Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 | Page 4

are made
by minorities, by orders, by classes, by individuals, but never by the
people. The people may be dragged into them, but they never take the
initiative even in those movements which are called popular, and which
are supposed to have only popular ends in view. That very portion of
mankind who are most feared by timid men of property are those who
are the last to act in any of the great games which mark the onward
course of the world. Complain they do, and often bitterly, of the
inequalities of society, but action is not their strong point.
The American observer of 1829-41 would have seen, too, in the
Workingmen's party, and in other similar organizations, only sections
of the Democratic party. They were the light troops of the grand army
of Democracy, the velites who skirmished in front of the legions. They
never controlled the Democratic party; but it is undeniable that they did
color its policy, and give a certain tone to its sentiment, at a very
important period of American history. The success of President Jackson,
in that political contest which is known as "the Bank War," was entirely
owing to the support which he received from the workingmen of some
two or three States; and it is quite probable that the shrewd men who
then managed the Democratic party were induced to enter upon that
war by their knowledge of the exalted condition of political opinion in
those States. For their own purposes, they turned to account sentiments
that might have worked dangerously, if they had not been directed
against the Bank. One effect of this was, that the Democratic party was
compelled to make use of more popular language, which caused it to
lose some of its influential members, who were easily alarmed by
words, though they had borne philosophically with violent things. For
five years after the veto of the Bank Bill, in 1832, the Democratic party
was essentially radical in its tone, without doing much of a radical
character. In 1837, the monetary troubles came to a head, and then it
was seen how little reliance could be placed on men who were
supposed to be attached to extreme popular opinions. It was in the very
States which were thought to abound with radicals that the Democracy

lost ground, and the way was prepared for their entire overthrow in the
memorable year 1840. That year saw American politics debauched, and
from that time we find no radical element in any of our parties. The
contest was so intense, that the two parties swallowed and digested all
lesser factions. Since then, a variety of causes have combined to
prevent the development of what is termed Agrarianism. The struggle
of the Democracy to regain power; the Mexican war, and the extension
of our dominion, consequent on that war, bringing up again, in full
force, the slavery question; and the discovery of gold in California,
which led myriads of energetic men to a remote quarter of the
nation;--these are the principal causes of the freedom of our later
party-struggles from radical theories. From radical practices we have
always been free, and it is improbable that our country will know them
for generations.
The origin of the word Agrarianism, as an obnoxious political term, is
somewhat curious. It is one of the items of our inheritance from the
Romans, to whom we owe so much, both of good and evil, in politics
and in law.
The Agrarian contests of that people were among the most interesting
incidents in their wonderful career, and are full of instruction, though,
until recently, their true character was not understood; and their
explanation affords a capital warning against the effects of partisan
literature. The common belief was,--perhaps we should say is,--that the
supporters of the Agrarian laws were, to use a modern term,
_destructives_; that they aimed at formal divisions of all landed
property, if not of all property, among the whole body of the Roman
people. Nothing can be more unfounded than this view of the subject,
which is precisely the reverse of the truth. No Roman, whose name is
associated with Agrarian laws, ever thought of touching private
property, or of meddling with it, illegally, in any way. Neither Spurius
Cassius, nor Licinius Stolo, nor the Gracchi, nor any other Roman
whose name is identified with the Agrarian legislation of his country,
was a destructive, or leveller. Quite the contrary; they were all
conservatives,--using that word in its best sense,--and the friends of
property. The lands to which their laws applied, or were intended to
apply, were public lands, answering, in some sense, to those which are
owned by the United States. When Spurius Cassius, a quarter of a

century after that revolution which is known as the expulsion