Chapter IV (3)

Such a principle of political action, once fairly started in business communities, is not easily uprooted. It continued to govern the successors to the Federal party by whatever name they were called. Indeed, the discrepancy that existed between its name and its principles when it was first called _Federal_ has obtained in all its mutations. Its principles have been the same, with a single exception, under every name, until the perturbation of party names and systems recently produced by the disturbing subject of slavery. When that influence is spent, the individuals who now constitute the so-called Republican party will in the main revert to their original positions. The exception referred to consists in the exemption on the part of his political disciples of the present day from the hallucination which Hamilton carried to his grave in regard to the possibility of the ultimate re-establishment of monarchical institutions in this country. In all other respects we have had unvarying exhibitions of his well-known sentiments upon the subjects of government and its administration; the same preference for artificial constructions of the Constitution, devised to defeat instead of to develop the intentions of those who made it; the same inclination to strengthen the money power and to increase its political influence--an object that occupied the first place in Hamilton's wishes; the same disposition to restrict the powers of the State governments, and to enlarge those of the Federal head; the same distrust of the capacity of the people to control the management of public affairs, and the same desire also for governmental interference in the private pursuits of men and for influencing them by special advantages to favored individuals and classes. A statement of the extent to which the business, as distinguished from the agricultural and other laboring classes, have been banded together in our political contests by a preference for Hamilton's principles and by the instrumentality of the money power, would be regarded as incredible if the facts were not indisputable and notorious. Such has been the case with those who hold the stock of our banks, and control their action--agencies which enter into some of the minutest as well as the most important of the business transactions of these great communities. A vast majority in number as well as in interest of these are men deeply imbued with Hamiltonian principles. The same thing may be said of our insurance companies which have been invested with special privileges of various grades, and are authorized to insure against perils by land, and perils by sea, and against perils of almost every description. The same in respect to our incorporated companies invested with like privileges, and established for the manufacture of articles made of cotton, of wool, of flax, of hemp, of silk, of iron, of steel, of lead, of clay, &c., &c. The same of companies with like privileges for the construction of railroads, of bridges, of canals, where they can be made profitable, and other constructions to which the invention and industry of man can be successfully applied. Individuals frequently go into these powerful associations with opposite political feelings, but are ultimately almost invariably induced to change them altogether, or to modify them so much as to satisfy their partners that their democratic principles are not sufficiently stringent to be troublesome. The possession of special and, in some of these cases, of exclusive privileges, is certain sooner or later to produce distrust of the less favored body of the people, and distrust grows apace to the proportions of prejudice and dislike. There are of course striking exceptions to this rule, as to every other. There are always men connected with these associations whose democratic principles are so deeply implanted in their very natures as to place them above the influence of circumstances; but they are few and far between. These changes are not the fruit of infirm purposes or characters, but are produced by influences which seem no farther traceable than is here imperfectly done, and are yet sufficiently effective to convert to Hamiltonian principles more than three fourths of the Democrats who become members of the associations of which I have spoken.

Such aggregations of wealth and influence, connected as they usually are or soon become with social distinctions, naturally come to be regarded as the fountains of patronage by those who are in search of it. The press, men of letters, artists, and professional men of every denomination, and those engaged in subordinate pursuits who live upon the luxurious indulgences of the rich, are all brought within the scope of this influence. It is perhaps in this way only that we can account for the remarkable disparity in number between the newspapers and other periodicals advocating Democratic principles and those which support the views of the money power and its adherents--a disparity the extraordinary extent of which will strike any one who visits a common reading-room, in which, amid the well-furnished shelves and full files of the publications of the latter class, it is rare that we find many of the former, often not more than a single newspaper, sometimes not one. Yet those which we do not find there represent the political principles of a large majority of the people. The same fact attracts the attention of the observer in passing through countries abroad which are under monarchical institutions.

These are among the political accretions of the money power in this country, made in a comparatively short period--these, the foreseen operations of Hamilton's policy and principles and the _strata_ on which he designed at some time, when the prejudices of the day should have passed away, or in some crisis in the affairs of the country which might make the work easier or more agreeable to the people, to found political institutions of the same general character at least with those the realization of which had been the day-dream of his life.

