--Rupture of the Democratic
Party.--The John Brown Raid.--Resolutions introduced by the
Author into the Senate on the Relations of the States, the
Federal Government, and the Territories; their Discussion and
Adoption.
The strife in Kansas and the agitation of the territorial question in
Congress and throughout the country continued during nearly the whole of
Mr. Buchanan's Administration, finally culminating in a disruption of
the Union. Meantime the changes, or modifications, which had occurred or
were occurring in the great political parties, were such as may require
a word of explanation to the reader not already familiar with their
history.
The _names_ adopted by political parties in the United States have not
always been strictly significant of their principles. The old Federal
party inclined to nationalism, or consolidation, rather than
federalization, of the States. On the other hand, the party originally
known as Republican, and afterward as Democratic, can scarcely claim to
have been distinctively or exclusively such in the primary sense of
these terms, inasmuch as no party has ever avowed opposition to the
general principles of government by the people. The fundamental idea of
the Democratic party was that of the sovereignty of the States and the
federal, or confederate, character of the Union. Other elements have
entered into its organization at different periods, but this has been
the vital, cardinal, and abiding principle on which its existence has
been perpetuated.
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