De Mille, James

Canadian author, born at St. John, N. B., in Aug., 1837. He graduated from Brown University, R. I., and was appointed profe or of Cla ics at Acadia College, and subsequently of History and Rhetoric at Dalhousie College. He was the author of Helene's Household; The Soldier and the Spy; The Ameri can Baron; An Open Question, . Died at Halifax, N. S., in 1880. Dem'ing, in New Mexico , a post-town of Grant co., on the A., T. & S. F. and So. Pacific R. Rs., 90 m. W. of El Paso, Texas; an important shipping point for a rich mining and fruit region. Pop . (1897) about 1,500. Democratic Party. (Amer. Pol.) One of the two leading political parties of the U. S. It is interesting to note that it is the only one that has existed since the origin of the government, and that it was originally known under the name of its present great rival, the Republican Party. The first political parties in this country were the Federal and Anti-Federal, but the latter vanished in 1788, after the adoption of the Constitution by the requisite number of States. For the first three years after the inauguration of the new government all the public men of the U. S. were nominally Federalists, including Jefferson, Madison, Burr, and other later Republicans, and the idea prevailed that there would thereafter be but one party in the country. Yet the Anti-Federal opposition was not quite dead; opposition was manifested to the centralizing policy of the new government, fears being entertained that the country would be ruled by an aristocracy if it did not eventually become a monarchy. Of this opposition Jefferson, who had witne ed the opening scenes of the revolution in France, was the leading spirit, and in a letter to Washington in 1792 he first spoke of the adherents of his views as Republicans "who wished to preserve the government in its present form." The party thus named was then a very small one. The leaders were Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, and a few of le er renown, while its principles were ill defined. Shortly afterward a new feeling of opposition to the government arose, springing out of a wide-spread sympathy with the revolutionists of France. What were called "Democratic clubs" sprang up all over the country, their membership composed of French sympathizers, their demand being for universal suffrage; while in their meetings political discu ion first made its way down to the ma es of the people. About 1795 a coalescence took place between these two opposition factions, largely as an effect of the "Whisky Insurrection" of 1794 and Jay's treaty with England of 1795, the latter being bitterly opposed by the ma es of the people, though supported by the government. The name "Republican" was alone used by the members of the party, that of "Democrat" being applied by their opponents as a term of contempt. The new party, however, gradually became known by the people at large as the * Democratic-Republican" and as such is most generally spoken of in history. The original party was little more than a Virgin i an faction. Its union with the Democratic club members gave it a national standing, and it grew so rapidly in strength that in the 1796 election Jefferson received 68 electoral votes to 71 for Adams, and became vice-president. The alien and sedition laws of the Adams administration completed the transformation of the governmental policy, giving a vigorous development to the doctrine of State sovereignty, and calling forth expre declarations to that effect from the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky, the latter, prepared by Jefferson, a erting the right of nullification (by a State) of laws affecting its sovereign rights. These resolutions were not supported by the other States, but the strength of the Democracy grew, and in the election of 1800 Jefferson and Burr each received 73 votes to 65 for Adams. With this election the supremacy of the Federal Party vanished. Its two great opponents, Jefferson and Madison, remained at the head of the government for the succeeding 16 years, and by 1816 the Federal Party had so weakened as to be able to offer but a shadow of opposition to Monroe. In the succeeding four years it vanished as a party, and Monroe entered his second administration by a practically unanimous vote, the country again having but one party, the Democratic-Republican.- New Policies . But though there was only one party, there was more than one policy. A second U. S. Bank was established in 1816. In the same year a slightly protective tariff on woolen and cotton goods was enacted. Gradually the tariff was increased until in 1828 the average rates of duty reached nearly 50 per cent. About 1822 the policy of public improvements became prominent, and rivers and harbors began to be improved, roads and canals built, at government expense. All this was an abandonment of the Jefferson i an policy, and naturally made discord in the councils of the party. In 1824 there was still but one party, though several candidates, but by 1828 the discord had grown into a party division. Those who favored a high tariff and a national bank a umed the title of National Republicans, from the fact that they favored the increase of the powers of the national government, while their opponents, long known as Democratic-Republicans, dropped the latter portion of their name, and were thenceforth known only as Democrats. They denied the constitutional right of the government to build roads or canals, to impose a tariff for any other purpose than that of obtaining revenue, or to charter a national bank. The first presidential contest on these party questions took place in 1828, and was won by the D. P., Jackson receiving 178 electoral votes to 83 for Adams, his opponent.