To return to the point from which I started in this long and doubtless prolix review--a political party founded on such principles and looking to such sources for its support does not often stand in need of caucuses and conventions to preserve harmony in its ranks. Constructed principally of a network of special interests,--almost all of them looking to Government for encouragement of some sort,--the feelings and opinions of its members spontaneously point in the same direction, and when those interests are thought in danger, or new inducements are held out for their advancement, notice of the apprehended assault or promised encouragement is circulated through their ranks with a facility always supplied by the sharpened wit of cupidity. Their conflicts in council, when such occur, are for the same reasons less likely to be obstinate and more easily reconciled. Sensible of these facts, the policy of their leaders has been from the beginning to discountenance and explode all usages or plans designed to secure party unity, so essential to their opponents and substantially unnecessary to themselves.

Hamilton's system considered with reference to the effect it was calculated to exert upon most of the classes at whom it aimed, did great credit to his sagacity. The wonder has always been that a party which has had at its command so large a portion of the appliances generally most effective in partisan warfare should meet with such infrequent success in the elections. Strangers who visit us are especially struck with this to them unaccountable circumstance, and superficial observers at home are often scarcely less impressed by it; and yet the secret of its failure lies on the surface. Although Hamilton's policy was successful with many, it failed signally, as has been stated, with the most numerous and consequently the most powerful class of our citizens--those engaged in agriculture; a class with which the intercourse of strangers is the most limited, and the strength of which, from the seclusion and unobtrusiveness of its common life, is very apt to be underrated by other ranks even of our own people. It not only failed to attract their sympathies in his favor, but excited their dissatisfaction by its extension of governmental favors to others in which they could not participate consistently with their inherited and cherished principles, and which were not necessary to their pursuits; thus increasing that antagonism to some extent between those who live by the sweat of their brow and those who live by their wits. These adverse results of his policy continued after its execution devolved upon his disciples. Farmers and planters--the main-stay of the Democratic party--seldom allow themselves, as I have before said, to be drawn before Congress or into the audience chambers of Presidents and Cabinets, suppliants for special favors to the interest in which they are engaged. The indifference exhibited by the agriculturists of America, at the period of the Stamp Act, to the overflowing offers of bounties, is still shown by their uncorrupted successors. The promised aid to their business held out by Hamilton in his famous Report on Manufactures, both direct and consequential, therefore excited no feeling in their breasts save strong suspicions of his motives.

Our political history abounds with instances in which similar attempts to obtain the support of the many by appeals to the self-interest of the few have shared the same fate. They seldom fail to prove offensive to the taste and humiliating to the pride of our people. The wisest way to the confidence and support of the latter is to confine the action of the administration of the Federal Government to the duties specifically enjoined upon it by the Constitution, and to the able and honest discharge of them. Statesmen who act upon this rule are much more likely to close their official careers with credit to themselves and advantage to the country than by resort to experiments, however splendid or plausible. Occasions may indeed be presented on which temporary derangements in the affairs of the State and of individuals are produced of sufficient magnitude to baffle all calculations and to disappoint the best intentions and the wisest measures, but these must of necessity be of rare occurrence.

The administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson were thus conducted, and they had their reward. The success of Mr. Madison's was, it is true, greatly retarded by obstructions placed in its way by the money power, with a view to drive him to a dishonorable peace by crippling his resources; but he and his associates in the Government triumphed, notwithstanding, for that power had not then acquired the strength which it subsequently attained, and the field for the display of that which it possessed was not a safe one, while the passions of the people were excited by a state of open war and were liable to be turned with augmented fury against such as virtually aided the public enemy. It was in its palmiest state in 1832, when it demanded a re-charter of the Bank of the United States, and when, this being refused, it commenced the struggle for the expulsion of President Jackson from the chair of State. Although it lacked time to mature its measures sufficiently for the accomplishment of that particular object, it continued its assaults upon the Executive, materially weakened its influence in the National Legislature, and after a ruthless war of eight years succeeded in overthrowing the administration of his successor and in obtaining possession of the Government.

But the methods of the great men and successful Presidents whom I have named were too simple, and the tenor of their way too noiseless and even for the adventurous genius of Hamilton's school. To devise elaborate schemes for the management of that branch of the Government intrusted to his control, and of such as fell within the scope of his influence, was more to his liking. The construction and execution of these made necessary the use of powers not granted by the Constitution, and led to a perversion of its provisions, of which we have seen the consequences.

