THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

CHAPTER I.

THE CONSTITUTION-DIVERSE OPINIONS OF THOSE WHO FRAMED IT-INTRODUCES A NEW FORM OF GOVERNMENT -WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION REQUIRED TO SET ITS MACHINERY IN ORDERLY MOTION-JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON IN WASHINGTON'S CABINET THEIR RADICAL DIFFERENCES OF OPINION-EXTEND TO CONGRESS, STATE LEGISLATURES, AND THE COUNTRY — THE PEOPLE DIVIDED INTO FEDERALISTS AND REPUBLICANS REPUBLICAN PARTY THE RESULT OF A HIGH PUBLIC NECESSITY ELECTION OF JOHN ADAMS-DIFFICULTIES WITH THE FRENCH DIRECTORY ALIEN, SEDITION, AND NATURALIZATION LAWS PUBLIC SENTIMENT RESPECTING THEM AND THEIR AUTHORS.

THE Republican Party in the United States is a reformation and continuation of the political association which exalted Thomas Jefferson to the presidency, in the morning of the present century, and exists for similar purposes. It originated in a high public necessity, which became manifest during the administrations of Washington and the elder Adams. Its primary object was the defense of unsurrendered rights against the monocratic doctrines and measures of the Federalists. It was subsequently required to defend, as well, our whole republican system of government, including freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, and of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and the right of trials by juries impartially selected. It is now resisting usurpations which have resulted from the substitution, by the political party temporarily administering the federal government, of the Cal

houn policy, so called, for that of the author of the Declaration of Independence, under which our republican system was inaugurated, and insisting upon a return to, and resumption of, the policy from which both the executive and legislative departments have unwisely departed.

After the martial forces employed in the American revolution had sundered the bonds which held the colonies in allegiance to a foreign government, Thomas Jefferson and his compeers entered upon the more difficult and responsible duty of devising, constructing, and setting in orderly motion, another and a better political establishment. For although all the illustrious men whom we revere as patriots of the revolution, were very unanimous respecting the necessity of colonial independence, they were greatly divided in their opinions in regard to the form and composition of the structure to be erected in the stead of the government repudiated. Some of them were unprepared for any change whatever, and therefore urged the creation of a limited monarchy after the British model; some had advanced with the age so far as to be willing to adopt the form of the Helvetic and Batavian confederacies; whilst others, among whom was Jefferson, who confided less in the strength and solidarity of any particular system, than in the moral force of the voluntary principle, preferred a Republic. This preference ultimately obtained with the people, and our federal constitution is the result.

Those questions were succeeded by others respecting the details and alleged defects of the constitution. The larger states apprehended that, according to the extent of the sovereign power which it lodged in the federal government, would their own local importance and influence with their sister commonwealths be injuriously diminished. The smaller ones, by an opposite course of

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reasoning, foreboded for themselves an equally disastrous result. They were apprehensive also of being overslaughed by the power of the larger states, through combinations of interest or ambition. Some apprehended danger from the gradual usurpations of the executive; others were jealous of the absorbing power vested in congress. Some regarded the intermixture of legislative, executive, and judicial functions in the senate as a mischievous departure from all former ideas of government; others considered the non-participation by the house of representatives in the same functions as highly objectionable. Some considered equality of representation in the senate improper; others complained of inequality of representation in the house. Some disliked the compromise of sovereignty between the Union and the several states; others were opposed to the compromises of liberty by the clause admitting representation in congress for slaves. Some objected to the power to levy direct taxes; others disliked the power to levy them indirectly. Some feared the powers of the judiciary were too extensive; others professed to believe the power to keep up a standing army the precursor of military despotism. And in the states of Pennsylvania and Virginia it was asserted in published manifestoes, "that there was power enough lodged in congress and the executive to enable them to convert the government into an absolute despotism."

Besides the foregoing, there were serious objections to the constitution, as it was submitted for approval, raised on account of its deficiencies. Among these were specified the absence of a distinct bill of rights, recognizing the fundamental principles of free government - the equality of all men, and their right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It was tenaciously urged that provision should be made for the trial by jury in civil

cases, and in criminal cases upon the presentment of a grand jury; that all criminal trials should be public, and the accused confronted with the witnesses against him; that freedom of speech and of the press should be secured; that there should be no national religion, but rights of conscience should remain inviolable; that excessive bail should not be required, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted; that the people should have the right to bear arms, yet that persons conscientiously scrupulous of war should not be compelled to bear them; that every person should be entitled, of right, to petition. for the redress of grievances; that search warrants should not be granted without oath, and general warrants not at all; that soldiers should not be enlisted except for limited periods, and not quartered in time of peace in private houses without consent of the owners; that mutiny bills should continue in force for two years only; that causes once tried should not be reëxaminable upon appeal, otherwise than according to the course of the common law; and that powers not expressly delegated to the general government should be reserved to the states respectively.

The public mind so readily acknowledged the force of these objections, that many of them were framed into amendments and adopted by several state conventions simultaneously with their ratification of the original document. Congress at its first session considered them, and perceiving that they were tenaciously urged, molded them into a Bill of Rights, consisting of twelve distinct articles, ten of which were afterwards ratified by the requisite number of states, and incorporated at once into the constitution. And thus it was that the choicest and strongest guaranties in that instrument were placed there only after an earnest and protracted struggle on the part

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of those who, acting under the admonitions of history, desired to guard themselves and their posterity against encroachments, in subsequent years, from the national power.

The constitution thus amended, ushered into existence a governmental establishment which commentators thereon have declared to be "partly federal and partly national in its character; federal in its origin and national in its adoption; federal in respect to one legislative branch and national in respect to the other; federal in its action upon separate states, and national in its jurisdiction over individuals; and surmounted with a federal and national executive head." And it declared its purposes to be the formation of a more perfect union, the establishment of justice, the insurance of domestic tranquillity, and the securing of the blessings of liberty.

It devolved upon the administrations of Washington and the elder Adams to adjust the machinery of the new government, and set it in orderly motion-a task intrin sically difficult under any circumstances, but then greatly embarrassed by the magnitude of the public debt, and the war which had broken out in Europe. Among their responsible labors were included the assumption, by the federal government, of certain debts contracted by some of the states during the war, the funding of the public debt, original and assumed, the establishment of a national bank, the establishment of a wise national policy with respect to belligerent powers, the suppression of privateering from American ports, and the enforcement of suitable revenue laws.

Jefferson and Hamilton occupied prominent positions in the cabinet of Washington-the former the post of secretary of state and foreign affairs, the latter that of secretary of the treasury. Both of them were assiduous