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.