for a livelihood. Four of them had been
slaveholders. Jefferson was a philosopher, learned in natural science, a
master of foreign languages, a gentleman of dignity and grace of manner,
notwithstanding his studied simplicity. Madison, it was said, was armed
"with all the culture of his century." Monroe was a graduate of William
and Mary, a gentleman of the old school. Jefferson and his three
successors called themselves Republicans and professed a genuine faith
in the people but they were not "of the people" themselves; they were
not sons of the soil or the workshop. They were all men of "the grand
old order of society" who gave finish and style even to popular
government.

Monroe was the last of the Presidents belonging to the heroic epoch of
the Revolution. He had served in the war for independence, in the
Congress under the Articles of Confederation, and in official capacity
after the adoption of the Constitution. In short, he was of the age that
had wrought American independence and set the government afloat. With
his passing, leadership went to a new generation; but his successor,
John Quincy Adams, formed a bridge between the old and the new in that
he combined a high degree of culture with democratic sympathies.
Washington had died in 1799, preceded but a few months by Patrick Henry
and followed in four years by Samuel Adams. Hamilton had been killed in
a duel with Burr in 1804. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were yet alive
in 1824 but they were soon to pass from the scene, reconciled at last,
full of years and honors. Madison was in dignified retirement, destined
to live long enough to protest against the doctrine of nullification
proclaimed by South Carolina before death carried him away at the ripe
old age of eighty-five.

=The Election of John Quincy Adams (1824).=--The campaign of 1824 marked
the end of the "era of good feeling" inaugurated by the collapse of the
Federalist party after the election of 1816. There were four leading
candidates, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and W.H.
Crawford. The result of the election was a division of the electoral
votes into four parts and no one received a majority. Under the
Constitution, therefore, the selection of President passed to the House
of Representatives. Clay, who stood at the bottom of the poll, threw his
weight to Adams and assured his triumph, much to the chagrin of
Jackson's friends. They thought, with a certain justification, that
inas