THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS.

THE brilliant administration of Mr. Polk, with its commanding talents, sound democratic principles, decided action, and vast practical results, heightening the glory, as well as extending the territory of the nation, was succeeded, as if by contrast, by a weak, vacillating executive, of negative powers, a feeble and mercenary cabinet, which compromised the rights of the country in its foreign policy, the peace and integrity of the Union by abolition intrigues in its home policy, and which tarnished the national name by scandalous pecuniary intrigues in its personal policy. Under President Polk the honor of the nation and the government was unclouded, the Union presented an unbroken front-internal resources of men and money equal to any emergency, and a military prowess which sufficed, without a reverse of fortune, in a few months to conquer a peace from a nation of 8,000,000 souls, occupying a supposed inaccessible country. The prosperity and power of the Great Republic astonished the world, and established its claim to the first rank among nations. In an unfortunate hour, however, many democratic southern states were induced to give their suffrages to a successful soldier, without political principles or capacity; and a few months found the powerful republic on the brink of a civil war; despised abroad, for betraying the rights of her citizens and allies in Central America, while honest men blushed at home for the open spoliation of the public treasury, by the persons appointed to guard it. Under such a government no settled principles of national policy could develope themselves. The principle of individual and sectional plunder alone could be discerned, amidst that general rush upon the treasury for which the "Galphin claim" had been the signal. The old land-marks of the two great parties had been disturbed, as in 1820-21, by the adroit introduction of a sectional question, which was used to divide the democratic ranks and give power to federalism. The Thirty-First Congress, elected under such circumstances, has been governed by two elements. The party in power struggled fiercely to carry out that spoils principle, for which it has ever been distinguished, and the expenditures of the government have swollen to an amount never before reached, either in peace or VOL. XXVIII.-NO. 4.

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war. The new element of discord, which had divided the democratic party, sought to ally itself to the government which it had helped to elect, and by so doing to consolidate a national party, on the ground of opposition to interests guaranteed by the Constitution. It is a remarkable fact, that the executive, himself a southerner, identified personally with the institutions of that region, should have entered into correspondence with that northern faction which had elected him, by deserting the northern friends of the South. Under this alliance the new northern party daily gained strength and importance. Gen. Taylor was the first southern man who bid for re-election, by courting the northern opponents of southern institutions. The course of affairs, which had been called "southern dictation," and which it was the avowed purpose of Van Burenism to "break up," was, through the policy of Gen. Taylor, rapidly becoming northern dictation. The desperate means used by the northern demagogues, consisted in direct attacks upon sectional rights under the Constitution, and in open and shameless disregard of the obligations imposed by that instrument. The dangers incurred by the nation, through the exercise of these means of agitation, in the hands of men who had no pretensions to integrity, were too manifestly great, and the patriots of all parties rallied to the support of the Union. The struggle between the party of the Union and the desperate northern faction, which was fiercely contending for a permanent position, was severe, and the result doubtful. The South were losing ground, and northern fanatics becoming daily more audacious. The power of the Executive was thrown into the scale of the disunionists, who seemed to be on the eve of triumph, at the moment when Providence interfered, and removed the Chief Magistrate by death.

The accession of Mr. Fillmore to the Presidential chair, with a new, and, in some cases, better cabinet, turned the scale in favor of the Union, and against freesoilism, which, with the agitation it had created, gradually subsided, permitting the old parties in some degree to resume their former relative positions. Gradually the fabric reared by Van Buren-Sewardism was dismantled, and the position abandoned. The old party issues began once more to marshal their respective partisans, and to restore order out of the confusion which had followed unwonted success on one side, and betrayal and defeat on the other. In this state of affairs, we discover the causes which finally defeated most of those federal measures, which the dominant party had hoped to carry, during the disarray of the party of the people. There remains, however, as a general result, a considerable increase of federal power and patronage. The expenditure has become immense, and the construction of the powers of the govern ment in their exercise more loose, while circumstances are developing a power contained in the Constitution, and which has hitherto lain dormant. We allude to the application of the penalties for treason to those who organize forcible resistance to a Congressional law. A strong government would undoubtedly promptly apply that provision of the Constitution to those found in arms against it, not on an isolated occasion, but as part of permanent organization to resist its authority. The government is becoming stronger through the course of events, and nothing is more likely to consolidate its power than to give occasion for its exercise. Federalism has thus gained largely by the defeat of Gen. Cass at the election of 1848, and it will cost the democracy many a long and dreary year of

1851.]

