Chapter Summary
Great distinction to be made between parties—Parties
which are to each other as rival nations—Parties properly so called—Difference between
great and small parties—Epochs which produce them—Their characteristics—America
has had great parties—They are extinct—Federalists—Republicans—Defeat of the
Federalists—Difficulty of creating parties in the United States—What is done
with this intention—Aristocratic or democratic character to be met with in all
parties—Struggle of General Jackson against the Bank.
Parties In The United States
A great distinction must be made between parties. Some
countries are so large that the different populations which inhabit them have
contradictory interests, although they are the subjects of the same Government,
and they may thence be in a perpetual state of opposition. In this case the
different fractions of the people may more properly be considered as distinct
nations than as mere parties; and if a civil war breaks out, the struggle is
carried on by rival peoples rather than by factions in the State.
But when the citizens entertain different opinions upon
subjects which affect the whole country alike, such, for instance, as the
principles upon which the government is to be conducted, then distinctions
arise which may correctly be styled parties. Parties are a necessary evil in
free governments; but they have not at all times the same character and the same
propensities.
At certain periods a nation may be oppressed by such
insupportable evils as to conceive the design of effecting a total change in
its political constitution; at other times the mischief lies still deeper, and
the existence of society itself is endangered. Such are the times of great
revolutions and of great parties. But between these epochs of misery and of
confusion there are periods during which human society seems to rest, and
mankind to make a pause. This pause is, indeed, only apparent, for time does
not stop its course for nations any more than for men; they are all advancing
towards a goal with which they are unacquainted; and we only imagine them to be
stationary when their progress escapes our observation, as men who are going at
a foot-pace seem to be standing still to those who run.
But however this may be, there are certain epochs at
which the changes that take place in the social and political constitution of
nations are so slow and so insensible that men imagine their present condition
to be a final state; and the human mind, believing itself to be firmly based
upon certain foundations, does not extend its researches beyond the horizon
which it descries. These are the times of small parties and of intrigue.
The political parties which I style great are those which
cling to principles more than to their consequences; to general, and not to
especial cases; to ideas, and not to men. These parties are usually
distinguished by a nobler character, by more generous passions, more genuine
convictions, and a more bold and open conduct than the others. In them private
interest, which always plays the chief part in political passions, is more
studiously veiled under the pretext of the public good; and it may even be
sometimes concealed from the eyes of the very persons whom it excites and
impels.
Minor parties are, on the other hand, generally deficient
in political faith. As they are not sustained or dignified by a lofty purpose,
they ostensibly display the egotism of their character in their actions. They
glow with a factitious zeal; their language is vehement, but their conduct is
timid and irresolute. The means they employ are as wretched as the end at which
they aim. Hence it arises that when a calm state of things succeeds a violent
revolution, the leaders of society seem suddenly to disappear, and the powers
of the human mind to lie concealed. Society is convulsed by great parties, by
minor ones it is agitated; it is torn by the former, by the latter it is
degraded; and if these sometimes save it by a salutary perturbation, those
invariably disturb it to no good end.
America has already lost the great parties which once
divided the nation; and if her happiness is considerably increased, her
morality has suffered by their extinction. When the War of Independence was
terminated, and the foundations of the new Government were to be laid down, the
nation was divided between two opinions—two opinions which are as old as the
world, and which are perpetually to be met with under all the forms and all the
names which have ever obtained in free communities—the one tending to limit,
the other to extend indefinitely, the power of the people. The conflict of
these two opinions never assumed that degree of violence in America which it
has frequently displayed elsewhere. Both parties of the Americans were, in
fact, agreed upon the most essential points; and neither of them had to destroy
a traditionary constitution, or to overthrow the structure of society, in order
to ensure its own triumph. In neither of them, consequently, were a great
number of private interests affected by success or by defeat; but moral
principles of a high order, such as the love of equality and of independence,
were concerned in the struggle, and they sufficed to kindle violent passions.
