It is a striking fact in our political history that the sagacious leaders of the Federal party, as well under that name as under others by which it has at different times been known, have always been desirous to bring every usage or plan designed to secure party unity into disrepute with the people, and in proportion to their success in that has been their success in the elections. When they have found such usage too strong to be overthrown for the time being, they have adopted it themselves, but only to return to their denunciations of it after every defeat. It would, on first impression, seem that a practice which is good for one political party must be good for another; but when the matter is more closely looked into, it will be discovered that the policy of the Federal leaders referred to, like most of the acts of those far-seeing men, rested upon substantial foundations. It originated, beyond doubt, in the conviction, on the part of the early Federalists, that a political organization in support of the particular principles which they advocated, and to which they intended to adhere, did not stand as much in need of extraneous means to secure harmony in its ranks as did that of their opponents. The results of general elections for more than half a century have served to confirm this opinion. With the exception of a single instance, susceptible of easy explanation, the Republican, now Democratic party, whenever it has been wise enough to employ the caucus or convention system, and to use in good faith the influence it is capable of imparting to the popular cause, has been successful, and it has been defeated whenever that system has been laid aside or employed unfairly. With the Federal party and its successors the results have been widely different; with or without the caucus system they have generally found no difficulty in uniting whenever union promised success. Why is it that a system or practice open to both parties, occasionally used by both, and apparently equally useful to both, is in fact so much less necessary to one than to the other? If this consequence springs from a corresponding difference in the principles for the defense and spread of which they have respectively been formed, what are those principles, whence are they derived, and what is their history? These are grave questions, which have often presented themselves to the minds of our public men, and to answer which satisfactorily is neither an easy nor a short task.