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FACTION arose in New York City in 1834-35, which called itself the "equal rights party," or the "Jeffersonian anti-monopolists." The organization of the Tammany Hall democrats, under Van Buren and the regency, had become rigid and tyrannical. The equal rights faction revolted, and declared that Tammany was aristocratic. They represented a new upheaval of democracy. They took literally the dogmas which had been taught them, just as the original Jackson men had done ten years before, only that now, to them, the Jackson party seated in power seemed to have drifted away from the pure principles of democracy, just as Monroe had once appeared to the Jackson men to have done. The equal rights men wanted "to return to the Jeffersonian fountain" again, and make some new deductions. They revived and extended the old doctrines which Duane, of the "Aurora,” taught at the beginning of the century in his "Politics for Farmers," and similar pamphlets. In general the doctrines and propositions might be described as an attempt to apply the procedure of a township democracy to a great state. The equal rights men held meetings at first secretly, at four different places, and not more than two successive times at the same place. They were, in a party point of view, conspirators, rebels-"disorganizers," in short; and they were plotting the highest crime known to the political code in which they had been educated, and which they accepted. Their platform was: No distinction between men save merit; gold and silver the only legitimate and proper circulating medium; no perpetuities or monopolies ; strict construction of the Constitution; no bank charters by States (because banks of issue favor gambling, and are calculated to build up and strengthen in our country the odious distribution of wealth and power against merits and equal rights"); approval of Jackson's administration; election. of President by direct popular vote. They favored the doctrine of instructions. They also advocated free trade and direct taxes. They had some very sincere and pure-minded men among them, a large number of overheated brains, and a still larger number of demagogues, who were seeking to organize the faction as a means of making themselves so valuable that the regular managers would buy them. The equal rights men gained strength so rapidly that, on the 29th of October, 1835, they were able to offer battle to the old faction at a primary meeting in Tammany Hall for the nomination of a congressman and other officers. The "regular" party entered the hall by the back entrance, and organized the meeting before the doors were opened. The anti-monopolists poured in, nominated a chairman and elected him, ignoring the previous organization. The question of "equal rights" between the two chairmen was then settled in the old original method which has prevailed ever since there has been life on earth. The equal rights men dispossessed the other faction, and so proved the justice of their principles. The non-equal rights party then left the hall, but they "caused" the equal rights men to be subjected to a deprivation of the right" to light by turning out

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the gas. The equal rights men were thus forced to test that theory of natural rights which affirms that said rights are only the chance to have good things, if one can get them. In spite of their dogma of the equality of all men, which would make a prudent man no better than a careless one, and a man with capital no better than one without capital, the equal rights men had foreseen the emergency, and had provided themselves with capital in the shape of candles and loco-foco matches. They thus established their right to light, against nature and against their enemies. They duly adopted their platform, nominated a ticket, and adjourned. The regular leaders met elsewhere, nominated the ticket which they had previously prepared, and dispensed, for that occasion, with the ornamental and ceremonious formality of a primary meeting to nominate it.

On the next day the "Courier and Enquirer" dubbed the equal rights party the loco-focos, and the name clung to them. Hammond quotes a correspondent who correctly declared that "the workingmen's party and the equal rights party have operated as causes, producing effects that will shape the course of the two great parties of the United States, and consequently the destinies of this great republic." The faction, at least in its better elements, evidently had convictions and a programme. It continued to grow. The "Evening Post" became its organ. That paper quarrelled with the administration on Kendall's order about the mails, and was thereupon formally read out of the party by the "Globe." The loco-focos ceased to be a revolting faction. They acquired belligerent rights. The faction, however, in its internal economy ran the course of all factions. It went to extremes, and then began to split up. In January, 1836, it declared its independence of the Democratic-Republican party. This alienated all who hated the party tyranny, but who wanted reform in the party. The faction declared itself opposed to all acts of incorporation, and held that all such acts were repealable. It declared that representative institutions were only a practical convenience, and that legislatures could not create vested rights. Then it went on to adopt a platform of "equality of position, as well as of rights.”