- Rotation in Office . It had been a theory with Jefferson that there should be a popular control of all officials by frequent elections, and by removal of officials under the government when the people, by changing their President, showed a desire for a change. This theory was not put into effect by Jefferson, and it remained for Jackson to carry it out to its ultimate. Jefferson, in his eight years, had removed 39 office holders. Jackson, in 1829, turned not le than 2,000 men out of office and filled their places with his own adherents. It will suffice to say concerning this system of removal that it has never become specially a party principle, and that Civil Service reform, or a return to the old system of removal only for cause has in late years been carried out by Presidents of both ruling parties. Jackson also refused a new charter to the U. S. Bank, but more through personal than political hostility. His veto of the Maysville Road Bill in 1830 ended the national improvement system, even though he felt himself compelled, afterward, to sign several such bills. But, though opposed to the principle of a protective tariff, the claim of a right in a State to nullify a national law was further than Jackson was ready to go, and he promptly and decidedly put an end to the effort of South Carolina to nullify the national tariff in 1832. A tariff with lower duties was, however, pa ed. The Whig Party. In 1834 the National Republicans a uined the name of Whigs, but the Democrats retained the control of the government until 1840, when the Whigs nominated and elected Harrison by the great electoral vote of 234 to Van Buren's 60. For 40 years, from 1800 to 1840, the Democrats had been in power. Nor was their lapse from power long. Harrison died in a month after his inauguration, and Tyler, the vice-president, succeeded him, and brought back a virtually Democratic administration, he proving as strongly opposed to high tariff, internal improvements, and a national bank as Jackson himself. Slavery Extension. In the succeeding years new questions arose, which for the time set aside special attention to the fundamental party distinctions. The controversy over slavery extension, set aside in 1820 by the Mi ouri Compromise law, was reopened and this, with the new doctrine of abolitionism, occupied public attention almost exclusively. Democracy was strong in the South and became the political dogma of the proslavery advocates, while the activity of the small antislavery party in the North aroused a strong pro-slavery feeling there. The result was the election of Polk, the Democratic candidate. An outcome of this was the Mexican War, the acquisition of a great new section of territory, and the development of a vigorous slavery extension advocacy. In 1848 several parties were in the field. The Democrats nominated Lewis Ca ; the Whigs, Zachary Taylor; the new Free Soil (anti-slavery and abolitionist party), Martin Van Buren. The Whigs had far the most popular candidate. Taylor was the people's hero of the Mexican War, and was elected by a majority of 36 electoral votes. Again they were unfortunate in their choice. Taylor died in a little over a year, and Fill more, the vice-president, took his place. Meanwhile tho country was disturbed by the slavery political contest, the Whig party weakened and split into two sections, and in 1852 went practically to pieces; Pierce, the Democratic candidate, receiving the electoral votes of all but four states. Once more the D. P. had gained the high distinction of being the only national party. It maintained its organization intact, while the Whigs had practically disappeared, and had almost no membership in the South. The Free Soil party was sectional, not national. Yet this state of disorganization was not of long continuance, the various elements of opposition to the pro-slavery principle then maintained by the Democracy gradually fused together, and in the election year of 1856 a new party appeared, the Republican, its title that which the party of Jefferson had for more than twenty years maintained. In the election that ensued the new party developed unexpected strength, Fremont, its candidate, receiving 114 votes to 174 for Buchanan, his Democratic opponent. Only one question was now prominent in men's minds and in party councils. The shadow of the great coming contest was cast backward over the land; pro-slavery and anti-slavery were the rallying cries of the great parties. But the pro-slavery sentiment in the North was not decided enough to please the South; the D. P. was divided into Northern and Southern sections, each nominating its candidate, and in the 1860 election Lincoln, the Republican