The party which desired to limit the power of the people
endeavored to apply its doctrines more especially to the Constitution of the
Union, whence it derived its name of Federal. The other party, which affected
to be more exclusively attached to the cause of liberty, took that of
Republican. America is a land of democracy, and the Federalists were always in
a minority; but they reckoned on their side almost all the great men who had
been called forth by the War of Independence, and their moral influence was
very considerable. Their cause was, moreover, favored by circumstances. The
ruin of the Confederation had impressed the people with a dread of anarchy, and
the Federalists did not fail to profit by this transient disposition of the
multitude. For ten or twelve years they were at the head of affairs, and they
were able to apply some, though not all, of their principles; for the hostile
current was becoming from day to day too violent to be checked or stemmed. In
1801 the Republicans got possession of the Government; Thomas Jefferson was
named President; and he increased the influence of their party by the weight of
his celebrity, the greatness of his talents, and the immense extent of his
popularity.
The means by which the Federalists had maintained their
position were artificial, and their resources were temporary; it was by the
virtues or the talents of their leaders that they had risen to power. When the
Republicans attained to that lofty station, their opponents were overwhelmed by
utter defeat. An immense majority declared itself against the retiring party,
and the Federalists found themselves in so small a minority that they at once
despaired of their future success. From that moment the Republican or
Democratic party *a has proceeded from conquest to conquest, until it has
acquired absolute supremacy in the country. The Federalists, perceiving that
they were vanquished without resource, and isolated in the midst of the nation,
fell into two divisions, of which one joined the victorious Republicans, and
the other abandoned its rallying-point and its name. Many years have already
elapsed since they ceased to exist as a party.
a [ [It is scarcely necessary to remark
that in more recent times the signification of these terms has changed. The
Republicans are the representatives of the old Federalists, and the Democrats
of the old Republicans.—Trans. Note (1861).]] The accession of the Federalists
to power was, in my opinion, one of the most fortunate incidents which
accompanied the formation of the great American Union; they resisted the
inevitable propensities of their age and of the country. But whether their
theories were good or bad, they had the effect of being inapplicable, as a
system, to the society which they professed to govern, and that which occurred
under the auspices of Jefferson must therefore have taken place sooner or
later. But their Government gave the new republic time to acquire a certain
stability, and afterwards to support the rapid growth of the very doctrines
which they had combated. A considerable number of their principles were in
point of fact embodied in the political creed of their opponents; and the
Federal Constitution which subsists at the present day is a lasting monument of
their patriotism and their wisdom.
Great political parties are not, then, to be met with in
the United States at the present time. Parties, indeed, may be found which
threaten the future tranquillity of the Union; but there are none which seem to
contest the present form of Government or the present course of society. The
parties by which the Union is menaced do not rest upon abstract principles, but
upon temporal interests. These interests, disseminated in the provinces of so
vast an empire, may be said to constitute rival nations rather than parties.
Thus, upon a recent occasion, the North contended for the system of commercial
prohibition, and the South took up arms in favor of free trade, simply because
the North is a manufacturing and the South an agricultural district; and that
the restrictive system which was profitable to the one was prejudicial to the
other. *b
b [ [The divisions of North and South
have since acquired a far greater degree of intensity, and the South, though
conquered, still presents a formidable spirit of opposition to Northern
government.—Translator's Note, 1875.]]
In the absence of great parties, the United States abound
with lesser controversies; and public opinion is divided into a thousand minute
shades of difference upon questions of very little moment. The pains which are
taken to create parties are inconceivable, and at the present day it is no easy
task. In the United States there is no religious animosity, because all
religion is respected, and no sect is predominant; there is no jealousy of
rank, because the people is everything, and none can contest its authority;
lastly, there is no public indigence to supply the means of agitation, because
the physical position of the country opens so wide a field to industry that man
is able to accomplish the most surprising undertakings with his own native
resources. Nevertheless, ambitious men are interested in the creation of
parties, since it is difficult to eject a person from authority upon the mere
ground that his place is coveted by others. The skill of the actors in the
political world lies therefore in the art of creating parties. A political
aspirant in the United States begins by discriminating his own interest, and by
calculating upon those interests which may be collected around and amalgamated
with it; he then contrives to discover some doctrine or some principle which
may suit the purposes of this new association, and which he adopts in order to
bring forward his party and to secure his popularity; just as the imprimatur of
a King was in former days incorporated with the volume which it authorized, but
to which it nowise belonged. When these preliminaries are terminated, the new
party is ushered into the political world.
