Page:Forgotten Man and Other Essays.djvu/365

 party names were Jackson and Anti-Jackson, and candidates were so designated down to the lowest town officers. The Whigs protested in vain against the folly of this. They argued with men who would not argue, and assumed the force of motives the powerlessness of which was proved by the fact that men could profess such personal political allegiance. They did not truly appreciate the democracy in which they lived. They suffered themselves to be isolated as a body and they lost the proper conservative power of an opposition by failing to go with the sentiment of the vast energetic, growing (if you choose to call it so), vulgar democracy. It is a danger which always besets the conservative party here, whose members will always be a minority, and will always find much to offend their refinement in a new community like this. They will always be tempted to withdraw from contact with it and to gratify their vanity at the expense of all public influence.

The consequence of the issue as it was made in 1832 was that Jackson got 219 and Clay 49 votes in the Electoral College. Things now entered on a new stage. The lower class which I have hitherto endeavored to characterize fairly, but without timidity, now took on the character of a genuine proletariat. It has been only at few periods that any development of the lowest sections of our population has produced what could properly be called by that name. The period of Jackson's second administration was the most marked of these. In the large cities trades-unions arose, and in certain sections agrarian doctrines were advocated, while there was a general dissemination of socialistic notions. In 1836 there were formal riots and public disturbances of lesser grade. Partly this was due to the arrogance of class success, partly to the flattery of demagogues, and partly to industrial changes and to currency disturbances which are to be mentioned in a moment.