PARTIES IN THE UNITED STATES.
Great Division 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 and democratic Character to
be met with in all Parties.--Struggle of General Jackson against the
Bank.
A great division 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 off 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 toward 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 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
person 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 insure 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 the 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 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.
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 their country. But whether their theories were good or bad, they
had the defect 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 afterward 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.
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 misery to serve as a 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 its 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 that 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 these two divisions which
have always existed in free communities. The deeper we penetrate into
the workings 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 tastes for exclusive Pleasures and for Luxury at
Home.--Their Simplicity Abroad.--Their affected Condescension toward the
People.
It sometimes happens in a people among 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 a 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 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 mal-administration 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_.