principles—it lost morale and power. As a result of the contest over Kansas it became fatally divided, and in 1860 put forward two presidential tickets: one representing the doctrine of Jefferson Davis that the constitution recognized slave-property, and therefore the national government must protect slavery in the territories; the other representing Douglas’s doctrine that the inhabitants of a territory might virtually exclude slavery by “unfriendly legislation.” The combined popular votes for the two tickets exceeded that cast by the new, anti-slavery Republican party (the second of the name) for Lincoln; but the election was lost. During the ensuing Civil War such members of the party as did not become War Democrats antagonized the Lincoln administration, and in 1864 made the great blunder of pronouncing the war “a failure.” Owing to Republican errors in reconstruction and the scandals of President Grant’s administration, the party gradually regained its strength and morale, until, having largely subordinated Southern questions to economic issues, it cast for Tilden for president in 1876 a popular vote greater than that obtained by the Republican candidate, Hayes, and gained control of the House of Representatives. The Electoral Commission, however, made Hayes president, and the quiet acceptance of this decision by the Democratic party did it considerable credit.
Since 1877 the Southern states have been almost solidly Democratic; but, except on the negro question, such unanimity among Southern whites has been, naturally, factitious; and by no means an unmixed good for the party. Apart from the “Solid South,” the period after 1875 is characterized by two other party difficulties. The first was the attempt from 1878 to 1896 to “straddle” the silver issue;[1] the second, an attempt after 1896 to harmonize general elements of conservatism and radicalism within the party. In 1896 the South and West gained control of the organization, and the national campaigns of 1896 and 1900 were fought and lost mainly on the issue of “free silver,” which, however, was abandoned before 1904. After 1898 “imperialism,” to which the Democrats were hostile, became another issue. Finally, after 1896, there became very apparent in the party a tendency to attract the radical elements of society in the general re-alignment of parties taking place on industrial-social issues; the Democratic party apparently attracting, in this readjustment, the “radicals” and the “masses” as in the time of Jefferson and Jackson. In this process, in the years 1896–1900, it took over many of the principles and absorbed, in large part, the members of the radical third-party of the “Populists,” only to be confronted thereupon by the growing strength of Socialism, challenging it to a farther radical widening of its programme. From 1860 to 1908 it elected but a single president (Grover Cleveland, 1885–1889 and 1893–1897).[2] All American parties accepted long ago in theory “Jeffersonian democracy”; but the Democratic party has been “the political champion of those elements of the [American] democracy which are most democratic. It stands nearest the people.”[3] It may be noted that the Jeffersonian Republicans did not attempt to democratize the constitution itself. The choice of a president was soon popularized, however, in effect; and the popular election of United States senators is to-day a definite Democratic tenet.[4]
Bibliography.—For an exposition of the party’s principles see Thomas Jefferson, Writings, ed. by P. L. Ford (10 vols., New York, 1892–1899); J. P. Foley (ed.), The Jeffersonian Cyclopaedia (New York, 1900); and especially the Campaign Text-Books of more recent times, usually issued by the national Democratic committee in alternate years, and M. Carey, The Democratic Speaker’s Handbook (Cincinnati, 1868). For a hostile criticism of the party, see W. D. Jones, Mirror of Modern Democracy; History of the Democratic Party from 1825 to 1861 (New York, 1864); Jonathan Norcross, History of Democracy Considered as a Party-Name and a Political Organization (New York, 1883); J. H. Patton, The Democratic Party: Its Political History and Influence (New York, 1884). Favourable treatises are R. H. Gillet, Democracy in the United States (New York, 1868); and George Fitch, Political Facts: an Historical Text-Book of the Democratic and Other Parties (Baltimore, 1884). See also, for general political history, Thomas H. Benton, Thirty Years’ View (2 vols., New York, 1854–1856, and later editions); James G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress (2 vols., Norwich, Conn., 1884–1893); S. S. Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation (Providence, 1885); S. P. Orth, Five American Politicians: a Study in the Evolution of American Politics (Cleveland, 1906), containing sketches of four Democratic leaders—Burr, De Witt Clinton, Van Buren and Douglas; J. Macy, Party Organization and Machinery (New York, 1904); J. H. Hopkins, History of Political Parties in the United States (New York, 1900); E. S. Stanwood, History of the Presidency (last ed., Boston, 1904); J. P. Gordy, History of Political Parties, i. (New York, 1900); H. J. Ford, Rise and Growth of American Politics (New York, 1898); Alexander Johnston, History of American Politics (New York, 1900, and later editions); C. E. Merriam, A History of American Political Theories (New York, 1903), containing chapters on the Jeffersonian and the Jacksonian Democracy; and James A. Woodburn, Political Parties and Party Problems in the United States (New York, 1903).
