and social meaning before the boasted alliance could be anything but
precarious and sterile. But if for liberty we substitute the word
democracy, which means something more than liberty, and if for union, we
substitute the phrase American nationality, which means so much more
than a legal union, we shall be looking in the direction of a fruitful
alliance between two supplementary principles. It can, I believe, be
stated without qualification that wherever the nationalist idea and
tendency has been divided from democracy, its achievements have been
limited and partially sterilized. It can also be stated that the
separation of the democratic idea from the national principle and
organization has issued not merely in sterility, but in moral and
political mischief. All this must remain mere assertion for the present;
but I shall hope gradually to justify these assertions by an examination
of the subsequent course of American political development.




CHAPTER III


I

THE DEMOCRATS AND THE WHIGS

The first phase of American political history was characterized by the
conflict between the Federalists and the Republicans, and it resulted in
the complete triumph of the latter. The second period was characterized
by an almost equally bitter contest between the Democrats and the Whigs
in which the Democrats represented a new version of the earlier