hat one of the leading articles
in the American popular creed has tended to impair American moral and
intellectual integrity. If the man with special standards and a special
vocation interfered with democratic consistency of feeling, it was
chiefly because this consistency of feeling had been obtained at too
great a sacrifice--at the sacrifice of a higher to a lower type of
individuality. In all civilized communities the great individualizing
force is the resolute, efficient, and intense pursuit of special ideals,
standards, and occupations; and the country which discourages such
pursuits must necessarily put up with an inferior quality and a less
varied assortment of desirable individual types. But whatever the loss
our country has been and is suffering from this cause, our popular
philosophers welcome rather than deplore it. We adapt our ideals of
individuality to its local examples. When orators of the Jacksonian
Democratic tradition begin to glorify the superlative individuals
developed by the freedom of American life, what they mean by
individuality is an unusual amount of individual energy successfully
spent in popular and remunerative occupations. Of the individuality
which may reside in the gallant and exclusive devotion to some
disinterested, and perhaps unpopular moral, intellectual, or technical
purpose, they have not the remotest conception; and yet it is this kind
of individuality which is indispensable to the fullness and intensity of
American national life.

III

THE WHIG FAILURE

The Jacksonian Democrats were not, of course, absolutely dominant during
the Middle Period of American history. They were persistently, and on a
few occasions successfully, opposed by the Whigs. The latter naturally
represented the political, social, and economic ideas which the
Democrats under-valued or disparaged. They were strong in those Northern
and border states, which had reached a higher stage of economic and
social development, and which contained the mansions of contemporary
American culture, wealth, and intelligence. It is a significant fact
that the majority of Americans of intelligence during the Jacksonian
epoch were opponents of Jackson, just as the majority of educated
Americans of intelligence have always protested against the national
political irresponsibility and the social equalitarianism characteristic
of our democratic tradition; but unfortunately they have always failed
to make their protests effect