In October, 1836, Tammany made overtures to the equal rights men for a reunion, in preparation for the Presidential election. Some of the loco-focos wanted to unite; others refused. The latter were the men of conviction; the former were the traders. The former called the latter "rumps"; the latter called the former "buffaloes." Only one stage now remained to complete the old and oft-repeated drama of faction. A man named Slamm, a blatant ignoramus, who, to his great joy, had been arrested by order of the Assembly of New York for contempt and breach of privilege, and who had profited to the utmost by this incident to make a long "argument" against the "privilege" of an American Legislature, and to pose as a martyr to equal rights, secured his own election to the position of secretary of the equal rights party. He then secured a vote that no constitutional election could be held unless called by the secretary. He never would call one. There were those who thought that he sold out the party.

Thus the faction perished ignominiously, but it was not without reason that its name passed, a little later, to the whole Jackson-Van Buren party;

i. e., to the radical anti-paper currency, not simply anti-United States Bank, wing of the national Democratic party. The equal rights men maintained impracticable doctrines of civil authority and fantastic dogmas about equality, but when these were stripped away there remained in their platform sound doctrines and imperishable ideas. They first put the Democratic party on the platform which for five or six years it had been trying to find. When it did find that platform it was most true to itself, and it contributed most to the welfare of the country. To-day the Democratic party is, by tradition, a party of hard money, free trade, the non-interference theory of government, and no special legislation. If that tradition be traced up to its source, it will lead back, not to the Jackson party of 1829, but to the loco-focos of 1835.

Amelia Walstien Carpenter.

BORN in Stephentown, Rensselaer Co., N. Y., 1840.

IN THE SLANT O' THE SUN.

HE homely country scent of musk

Twas in the air that past her blew;

The sunflower seeds fell from their husk,
Black moths and white about her flew;
The gentlest life! O sweet and true,
The sweetest soul earth ever knew
Left here, lone in the lonely dusk!

She pins her faded knitting sheath

With wrinkled hands that tremble still; Below her white hair's crowning wreath Her aching eyes with slow tears fill; Slow gathered tears that drop until They seem like other words that breathe The cry-" Lord! Lord! do thou thy will!"

Again she lifts the sacred book

She holds it to her aching eyes: What stress was e'er that He forsook? "Lord! Lord!" the sufferer cries (The Lord that he deniesThe Lord he crucifies).

Down from his cross He turns his look"To-night-in Paradise!"

Still in the long slant of the sun

The watcher keeps her lonely seat; Farther the darkening shadows run And closer gather at her feet.

The day's long toils cease, one by one—
She hears the passing laborers greet;
"Lord! Lord!" her hands in pleading

meet

"Save her! and yet-Thy will be done!

"Lord! should she come to me once

more,

To-night, come from her darkened

way

Yea, should she pause here at my door,

Wouldst Thou not bid me bid her stay? (Lord-Lord-for this I pray)— Shepherd, Thy word went long before, 'I seek for them that stray

Far from the fold away!'"

The moth above the sunflower wheels, The lingering light drops from the skies,

The village bell in music peals,

While in the west the sunset dies.
But lo! what shape is this that steals
From out the dusk?-that comes and
kneels

And peers into the glazing eyes?

Oh late! too late! Oh woful cries!
O faithful soul! Oh true and wise!-
"To-night!-to-night-in Paradise!"

Henry Watterson.

BORN in Washington, D. C., 1840.

THE NEW SOUTH.

[Speech at the National Bankers' Convention, Louisville, Ky., 11 October, 1883.] T was not, however, to hear of banks and bankers and banking that you did

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ering that problem which has so disturbed the politicians-the South-and that you wish me to talk to you about the South. The South! The South! It is no problem at all. I thank God that at last we can say with truth, it is simply a geographic expression. The whole story of the South may be summed up in a sentence: She was rich, and she lost her riches; she was poor and in bondage; she was set free, and she had to go to work; she went to work, and she is richer than ever before. You see it was a groundhog case. The soil was here, the climate was here, but along with them was a curse, the curse of slavery. God passed the rod across the land and smote the people. Then, in His goodness and mercy, He waved the wand of enchantment, and lo, like a flower, His blessing burst forth! Indeed, may the South say, as in the experience of men it is rare for any to say with perfect sincerity:

"Sweet are the uses of adversity."

