States by bargain and combination. How many more undercurrents of combination and secondary intention there may have been is left to conjecture. What then becomes of the notion of "the will of the people," as some pure and sacred emanation only to be heard and obeyed? No election produces any such pure and sacred product, but only a practical, very limited, imperfect, and approximate expression of public opinion, by which we manage to carry on public affairs. The "demos krateo principle," to use Benton's jargon, belongs in the same category with Louis Fourteenth's saying: L'état, c'est moi. One is as far removed from constitutional liberty as the other.

Let it be noted, however, that this suggestion of Benton was far more than a preposterous notion which we can set aside by a little serious discussion. He touched the portentous antagonism which is latent in the American system of the State, the antagonism between the democratic principle and the constitutional institutions. The grandest issue that can ever arise in American political life is whether, when that antagonism is developed into active conflict, the democratic principle or the constitutional institution will prevail.

Crawford went home to Georgia, disappointed, broken in health, his political career entirely ended. He recovered his health to some extent. He became a circuit judge, and gave to Calhoun, five years later, very positive evidence that he was still alive. He died in 1834.

CHAPTER V

ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION

THE presidential office underwent a great change at the election of 1824. The congressional caucus had, up to that time, proceeded on the theory that the President was to be a great national statesman, who stood at the head of his party, or among the leaders of it. There were enthusiastic rejoicings that "King Caucus" was dethroned and dead. What killed the congressional caucus was the fact that, with four men running, the adherents of three of them were sure to combine against the caucus, on account of the advantage which it would give to the one who was expected to get its nomination. However, it was a great error to say that King Caucus was dead. Looking back on it now, we see that the caucus had only burst the bonds of the chrysalis state and entered on a new stage of life and growth.

Jackson was fully recognized as the coming man, There was no fighting against his popularity. The shrewdest politician was he who should seize upon that popularity as an available force, and prove capable of controlling it for his purposes. Van Buren proved himself to be the man for this func

The "era of good feel

tion. He usurped the position of Jackson leader in New York, which seemed by priority to belong to Clinton. He and the other Crawford leaders had had a hard task to run a man who seemed to be physically incapacitated for the duties of the presidency, but when Crawford's health broke down it was too late for them to change the whole plan of their campaign. After the election they joined the Jackson party. ing" had brought into politics a large number of men,1 products of the continually advancing political activity amongst the less educated classes, who were eager for notoriety and spoils, for genteel living without work, and for public position. These men were ready to be the janizaries of any party which would pay well. They all joined the opposition, because they had nothing to expect from the administration. All the factions except the Adams faction, that is to say, all the federalists and all the non-Adams personal factions of the old republican party, went into opposition. These elements were very incoherent in their political creeds and their political codes, but they made common cause.2 They organized at once an opposition of the most violent and factious kind. Long before any political questions arose, they developed a determination to oppose to the last whatever the administration should favor. They fought for four years to make

1 3 Ann. Reg. 10.

2 The new groupings caused intense astonishment to simple minded observers. See 32 Niles, 339.

capital for the next election, as the chief business of Congress. John Randolph, who by long practice had become a virtuoso in abuse, exhausted his powers in long tirades of sarcasm and sensational denunciations, chiefly against Clay. The style

of smartness which he was practising reached its climax when he called the administration an alliance of Blifil and Black George, the Puritan and the Black-leg. He and Clay fought a duel, on which occasion, however, Randolph fired in the air. After Jackson's election, Randolph was given the mission to Russia, and was guilty of a number of the abuses which he had scourged most freely in others. He had to endure hostile criticism, as a matter of course, and he learned the misery of a public man forced to make "explanations" under malignant charges. He proved to be as thinskinned as most men of his stamp are when their turn comes.1

Van Buren initiated the opposition into the methods and doctrines of New York politics. Ever since the republicans wrested that State from the federalists, in 1800, they had been working out the methods of organization by which an oligarchy of a half dozen leaders could, under the forms of democratic-republican self-government, control the State. As soon as the federalists were defeated, the republicans broke up into factions. Each faction, when it gained power, proscribed the others. Until 1821 the patronage, which was the cohesive

1 2 Garland's Randolph, 339.

material by which party organization was cemented, was in the hands of a "council" at Albany. After 1821 the patronage, by way of reform, was converted into elective offices. It then became necessary to devise a new system adapted to this new arrangement, and all the arts by which the results of primaries, conventions, committees, and caucuses, while following all the forms of spontaneous action, can be made to conform to the programme of the oligarchy or the Boss, were speedily developed. If now the presidency was no longer to be the crown of public service, and the prize of a very limited number of statesmen of national reputation, if it was conceivable that an Indian fighter like Jackson could come within the range of choice, -then the presidency must be ever after the position reserved for popular heroes, or, in the absence of such, for "available" men, as the figure-heads with and around whom a faction of party leaders could come to power. King Caucus was not dead, then. He had lost a town and gained an empire. It remained to develop and extend over the whole country an organization of which the public service should constitute the network. There would be agents everywhere to receive and execute orders, to keep watch, and to make reports. The central authority would dispose of the whole as a general disposes of his army. The general of the "outs" would recruit his forces from those who hoped for places when the opposition should come in. As there were two or three "outs" who wanted each