All the domestic controversies of the Americans at first
appear to a stranger to be so incomprehensible and so puerile that he is at a
loss whether to pity a people which takes such arrant trifles in good earnest,
or to envy the happiness which enables it to discuss them. But when he comes to
study the secret propensities which govern the factions of America, he easily
perceives that the greater part of them are more or less connected with one or
the other of those two divisions which have always existed in free communities.
The deeper we penetrate into the working of these parties, the more do we
perceive that the object of the one is to limit, and that of the other to
extend, the popular authority. I do not assert that the ostensible end, or even
that the secret aim, of American parties is to promote the rule of aristocracy
or democracy in the country; but I affirm that aristocratic or democratic
passions may easily be detected at the bottom of all parties, and that,
although they escape a superficial observation, they are the main point and the
very soul of every faction in the United States.
To quote a recent example. When the President attacked
the Bank, the country was excited and parties were formed; the well-informed
classes rallied round the Bank, the common people round the President. But it
must not be imagined that the people had formed a rational opinion upon a
question which offers so many difficulties to the most experienced statesmen.
The Bank is a great establishment which enjoys an independent existence, and
the people, accustomed to make and unmake whatsoever it pleases, is startled to
meet with this obstacle to its authority. In the midst of the perpetual
fluctuation of society the community is irritated by so permanent an
institution, and is led to attack it in order to see whether it can be shaken
and controlled, like all the other institutions of the country.
Remains Of The Aristocratic Party In The United States
Secret opposition of wealthy individuals to
democracy—Their retirement—Their taste for exclusive pleasures and for luxury
at home—Their simplicity abroad—Their affected condescension towards the
people.
It sometimes happens in a people amongst which various
opinions prevail that the balance of the several parties is lost, and one of
them obtains an irresistible preponderance, overpowers all obstacles, harasses
its opponents, and appropriates all the resources of society to its own
purposes. The vanquished citizens despair of success and they conceal their
dissatisfaction in silence and in general apathy. The nation seems to be
governed by a single principle, and the prevailing party assumes the credit of
having restored peace and unanimity to the country. But this apparent unanimity
is merely a cloak to alarming dissensions and perpetual opposition.
This is precisely what occurred in America; when the
democratic party got the upper hand, it took exclusive possession of the
conduct of affairs, and from that time the laws and the customs of society have
been adapted to its caprices. At the present day the more affluent classes of
society are so entirely removed from the direction of political affairs in the
United States that wealth, far from conferring a right to the exercise of
power, is rather an obstacle than a means of attaining to it. The wealthy
members of the community abandon the lists, through unwillingness to contend,
and frequently to contend in vain, against the poorest classes of their fellow
citizens. They concentrate all their enjoyments in the privacy of their homes,
where they occupy a rank which cannot be assumed in public; and they constitute
a private society in the State, which has its own tastes and its own pleasures.
They submit to this state of things as an irremediable evil, but they are
careful not to show that they are galled by its continuance; it is even not
uncommon to hear them laud the delights of a republican government, and the
advantages of democratic institutions when they are in public. Next to hating
their enemies, men are most inclined to flatter them.
Mark, for instance, that opulent citizen, who is as
anxious as a Jew of the Middle Ages to conceal his wealth. His dress is plain,
his demeanor unassuming; but the interior of his dwelling glitters with luxury,
and none but a few chosen guests whom he haughtily styles his equals are
allowed to penetrate into this sanctuary. No European noble is more exclusive
in his pleasures, or more jealous of the smallest advantages which his
privileged station confers upon him. But the very same individual crosses the
city to reach a dark counting-house in the centre of traffic, where every one
may accost him who pleases. If he meets his cobbler upon the way, they stop and
converse; the two citizens discuss the affairs of the State in which they have
an equal interest, and they shake hands before they part.
But beneath this artificial enthusiasm, and these
obsequious attentions to the preponderating power, it is easy to perceive that
the wealthy members of the community entertain a hearty distaste to the
democratic institutions of their country. The populace is at once the object of
their scorn and of their fears. If the maladministration of the democracy ever
brings about a revolutionary crisis, and if monarchical institutions ever
become practicable in the United States, the truth of what I advance will
become obvious.
The two chief weapons which parties use in order to
ensure success are the public press and the formation of associations.
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