objection, we assure his opponents that we regard it as a recommendation. In promoting such Native Americanism, we go with him with all our heart, and so must every loyal American citizen, whether native or foreign born. But if he goes against the other class of our foreign-born population, we go not with him, and very few of the American people will. It is only in case they suffer themselves to be formed into a foreign party, under the lead of these political cutthroats, for foreign purposes, that the American people will ever listen to political Native Americanism; then they may do it, and, of course, applaud the guilty party, and punish the innocent. But we have no reason to suppose that General Scott is at all opposed to the former class we have described, and his dry nurse, Seward, is the bosom friend of the latter.

We sum up then. Of the old Federalist and Republican parties, the Federalists were the party most favorable to personal liberty and social order; of the modern Whigs and Democrats, the Whigs are preferable on the question of foreign revolutionism and its accessories, and on the questions of law reform, the Common Law, and the judiciary; the Democrats are preferable on the questions of Abolitionism, and, so far as there is any difference, of the internal policy of the Federal government; while in all other respects the two parties are about equal. Which upon the whole is preferable, and should be supported in the coming election, it is hard to say, and we leave our readers to judge each for himself. How we shall ourselves vote, we have not, at the time of writing, made up our own mind. We do not think much is to be hoped fur the country from either party. If there were a party organized on really constitutional and conservative principles, resolved to bring the government back to the principles and policy of Washington and Adams, - a party for the Union without centralization, for State rights without dissolution, for republicanism without social despotism, for personal freedom without disorder or anarchical tendency, for a government of law, not for a government of arbitrary will, whether your will or mine, - there would be a party with which we could unite, and which we could conscientiously urge our friends to support. But such a party does not at present exist.

In conclusion, we would say to our Catholic friends, vote for the party you conscientiously believe to be the least likely to injure the country, but do not wed yourselves for life to any party. The salvation of the country and the preservation of its republican institutions, under the providence of God, depend in no small degree on you. Be on your guard against the seductions of political revolutionists, rebels, and radicals who have fled hither from the Old World. You have nothing in common with them. Trust them not till they have proved by their works that they have ceased to be the enemies of your faith and the advocates of social despotism. Be on your guard also against native-born demagogues. Turn a deaf ear to every one who addresses you as Germans or as Irishmen, or in any sense as a foreign party distinguishable in your feelings or interests from the political American people. Hold yourselves at all times free to support the party which, here and now, appears to you, after the best examination you are able to make, to be the most deserving or the least undeserving of your support as simply loyal American citizens. In time you will acquire an influence which you will be able to exert for good, and have a decisive voice in determining the policy of parties, instead of being the mere tools of party leaders and managers. In all cases, however, remember that the destiny of nations as of individuals is in the hands of Providence, and that we can hope for a good issue for our political no more than for any other efforts save as we look to God, and invoke and receive his grace to assist and prosper us.

* Madison Papers, 1018-1020.