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CHAPTER X.
PARTIES IN THE UNITED STATES.
Great Division to be made between Parties.—Parties which are to each other as rival Nations.—Parties properly so called.—Difference between great and small Parties.—Epochs which produce them.—Their Characteristics.—America has had great Parties.—They are extinct.—Federalists.—Republicans.—Defeat of the Federalists.—Difficulty of creating Parties in the United States.—What is done with this Intention.—Aristocratic and democratic Character to be met with in all Parties.—Struggle of General Jackson against the Bank.
A great division must be made between parties. Some countries are so large that the different populations which inhabit them have contradictory interests, although they are the subjects of the same government; and they may thence be in a perpetual state of opposition. In this case the different fractions of the people may more properly be considered as distinct nations than as mere parties; and if a civil war breaks out, the struggle is carried on by rival peoples rather than by factions in the state.
But when the citizens entertain different opinions upon subjects which affect the whole country alike, such for instance, as the principles upon which the government is to be conducted, then distinctions arise which may correctly be styled parties. Parties are a necessary evil in free governments; but they have not at all times the same character and the same propensities.
At certain periods a nation may be oppressed by such insupportable evils as to conceive the design of effecting a total change in its political constitution; at other times the mischief lies still deeper, and the existence of society itself is endangered. Such are the times of great revolutions and of great parties. But between these epochs of misery and of confusion there are periods during which human society seems to rest, and mankind to make a pause. This pause is, indeed, only apparent; for time does not stop its course for nations any more than for men; they are all advancing
