y States,
his only remark was that Isaac Hill, considering the odds against him,
had done wonders in New Hampshire!"

When, two weeks later, the final returns were received, leading
Tenneseeans decided to give a reception, banquet, and ball which would
outshine any social occasion in the annals of the Southwest. Just as
arrangements were completed, however, Mrs. Jackson, who had long been
in failing health, suffered an attack of heart trouble; and at the
very hour when the General was to have been received, amid all the
trappings of civil and military splendor, with the huzzas of his
neighbors, friends, and admirers, he was sitting tearless, speechless,
and almost expressionless by the corpse of his life companion. Long
after the beloved one had been laid to rest in the Hermitage garden
amid the rosebushes she had planted, the President-elect continued as
one benumbed. He never gave up the idea that his wife had been killed
by worry over the attacks made upon him and upon her by the Adams
newspapers--that, as he expressed it, she was "murdered by slanders
that pierced her heart." Only under continued prodding from Lewis and
other friends did he recall himself to his great task and set about
preparing for the arduous winter journey to Washington, composing his
inaugural address, selecting his Cabinet, and laying plans for the
reorganization of the federal Civil Service on lines already
definitely in his mind.

CHAPTER VI

THE "REIGN" BEGINS

Jackson's election to the presidency in 1828 was correctly described
by Senator Benton as "a triumph of democratic principle, and an
assertion of the people's right to govern themselves." Jefferson in
his day was a candidate of the masses, and his triumph over John Adams
in 1800 was received with great public acclaim. Yet the Virginian was
at best an aristocratic sort of democrat; he was never in the fullest
sense a man of the people. Neither Madison nor Monroe inspired
enthusiasm, and for John Quincy Adams even New Englanders voted, as
Ezekiel Webster confessed, from a cold sense of duty. Jackson was, as
no President before him, the choice of the masses. His popular vote in
1824 revealed not only his personal popularity but the growing power
of the democratic elements in the nation, and his defeat in the House
of Representatives only strengthened his own and the people's
determination to be finally victorious. The untrained, self-willed,
passionate frontier soldier cam