as seldom that he
enjoyed or used an opportunity of gaining the cheap admiration or
shallow friendship of the multitude.

At least one moral to be drawn from the story of Mr. Adams's
Presidency perhaps deserves rather to be called an _immoral_, and
certainly furnishes unwelcome support to those persons who believe
that conscientiousness is out of place in politics. It has been said
that no sooner was General Jackson fairly defeated than he was again
before the people as a candidate for the next election. An opposition
to the new Administration was in process of formation actually before
there had been time for that Administration to declare, much less (p. 196)
to carry out, any policy or even any measure. The opposition was
therefore not one of principle; it was not dislike of anything done or
to be done; it did not pretend to have a purpose of saving the people
from blunders or of offering them greater advantages. It was simply an
opposition, or more properly an hostility, to the President and his
Cabinet, and was conducted by persons who wished in as short a time as
possible themselves to control and fill those positions. The sole
ground upon which these opponents stood was, that they would rather
have General Jackson at the head of affairs than Mr. Adams. The issue
was purely personal; it was so when the opposition first developed,
and it remained so until that opposition triumphed.

Under no circumstances can it be more excusable for an elective
magistrate to seek personal good will towards himself than when his
rival seeks to supplant him simply on the basis of enjoying a greater
measure of such good will. Had any important question of policy been
dividing the people, it would have been easy for a man of less moral
courage and independence than belonged to Mr. Adams to select the side
which he thought right, and to await the outcome at least with
constancy. But the only real question raised was this: will Mr. Adams
or General Jackson--two individuals representing as yet no (p. 197)
antagonistic policies--be preferred by the greater number of voters in
1829? If, however, there was no great apparent issue open between
these two men, at least there was a very wide difference between their
characters, a point of some consequence in a wholly personal
competition. It is easy enough now to see how this gaping difference
displayed itself from the beginning, and how the advantage for winning
was throughout wholly