Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United StatesVan Buren, Martin
History
Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States
Van Buren, Martin
Political parties -- United States
These are grave matters, and of a nature calculated to challenge a new
and stricter examination of one of those critical periods which have
often occurred in our history, and from which we have had so many
providential deliverances. The subject is treated with becoming delicacy
and great caution by the author, whose conclusion, of which we have only
a hint, may possibly have been influenced by family traditions,
tinctured unavoidably with strong personal prejudices but never wanting
in intelligence. I will not undertake to speculate even as to what
General Hamilton might have done or have left undone if he had found
himself at the head of a large and permanent military force, and the
country convulsed by those popular outbreaks, the expectation of which
seems to have been never absent from his mind or from the minds of his
disciples. He might have mounted his "hobby"--as Morris termed his
passion for monarchical institutions--and have struck a blow in their
behalf, acting in the spirit of other "strong minds" who, as Mr. C. F.
Adams well and truly says, "seldom fail to associate with dreams of
their own glory the modes of exercising power for the good of their
fellow-men. Considering their happiness as mainly dependent upon a sense
of security from domestic convulsions, his first aim would have been to
gain that end at any rate, even if it should be done at some expense of
their liberties." But looking at the subject with no other feeling than
a sincere desire to arrive at a correct solution of the circumstances
narrated by Mr. Adams, I cannot bring my mind to the conclusion referred
to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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