te 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
Republican tradition and the Whigs a resurrected Federalism. The
Democracy of Jackson differed in many important respects from the
Republicanism of Jefferson, and the Whig doctrine of Henry Clay was far
removed from the Federalism of Alexander Hamilton. Nevertheless, from
1825 to 1850, the most important fact in American political development
continued to be a fight between an inadequate conception of democracy,
represented by Jackson and his followers, and a feeble conception of
American nationality, represented best by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster;
and in this second fight the victory still rested, on the whole, with
the Democrats. The Whigs were not annihilated as the Federalists had
been. In the end they perished as a party, but not because of the
assaults of their opponents, but because of their impotence in the face
of a grave national crisis. Nevertheless, they were on all essential
issues beaten by the Democrats; and on the few occasions on which they
were victorious, their victories were both meaningless and fruitless.

The years between 1800 and 1825 were distinguished, so far as our
domestic development was concerned, by the growth of the Western pioneer
Democracy in power and self-consciousness. It was one of the gravest
errors of Hamilton and the Federalists that they misunder