REPUBLICAN, a party name in American politics, which has had at different times different significations. At the adoption of the federal constitution in 1787. and while its ratification by the several states was under discussion, the country was divided into two parties—the federalists, headed by Washington and the elder Adams; and the anti federalists (who afterward took the name of republicans), under the lead of Jefferson and Madison. The federalists were in favor of a strong centralized government; the republicans advocated the sovereignty of the states and the rights of the people; and finally secured those amendments and additions to the constitution which were intended to guarantee state rights, and which declared that all powers not expressly granted to congress by the constitution are retained by the states or the people, During the French revolution and the wars which succeeded it, the federal party sympathized with England, while the republicans favored the French, and being in power, tinder the presidency of Mr. Madison, declared war against England in 1812, a measure which the federalists violently opposed. going so far in the Hartford convention as to threaten a dissolution of the union. During. the political excitements of this period, when the excesses of the French revolution had thrown a certain degree of odium upon its sup porters, the republicans were stigmatized by their opponents as democrats. The name. given as a reproach, was soon adopted; and the party of Jefferson and Jackson called itself democratic republican, and its members were usually called democrats; while the name of federalist having become unpopular by the opposition of the party to the war with England, it adopted the designation of national republicans, end some years later, of whigs, which was the name taken by the "disloyal " party in the war of independ ence, the "loyal " party being called tories. The whiffs of 1840 repudiated alike the principles and name of the federalists; they professed to be followers of Jefferson, and called themselves democratic whigs. • In the effort to elect Mr. Fremont in 1856, and in the election of Mr. Lincoln in 1860, the Whig party, deserted by many of its more conservative members, known as old whigs, but re-enforced by a larger number of free-soil democrats and abolitionists, adopted the name of republicans, and were called by their opponents black republicans, from their anti-slavery tendencies. In the presidential contest of 1864, the republicans, hoping to secure the support of time war or union democrats, adopted the name of the "union party," while they went further than the ancient federalists in support of a strong centralized government. The federalist, national republican, whit, and republi
can party has been essentially the same, and for the most part a New England or north ern party—its prihcipal leaders having_been John Adams, Josiah Quincy, Alex. Hamil ton, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Wm. H. Seward, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses Grant. The democratic party has its centers in Virginia and New York, and was the party of Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Calhoun, Van Buren, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan. The former party advocated a construction of the constitution favorable to the powers of the federal government, a national bank, and a high protective tariff; the democratic party, on the other hand, held to a strict construction of the constitution, a careful limitation of the powers of the central government, all independent treasury, a specie currency, and free-trade, or a tariff for revenue only. There was, 30 years ago, a respectable whig minority in most of the southern states, and in two or three, whig majorities; but when the whig party adopted abolition, and took the name republican, every southern state voted with the democratic party, Since the civil war, the people of the southern states have been still more closely attached to the democrats.—Other party names met with in American political writings are of a local, factional, or temporary character. "Blue-light federalist" was a name given to those whp were believed to have made friendly signals to British ships in the war of 1812. " Barn-burner" was applied as a term of reproach to a section of the democracy supposed to be in sympathy with the " anti-renters." The " soft shells" were "free-soil " democrats, in favor of excluding slavery from the territories and future states of the union; while the "hard shells" were in favor of what they held to be the rights of the south. The more widely known name of " applied to, and good-naturedly accepted by the democratic party, arose from the fact, that a meeting of a section of the party in Tammany hall, its New York headquarters, having been deprived of light by the turning off of the gas, at the order of the party managers, lighted up the hall with candles, by the aid of Lucifer or loco-foco matches, and so passed its resolutions. " Copperhead," the name of a ven omous serpent, was applied to the peace party by the advocates of the war for the union.