DEMOCRATIC PARTY 



1753 



DEMOCRATIC PARTY 



College (now University) from 1860 to 1865, 

 and thereafter until his death was professor of 

 rhetoric and history in Dalhousie University. 



DEMOCRAT '1C PARTY, officially known 

 from the time of Washington's second adminis- 

 tration as the Democratic-Republican party, 

 and after 1829 as the Democratic party. It is 

 the oldest political organization in the United 

 States, and has been inspired by the political 

 principles laid down by Thomas Jefferson prac- 

 tically since the foundation of the Federal 

 government. 



Its Origin. All men were united in their 

 effort to establish order following the trying 

 days of the Revolution. On the question of 

 adoption of the Federal Constitution public 

 opinion was divided: one group, led by Alex- 

 ander Hamilton, advocated its acceptance by 

 the states without alteration; another group 

 declared against such centralization of power 

 as the Constitution threatened to impose upon 

 the country, and maintained that the states 

 should be invested with almost sovereign au- 

 thority, to assure local self-government. The 

 champions of the Constitution won, but the 

 opposition obtained a promise that Congress, 

 as one of its first acts, should propose a series 

 of constitutional amendments guaranteeing cer- 

 tain inalienable rights to the people. Hamilton 

 and other spokesmen for the Constitution, in 

 the form in which it was passed by the Con- 

 vention, became known as the Federalists. 

 The natural designation of the opposition, 

 headed by Thomas Jefferson, was Anti-Fed- 

 eralist, and this party was in every essential 

 respect the beginning of the present Demo- 

 cratic organization. 



Its Early Development. After the Constitu- 

 tion was adopted the distinction between Fed- 

 eralists and Anti-Federalists became almost 

 meaningless. All men joined in an effort to 

 establish the new government as quickly as 

 possible, and for two or three years party 

 names were lost to view. In 1792, on the eve 

 of the second Presidential election, there arose 

 two active groups, the old Federalist wing 

 becoming known as National Republicans and 

 the followers of Jefferson as Democratic-Re- 

 publicans. The former were successful in na- 

 tional contests until the year 1800, when the 

 Democratic-Republican party elected Jefferson 

 to the Presidency, and from this time party 

 differences were more marked. All the ele- 

 ments in direct or passive sympathy with old 

 Federalist tenets now aligned themselves with 

 the National Republicans, but the hold of 



Jefferson and his theories upon the people was 

 so strong that his party was retained in power 

 through the administrations of its leader and 

 the succeeding terms of Madison and Monroe. 

 Chief among Democratic principles was the 

 belief that a large army and navy were un- 

 necessary, but emphasis was also placed on the 

 need for economy in government, on the rights 

 of the states and on the desirability of avoiding 

 foreign complications. 



Strict adherence to these principles embar- 

 rassed the administrations and displeased the 

 people, for the country was humiliated in a 

 series of international incidents which ulti- 

 mately led to war with Great Britain. Al- 

 though it ended successfully and left an "era of 

 good feeling" behind it, the nation was not 

 satisfied and in 1824 elected John Quincy 

 Adams, the candidate of the original Federal 

 element, or National Republican party. In 

 this election, for the first time, Presidential 

 nominations were not exclusively in the hands 

 of a Congressional caucus; Adams was nomi- 

 nated by the state legislatures. The Demo- 

 crats, largely owing to the unpopularity of the 

 Adams administration, returned to power in 

 1829, with Andrew Jackson as President. Dur- 

 ing the succeeding eight years Jackson welded 

 together a party so strong that it has con- 

 tinued to the present day either as the domi- 

 nant party or as the strongest minority or- 

 ganization. 



The Problem of States' Rights. Since the 

 days of Jackson the career of the Democratic 

 party must be divided into two parts. Until 

 after the War of Secession the campaign issue 

 was always concerned with slavery or the tariff, 

 and chiefly as a phase of a greater struggle to 

 determine the relation of the individual state 

 to the United States. South Carolina's nulli- 

 fication doctrine was based on the assumed 

 right of secession (see NULLIFICATION). Al- 

 though Jackson himself had no sympathy or 

 patience with nullification, his party gradually 

 carile into the control of men who were un- 

 willing to interfere with state institutions. 

 Thus it happened that the Democratic party 

 was driven to the defense of slavery. 



After the War of Secession. At the close of 

 the War of Secession the Democratic party was 

 in a peculiar position. The Southern Demo- 

 crats were mostly disqualified from voting and 

 from office-holding by the reconstruction meas- 

 ures (see RECONSTRUCTION) ; the Northern 

 Democrats, as a party, were unpopular because 

 they had opposed the vigorous prosecution of 



