AMERICAN REVIEW, No. XXII. FOR OCTOBER, 1849. A HISTORY OF PARTIES.* THE publication of the Statesman's Manual, which contains, besides the Addresses and the Messages of the Presidents, a memoir of each and the history of their administration, will probably have the effect in future to give a more solid and accurate character to political writings upon questions of the day. After giving our readers a brief review of this new and valuable work, and pointing out a few statistical errors, which have escaped the notice of the author and compiler, it is our intention to enter upon a brief history of the rise and progress of the two parties, which originated during the formation of the Constitution. We believe that most of our political readers, if they will follow us in this history, will confess that the current opinions of the day, and which are studiously maintained by the opposition presses, in regard to the origin of the present Whig Republican party, are false opinions; and they will have the satisfaction of finding that the line of policy at present taken by the Whigs is an unbroken line, transmitted to them by their republican founders from the time of the origin of the Constitution. | himself with these, is like studying theology in the primer. A great many, indeed, of the class called politicians, are formed upon the labor-saving principle, and with some few, certain clever points of statesmanship may be developed on the basis of the science made easy; but most of these cases serve chiefly to reveal the distinction between the profession of politics and a political education. To understand fully and clearly the principles on which our government has been administered-to comprehend the relations of the various policies with the circumstan ces of the nation-to trace their connection with later events,—we must know not merely what has been done, but why it was done must know what was thought by the actors: to know this, and to make the lesson of experience available to the present, we must resort to the cotemporaneous exposition from the voices and pens of the statesmen who conceived, who debated, or who executed, the systems that have prevailed. A compilation the most important of any which could be made, in a selection of American State papers, is given us in the A first want in every nation in which work of Mr. Williams. The Messages of politics is a profession of free choice, is a the Presidents are dignified and intelligent collection of the documentary history of treatises on the national interests, containthe government. Politicians are, no more ing, generally, sound definitions (in the abthan scholars, made by the study of epit-stract view, at least,) of the theory of our omes. A narrative history of the administration of public affairs may answer very well the purpose of those who seek nothing beyond general ideas; but for one who is in search of a political education to content Republican system, and so far as they reason debatable points, make use only of dispassionate and logical arguments. At the same time, they contain better expressions of the sentiments of the parties by The Addresses and Messages of the Presidents of the United States; Inaugural, Annual and Special, from 1789 to 1846. BY EDWIN WILLIAMS. New York: Edward Walker. VOL IV. NO. IV. NEW SERIES. 22 |