Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/127

Rh parts," and stout representatives of the Hartford Convention find themselves on the same side with worshippers of the Gerrymander, and shouting the same cry. It is kindly ordered that memory should be so short, and brass so common. None of the old parties is likely to return; the living have buried the dead. "We are all federalists," said Mr. Jefferson, "we are all democrats," and truly, so far as old questions are concerned. It is well known that the present representatives of the old federal party have abjured the commercial theory of their predecessors ; and the men who were "Jacobins" at the beginning of the century, curse the new French Revolution by their gods. At the presidential election of 1840, there were but two parties in the field—democrats and whigs. As they both survive, it is well to see what interests or what ideas they represent. They differ accidentally in the possession and the desire of power; in the fact that the former took the initiative, in annexing Texas, and in making the Mexican war, while the latter only pretended to oppose either, but zealously and continually co-operated in both. Then, again, the democratic party sustains the sub-treasury system, insisting that the government shall not interfere with banking, shall keep its own deposits, and give and take only specie in its business with the people. The whig party, if we understand it, has not of late developed any distinctive doctrine, on the subject of money and financial operations, but only complained of the action of the sub-treasury; yet, as it sustained the late Bank of the United States, and appropriately followed as chief mourner at the funeral thereof, uttering dreadful lamentations and prophecies which time has not seen fit to accomplish, it still keeps up a show of differing from the democrats on this matter. These are only accidental or historical differences, which do not practically affect the politics of the nation to any great degree.

The substantial difference between the two is this : the whigs desire a tariff of duties which shall directly and intentionally protect American industry, or, as we understand it, shall directly and intentionally protect manufacturing industry, while the commercial and agricultural interests are to be protected indirectly, not as if they were