Excerpt: At the time when Mr. Cleveland was inaugurated there had been no Democratic President for a full quarter of a century. A whole generation had been born and had grown to manhood and to womanhood without ever having lived under any but Republican rule. This long continuance in power of a single party had led many citizens to identify the interest of that party with the interests of the nation. The democrats had been so invariably beaten at the polls as to make Republicans believe that the defeated party had no decent reason for existence, and that is was composed only of wilful obstructionists or of persons destitute of patriotism.  Note: Footnotes will not be read but will be indicated along with page numbers which can be found at https://archive.org/details/20yrstherepublic00peckrich/page/n8/mode/2up - Summary by Celine Major