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Rh opments more intelligent impulse, aid, and direction than the people would do if let alone. They felt themselves called upon to take care of the people in a larger sense, in a greater variety of ways, than did statesmen of the Democratic creed. Thus, while the Democratic party found its principal constituency among the agricultural population, including the planters in the Southern States, with all that depended upon them, and among the poorer and more ignorant people of the cities, the National Republicans, or Whigs, recruited themselves — of course not exclusively, but to a conspicuous extent — among the mercantile and industrial classes, and generally among the more educated and stirring in other walks of life. The Democratic party successfully asserting itself as the legitimate administrator of the national power, the Nationals found themselves consigned, for the larger part of the time, to the rôle of a critical opposition, always striving to get into power, but succeeding only occasionally as a temporary corrective. Whenever any members of the majority party were driven into opposition by its fierce discipline, they found a ready welcome among the Nationals, who could offer them brilliant company in an uncommon array of men of talent. The Whig party was thus admirably fitted for the business of criticism, and that criticism was directed not only against the enemy, but not seldom against itself, at the expense of harmonious coöperation. Its victories were mostly fruitless. In point of drill and dis-