d in a peculiar way. Our national life is
complex. To hold in party association the six millions or more of
American men whose support, continued for years, is necessary to carry
a great measure, requires the proper connection with the past, and
trenchant dealing with the present which is full of imperious demands.
Abraham Lincoln was not borne into the presidency in 1860 solely by
the strength of the anti-slavery issue, but found necessary support in
Pennsylvania from the committal of the Republicans to the protective
principle, while in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and the West
generally, he was greatly aided by the homestead issue. Several
distinct issues have usually been involved in our presidential
elections. Exceptions are presented by the victories of sentiment or
tendency under the extraordinary leadership of Jefferson in 1800, and
in the extraordinary demonstration for General Jackson and Democracy
in 1828.

Successful parties in the United States, as in England, have generic
rather than specific names. Federalist, Democratic-Republican, Whig,
Democratic, and Republican; all represent popular triumphs and
administrations of the government. Anti-Masonic, Liberty, American,
Free Soil, Greenback, Prohibition, Labor,--these party names represent
no partisan victories. In the Cabinet of the first President of the
Republic, Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State, and Alexander
Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury. To each of them Washington
submitted the question whether Congress had power to incorporate a
bank. Jefferson, believing popular liberty safe only in a strict
construction of the Constitution, denied the power to create a bank
because no such power is expressed, or is strictly necessary to the
exercise of any power expressly granted. Hamilton, believing that a
liberal construction of the Constitution was essential to the
development of America, answered that Congress had the power, that the
power was incidental to the national character of the government. He
construed the grant of "necessary" powers in these words: "It is a
common mode of expression to say that it was necessary for a
government or a person to do this or that thing, when nothing more is
intended or understood than that interests of the government or person
require or may be promoted by the doing of this or that thing. The
imagination can be at no loss for exemplifications on the use of the
word in this sense. And it is the true one, in w