DEMOCRITUS, probably the greatest of the Greek physical philosophers, was a native of Abdera in Thrace, or as some say—probably wrongly—of Miletus (Diog. Laërt. ix. 34). Our knowledge of his life is based almost entirely on tradition of an untrustworthy kind. He seems to have been born about 470 or 460 B.C., and was, therefore, an older contemporary of Socrates. He inherited a considerable property, which enabled him to travel widely in the East in search of information. In Egypt he settled for seven years, during which he studied the mathematical and physical systems of the ancient schools. The extent to which he was influenced by the Magi and the Eastern astrologists is a matter of pure conjecture. He returned from his travels impoverished; one tradition says that he received 500 talents from his fellow-citizens, and that a public funeral was decreed him. Another tradition states that he was regarded as insane by the Abderitans, and that Hippocrates was summoned to cure him. Diodorus Siculus tells us that he died at the age of ninety; others make him as much as twenty years older. His works, according to Diogenes Laërtius, numbered seventy-two, and were characterized by a purity of style which compares favourably with that of Plato. The absurd epithet, the “laughing philosopher,” applied to him by some unknown and very superficial thinker, may possibly have contributed in some measure to the fact that his importance was for centuries overlooked. It is interesting, however, to notice that Bacon (De Principiis) assigns to him his true place in the history of thought, and points out that both in his own day and later “in the times of Roman learning” he was spoken of in terms of the highest praise. In the variety of his knowledge, and in the importance of his influence on both Greek and modern speculation he was the Aristotle of the 5th century, while the sanity of his metaphysical theory has led many to regard him as the equal, if not the superior, of Plato.
His views may be treated under the following heads:—
1. The Atoms and Cosmology (adopted in part at least from the doctrines of Leucippus, though the relations between the two are hopelessly obscure). While agreeing with the Eleatics as to the eternal sameness of Being (nothing can arise out of nothing; nothing can be reduced to nothing), Democritus followed the physicists in denying its oneness and immobility. Movement and plurality being necessary to explain the phenomena of the universe and impossible without space (not-Being), he asserted that the latter had an equal right with Being to be considered existent. Being is the Full (πλῆρες, plenum); not-Being is the Void (κενόν, vacuum), the infinite space in which moved the infinite number of atoms into which the single Being of the Eleatics was broken up. These atoms are eternal and invisible; absolutely small, so small that their size cannot be
- ↑ The attitude of the Republican party was no less inconsistent and evasive.
- ↑ It controlled the House of Representatives from 1874 to 1894 except in 1880–1882 and 1888–1890; but except for a time in Cleveland’s second term, there were never simultaneously a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in Congress.
- ↑ Professor A. D. Morse in International Monthly, October 1900. He adds, “It has done more to Americanize the foreigner than all other parties.” (It is predominant in the great cities of the country.)
- ↑ In connexion with the prevalent popular tendency to regard the president as a people’s tribune, it may be noted that a strong presidential veto is, historically, peculiarly a Democratic contribution, owing to the history of Jackson’s (compare Cleveland’s) administration.
