ed her State Church in 1818 and extended the
electoral franchise to all who enrolled in the militia. Vermont, New
Hampshire, and Maine were border States and distinctly Western in their
ideals, though they were in no way inclined to desert the New England
leader. Massachusetts, the great State of the East, held firmly to her
conservative moorings. In the constitutional convention of 1820 the
liberals had failed at every point. Webster and Story had defeated the
proposition for abolishing the property qualification for membership in
the State Senate; and the more radical plan for overthrowing the
established Congregational Church, the bulwark of steady habits in
Massachusetts, was similarly voted down. Webster, like Randolph, of
Virginia, and Rhett, of South Carolina, urged that property should rule
in every well-ordered community, and what Webster, Randolph, and Rhett
urged, their respective States adopted. Even more reactionary was little
Rhode Island, where privilege and inequality were as firmly intrenched
as anywhere else in the country. The suffrage was limited to freeholders
and representation was denied the majority of the people. The control of
governor, legislature, and courts was in the hands of the minority. In
1821, 1822, and 1824 leaders of the majority endeavored to secure
reforms, but without success.

From Augusta, Maine, to Baltimore stretched the long strip of country
which could be relied on to vote for John Quincy Adams and to sustain
conservative ideals in government. Western New York was also inclined to
Adams, and Clay was confident that he could carry Ohio and Kentucky, the
conservative communities of the West, for his ally. In the main the men
who supported the Administration were those who feared the rough ways of
plain men, the ideals of equality and popular initiative so dear to the
American heart.

The managers of Jackson's campaign were members of the United States
Senate. Calhoun sat in the Vice-President's chair; Van Buren was the
leader of the Middle States group of the opposition; John Randolph was
there and ever ready to turn his wonderful gifts of ridicule and sarcasm
against the Puritan who sat in the "Mansion" and "wasted the money of
the people"; Nathaniel Macon, one of the most popular of all the
Senators, opposed the second Adams as earnestly as he had fought the
first; George Poindexter, of Mississippi, was one of the most powerful
politicians of the cotton kingdom, and he show