In the Constitutional Convention debates, James Madison worried that the majority of Americans might work for an equal distribution of wealth. Thomas Jefferson, founder of the Democratic Party, supported Democracy and egalitarianism. It seems this remains a major difference between the Madison Republicans and the Jefferson Democrats.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/debates/626.htmIn all civilized Countries the people fall into
different classes having a real or supposed
difference of interests. There will be creditors & debtors, farmers, merchts. & manufacturers.
There will be particularly the distinction of rich & poor. It was true as had been observd.
we had not among us those hereditary distinctions, of rank which were a great source of the contests in the ancient Govts. as well as the modern States of Europe, nor those extremes of wealth or poverty which characterize the latter. We cannot however be regarded even at this time, as one homogeneous mass, in which every thing that affects a part will affect in the same manner the whole.
...
In framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we shd. not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce. An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labour under all the hardships of life, & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts have yet been made in in this Country, but symtoms, of a leveling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarters to give notice of the future danger. How is this danger to be guarded agst. on republican principles?
...
100 years later, unions like the IWW were saying pretty much the same thing:
"The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
...
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production..."
http://www.iww.org/stand.shtml
Does the Democratic Party still have the "levelling spirit" I wonder?
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