John Quincy Adams was the first President, after the civil revolution of 1800, who entered upon the duties of his office with views of the Constitution as latitudinarian as were those of Hamilton, and the only one of that stamp who possessed sufficient force of character to make his will the rule of action for his cabinet, and who lived long enough to make it to some extent effectual. Although elected as a convert to the principles of the then Republican party, he was no sooner seated in the Presidential chair than he disavowed those principles in their most important features--those of Constitutional construction--and marked out a course in that regard which he intended to pursue. He thereby united that party against his reëlection to an extent sufficient to defeat it by an overwhelming majority.

Of the party which thus a second time vindicated the Constitution, by far the most effective ingredient was the landed interest. But though the most powerful, it was yet far from being its only valuable element, for, to use Mr. Jefferson's words on the former occasion, there was besides "a great mass of talent on the Republican side."

If there be any whom experience has not yet satisfied of the power of the landed interest, and of its capacity to cope successfully with the money power of the country, enormous as has been the growth of the latter, let them consider the facts disclosed by the census. By that of 1850, our population, as affecting the point under consideration, is shown to have consisted at that time of _farmers_, two millions three hundred and sixty thousand; of planters, twenty-seven thousand; of laborers engaged in agriculture, thirty-seven thousand; of persons engaged in commerce, trade, manufactures, mechanic arts, and mining, one million six hundred thousand; in law, medicine, and divinity, ninety-four thousand. Let them compare these with previous enumerations, and they will see how invariable and large is the disproportion in numbers between the agricultural and other classes. That disproportion must of course have been greater during our colonial existence and at the Revolutionary period, when our commerce was trifling, and we were almost if not entirely destitute of manufactures. We are hence able to form an idea of the extent to which the defense of the principles which the colonists cherished, and for the maintenance of which the Revolution was made, rested on the broad shoulders of the landed interest from the beginning to the end of that great contest.

Without the hearty and constant coöperation of that interest the impassable barrier that has been erected against the politically demoralizing and anti-republican tendency of the Hamiltonian policy could never have been maintained. I have alluded to the reasons for my belief that it is placed by its position and by the law of its nature beyond the reach of that policy, and my firm conviction that it will secure to our people the blessings of republican government as long as it remains the predominant interest in the country. It can only be when the agriculturists abandon the implements and the field of their labor and become, with those who now assist them, shopkeepers, manufacturers, carriers, and traders, that the Republic will be brought in danger of the influences of the money power. But this can never happen. Every inclination of the landed interest, however slight, in that direction has been to it a prolific source of loss, regret, and repentance. Between 1835 and 1840, when the country was stimulated to madness by the Bank of the United States and its allies, the interests of agriculture were so much neglected as to lead to large importations of breadstuffs from Europe, whilst the land was covered with luxury, soon succeeded by bankruptcy and want. But the sober second-thought of the people, in a remarkably brief period, not only brought that great branch of the industry of the country back to the point from which it had been seduced, but drove from power those who had risen to it upon the strength of a temporary popular delusion.

If any doubt the existence and agency of a political influence such as I have described under the name of the money power, or think the description exaggerated, let me ask them to ponder upon its achievements in the country from which it has been transplanted to our shores. It is but little more than a century and a half since it was first interpolated upon the English system, and we have seen the results it has in that period produced upon its rivals: every vestige of the feudal system that survived the Revolution of 1688 extinguished; the landed aristocracy, once lords paramount, depressed to an average power in the State; the Crown, still respected, and its possessor at this moment justly beloved by all, yet substantially reduced to a pageant, protected indeed by the prejudices of John Bull in favor of ancestral forms and state ceremonies, but of almost no account as an element of power when weighed against the well-ascertained opinion of the people of England. Who does not know that it holds in its hands, more often than any other power, questions of peace or war, not only in England but over Europe! How often have previous consultations with a respectable family of Jews decided the question of a declaration of war! Indeed it would have been well for humanity if so salutary a check upon the brutal passions of men and monarchs had been always equally potent--if some conservative and life-sparing Rothschilds had been able to restrain the Henries, the Louises, the Fredericks, and the Napoleons of the past.

The money power, designed from the beginning to exert a liberal influence in England as the antagonist of arbitrary power, has done much good there by the prominence and influence to which it has elevated public opinion, and this to some extent is true of other European countries. Here it was from its start, as I have said, designed to control the public will by undermining and corrupting its free and virtuous impulse and determination, and its political effects have been continually injurious.