"Your brother William and myself hit upon the same 4th of July toast with some variation; mine was 'State Rights, de mortuis nil nisi bonum.' It will hardly appear in the newspapers. I agree with you on the subject of the Bankrupt Law, with some shades of differI would not have the General Government touch the subject at all. But some mode I think ought to be devised for setting aside the present shameful practices: robbing one man to pay another, &c. ence. After a good deal about the pecuniary embarrassment of the times, and many friends who were involved in the catastrophe, the letter thus concludes: "My best regards to Mrs. B. Tell her I have read nothing for six weeks, being 'high gravel blind,' and having nothing to read but old standard authors, who are too solid for my weak stomach and this hot weather. Adieu ! Yours truly, J. R. OF ROANOKE. CHAPTER XI. CONGRESS POLITICAL PARTIES. AFTER Mr. Randolph had been in Washington some two or three weeks, he thus gives the result of his observations to a friend, under date of the 21st of December, 1819.—"Here I find myself isolé, almost as entirely as at Roanoke, for the quiet of which (although I left it without a desire ever to see it again) I have sometimes panted; or rather, to escape from the scenes around me. Once the object of proscription, I am become one of indifference to all around me; and in this respect I am in no wise worse off than the rest; for, from all that I can see and learn, there are no two persons here that care a single straw for one another. My reception is best by the old jacobins enragés; next, by the federalists, who have abjured their heresies and reconciled themselves to the true Catholic Church; worst of all, by the old minority men, white washed into courtiers." When Mr. Randolph returned to Congress in 1819, the relation of political parties had been entirely changed. The restoration of peace put an end to all the questions which had hitherto divided them. With the exception of the bank-whose chartered existence commenced in 1791, and closed in 1811-all the great subjects discussed in the halls of legislation and by the press, grew out of our relations with foreign countries. Washington had scarcely taken in hand the reins of government when the French revolution burst forth, and disturbed the repose of Europe. The Republican tendencies of the French people, notwithstanding their bloody extrav agancies, found at all times in the United States a strong and sympathizing party. On the other hand, there was a powerful party that deprecated French influence, and sympathized with England in her efforts to repress those revolutionary tendencies. All those who were opposed to a strong centralizing government, and favored the independence of the States so far as consisted with the strict limitations of the Constitution, leaned to the French side of the question. Those of the contrary opinions took the opposite. As the destructive war between those great belligerent powers waxed hotter and hotter, its exciting and maddening influences were more deeply felt by the sympathizing parties here. Each accused the other of wishing to involve the country in the war on the side of their respective friends. Anglomania, Gallomania, raged like an epidemic through the land, and every subject discussed partook of its influence-the Indian Wars, Whisky Insurrection, Gennet's reception, Jay's treaty, and the depredations on our commerce. As those who were opposed to French influence were in the ascendent, they pushed their measures to an open rupture with France, and, as a means of repressing the further progress of her revolutionary doctrines, enacted those harsh and unconstitutional remedies called the Alien and Sedition Laws, which were the immediate cause of their overthrow. The resolutions of the legislatures of Virginia and of Kentucky, growing out of the above laws, and the exposition of those resolutions by Mr. Madison, in his report to the Virginia legislature in 1800, constitute the doctrine and political faith, so far as they go, of the republican party that came into power under the auspices of Mr. Jefferson. But no sooner was Mr. Jefferson installed in office, than he was called on to encounter the same difficulties which had so much em barrassed his predecessors in their intercourse with foreign powers. The federal party, now in the minority, and much weakened by their late overthrow, opposed all his measures, and wielded his own arguments against him. They had contended that the Constitution justified any measure that tended to promote "the public good and general welfare." This broad doctrine was denied by the republican party, and was totally annihilated by Mr. Madison's report. But the first important measure of Mr. Jefferson involved a contradiction of his doctrines. We were in danger of a rupture with Spain and France, on account of the navigation of the Mississippi. To put an end to these difficulties, Louisiana was purchased. Mr. Jefferson said there was no constitutional authority for the act, that it could only be justified from the necessity of the case, and that the people must sanction it by an express provision in the Constitution. Then followed the embargo law, which the federalists in like manner opposed on the ground of its unconstitutionality. They contended that it was the result of "the public good and general welfare" construction, so much and so successfully condemned by the party now in power. Then followed other restrictive measures, and finally the war with Great Britain, all of which were opposed, as we already know, by the federalists, as parts of the same erroneous and destructive and unconstitutional policy. These divisions and difficulties, growing out of our foreign relations, were finally healed and put to rest by the termination of the war. Former