The first two political parties in the United States were known as _Federal_ and _Republican_. In 1800, John Adams was the candidate of the Federalists for a second presidential term, and Thomas Jefferson the candidate of the Republicans. Jefferson was elected, and took his seat as President of the United States on the 4th of March, 1801. After a time, these two names gave way to Whig and Democratic. These continued until the name Republican took the place of Whig, in 1856-60. In its earlier days the Democratic party, as a party, was as pure and patriotic as any party that ever existed in this or any other country; but when the question of "Protection to Home Industry" (of which Henry Clay was the leading champion in his time) became a prime question in American politics; and when, because that this question involved the interests of European capitalists and manufacturers, Augustus Belmont, of New York city (a European by birth, a Jew, and the agent in this country of the Rothschilds', the great Jew banking-house of Europe, to whom almost every sovereign in Europe was indebted for loans), became the Chairman of the National Democratic Executive Committee--from that moment the Democratic party, as a party, became as completely in the interests of European sovereigns, capitalists, and manufacturers, as though every member of the party, as well as its head and front, had been born a European. We are not, of course, attempting to write a history of parties. To do so would require a volume of itself, and a large one at that. We have only made this running sketch that those not familiar with general history may readily see and understand the unmistakable historical relationship which exists, and which has existed for some forty years past, between the Democratic party, as a party, and European governments, European capitalists, and European manufacturers.