l-minded with strong prejudices.

Perhaps the most marked thing in the political history of that
administration was the strife for the next presidency, and the beginning
of that angry and bitter conflict between politicians which had no
cessation until the Civil War. The sessions of Congress were occupied
in the manufacture of political capital; for a cloud had arisen in the
political heavens, portending storms and animosities, and the discussion
of important subjects of national scope, such as had not agitated the
country before,--pertaining to finances, to tariffs, to constitutional
limitations, to retrenchments, and innovations. There arose new
political parties, or rather a great movement, extending to every town
and hamlet, to give a new impetus to the Democratic sway. The leaders in
this movement were the great antagonists of Clay and Webster,--a new
class of politicians, like Benton, Amos Kendall, Martin Van Buren, Duff
Green, W.B. Lewis, and others. A new era of "politics" was inaugurated,
with all the then novel but now customary machinery of local clubs,
partisan "campaign newspapers," and the organized use of pledges and
promises of appointments to office to reward "workers." This system had
been efficiently perfected in New York State under Mr. Van Buren and
other leaders, but now it was brought into Federal politics, and the
whole country was stirred into a fever heat of party strife.

In a political storm, therefore, Jackson was elected, and commenced his
memorable reign in 1829,--John Quincy Adams retiring to his farm in
disgust and wrath. The new president was carried into office on an
avalanche of Democratic voters, receiving two hundred and sixty-one
electoral votes, while Adams had only eighty-three, notwithstanding his
long public services and his acknowledged worth. This was too great a
disappointment for the retiring statesman to bear complacently, or even
philosophically. He gave vent to his irritated feelings in unbecoming
language, exaggerating the ignorance of Jackson and his general
unfitness for the high office,--in this, however, betraying an estimate
of the incoming President which was common among educated and
conservative men. I well remember at college the contempt which the
president and all the professors had for the Western warrior. It was
generally believed by literary men that "Old Hickory" could scarcely
write his name.

But the speeches of Jackson were always to the point, if no