asperities were smothered down, old animosities forgotten, and the exciting cause of party heats was burnt out and extinguished in the general pacification of the world. New questions, arising for the first time since the organization of the government, had now to be discussed and solved. The functions of the government, as restrained and directed by the limitations of the Constitution, had to be exercised on a class of cases entirely different from those which had hitherto tested their capacity. Under the monopolizing influence of the embargo, non-intercourse, and war measures of the last eight or nine years, a great manufacturing interest had been stimulated into being. During this long period of stagnation to commerce and agriculture, much capital was withdrawn from them and vested in manufactures. This great interest was likely to be seriously affected by the restoration of peace and of reciprocal commerce with other manufacturing nations. During the long continental wars, when the omnipotent British fleet drove the commerce of all the belligerent powers from the ocean, our merchantmen, under the protection of the neutral flag of their country, gathered a rich harvest in the carrying trade. They had now to be reduced to the bounds of a legitimate commerce, and subjected to the eager rivalry of other more powerful and commercial States. By the acquisition of Louisiana, a vast dominion had been added to our territories, and our population was rapidly spreading over that immense and fertile region. The means of internal communication became questions of serious consideration. The resources of the country lay dormant in their primeval state, like a vast weltering chaos, waiting for some brooding spirit to breathe life and form into its teeming elements. The South American provinces catching the spirit of freedom from our example, had thrown off the yoke of the mother country, and were looking to us for countenance, and stretching forth the hand for aid in their arduous struggle for independence. These were the great themes that filled the public mind at the coming in of Mr. Monroe's administration and during its continuance. It was called the period of good feeling. The Federal party entirely disappeared, and its members were received into the ranks of their old opponents. But many respectable men among them, not disposed to abandon principles which they had honestly adopted, retired to private life. The rhetorical phrase of Mr. Jefferson, in his inaugural address, was made to have a practical meaning. The popular word was, "We are all Federalists, all Republicans." The existence of a distinct Federal party, or a distinct Republican party, was denied, and the leading politicians cultivated with great assiduity, the favor and support of all men, without regard to former distinctions, counting them as brothers of the same republican family. This new state of things was made the theme of congratulation to the country by the newspaper writers and the fourth of July orators of the time. "I come not here to burn the torch of Alecto," says one of the latter; "to me there is no lustre in its fires, nor cheering warmth in its blaze. Let us rather offer and mingle our congratulations, that those unhappy differences which alienated one portion of our community from the rest, are at an end; and that a vast fund of the genius and worth of our country has been restored to its service, to give new vigor to its career of power and prosperity. To this blessed consummation the administration of our venerable Monroe has been a powerful auxiliary. The delusions of past years have rolled away, and the mists that once hovered over forms of now unshaded brightness, are dissipated for ever. We can now all meet and exchange our admiration and love in generous confraternity of feeling, whether we speak of our Jefferson or our Adams, our Madison or our Hamilton, our Pinckney or our Monroe; the associations of patriotism are awakened, and we forget the distance in the political zodiac which once separated these illustrious luminaries, in the full tide of glory they are pouring on the brightest pages of our history." This amalgamation of all parties was a dangerous experiment on the health and soundness of the Republic. Over action was the necessary consequence of the destruction of all the countervailing influences of the system; and the generation of some latent chronic disease, which in after time must seriously affect the constitution of the body politic. The French government, the laborious work of a thousand years, was destroyed in a single night, by the sacrifice of all the orders of their distinctive privileges and opposing influences on what they fondly deemed to be the altar of patriotism. The floodgates were now opened; and from this single blunder there followed a series of frightful consequences, which history in the course of half a century has not been able to understand nor to portray. It is lamentable to see a country cut up into factions, following this or that great leader with a blind, undoubting hero-worship; it is contemptible to see it divided into parties, whose sole end is the spoils of victory; such an one is nigh its end: but, on the other hand, it is equally true, that no government can be conducted by the people and for the benefit of the people, without a rigid adherence to certain fixed principles, which must be the test of parties, and of men and of their measures. These principles once determined, they must be inexorable in their application, and compel all men either to come up to their standard, or to declare against it; their criterion of political faith must be the same as that of Christian faith laid down by Christ himself-they who are not for us are against us. Men may betray, principles never can. Oppression is the invariable consequence of |