Current rereading The Fortune of War, the sixth of Patrick O'Brian Jack Aubrey / Stephen Maturin books. The War of 1812 has just broken out, and through no fault of their own, Jack and Stephen are captured by the Americans. Encountering an American official on the ship taking them to be locked up in Boston, Stephen describes him as "a tiny politician for whom the world might fall apart as long as the Republicans remained in power".
The more things change...
History question: the Republican Party hadn't been founded yet. To what Republicans does O'Brian refer?
Ah, I see that members of "the party of Jefferson," ancestor of today's Democratic Party, called themselves both "Republicans" and "Democrats."
I'm sure he's winking at the contemporary reader, though.
For an interesting example of another wink, see here.