Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/170

158 It is a matter of common pride. It lives in the imagination of the people. That imagination is apt to attribute to the hero of such a victory an abundance of other good qualities. His failings are judged with leniency. To many it appears almost sacrilegious to think that a man who has rendered his country service so valuable in the crisis of war should ever be able to act upon any but the most patriotic motives. It will require an extraordinary degree of wrong-doing on his part to make suspicion and criticism with regard to him acceptable to the popular mind; and even then he is apt to be easily forgiven.

General Jackson enjoyed this advantage in the highest degree. He had given the American people a brilliant victory when it was most needed to soothe the popular pride. Would he disgrace and endanger the Republic after having so magnificently fought for it? To convince the people, and to make Congress declare, that he had done so, would have required a very calm and careful presentation of the case, moving from point to point of the allegation, and proving every position with evidence so conclusive as to extort a verdict of guilty from ever so unwilling a jury. Even then the result would not have been certain. But any argument not absolutely irrefutable; any arraignment having in it the smallest flaw; any appeal proceeding in the slightest degree upon a mere assumption of fact, was sure to be drowned by a cry far more powerful than any oratorical declamation,