INTRODUCTION. In all its departments it is administered by their agents, chosen from their ranks, and chosen by themselves, either directly or indirectly. OURS is a government by the people. Under such a government, political parties necessarily arise either as representatives of some particular theory of government, or as advocates of some special or temporary policy. The student of the history of the first century of our national existence, cannot fail to be strongly impressed by the indestructible vitality of the Democratic Party. It, alone of all parties, has a history co-extensive with that of the Federal Constitution, and its most unreasoning foe will scarcely claim that it shows as yet any symptoms of dissolution or decay. This is not accidental. It can have no other rational explanation than that the party has been, from the beginning, the guardian and defender of some fundamental principle, or principles, of free government, in whose truth and permanence it has found its life and its growth. The volume herewith presented is designed to trace the history of the National Democatic Party from the adoption of our Federal Constitution to the present time, and to offer discussion of many of the great public questions of the day, by gentlemen of recognized prominence in its ranks. While each writer has exercised the largest liberty in the treatment of the subject assigned him, and is, in a strict sense, alone responsible for the views expressed in his paper, the aim has been to secure for every topic a writer of acknowledged fitness and ability; who writes as a Democrat, and who has enjoyed such immediate contact with the questions discussed by him, in the public service, as to give special weight and freshness to the views he may present. It is believed that such a volume will prove both timely and valuable. The Presidental Campaign now about to open promises to involve, more than any campaign of recent times, the education of the people on questions of public policies. A clear understanding of these policies and of the position of parties with regard to them, is clearly the condition of intelligent suffrage. We are too apt to believe that our form of government is the natural and the easy one. Such is not the teaching of history. Sir Henry Maine, the most thorough student of institutions in our day, has correctly declared that popular government has hitherto shown itself the most fragile of all governments, the least able to thrust its roots into any soil, and consequently the most dependent upon wise, thoughtful and sagacious statesmanship. The United States entered upon existence under all the doubts and misgivings that arose from the short-lived and turbulent existence of democratic government in the past. That we have dissipated those doubts and misgivings and have actually turned the tide in the direction of democratic institutions among all the enlightened peoples of the world, is surely ground for confidence and patriotic rejoicing, but not for any relaxation of vigilance or for any trifling with the rights and duties of citizenship. If this volume shall aid in the work of political education; if it shall aid in spreading clearer ideas of the principles of the National Democratic Party, and above all, if it shall inspire the members of that party with a higher devotion to those principles and a more faithful and unswerving application of them to the public service, it will accomplish fully its mission. The task of the editor has in no sense involved any revision of the work of other contributors, and it is due to him to say that his own part of the work has been done under the pressure of duties as heavy and exacting as ever fall to the lot of a public servant. WM. L. WILSON. |