The South never knew what independence meant until she was taught by subjection to subdue herself. We lived from hand to mouth. We had our debts and our niggers. Under the old system we paid our debts and walloped our niggers. Under the new we pay our niggers and wallop our debts. We have no longer any slaves, but we have no longer any debts, and can exclaim with the old darkey at the camp-meeting, who, whenever he got happy, went about shouting, "Bless the Lord! I'm gittin' fatter an' fatter!"

The truth is, that behind the great ruffle the South wore to its shirt, there lay concealed a superb manhood. That this manhood was perverted, there is no doubt. That it wasted its energies upon trifles, is beyond dispute. That it took a pride in cultivating what is called "the vices of a gentleman," I am afraid must be admitted. But, at heart, it was sound; from that heart flowed honest Anglo-Saxon blood; and, when it had to lay aside its "store-clothes" and put on its homespun, it was equal to the emergency. And the women of the South took their place by the side of the men of the South, and, with spinning-wheel and ploughshare, together they made a stand against the wolf at the door. That was fifteen years ago, and to-day there is not a reward offered in a single Southern State for wolf skins. The fact is, the very wolves have got ashamed of themselves and gone to work.

I beg you to believe that, in saying this, my purpose is neither to amuse nor mislead you. Although my words may seem to carry with them an unbusiness-like levity, I assure you that my design is wholly business-like. You can see for yourselves what the South has done; what the South can do. If all

this has been achieved without credit, and without your powerful aid and I am now addressing myself to the North and East, which have feared to come South with their money-what might not be achieved if the vast aggregations of capital in the fiscal centres should add this land of wine, milk, and honey to their fields of investment, and give us the same cheap rates which are enjoyed by nearer, but not safer, borrowers? The future of the South is not a whit less assured than the future of the West. Why should money which is freely loaned to Iowa and Illinois be refused to Alabama and Mississippi? I perfectly understand that business is business, and that capital is as unsectional as unsentimental. I am speaking from neither spirit. You have money to loan. We have a great country to develop.

We need the money. You can make a profit off the development. When I say that we need money, I do not mean the sort of money once demanded by an old Georgia farmer, who, in the early days, came up to Milledgeville to see General Robert Toombs, at the time a director of the State Bank. "Robert," says he, "the folks down our way air in need of more money." The profane Robert replied: "Well, how in are they going to get it ?" "Why," says the farmer, "can't you stomp it?" "Suppose we do stomp it, how are we going to redeem it ?" "Exactly, Robert, exactly. That was just what I was coming to. You see the folks down our way air agin redemption." We want good money, honest money, hard money, money that will redeem itself. We have given hostages to fortune and our works are before you. I know that capital is proverbially timid. But what are you afraid of? is it our cotton that alarms you? or our corn? or our sugar? Perhaps it is our coal and iron. Without you, in truth, many of these products must make slow progress, whilst others will continue to lie hid in the bowels of the earth. With you the South will bloom as a garden and sparkle as a gold-mine; for, whether you tickle her fertile plains with a straw or apply a more violent titillation to her fat mountain sides, she is ready to laugh a harvest of untold riches.

I am not a banker, and it would be an affectation in me to undertake to advise you in your own business. But there is a point which relates to the safe investment of money on which I can venture to express an opinion with some assurance. That is, the political stability, involving questions of law and order, in the South. My belief is that life and property are as secure in the South as they are in New England. I am certain that men are at least as safe in Kentucky and Tennessee as women seem to be in Connecticut. The truth is, the war is over and the country is whole again. The people, always homogeneous, have a common National interest. For my own part, I have never believed in isothermal lines, air-lines, and water-lines separating distinct races. I no more believe that that river yonder, dividing Indiana and Kentucky, marks off two distinct species than I believe that the great Hudson, flowing through the State of New York, marks off distinct species. Such theories only live in the fancy of morbid minds. We are all one people. Commercially, financially, morally, we are one people. Divide as we will into parties, we are one people. It is this sense which gives a guarantee of peace and order at the South, and offers a sure and lasting escort to all the capital which may come to us for investment.

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