Democrats

“ Every party imagines itself the right party, and welcomes him joyfully to its bosom. Republicans love him, Independents worship him, while Democrats would endure even the Fifteenth Amendment for his sake. ”

“ And you still call yourselves Democrats, and claim the confidence of the people by your fidelity to the great principle that popular liberty and free institutions must be secured by a strict limitation of the powers of government! ”

“ If we fail, if we fritter and fumble away our opportunity in needless, senseless quarrels between Democrats and Republicans, or between the House and the Senate, or between the South and North, or between the Congress and the administration, then history will rightfully judge us harshly. ”

“ The Democrats, although they have been victorious, are discouraged and depressed and full of dread of what may happen; the Republicans, though beaten, are full of the sense of power, full of assurance in consequence of the first results gained, and full of confidence for the future. ”

“ The true Democrats, with a unanimity hitherto unknown, will appreciate the utility of the national idea and will demonstrate that our Constitution was indeed intended “to live and take effect in all successions of ages.” The popular party, at once conservative and radical, will demonstrate by its habitual self-restraint, by its scrupulous regard for justice, by the honorable methods which it shall observe and exact, by its prudence in legislation, that the Democracy in the plentitude of its powers, is most truly conservative of all that vast store of good which the past hands down. ”

“ But a democracy has never been maintained save by the delegation of great powers to its chosen leaders. It was the remark of one of the foremost American Democrats of the nineteenth century, a man who received the highest honors which his party could bestow, that the Constitution of the United States was made, not to promote Democracy, but to check it. ”

“ So we face big and difficult challenges. And what the American people hope -– what they deserve -– is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics. ”

“ Some men talk as if the tariff-reformers, as if the Democrats, weren't part of the United States. I met a lady the other day, not an elderly lady, who said to me with pride: "Why, I have been a Democrat ever since they hunted them with dogs." And you would really suppose, to hear some men talk, that Democrats were outlaws and did not share the life of the United States. ”

“ And despite all of our differences, I have faith that, for the American people, we will come together, Democrats and Republicans, committed to unity, civility, and truth. We will recognize our higher purpose to help America through these dark days. ”

“ While the Union-savers did not dare to lay down a common party creed, while the Democrats, with unscrupulous duplicity, attempt to commit a new fraud upon the people, the Republican party has with manly fearlessness proclaimed its principles and nominated a candidate who fairly and honestly represents them. We have undertaken to defeat our opponents, not by concession and subterfuge, but by boldly and unequivocally re-asserting the principles in which we believe. ”

“ If the Democrats are equal to the occasion they will render the Progressives superfluous. But Democrats have a habit of not being equal to the occasion. If the Progressives show a judgment as cool as their emotions are warm, they may prove as great as the Republican party was once, the phoenix from its ashes. ”

“ There are many honest Democrats sincerely attached to the principles we advocate. They should now at last recognize the fact that their old party organization is too much encumbered with its traditions and its history to serve as an efficient instrument in carrying those principles into reality, or even to act as an efficient opposition where opposition is needed. ”

“ The Democrats and Republicans will both try to catch you. Don’t let them catch you napping. Don’t become just fodder for political cannon. Form your programme and make all the parties adopt it. Begin in your home towns, begin at once. ”

“ You can now show the Democrats what their party ought to be in point of candidates as well as of principles. Would you not think it wise to put forth, together with your ticket, a platform embracing mainly these five points: honest government and pure elections, a sound currency, tariff reform, civil service reform and divorce of municipal affairs from party politics? ”

“ If you want to make Democrats, let them alone. The Democratic party is the settlings of this country. Nobody hoes weeds. Nobody takes especial pains to raise dog-fennel, and yet it grows under the very hoof of travel, The seeds are sown by accident and gathered by chance. ”

“ What a host of men would be marching upon the capital from all quarters of the compass, each one feeling that he is born to serve the public, and that the Government cannot get on without him! It is said that at the present moment, when the Democracy feels sanguine of success, as it always does, the most popular work of literature with Democrats, even with those who never read a book before, is the “Blue Book,” being the register of offices under the Government, with salaries attached, each active Democrat selecting his, and many the same. ”

“ Under Democratic administrations, in its mighty sweep, it has stretched from ocean to ocean, not as a North and South and East and West, but now as a glorious Union of sovereign States, reunited in love and loyalty, a great nation of millions of loyal subjects.
The faith we profess is distinctly an American faith; the principles we proclaim are distinctly American principles, and have been from their first utterance in the Declaration of Independence to their latest in the platform of the St. Louis Convention; the policy they demand of us as Democrats is emphatically an American policy. ”

“ After the new parties were well under way, the Democrats in most of the States, being in a hopeless minority, made common cause with them in the hope of thus compassing the defeat of their hereditary rivals, the old-line Republicans. ”

“ When the Democracy, therefore, speaks of a reform of the civil service, the meaning of that term, in the light of history and of the tendencies at present prevailing, can be nothing else than that the reform shall consist in putting out all the Republicans and putting all Democrats in their places. ”

“ "I know nothing that I may say can influence you," he said. "You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. ”

