to be one entire nation, under one Legislature, and its laws be supreme and control the whole, the idea of sovereignty in these States must be lost. But should we continue distinct sovereign States, confederated for the purpose of mutual safety and happiness, the people would govern themselves more easily, the laws of each State being well adapted to its own genius and circumstances, and the liberties of the United States would be more secure than they can be under the proposed Constitution."

But the discussions on the adoption of the new Constitution did not eventuate in the formation of political partics until the latter part of Washington's second term, Jefferson having been Secretary of State, and Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury. A wide difference of opinion was soon manifested between them. Hamilton was a sincere believer in an aristocratic government, and the establishment of an aristocratic or privileged class of society. Jefferson, on the other hand, was strongly opposed to any thing that resembled monarchial fame and state. The contest between these eminent persons extended to their friends and followers, and thus originated in the United States the two great parties which have ever since striven for the mastery.

This party spirit was much intensified by the passage of the "Alien and Sedition Laws" during the Adams's administration in 1798. France and England being then at war, as usual in

those days, it was feared that the citizens of those countries, of whom there were large numbers in the United States, would prove detrimental to the public welfare, and the Alien laws were passed authorizing the President to expel any alien who might be suspected of conspiracy against the Republic. The sedition law authorized the suppression of publications calculated to weaken the authority of the government. Some of these publications were under the control of aliens, and were very bitter in their tone. (Sec resolutions of 1798).

These measures were very unpopular and contributed largely to the influence of the Democratic party.

In the discussions which attended the formation and adoption of the Constitution, there were two parties developed, as has been already mentioned, one of which came to be designated as Federal. This party had been victorious in clecting Mr. Adams over Mr. Jefferson in 1797 by 71 to 68 electoral votes. Opposed to the Federalists were the States Rights Republicans, as the Democrats were then designated, who feared

undue absorption of power by the central government. The celebrated Kentucky resolutions of 1798, passed by the Legislature of that State, are noted as an expression of that sentiment. The following is an extract:

"That the government created by this compact was not made final judge of the extent of the

powers delegated to itself, but that, as in all other cases of compact among persons having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of mode of redress."

Of the bitter party spirit which obtained in those days we can now scarcely credit the records. Witness the following extract from a Fourth of July oration, delivered at New Haven, Conn., soon after Jefferson's inauguration in 1801, by Theodore Dwight, brother of President Timothy Dwight, of Yale College. He announced to his hearers that the object of the new administration was "to destroy every trace of civilization, and to force mankind back into a savage state. * * * We have even reached the consummation of Democratic blessedness. We have a country governed by blockheads and knaves. The ties of marriage with its felicities are severed and destroyed; our wives and daughters are thrown into the stews; our children are cast into the world from the breast forgotten; filial piety is extinguished, and our surnames, the only mark of distinction among familes, are abolished. Can the imagination paint anything more dreadful this side of Hell?" That this man was afterwards secretary of the famous Hartford convention was not any wonder. It should, however, be added that this language was used soon after the awful "Reign of Terror" in France, from the fears of a repetition in this country of the terrible scenes

enacted there. And thus it was that many a worthy man, John Adams included, had a horror of anything that savored of Democracy.

But the country had no such fears, and Jef ferson and Burr were elected in 1800 by large majorities. And in every succeeding presidential election until 1840 the Democratic candidates were victorious.

The Federalists having elected John Adams in 1797 were never afterwards in power, and having made opposition to the war with England in 1812 an issue, the termination of the war, in a perfect blaze of glory at New Orleans, extinguished the party. And thus it was that during Monroe's administration, from 1816 to 1824, there was scarcely any opposition to the Democratic party.

It seems now strange to us to read the history of those times. John C. Calhoun supporting and voting in 1816 for a tariff and denouncing disunion. Daniel Webster opposing the tariff in 1824, and advocating States Rights in 1814. Henry Clay and Webster opposing the United States bank, of which in after years they were the especial champions. And, still stranger,, the right of disunion claimed by the New England States, and denied by the South. As this fact may be questioned, we will quote from Benton's Thirty Years in the Senate, vol. i, p. 94:

"The doctrine of secession, or the right of a State or combination of States, to withdraw from

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the Union was born of that war-1812. It (the war) was repugnant to the New England States, and opposed by them, not by arms, but by argument, remonstrances and refusal to vote supplies. They had the famous Hartford convention, to which the design of secession was imputed. At the time of its first appearance, 1812, the right of secession was repulsed and repudiated by the democracy generally. The leading language in respect to it south of the Potomac was, that no State had a right to withdraw from the Union; that it required the same power to dissolve as to form the Union, and that any attempt to dissolve it, or to obstruct the action of constitutional law, was treason."

The following extract from the address of the Hartford convention, explains Benton's term of "imputation" of secession:

"But in cases of deliberate, dangerous and paipable infractions of the Constitution, involving the sovereignty of a State and the liberties of the people, it is not only the right but the duty of such a State to interpose its authority for their protection. States which have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute their own decisions."

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The explanation of this curiosity of politics is that, previous to this time (1812), the New England States, having more interest in commerce than in manufactures, were favorable to free