Rhode Island, and
was led by some of the most distinguished men and aspiring politicians
of the time[1].

[Footnote 1: Stanwood's _Presidential Elections_, Chap. 18]

%332. The Election of Jackson.%--When the presidential election
occurred in 1828, there were thus three parties,--the "Jackson men," the
"Administration," and the Antimasonic. But politics had very little to
do with the result. In the early days of the republic, the mass of men
were ignorant and uneducated, and willingly submitted to be led by men
of education and what was called breeding. From Washington down to John
Quincy Adams, the presidents were from the aristocratic class. They were
not men of the people. But in course of time a great change had come
over the mass of Americans. Their prosperity, their energy in developing
the country, had made them self-reliant, and impatient of all claims of
superiority. One man was now no better than another, and the cry arose
all over the country for a President who was "a man of the people."
Jackson was just such a man, and it was because he was "a man of the
people" that he was elected. Of 261 electoral votes he received 178,
and Adams 83.

%333. The North and the South Two Different Peoples.%--Before
entering on Jackson's administration, it is necessary to call attention
to the effect produced on our country by the industrial revolution
discussed in Chaps. 19 and 22. In the first place, it produced two
distinct and utterly different peoples: the one in the North and the
other in the South. In the North, where there were no great
plantations, no great farms, and where the labor was free, the marvelous
inventions, discoveries, and improvements mentioned were eagerly seized
on and used. There cities grew up, manufactures nourished, canals were
dug, railroads were built, and industries of every sort established.
Some towns, as Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, Cohoes, Paterson,
Newark, and Pittsburg, were almost entirely given up to mills and
factories. No such towns existed in the South. In the South men lived on
plantations, raised cotton, tobacco, and rice, owned slaves, built few
large towns, cared nothing for internal improvements, and established no
industries of any sort.

This difference of occupation led of course to difference of interests
and opinions, so that on three matters--the extension of slavery,
internal improvements, and tariff for protection--the North and the
South were opposed to each