l interests under
words of national import. Jackson, who in theory was the servant and
mouthpiece of his followers, played the part of a genuine leader in his
campaign against the National Bank; while the Whigs, who should have
been able to look ahead and educate their fellow-countrymen up to the
level of their presumably better insight, straggled along in the rear of
the procession.

The truth is that the Democrats, under the lead of Jackson, were
temporarily the national party, although they used their genuinely
national standing to impose in certain respects a group of anti-national
ideas on their country. The Whigs, on the other hand, national as they
might be in ideas and aspirations, were in effect not much better than a
faction. Finding that they could not rally behind their ideas an
effective popular following, they were obliged to seek support, partly
at the hands of special interests and partly by means of the sacrifice
of their convictions. Under their guidance the national policy became a
policy of conciliation and compromise at any cost, and the national idea
was deprived of consistency and dignity. It became equivalent to a
hodge-podge of policies and purposes, the incompatibility of whose
ingredients was concealed behind a smooth crust of constitutional
legality and popular acquiescence. The national idea and interest, that
is, was not merely disarmed and ignored, as it had been by Jefferson. It
was mutilated and distorted in obedience to an erroneous democratic
theory; and its friends, the Whigs, deluded themselves with the belief
that in draining the national idea of its vitality they were prolonging
its life. But if its life was saved, its safety was chiefly due to its
ostensible enemies. While the Whigs were less national in feeling and
purpose than their ideas demanded, the Democrats were more national than
they knew. From 1830 to 1850 American nationality was being attenuated
as a conscious idea, but the great unconscious forces of American life
were working powerfully and decisively in its favor.

Most assuredly the failure of the Whigs is susceptible of abundant
explanation. Prevailing conditions were inimical to men whose strength
lay more in their intelligence than in their will. It was a period of
big phrases, of personal motives and altercations, of intellectual
attenuation, and of narrow, moral commonplaces,--all of which made it
very difficult for any statesman to see beyond his nose, or in