The Memories of Fifty Years / Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest

by W. H. Sparks

PARTY PRINCIPLES.

Origin of Parties—Federal and Republican Peculiarities—Jefferson's Principles and Religion—Democracy—Virginia and Massachusetts Parties —War With France—Sedition Law—Lyman Beecher—The Almighty Dollar— "Hail Columbia" and "Yankee Doodle."

The Federal and Republican parties of the nation had their rise and formation out of the two principles of government—the one descending, as by inheritance, from the mother-country, and the other growing out of the formation of the governments established in the early organization of the colonies. A republican form of government was natural to the people. It had become so from habit. They had, in each colony, enjoyed a representative form; had made their own laws, and, with the exception of their Governors and judicial officers, had chosen, by ballot, all their legislative and ministerial officers. Most of the principles and practices of a democratic form of government, consequently, were familiar to them. The etiquette of form and ceremony preserved by the Governors, conformed to English usage. This was only familiar to those of the masses whose business brought them in contact with these ministerial officers and their appendages.

These were continued, to some extent, for a time; but Jefferson saw that they must soon cease, and yield to a sensible, simple intercourse between the officials of the Government and the people. This was foreshadowed in the Declaration of Independence, drafted by him. Immediately upon the success of the Revolution, and the organization of the General Government, he enunciated the opinions and principles now known as Jeffersonian or democratic. It has been charged upon him, that he borrowed his principles from the leaders of the French Revolution, as he did his religion from Voltaire and Tom Paine.

Jefferson was an original thinker, and thought boldly on all subjects. He had studied not only the character and history of governments, but of religions, and from the convictions of his own judgment were formed his opinions and his principles. His orthodoxy was his doxy, and he cared very little for the doxy of any other man or set of men. His genius and exalted talents gave him a light which shines in upon few brains, and if his religious opinions were fallacious, there are few of our day who will say that his social and political sentiments were or are wrong. As to his correctness in the former, it is not, nor will it ever be, given to man to demonstrate. This is the only subject about which there is no charity for him who differs from the received dogmas of the Church, and to-day his name is an abomination only to the Federalists and the Church.

Jefferson was made Secretary of State by General Washington, and was at once the head and representative man of the democracy of the country. There was, however, no organized opposition to the Administration of Washington. But immediately upon the election of Adams it begun to take shape and form, under the leadership of Jefferson. The two parties were first known as the Virginia and Massachusetts parties. Jefferson had been elected Vice-President with Adams, and before the termination of the first year of the Administration the opposition was formidable in Congress. Governor Wolcott was of opinion that Adams destroyed the Federal party by the unwise policy of his Administration. He said he was a man of great intellect, but of capricious temper, incapable from principle or habit of yielding to the popular will. He certainly saw the palpable tendency of public feeling, and must have known its strength: instead of attempting to go with it, and shape it to the exigencies his party required, he vainly attempted to stem the current, defy it, and control it by law. He disregarded the earnest entreaties of his best friends, counselling only with the extremists of the Federal party: the result was the Alien and Sedition Laws. Pickering warned him, and he quarrelled with him. He would not conciliate, but punish his political foes. He loved to exercise power; he did it unscrupulously, and became exceedingly offensive to many of his own party, and bitterly hated by his political enemies. The Alien and Sedition Laws emanated from the extremists of the Federal party, and were in opposition to the views of Adams himself—yet he approved them, and determined to execute them. He knew these laws were in direct opposition to the views and feelings of an immense majority of the people; and with these lights before him, and when he had it in his power to have conciliated the masses, he defied them.

Mr. Adams was unaccustomed to seek or court public favor; his associations had never been with the masses, and he understood very little of their feelings; when these were forced upon him, he received their manifestations with contempt, and uniformly disregarded their teachings. All these defects of character were seized upon by the opposition, to render odious the Federal party.

Mr. Jefferson placed himself in active opposition, and was known at an early day as the candidate of the opposition to succeed Adams. Our difficulties with France, and the action of Congress in appointing Washington commander-in-chief of the American forces, brought Washington into contact with Adams on several occasions; and especially when Washington made his acceptance of the office conditional upon the appointment of Hamilton as second in command, Adams thought he had not been respectfully treated, either by Congress or Washington; and there were some pretty sharp letters written by Washington in relation to the course of Adams.

Jefferson was opposed to the French war. The aid afforded by France in our Revolution had made grateful the public heart, and the people were indisposed to rush into a war with her for slight cause. The pen of Jefferson was never idle: he knew the general feeling, and inflamed it, and what the consequences to the country might have been, had not the war come to an abrupt and speedy end, there are no means of knowing. The trial and conviction of Lyon and Cooper under the Sedition Law, aroused a burst of indignation from the people. Still it taught no wisdom to Mr. Adams. He was urged to have their prosecutions abandoned, but he refused. After conviction, he was seriously pressed to pardon these men, in obedience to the popular will, but he persistently refused, and Lyon was continued in prison until liberated by the success of the Republican party, and the repeal of the offensive and impolitic laws soon after.

Adams professed great veneration for the character of Washington, and he was doubtless sincere. Yet he never lost sight of the fact that it was he who had seconded the motion when made in Congress by Samuel Adams to appoint Washington commander-in-chief of the armies of the Revolution, or that it was he who suggested it to Samuel Adams, and that he sustained the motion in a speech of burning eloquence. He felt that this conferred an obligation and that Washington was at times unmindful of this. He was more exacting than generous, and more suspicious than confiding. In truth, Adams had more mind than soul; more ambition than patriotism, and more impulse than discretion. Yet the country owes him much. He was a great support in the cause of the Revolution, and his folly was to charge too high for his services. The people honored him—they have honored his family, and will yet make his son President. He received all they could give, and his littleness crept out in his desire for more.