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leaders

CHAPTER XVI

THE TIMES OF ANDREW JACKSON

The Beginning of New Political Parties.-In an earlier chapter we saw how our first political parties, the Federalist and the Republican, grew up while Washington was president. The Federalists governed the country from 1789 to 1801. The Republicans triumphed in the election of 1800, and for the next twenty-four years their three great leaders from Virginia, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, held the presidential office. During this long period of Republican rule the Federalist party steadily declined, and not long after the War of 1812, which it opposed, it ceased to exist. Because of this cessation of party strife, Monroe's administration is often called. the "Era of Good Feeling."

The first five presidents of our country had all taken an active part in the Revolution. During the "Era of Good Feeling" New political a new group of younger political leaders came upon the scene. John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, William H. Crawford, and Andrew Jackson were the most conspicuous leaders of this group of younger statesmen. Adams, the son of the second president, had been minister to several foreign countries and was the secretary of state in Monroe's cabinet. Webster, the most famous orator in our history, was just entering Congress from Massachusetts. Henry Clay of Kentucky was the Speaker of the House of Representatives most of the time from 1811 to 1825. Calhoun of South Carolina, Monroe's secretary of war, was one of the young "war hawks" who with Clay at their head had brought on the War of 1812. Crawford, a shrewd politician from Georgia, was the secretary of the treasury. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee was the hero of the battle of New Orleans. Before President Monroe's second term ended the keen feeling of nationality which swept over the country as a result of the War of 1812 was no longer quite so ardent as it had been. Men were beginning to think once more of the special interests of their states or sections. While all the new leaders loved the Union, each of

them was a champion of his own section of the country. Adams and Webster spoke for the North, and especially for New England. Calhoun and Crawford upheld the rights of the slave-holding South. Clay and Jackson were true representatives of the rising West.

The "Era of Good Feeling" soon became a time of very hard feeling in politics. Each of the new leaders named in the

last paragraph cherished an ambition to be president, and when The election

the election of 1824

of 1824.

drew near, all of them

except Webster became candidates for the office. Presently Calhoun withdrew, content for the time with the vice-presidency. The other four remained in the race to the end. As none of them had a majority of the electoral vote, the election of a president was thrown into the House of Representatives for the second time in our history. The Constitution limits the house in its choice to the three candidates receiving the largest

John Quincy Adams

number of electoral votes. Clay was fourth on the list and so could not be chosen. Jackson had received the largest number of electoral votes, but through Clay's influence the house elected Adams.

Jackson and his friends at once charged that there had been a corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay. They said that Clay had induced his friends in the House of Representatives Jackson men to vote for Adams because Adams had promised to appoint him secretary of state. There was no truth in this charge

and Adams -men

Democrats

but many people believed it, especially after Adams gave Clay the first place in his cabinet. Jackson's friends declared that because their leader had the largest number of electoral votes he was the real choice of the country. While all the voters professed to be Republicans during Adams' administration they were really divided into two factions, the Jackson men and the Adams men. The followers of Jackson were strong enough in Congress to prevent the passage of nearly all the measures that Adams favored. The Adams men were handicapped by the personality of their leader. Adams was a very able, honest, and intensely patriotic man of wide experience in governmental affairs, but he was cold and distant in manner and utterly lacked the power to arouse enthusiasm or to win friends.

In 1828 Adams and Jackson were again rivals for the presidency and this time Jackson won by a large majority. During Jackson's eight years in the White House the two new and Whigs parties were fully organized. At first the supporters of Jackson called themselves Democratic-Republicans, a name that had frequently been applied to the Jeffersonian Republicans ever since that party began. Presently the word Republican fell into disuse, and the friends of Jackson were called the Democrats. This was the beginning of the Democratic party which still exists. After 1828 Henry Clay became the real leader of the Adams men, who began to call themselves National Republicans. Before the close of Jackson's administration the National Republicans took the name of Whigs. The Whig party favored a protective tariff, internal improvements at national expense, and a national bank, and believed in a broader construction of the Constitution than the Democrats did. The Democrats opposed all these measures. The Democrats and the Whigs were our two great political parties for twenty-five years after Jackson became president.

Andrew Jackson.-Andrew Jackson was president of the United States from 1829 to 1837, but he so completely dominated the country from 1825 until 1841 that this time is often Jacksonian called the Jacksonian period of our history.

The

period

Jackson was born on the western border of the Carolinas in 1767. His parents were Irish emigrants who had recently settled in that region. Though only a boy he saw service in the Revolutionary War and was for a short time a prisoner

and soldier

in the hands of the British. After the war he studied law, and Jackson, the in 1788 he settled on the western frontier at Nashville, Tennes- frontiersman see. During a large part of his life he lived on his plantation, the "Hermitage," near Nashville. Jackson was a born leader of men and soon won prominence in politics and as an Indian fighter. He was the first representative of Tennessee in the national House of Representatives, served for a short time in the United States Senate, and was later elected chief justice of the Supreme Court of his state. Jackson found his great opportunity as a general in the War of 1812. In a brilliant campaign he broke the power of the Creek Indians, and at the battle of New Orleans he inflicted an overwhelming defeat upon the British. His victory at New Orleans made Jackson

Andrew Jackson

the idol of the country and in the end won him the presidency. This tall, slender soldier with his mass of gray hair and his

flashing eyes was one of the most remarkable men in our history. When on the march against the Indians Jackson could "Old" endure so much hardship that his soldiers said he was "tough Hickory" as hickory," and the nickname "Old Hickory" clung to him. all the rest of his life. In times of danger he had the cool head, the quick eye, and the stout heart of the frontiersman. He was a man of tremendous energy, hot temper, and iron will. Jackson was sometimes hasty in judgment and never had any patience with men who did not agree with him. He was obstinate in the extreme. There was much truth in the words

which a humorous writer of the time puts in his mouth, "It has always bin my way, when I git a notion, to stick to it till it dies a natural death; and the more folks talk agin my notions, the more I stick to 'em." With all his faults, and he had many of them, Jackson was honest, truthful, kind, and courteous

A champion of the common people

The "Hermitage"

when he chose to be, and he loved and served his country with a deep and abiding passion. He was our greatest president between Jefferson and Lincoln.

Love of the Union and belief in the right of the people to rule had been growing in the hearts of our countrymen ever since the adoption of the Constitution. We have called these feelings nationality and democracy. The influence of Jackson did much to promote and unite them. When he became president the clashing interests of the North and the South were already beginning to check the growth of a national spirit. Jackson was devoted to the Union and did all in his power to preserve and strengthen it. All our earlier presidents had wide knowledge and thorough training in public affairs. Jackson knew little of books and was untrained except as a soldier. But he knew the common people from whom he sprang, and he