“ I want such civil service reform that all the offices will be filled with good and competent Republicans. The majority should rule, and the men who are in favor of the views of the majority should hold the offices. I am utterly opposed to the idea that a party should show its liberality at the expense of its principles. Men holding office can afford to take their chances with the rest of us. If they are Democrats, they should not expect to succeed when their party is defeated. ”

“ The Democratic especially, as they are the majority, and most of our abolitionist friends are Democrats. The “National party,” which is above mere petty party politics, was of course a stone of discord thrown among them, which disgusted them much; and several voted against us on the 22nd out of sheer anger and revenge. Yet the truth is working, and some are even now repenting of their vote, while several abstained at the last moment. ”

“ The Whigs contended for a liberal, fostering, protecting, and developing government. The Democrats declared that it was by the enterprise of the people, and not by the action of the government, that the ends sought were to be obtained. ”

“ The Democrats are quite a new development—not much of them at present—the Ruddards, the Denisons, the Oaks—but we shall hear a lot of them in the future, I'm sure. They'll sacrifice anything for cleverness; they must be amused; life must be entertaining. ”

“ You Democrats, and your candidate, in the main are in favor of laying down in advance a platform—a set of party positions—as a unit, and then of forcing the people, by every sort of appliance, to ratify them, however unpalatable some of them may be. We and our candidate are in favor of making Presidential elections and the legislation of the country distinct matters; so that the people can elect whom they please, and afterward legislate just as they please, without any hindrance, save only so much as may guard against infractions of the Constitution, undue haste, and want of consideration. ”

“ Now, though the vote is solid still, and the great majority accepts the policies of the Democrats as uncritically as it accepts Scripture, opinions about secondary issues vary as much as they do anywhere else. ”

“ Certainly this label is not deserved by the hundreds of thousands of loyal American Democrats throughout the Nation, and by the sizable number of able loyal Democrats in both the Senate and the House. ”

“ This, as its platform and the manifestoes of its candidates clearly show, is the purpose of the Democratic party. It is evident that the Republicans, placing themselves upon the ground of results already accomplished, have the advantage in argument; for the Democrats will not persuade the prudent and patriotic people of this Republic to overthrow that which exists and to launch into new struggles, troubles and uncertainties, unless they clearly show that that which has been accomplished is intrinsically bad, and that they have something better to put in its place. ”

“ To capture Parliament and turn it into a popular but constitutional assembly is, I must conclude, the aspiration of the genuine Democrats wherever they may be found; that is their idea of the first step of the Democratic policy. ”

“ The Democrats were, thanks to Lincoln's strategy, hopelessly divided. There were the administration Democrats, comprising practically all the voters in the South and many in the North, and all the office-holders everywhere. There were the Douglas or "Popular Sovereignty" Democrats, forming the vast bulk of the party in New England, the great majority in New York and the West and a large part in Pennsylvania. ”

“ The Whigs were the most numerous members of the new body, but they could not expect the Democrats to call themselves Whigs. Neither, of course, would the Whigs consent to be called Democrats, even if that name had not belonged to the party which they were about to fight. Neither Whigs nor Democrats would be known as Free Soilers. ”

“ For more than a quarter of a century I have been, in my political views and sentiments, a Democrat, and I still think that upon questions of finance, commerce, and administration generally, the old Democratic principles afford the best guidance. What separated me in former times from both parties was the depth and positiveness of my convictions on the slavery question. On that question I thought the Democratic party failed to make a just application of Democratic principles, and regarded myself as more democratic than the Democrats. ”

“ I desire both parties to be as good and patriotic as possible, so that the bad tendencies of one may not encourage the faults of the other, and I am glad, therefore, to see not a few Democrats manfully stand up for their old hard-money principles. ”

“ Let me say right here that I know lots of Democrats, great, broad, whole-souled, clever men, and I love them. And the only bad thing about them is that they vote the Democratic ticket. And I know lots of Republicans so mean and narrow that the only decent thing about them is that they vote the Republican ticket. ”

“ The Democrats are a shade more radical than the Republicans. But both sides are a little reserved, a little afraid to declare themselves frankly and unequivocally, a good deal inclined to make their first appeal to the American passion for industrial activity and prosperity. ”

“ From the ninth Congress the Jeffersonian Republicans called themselves Democrats, and the word Republican passed into disuse until later on in the history of our political parties, the opponents of the Democracy accepted it as a name which well filled the meaning of their attitude in the politics of the country. ”

“ The Senate about to assemble will also be Democratic. The offices of President and Vice-President have been put into the hands of Democrats. What does the change mean? That is the question that is uppermost in our minds to-day. That is the question I am going to try to answer, in order, if I may, to interpret the occasion.
It means much more than the mere success of a party. The success of a party means little except when the Nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose. No one can mistake the purpose for which the Nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party. ”

“ And it's important, as I said on election night, that we enter into the new administration with a sense of humility and a recognition that wisdom is not the monopoly of any one party. In order for us to be effective, given the scope and the scale of the challenges that we face, Republicans and Democrats are going to have to work together. ”