"
But an overruling Providence, building better than we knew, had decreed
that the sway of this powerful party should be broken by means of the
very element of supposed strength on which it so confidently relied for
unlimited supremacy. Losing sight of those cardinal principles which the
far-reaching sagacity of Jefferson had enunciated, and faithfully
following which the Democracy had, during its early history, so
completely controlled the country, the modern leaders, intent only on
present success, had based all their political hopes on an intimate
alliance, offensive and defensive, with that institution which Jefferson
so eloquently denounced, and the existence of which awakened his most
lively fears for the future of his country. And what has been the
result of this ill-omened alliance? Precisely what might sooner or later
have been expected. Precisely what might have been predicted from the
attempt to unite the essentially incongruous ideas of Aristocracy and
Democracy. For the system of Slavery is confessedly the very essence of
an Aristocracy, while the genuine idea of a Democracy is the submission
of all to the expressed will of the majority.
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