Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/303

Rh and that it would be safer to put into the highest places men more like themselves, not skilled statesmen, but “men of the people.”

By the time the revolutionary generation of presidents had run out, — that is to say, with the close of Monroe's second administration, — large numbers of voters in the United States had reached that state of mind. Its development was wonderfully favored by the “bargain and corruption” cry, which, after the election of Adams in 1825, represented “the people's candidate” as cheated out of his right to the presidency by a conspiracy of selfish and tricky professional politicians. As this cry was kept resounding all over the country, accompanied with stories of other dreadful encroachments and intrigues, the masses were impressed with the feeling not only that a great wrong had been done, but that some darkly lurking danger was threatening their own rights and liberties, and that nothing but the election of a man of the people, such as “the old hero,” could surely save the Republic. This was the real strength of the Jackson movement. It is a significant fact that it was weakest where there were the most schools, and that it gathered its greatest momentum where the people were least accustomed to reading and study, and therefore most apt to be swayed by unreasoning impressions.

No patronage, no machine work, could have stemmed this tide. No man endowed with all the charms of personal popularity could have turned it