ith
the children as they grow up, attending upon age as it declines, there
can be nothing against which either philanthropy or humanity can make an
appeal. Not even the emancipationist could raise his voice; for this is
the high-road and the open gate to the condition in which the masters
would, from interest, in a few years, desire the emancipation of every
one who may thus be taken to the northwestern frontier."]

[Footnote 13: See "Report of Senate Committee of Inquiry into the John
Brown Raid."]

CHAPTER VI.

Agitation continued.--Political Parties: their Origin, Changes,
and Modifications.--Some Account of the "Popular Sovereignty,"
or "Non-Intervention," Theory.--Rupture of the Democratic
Party.--The John Brown Raid.--Resolutions introduced by the
Author into the Senate on the Relations of the States, the
Federal Government, and the Territories; their Discussion and
Adoption.

The strife in Kansas and the agitation of the territorial question in
Congress and throughout the country continued during nearly the whole of
Mr. Buchanan's Administration, finally culminating in a disruption of
the Union. Meantime the changes, or modifications, which had occurred or
were occurring in the great political parties, were such as may require
a word of explanation to the reader not already familiar with their
history.

The _names_ adopted by political parties in the United States have not
always been strictly significant of their principles. The old Federal
party inclined to nationalism, or consolidation, rather than
federalization, of the States. On the other hand, the party originally
known as Republican, and afterward as Democratic, can scarcely claim to
have been distinctively or exclusively such in the primary sense of
these terms, inasmuch as no party has ever avowed opposition to the
general principles of government by the people. The fundamental idea of
the Democratic party was that of the sovereignty of the States and the
federal, or confederate, character of the Union. Other elements have
entered into its organization at different periods, but this has been
the vital, cardinal, and abiding principle on which its existence has
been perpetuated. The Whig, which succeeded the old Federal party,
though by no means identical with it, was, in the main, favorable to a
strong central government, therein antagonizing the transatlantic
traditions connected with its name. The "Know-Nothi