HKB
it is torn by the former, by the latter it is degraded; and if these sometimes save it by a salutary perturbation, those invariably disturb it to no good end.
America has already lost the great parties which once divided the nation; and if her happiness is considerably increased, her morality has suffered by their extinction. When the war of independence was terminated, and the foundations of the new government were to be laid down, the nation was divided between two opinions--two opinions which are as old as the world, and which are perpetually to be met with under all the forms and all the names which have ever obtained in free communities--the one tending to limit, the other to extend indefinitely, the power of the people. The conflict of these two opinions never assumed that degree of violence in America which it has frequently displayed elsewhere. Both parties of the Americans were in fact agreed upon the most essential points; and neither of them had to destroy a traditionary constitution, or to overthrow the structure of society, in order to insure its own triumph. In neither of them, consequently, were a great number of private interests affected by success or by defeat; but moral principles of a high order, such as the love of equality and of independence, were concerned in the struggle, and they sufficed to kindle violent passions.
The party which desired to limit the power of the people, endeavored to apply its doctrines more especially to the constitution of the Union, whence it derived its name of federal. The other party, which affected to be more exclusively attached to the cause of liberty, took that of republican. America is the land of democracy, and the federalists were always in a minority; but they reckoned on their side almost all the great men who had been called forth by the war of independence, and their moral influence was very considerable. Their cause was, moreover, favored by circumstances. The ruin of the confederation had impressed the people with a dread of anarchy, and the federalists did not fail to profit by this transient disposition of the multitude. For ten or twelve years they were at the head of affairs, and they were able to apply some, though not all, of their principles; for the hostile current was becoming from day to day too violent to be checked or stemmed. In 1801 the republicans got possession of the government: Thomas Jefferson was named president; and he increased the influence of their party by the weight of his celebrity, the greatness of his talents, and the immense extent of his popularity.
The means by which the federalists had maintained their position were artificial, and their resources were temporary: it was by the virtues or the talents of their leaders that they had risen to power. When the republicans attained to that lofty station, their opponents were overwhelmed by utter defeat. An immense majority declared itself against the retiring party, and the federalists found themselves in so small a minority, that they at once despaired of their future success. From that moment the republican or democratic party has proceeded from conquest to conquest, until it has acquired absolute supremacy in the country. The federalists, perceiving that they were vanquished without resource, and isolated in the midst of the nation, fell into two divisions, of which one joined the victorious republicans, and the other abandoned its rallying point and its name. Many years have already elapsed since they ceased to exist as a party.