Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/220

 220 Southern Historical Society Papers.

of this institution, as well as the fact that they were numerically greatly in the minority, the slave-holding States simply asked to be " let alone. " But as it was threatened that they should be surrounded by a cordon of free States until slavery had " stung itself to death," and that this government could not exist " half free and half slave," the purposes of the dominant section became so manifest, the Southern States felt that, in justice to themselves, they could no longer remain quiet. The causes for this agitation had their existence in the colonial era, when slavery was universal ; and the settlement was postponed on account of the difficulty of arriving at a satisfactory solution. Two irreconcilable theories of

POPULAR GOVERNMENT

were at the outset proposed. The one advocated by Mr. Hamilton contemplated a strong centralized authority, fashioned after that of a limited monarchy; the other, which was proposed by Mr. Jefferson, recognized the people as the source of all power, and insisted that they should be left as free and untrammeled from governmental con- trol as its exigencies might demand. The one contemplated a mag- nificent central government, with that ostentation and parade that keeps the masses in awe ; the other a simple, economic, democratic government, regulated and governed by the people. The followers of these statesmen were known by the party names of Federalists and Republicans. The elder Adams was the first President of the Fed- eralists, and during his administration and with his approval the Alien and Sedition laws were passed, the effect of which was to abridge, if not imperil, the freedom of the press in its criticism upon public officials. This measure, with others of an unpopular nature, so out- raged public sentiment as to elect Mr. Jefferson, the apostle of Democracy, to succeed Mr. Adams by an overwhelming majority, and the views he entertained and ably advocated laid the foundation for that great popular approval which maintained his party in power, with but brief intervals of interruption, from that time up to the be- ginning of the war. The student of history will discover that the insti- tution of slavery played a minor part in the political agitations of this country, so long as our politics related alone to questions of mere na- tional policy. The first serious difficulty of more than local significance which threatened our institutions, arose from the imposition of an ex- cise tax on distilled spirits, and was known as the " Whiskey Rebel- lion." The second, from the hostility of the New England States to