At the first glance, the names of these parties excite surprise. Federal and democratic; between these two qualities, these two tendencies, there is no real and essential difference. {104} In Holland, in the seventeenth century, in Switzerland even in our time, it was the democratic party which aimed at strengthening the federal union, the central government; it was the aristocratic party which placed itself at the head of the local governments, and defended their sovereignty. The Dutch people supported William of Nassau and the Stadtholdership against John de Witt and the leading citizens of the towns. The patricians of Schweitz and Uri are the most obstinate enemies of the federal diet and of its power. In the course of their struggle, the American parties often received different designations. The democratic party arrogated to itself the title of _republican_, and bestowed on the other, that of _monarchists_ and _monocrats_. The federalists called their opponents _anti-unionists_. They mutually accused each other of tending, the one to monarchy, and the other to separation; of wishing to destroy, the one the republic, and the other the union. This was either a bigoted prejudice or a party trick. Both parties were sincerely friendly to a republican form of government and the union of the States. {105} The names, which they gave one another for the sake of mutual disparagement, were still more false than their original denominations were imperfect and improperly opposed to each other. Practically, and so far as the immediate affairs of the country were concerned, they differed less, than they either said or thought, in their mutual hatred. But, in reality, there was a permanent and essential difference between them in their principles and their tendencies. The federal party was, at the same time, aristocratic, favorable to the preponderance of the higher classes, as well as to the power of the central government. The democratic party was, also, the local party; desiring at once the rule of the majority, and the almost entire independence of the State governments. Thus there were points of difference between them, respecting both social order and political order; the constitution of society itself, as well as of its government. Thus those paramount and eternal questions, which have agitated and will continue to agitate the world, and which are linked to the far higher problem of man's nature and destiny, were all involved in the American parties, and were all concealed under their names. {106}