Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/343

Rh fellow-citizens, it would seem, do not perceive the dangers which I apprehend from the example.” He also mentioned the “wanton, unprovoked, and unatoned injustice” which General Jackson had done him. Nevertheless, Jackson was now President, and his acts were to be discussed with decorum, and judged with candor.

Clay was mistaken if he thought that the well-used refrain about the military chieftain raised to the presidency without any of the statesman's qualifications, would still produce any effect upon the masses of the American people. They felt, at that period, exceedingly prosperous and hopeful. The improved means of communication — all the accessible inland waters being covered with steamboats — had greatly promoted the material progress of the country. Railroad building had just begun, and opened a vast prospect of further development. In the public mind there was little anxiety and plenty of gorgeous expectation. Under such circumstances the generality of people did not feel the necessity of being taken care of by trained statesmanship. On the contrary, the only alarm of the time — and that an artificial and groundless one — had been that the trained statesmen were in corrupt combination to curtail in some way the people's rights, from which danger the election of General Jackson was supposed to have saved them. The masses saw in him a man who thought as they thought, who talked as they talked, who was believed to be rather fond of treading on the toes of