candidate, carried the field against all his opponents, receiving 180 electoral votes, while Breckenridge, the Southern Democrat, received 72; Douglas, the Northern Democrat, 12, and Bell, the candidate of a remnant of Southern Whigs and Northern Know-Nothings, received 39.After the War. From 1860 to 1884 the D. P. remained a party without a president, the Republicans continuing in the ascendency. After the war the slavery question, which had so long held a dominating influence over American politics, gradually disappeared. State-rights also, which had been one of the leading principles fought for in the war, lost its standing, the result of the war having clearly settled the long-debated question of State sovereignty. Slowly then the D. P. settled back into its main fundamental dogma, that of tariff for revenue only, all the other questions which had arisen from time to time having vanished or sunk for the time into the background. For many years, therefore, after the period of reconstruction excitement, practically only one question remained in American politics, that of free trade or revenue tariff, as advocated by the D. P. , versus protective tariff, as advocated by the Republicans. It cannot fairly be said that the Republican party was invariably succe ful in the elections from 1860 to 1880. The result of the election of 1876 needed to be decided by an electoral commi ion, and though the decision was given in favor of the Republican candidate, it was looked upon by the Democrats generally as unjust, they maintaining that their candidate had been elected and had been deprived of his just rights. This is a question which cannot easily be settled to general satisfaction and must remain a matter of controversy. Since 1880 the struggle for supremacy has been nearly even between the two great dominant parties, as shown by the election of Garfield (Rep.) in 1880; Cleveland (Dem.) in 1884; Harrison (Rep.) in 1888; Cleveland (Dem.) in 1892; and McKinley (Rep.) in 1896, the intervening "off-year" elections of Congre men showing an equivalent variation in public sentiment. Up to 1896 the tariff question was the dominant i ue; but in that year the national quadrennial battle was fought out on monetary and financial lines. A period of commercial and industrial depre ion, dating from 1893, had revived controversial discu ion as to the demonetization of silver in 1873, which act, it was maintained, had brought wealth to the money power and poverty to the ma es, encouraged (with the help of the tariff) the formation of trusts, and led to an undue concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. This position, long held by the Populists, was a umed by the D. P. at their Chicago convention, where William J. Bryan was nominated for the presidency on a platform demanding the unlimited coinage of silver and gold at a ratio of 16 to 1, with the usual party declarations respecting the tariff, and certain other "planks" which were construed to be covert attacks upon the Supreme Court and the Federal judiciary in general, the power of the U. S. government, . This action resulted in a split in the party, a second Democratic ticket being nominated at a convention held later at Indianapolis, in which the remonetization of silver was condemned and the Chicago platform declared to be contrary to genuine Democratic principles. That the Chicago declarations were the more popular with the ma es of Democracy is shown by the fact that the Bryan ticket received over 6,500,000 votes, while that of the Indianapolis convention, headed by John M. Palmer, received only 132,056. Many Democrats, however, fearing the remonetization of silver more than the protective tariff, voted the Republican ticket, while the Populist and National Silver parties joined the regular Democracy. The future of the D. P. is at this writing involved in much doubt. Many of its old leaders and most of its influential journals are irrevocably committed to the maintenance of a single gold standard of money, while an immense majority of the rank and file seems equally devoted to a return to bimetallism. The action of the Republicans, however, in practically ignoring the monetary question while insisting upon the enactment of a higher protective tariff, regardle of the feelings of their recent allies, the so-called "sound money" Democrats, renders it highly probable that the battles of 1898 and 1900 may show a complete readjustment of political alignments and combinations, the exact nature of which cannot now be foreseen. IMG:content-0703.jpg:[graphic] Demogeot (deh-mo-zhe-ō), JACQUES CLAUDE, author, born in Paris, July 5, 1808; studied at the University of Paris and taught in the colleges of Beauvais, Rennes, Bordeaux, and Lyons. He subsequently became profe or of rhetoric at the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris. He was the author of an e ay on Les Lettres et les Hommes de Lettres au XIXe siècle , which was crowned by the Society of Authors. His His to ire de la Littérature Française has reached its nineteenth edition, and has been translated into English. D. has prepared good text-books on French literature, and has contributed to the Revue des Deux Mondes and other periodicals.