Historic democracy is dead.
This is not to say that a Democratic party organization has ceased to
exist. Nor does it mean that there are no more Democrats and that the
Democratic party is dead in the sense that the Federalist party is dead
or the Whig party is dead, or the Greenback party is dead, or the
Populist party is dead. That which has died is the Democratic party of
Jefferson and Jackson and Tilden. The principles of government which
they laid down and advocated have been for the most part obliterated.
What slavery and secession were unable to accomplish has been brought
about by nationalizing sumptuary laws and suffrage.
The death-blow to Jeffersonian democracy was delivered by the
Democratic Senators and Representatives from the South and West who
carried through the prohibition amendment. The _coup de grâce_ was
administered by a President of the United States elected as a Democrat
when he approved the Federal suffrage amendment to the Constitution.
The kind of government for which the Jeffersonian democracy
successfully battled for more than a century was thus repudiated;
centralization was invited; State rights were assassinated in the very
citadel of State rights. The charter of local self-government become a
scrap of paper, the way is open for the obliteration of the States in
all their essential functions and the erection of a Federal Government
more powerful than anything of which Alexander Hamilton dared to dream.
When the history of these times comes to be written it may be said of
Woodrow Wilson: he rose to world celebrity by circumstance rather than
by character. He was favored of the gods. He possessed a bright,
forceful mind. His achievements were thrust upon him. Though it
sometimes ran away with him, his pen possessed extraordinary facility.
Thus he was ever able to put his best foot foremost. Never in the
larger sense a leader of men as were Chatham and Fox, as were
Washington, Clay and Lincoln; nor of ideas as were Rousseau, Voltaire
and Franklin, he had the subtle tenacity of Louis the Eleventh of
France, the keen foresight of Richelieu with a talent for the
surprising which would have raised him to eminence in journalism. In
short he was an opportunist void of conviction and indifferent to
consistency.
The pen is mightier than the sword only when it has behind it a heart
as well as a brain. He who wields it must be brave, upright and
steadfast. We are giving our Chief Executive enormous powers. As a rule
his wishes prevail. His name becomes the symbol of party loyalty. Yet
it is after all a figure of speech not a personality that appeals to
our sense of duty without necessarily engaging our affection.
Historic Republicanism is likewise dead, as dead as historic Democracy,
only in both cases the labels surviving.