re ignorant of the real sources of the danger that
threatened us, if he had been an American who resolutely closed his
eyes, and then would not believe in what he would not see. When such a
man could make such a mistake, and supposed that we were to perish from
an agrarian revolt,--we being then on the eve of a revolt of the
slaveholders,--it cannot be matter for wonder that the common European
belief was that the United States constituted a pure and perfect
democracy, or that most Europeans of the higher classes should have
considered that democracy as the most impure and imperfect of political
things.[K]

The long and almost unbroken ascendency of the democratic party in this
country had much to do with creating the firm impression that our system
was democratic in its character,--men not discriminating closely between
that party and the polity of which it had charge. Originally, some
reproach attached to the word _Democrat_, considered as a party-name;
and it was not generally accepted until after the Jeffersonian time had
passed away. Men who would now be called _Democrats_ were known as
_Republicans_ in the early part of the century. But the word conquered a
great place for itself, and became the most popular of political names,
so that even respectable Whigs did not hesitate to appropriate it to
their own use. Whatever name it was known by, the democratic party took
possession of the Federal Government in 1801, and held it through an
unbroken line of Virginia Presidents for twenty-four years. The
Presidential term of Mr. J.Q. Adams was no breach of democratic
party-rule in fact, whatever it was in name, for almost every man who
held high office under Mr. Adams was a Jeffersonian democrat. In 1829
the new democratic party came into power, and held office for twelve
successive years. The Whig victory of 1840 hardly interrupted that rule,
as President Harrison's early death threw power into the hands of Mr.
Tyler, who was an ultra-Jeffersonian democrat, a Pharisee of the
Pharisees. Mr. Polk, a Jacksonian democrat, was President from 1845 to
1849. The four years that followed saw the Presidential chair filled by
Whigs, General Taylor and Mr. Fillmore; and those four years form the
only time in which men who had had no connection with the democratic
party wielded the executive power of the United States. General Pierce
and Mr. Buchanan, both democrats, were at the head of the Government for
the eight years that followe