rs, was
an anachronism in a state governed in the spirit of Jeffersonian
Democratic principles. It was better for the Jacksonian Democrats to
sacrifice what they believed to be an obnoxious precedent to their
principles than to sacrifice their principles to mere precedent. If in
so doing they were making a mistake, that was because their principles
were wrong. The benefit which they were temporarily conferring on
themselves, as a class in the community, was sanctioned by the letter
and the spirit of their creed.

Closely connected with their perverted ideas and their narrow view of
life, we may discern a leaven of new and useful democratic experience.
The new and useful experience which they contributed to our national
stock was that of homogeneous social intercourse. I have already
remarked that the Western pioneers were the first large body of
Americans who were genuinely national in feeling. They were also the
first large body of Americans who were genuinely democratic in feeling.
Consequently they imparted a certain emotional consistency to the
American democracy, and they thereby performed a social service which
was in its way quite as valuable as their political service. Democracy
has always been stronger as a political than it has as a social force.
When adopted as a political ideal of the American people, it was very
far from possessing any effective social vitality; and until the present
day it has been a much more active force in political than in social
life. But whatever traditional social force it has obtained, can be
traced directly to the Western pioneer Democrat. His democracy was based
on genuine good-fellowship. Unlike the French Fraternity, it was the
product neither of abstract theories nor of a disembodied
humanitarianism. It was the natural issue of their interests, their
occupations, and their manner of life. They felt kindly towards one
another and communicated freely with one another because they were not
divided by radical differences in class, standards, point of view, and
wealth. The social aspect of their democracy may, in fact, be compared
to the sense of good-fellowship which pervades the rooms of a properly
constituted club.

Their community of feeling and their ease of communication had come
about as the result of pioneer life in a self-governing community. The
Western Americans were confronted by a gigantic task of overwhelming
practical importance,--the task of subduing to the needs