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§ 518]

ELECTION OF 1824

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the members. Legislatures in the New England States nominated John Quincy Adams; and in like fashion, Clay was nominated by Kentucky and Missouri, and Andrew Jackson by Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

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Jackson's candidacy was a surprise and an offense to the other statesmen of the period. He was a 66 military hero," and, to their eyes at that time, nothing more. Never before

had a man been a candidate for that office without long and distinguished political service behind him.

518. The campaign was marked by bitter personalities.

66

Adams, whose forbidding manners kept him aloof from the multitude, was derided as an aristocrat, while Jackson was applauded as a man of the people." Jackson had 99 votes ; Adams, 84; Crawford, 41; Clay, 37. According to the Twelfth amendment, the House of Representatives chose between the three highest; and Adams became President, through votes thrown to him by Clay. Adams afterward appointed Clay his Secretary of State; and friends of Jackson complained bitterly that the "will of the people" had been thwarted by a "corrupt coalition between Puritan and blackleg."

2

519. Adams was thwarted at every turn throughout his four years, and the Jackson men began at once the campaign for the next election. The President's inaugural announced internal improvements as a leading policy in opposition to the vetoes of Madison and Monroe, and his first Message urged Congress to multiply roads, found a National University, and build an astronomical observatory" a lighthouse of the skies." But by this time, many States had begun roads and canals of their own, and had no wish to help pay for competing lines elsewhere; so Congress had become lukewarm even on this matter.

520. The President's position, however, helped on the formation of new political parties. Supporters of Adams and Clay, standing for internal improvements and protection, took the name of National Republicans, to indicate their belief in a strong Central government. The Jackson cry had been, "Let the people rule." To them, the campaign of 1828 was a protest against the undemocratic "usurpation" of 1824. Accordingly they took the name Democratic, Republicans,3 or, a little later,

1 It was thought, unjustly, that Adams and Clay had bargained. The quoted phrase was John Randolph's. Clay challenged Randolph, and a duel was fought without injury to any one. Honor thus appeased, pleasant social rela

tions were restored between the two.

2 In 1807 Adams had moved the resolution in Congress that called out Gallatin's Report (§ 456).

3 To indicate their claim also to be the true successors of Jefferson's "Republican party."

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merely Democrats. In opposition to the Broad Construction platform of their opponents, they soon became a "Strict Construction" party; but they won the election of 1828 before this question came to the front.

Before studying Jackson's administration, we must look at the New America of 1830.

PART IX

A NEW DEMOCRACY, 1830-1850

CHAPTER XLVII

THE AMERICA OF 1830-1850

521. The North Atlantic section was turning to manufacturing. New England used the water power of her rivers for cotton, woolen, and paper mills, building up a new line of towns (the Fall line) at Lowell, Manchester, Lawrence, Holyoke, Fall River, and so on. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York got like results by using "stone coal" from the Pennsylvania mines, which were now accessible cheaply by the Pennsylvania canal system (§ 496).

In 1830 America still had only 32 cities with more than 8000 people; but all but four of these were in this manufacturing region. The population of the new factory towns came at first from the old farming class, drawn in from the country by the lure of companionship and cash wages. But in the thirties these workers began to be replaced by immigrants fresh from the Old World.

522. The South had become stationary in industry. Slave labor was unfit for manufactures; so the water power and mineral resources of that district went unused for forty years more. The leading industry remained tobacco and cotton raising.

Southern society, too, remained stratified along the old lines. (1) At the top were some 6000 families (25,000 or 30,000 people) of large planters, with numerous slaves, sometimes a thousand to one owner. This aristocracy furnished the South's

§ 523]

NORTH, SOUTH, AND WEST

443

representation in the National government and almost all the higher State officials. (2) A hundred and thirty thousand families (650,000 people) owned perhaps from one to four slaves each. These small slaveholders, with about as many more non-slaveholding but well-to-do farmers, made up the yeomanry of the South, from whom were to come her famous soldiery. This class often differed from the aristocracy in political motives and aims; but it lacked leaders, and it had no organization from State to State. (3) The "poor Whites," without other property than a miserable cabin and a rough clearing, outnumbered the yeomanry two to one.1 This class made the political following of the rich planters. (4) The 180,000 free Negroes were hedged in by many vexing laws, and had, of course, no political rights. They could not serve on juries; nor were they allowed to move from place to place at will, or to receive any education.2 (5) The 2,000,000 slaves made about half the whole population.

523. The Mississippi valley gave two more States to the Union in the decade after 1830: Arkansas in 1836, and Michigan in 1837. The West continued to grow more than twice as fast as the rest of the country (cf. § 498). Between 1830 and 1840, Ohio increased 70 per cent; Indiana and Alabama, 100 per cent; Illinois and Mississippi trebled their numbers; Michigan multiplied her 32,000 by seven.

In 1835 a line of steamboats began to ply regularly between Buffalo (at the end of the Erie Canal) and Chicago. Now for the first time, New England had a fit road to the West. Her sons quickly colonized southern Michigan and northern Indiana and Illinois (cf. §§ 499, 500), and a little later they made the leading element in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota.

In 1830 Chicago and Milwaukee were still mere fur-trading stations. Pittsburg, with its 12,000 people, was growing dingy with coal smoke from its iron mills. Cincinnati (" Porkopolis "),

1 These two classes are often confused.

2 There were nearly as many more free Negroes in the "Negro quarters " of Northern cities.

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