There were men of high intelligence among the founders of the _old_ Democratic party; men who understood in many respects the true interests of humanity and its inevitable tendency, under the influences of free labor, free schools, and science. But with the masses, it owed its growth to the old assumed 'natural antagonism' of labor to capital, or of 'the poor against the rich.' It was essentially the same party as that which was played upon by low demagogues like Cleon in the old Greek day; by men who stirred up the poor and ignorant against the privileged and rich, for their own selfish advantage. Of late years, more enlightened and intelligent views have prevailed in all parties, and the Cleons of the present day have been compelled to adventure more and more among the lowest and most ignorant for dupes. For the workman is gradually learning with his employer that there is a harmony of interests and a gradual adjustment of the prices allotted to the relative values of time, labor, brains, and capital, and that the most serious obstacle to this adjustment is, the keeping up of a constant warfare between laborers and employers. It is the skilled _employé_ who becomes himself the capitalist in due time, under a peaceable and well-organized system, as labor and brains rise in value, and the greatest impediment to his rise is a settled state of war between himself and the employer. Education and political equality, the competition of capital, and the ever-increasing appreciation of intelligence, are constantly promoting this harmony and enabling labor to secure its rights. It is easy to see how the ancient Democracy, or rather its leaders, having for many years held political supremacy and shared the spoils, actually took the place of their opponents, and, in their decline, naturally enough, formed a coalition with the intensely aristocratic South. Meanwhile, what became of the once aristocratic Opposition, with its 'silk-stocking gentry,' as they were termed? Like the Democracy, it died a natural death, so far as the active enforcement of its principles was concerned, after those principles had no longer a foundation in the social developments of the age. Here and there, an old and incurable devotee to mere forms or party shibboleth, who could not comprehend the new order of thought, went over to the 'Democratic' conservatives. Of such were the old gentlemen who, in Philadelphia, voted for the white waistcoat and immaculate snowy neck-tie of James Buchanan. They fled to their ancient foes, that they might die happily in the holy odor of respectability, quite ignorant that a new gospel of what may be termed Respect Ability was being preached, and building up a higher and grander order of nobility than they had ever dreamed of.