Van Buren, Duff Green, W.B.  Lewis, and others.  A new era of “politics” was inaugurated, with all the then novel but now customary machinery of local clubs, partisan “campaign newspapers,” and the organized use of pledges and promises of appointments to office to reward “workers.”  This system had been efficiently perfected in New York State under Mr. Van Buren and other leaders, but now it was brought into Federal politics, and the whole country was stirred into a fever heat of party strife.

In a political storm, therefore, Jackson was elected, and commenced his memorable reign in 1829,—­John Quincy Adams retiring to his farm in disgust and wrath.  The new president was carried into office on an avalanche of Democratic voters, receiving two hundred and sixty-one electoral votes, while Adams had only eighty-three, notwithstanding his long public services and his acknowledged worth.  This was too great a disappointment for the retiring statesman to bear complacently, or even philosophically.  He gave vent to his irritated feelings in unbecoming language, exaggerating the ignorance of Jackson and his general unfitness for the high office,—­in this, however, betraying an estimate of the incoming President which was common among educated and conservative men.  I well remember at college the contempt which the president and all the professors had for the Western warrior.  It was generally believed by literary men that “Old Hickory” could scarcely write his name.

But the speeches of Jackson were always to the point, if not studied and elaborate, while his messages were certainly respectable, though rather too long.  It is generally supposed that he furnished the rough drafts to his few intimate friends, who recast and polished them, while some think that William Lewis, Amos Kendall, and others wrote the whole of them, as well as all his public papers.  In reading the early letters of Jackson, however, it is clear that they are anything but illiterate, whatever mistakes in spelling and grammatical errors there may be.  His ideas were distinct, his sentiments unmistakable; and although he was fond of a kind of spread-eagle eloquence, his views on public questions were generally just and vigorously expressed.  A Tennessee general, brought up with horse-jockeys, gamblers, and cock-fighters, and who never had even a fair common-school education, could not be expected to be very accomplished in the arts of composition, whatever talents and good sense he naturally may have had.  Certain it is that Jackson’s mind was clear and his convictions were strong upon the national policy to be pursued by him; and if he opposed banks and tariffs it was because he believed that their influence was hostile to the true interests of the country.  He doubtless well understood the issues of great public questions; only, his view of them was contrary to the views of moneyed men and bankers and the educated classes of his day generally.  It is to be remarked, however, that the views he took on questions of political economy are now endorsed by many able college professors and some American manufacturers who are leading public opinion in opposition to tariffs for protection and in the direction of free trade.