The Thirty-First Congress.

united exertion to regain the ground which was lost by party division in
That division grew out of the adoption, by a
New-York at one election.
faction of the party, for a special purpose, of the loose federal mode of
construing the Constitution-of the abandonment for the moment of that
strict construction which is peculiarly democratic.

In contemplating that defeat, the democracy will long remember one, to whom we might well apply Milton's description of Lucifer, the Son of the Morning:

He, above the rest,

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,

Stood like a tower; his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and the excess
Of glory obscured; as when the sun new risen
Looks through the horizontal misty air,
Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had entrench'd, and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows

Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride,
Waiting revenge, &c.

The bravery and devotion of the democratic members of the last Congress who so fearlessly resisted at all hazards a scheme of internal improvements, which would ultimately abstract hundreds of millions from the treasury, and consolidate the federal government as the moneyed head The circumstances of that of the nation, cannot be too much admired. struggle were, however, ominous.

At this stage of our national progress, therefore, there is a pressing necessity for the elucidation and advocacy of the high and holy democratic principle which lies at the foundation of our social and political system; for the vindication of that principle from the charges daily brought against it; for its purification from those corruptions and hostile influences by which we see its beneficent and glorious tendencies, to no slight extent, perverted and paralyzed; for the illustration of truth, which we see perpetually darkened and confused by the arts of wily error; for the protection of those great interests, not alone of our country, but of humanity, looking forward through countless ages of the future, which we believe to be vitally committed with the cause of American Democracy.

There is a great deal of mutual misunderstanding between our parties; but in truth, there does not exist in the people, with reference to its great measures, that irreconcilable hostility of opinions and leading principles, which would be the natural inference from the violence of the party warfare in which we are perpetually engaged. There does exist, it is true, an essential opposition of principles, proceeding from points of departure, between the respective political creeds or systems of our two great parties; but we feel well assured, that the great body of the latter party-those who supply their leaders and leading interests with the votes do not rightly understand the questions at issue in their popular bearings; and that if these could but be exhibited in their proper lights, to their sound

minds and honest hearts, they would be found ranged by the hundreds of thousands under the broad and bright folds of our democratic banner.

Who, that looks back for a quarter of a century, does not perceive, not only in this country but in England and Europe, the progress of the democratic principle? In our own country, the position of what is called the whig party of to-day, is more ultra than was that of the democracy of twenty years since. As the great democracy, whose essence is progress, achieves its triumphs and establishes its principles, its former posi tions are occupied by more tardily advancing federalism. What would now the most ultra whigs think, if called upon to support the scheme of Hamilton, proposed to Mr. Madison in the convention, for the creation of an Executive and Senate for life, with hereditary rights? Surely federalism has gone over much ground since then. Nevertheless, so many false ideas continue to attach themselves to the term "democracy," as connected with our party politics, that we deem it necessary here at this juncture, to renew a full and free profession of principles, to which we are devoted with unwavering force of conviction and earnestness of enthusiasm, which have strengthened through the contemplation of the incalculable capabilities of social improvement, of which they contain the germ.

We believe, then, in the principle of democratic republicanism in its strongest and purest sense. We have an abiding confidence in the virtue, intelligence, and full capacity for self-government, of the great mass of our people-our industrious, honest, manly, intelligent millions of freemen.

We are opposed to all self-styled "wholesome restraints" on the free action of the popular opinion and will, other than those which have for their sole object the prevention of precipitate legislation. This latter object is to be attained by the expedient of the division of power, and by causing all legislation to pass through the ordeal of successive forms; to be sifted through the discussions of co-ordinate legislative branches, with mutual suspensive veto powers. Yet all should be dependent with equal directness and promptness on the influence of public opinion; the popu lar will should be equally the animating and moving spirit of them all, and ought never to find in any of its own creatures a self-imposed power, capable (when aroused either by corrupt ambition or honest error) of resisting itself, and defeating its own determined object. We cannot, therefore, look with an eye of favor on any such forms of representation as, by length of tenure of delegated power, tend to weaken that universal and unrelaxing responsibility to the vigilance of public opinion, which is the true conservative principle of our institutions.

The great question here occurs, which is of vast importance to this country, (was it not once near dissolving the Union, and plunging it into the abyss of civil war ?)-Of the relative rights of majorities and minorities. Though we go for the republican principle of the supremacy of the will of the majority, we acknowledge, in general, a strong sympathy with minorities, and consider that their rights have a high moral claim on the respect and justice of majorities; a claim not always fairly recognized in practice by the latter, in the full sway of power, when flushed with triumph, and impelled by strong interests. This has ever been the point of the democratic cause most open to assault, and most difficult to defend. This difficulty does not arise from any intrinsic weakness.