ead of Tracy, fell by the way, but
practically all the people who made up the anti-masonic and National
Republican forces continued to act together.

Several events of the year aided the opposition party. The hostility
of the Jackson leaders to internal improvements aroused former
Clintonians who believed in canals, and the widespread financial
embarrassment alarmed commercial and mercantile interests. They
resented the remark of the President that "men who trade on borrowed
capital ought to fail," and the bold denial that "any pressure existed
which an honest man should regret." Business men, cramped for money,
or already bankrupt because the United States Bank, stripped of its
government deposits, had curtailed its discounts, did not listen with
patience or amiability to statements of such a character; nor were
they inclined to excuse the President's action on the theory that the
United States Bank had cut down its loans to produce a panic, and thus
force a reversal of his policy. To them such utterances seemed to
evince a want of sympathy, and opposition orators and journals took
advantage of the situation by eloquently denouncing a policy that
embarrassed commerce and manufactures, throwing people out of
employment and bringing suffering and want to the masses.

The New York municipal election in the spring of 1834 plainly showed
that the voters resented the President's financial policy. For the
first time in the history of the city, the people were to elect their
mayor, and, although purely a local contest, it turned upon national
issues. All the elements of opposition now used the one name of
"Whig." Until this time local organisations had adopted various
titles, such as "Anti-Jackson," "Anti-Mortgage," and "Anti-Regency;"
but the opponents of Jackson now claimed to be the true successors of
the Whigs of 1776, calling their movement a revolution against the
tyranny and usurpation of "King Andrew." They raised liberty poles,
spoke of their opponents as Tories, and appropriated as emblems the
national flag and portraits of Washington.

The prospects of the new party brightened, too, when it nominated for
mayor Gulian C. Verplanck, a member of Tammany Hall, a distinguished
congressman of eight years' service, and, until then, a representative
of the Jackson party, highly esteemed and justly popular. Although
best known, perhaps, as a scholar and writer, Verplanck's active
sympathies early led him into politics. He