This is what Jefferson meant when he wrote to Washington as early as 1792, "The Republican party wish to preserve the Government in its present form." Now this is a very definite and fundamental distinction.It involves the political difference between government by the people and government by the representatives of the people, and the practical difference between a government by law and a government by mass-meeting.
Jefferson was a master organizer.At letter-writing, the one means of communication in those days, he was a Hercules.His pen never wearied.He soon had a compact party.It included not only most of the Anti-Federalists, but the small politicians, the tradesmen and artisans, who had worked themselves into a ridiculous frenzy over the French Revolution and who despised Washington for his noble neutrality.But more than these, Jefferson won over a number of distinguished men who had worked for the adoption of the Constitution, the ablest of whom was James Madison, often called "the Father of the Constitution."The Jeffersonians, thus representing largely the debtor and farmer class, led by men of conspicuous abilities, proceeded to batter down the prestige of the Federalists.They declared themselves opposed to large expenditures of public funds, to eager exploitation of government ventures, to the Bank, and to the Navy, which they termed "the great beast with the great belly." The Federalists included the commercial and creditor class and that fine element in American life composed of leading families with whom domination was an instinct, all led, fortunately, by a few idealists of rare intellectual attainments.
And, with the political stupidity often characteristic of their class, they stumbled from blunder to blunder.In 1800 Thomas Jefferson, who adroitly coined the mistakes of his opponents into political currency for himself, was elected President.He had received no more electoral votes than Aaron Burr, that mysterious character in our early politics, but the election was decided by the House of Representatives, where, after seven days' balloting, several Federalists, choosing what to them was the lesser of two evils, cast the deciding votes for Jefferson.When the Jeffersonians came to power, they no longer opposed federal pretensions; they now, by one of those strange veerings often found in American politics, began to give a liberal interpretation to the Constitution, while the Federalists with equal inconsistency became strict constructionists.Even Jefferson was ready to sacrifice his theory of strict construction in order to acquire the province of Louisiana.
The Jeffersonians now made several concessions to the manufacturers, and with their support linked to that of the agriculturists Jeffersonian democracy flourished without any potent opposition.The second war with England lent it a doubtful luster but the years immediately following the war restored public confidence.Trade flourished on the sea.The frontier was rapidly pushed to the Mississippi and beyond into the vast empire which Jefferson had purchased.When everyone is busy, no one cares for political issues, especially those based upon philosophical differences.So Madison and Monroe succeeded to the political regency which is known as the Virginia Dynasty.
This complacent epoch culminated in Monroe's "Era of Good Feeling," which proved to be only the hush before the tornado.
The election of 1824 was indecisive, and the House of Representatives was for a second time called upon to decide the national choice.The candidates were John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William H.Crawford.Clay threw his votes to Adams, who was elected, thereby arousing the wrath of Jackson and of the stalwart and irreconcilable frontiersmen who hailed him as their leader.The Adams term merely marked a transition from the old order to the new, from Jeffersonian to Jacksonian democracy.Then was the word Republican dropped from the party name, and Democrat became an appellation of definite and practical significance.
By this time many of the older States had removed the early restrictions upon voting, and the new States carved out of the West had written manhood suffrage into their constitutions.This new democracy flocked to its imperator; and Jackson entered his capital in triumph, followed by a motley crowd of frontiersmen in coonskin caps, farmers in butternut-dyed homespun, and hungry henchmen eager for the spoils.For Jackson had let it be known that he considered his election a mandate by the people to fill the offices with his political adherents.
