e, have under
various names constituted one party. On the other hand, the _Statists_,
under different names, have from the first been jealous of central
supremacy. They believe in local self-government, support the States in
all their reserved and ungranted rights, insist on a strict construction
of the Constitution and the limitation of Federal authority to the
powers specifically delegated in that instrument.

The broad and deep line of demarcation between these parties has not
always been acknowledged. Innovation and change have sometimes modified
and disturbed this line; but after a period the distinctive boundary has
reappeared and antagonized the people. During the administration of Mr.
Monroe, known as the "era of good feeling," national party lines were
almost totally obliterated, and local and personal controversies took
their place. National questions were revived, however, and contested
with extreme violence during several succeeding administrations. Thirty
years later, when the issues of bank, tariff, internal improvements, and
an independent treasury were disposed of, there was as complete a break
up of parties as in the days of Monroe. It was not, however, in an "era
of good feeling" that this later dislocation of parties took place; but
an attempt was made in 1850 by leading politicians belonging to
different organizations to unite the people by a compromise or an
arrangement as unnatural as it was insincere--party lines if not
obliterated were, as the authors intended, in a measure broken down.
This compromise, as it was called, was a sacrifice of honest principles,
and instead of allaying disputes, was followed by a terrific storm of
contention and violence transcending thing the country had ever
experienced, and ended in a civil war.

The time has not yet arrived for a calm and dispassionate review of the
acts and actors of that period and the events of the immediately
succeeding years; but the incidents that took place and the experience
so dearly purchased should not be perverted, misunderstood, or wholly
forgotten.

The compromises of 1850, instead of adjusting differences and making the
people of one mind on political questions, actually caused in their
practical results the alienation of life-long party friends, led to new
associations among old opponents, and created organizations that partook
more of a sectional character than of honest constitutional differences
on fundamental questions rela