Excerpt from The Revolution in Virginia

Of the individual States has not been well worked out, there are certain hiatuses in our histories, such, for in stance, as the lack of an account of the origin of the Demo cratic Party. Historians give us the impression that it Sprang full-grown from the head of Jefferson, that he was its creator. But the Democratic Party had come into existence in an undefined way before the great political genius of Jefferson laid hold of it and moulded it to his purposes. Jefferson was a Virginian and the Democratic Party as a political movement with real purposes was likewise a Virginia product; the story of its rise is one of the most interesting chapters of Revolutionary history. In a brief analysis, the Revolution was the result of the clash between imperial expansion and colonial develop ment - two forms of progressivism just as the Puritan Revolution was the outcome of the conflict of expanding monarchy with the gron idea of popular rights, mainly expressed through religion. In Virginia the colonial con stitution had become well defined before the middle of the eighteenth century. Based on the fine old principle of the Englishman's inherent right of self-government, it had acquired certain fixed positions without much refer ence to strict logic. It was really the result of a long con test; the history of Virginia, like that of the other colo nies, is little more than a series of disputes with the royal governors, who served the colony greatly in some ways and in other ways were out of touch with colonial life and needs. Parliament exerted a variable control over the colo nies, from time to time passing taxation-without-repre sentation statutes, but generally leaving the provincials sufficiently alone to cause itself to be looked on admir.

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