ABSTRACT
In the United States there are, and have always been, two parties in politics, whom it is difficult to distinguish on paper, by a statement of their principles, but whose course of action may, in any given case, be pretty confidently anticipated. As long as men continue as differently organized as they now are, there will be two parties under every government. The description which Jefferson gave of the Federal and Republican parties of 1799 applies to the Federal and Democratic parties of this day, and to the aristocratic and democratic parties of every time and country. "One", says Jefferson, "fears most the ignorance of the people; the other, the selfishness of rulers independent of them". Two considerations,—one of fact, another of inference, —may reassure those who are discouraged by these discrepancies between the theories of the United States' government, and the practice of the Democratic party, with regard to both measures and men.
