d by democratically minded gentlemen.
The dreams of an aristocratic republic, which had been the half-avowed
objective of Hamilton, were dissipated for ever by the Democratic
triumph of 1800. The party which had become identified with such ideas
was dead; no politician any longer dared to call himself a Federalist.
The dogmas of the Declaration of Independence were everywhere recognized
as the foundation of the State, recognized and translated into practice
in that government was by consent, and in the main faithfully reflected
the general will. But the administration, in the higher branches at
least, was exclusively in the hands of gentlemen.

When a word is popularly used in more than one sense, the best course is
perhaps to define clearly the sense in which one uses it, and then to
use it unvaryingly in that sense. The word "gentleman," then, will here
always be used in its strictly impartial class significance without
thought of association with the idea of "Good man" or "Quietly conducted
person," and without any more intention of compliment than if one said
"peasant" or "mechanic." A gentleman is one who has that kind of culture
and habit of life which usually go with some measure of inheritance in
wealth and status. That, at any rate, is what is meant when it is here
said that Jefferson and his immediate successors were gentlemen, while
the growing impulses to which they appealed and on which they relied
came from men who were not gentlemen.

This peculiar position endured because the intense sincerity and
single-mindedness of Jefferson's democracy impressed the populace and
made them accept him as their natural leader, while his status as a
well-bred Virginian squire, like Washington, veiled the revolution that
was really taking place. The mantle of his prestige was large enough to
cover not only his friend Madison, but Madison's successor Monroe. But
at that point the direct inheritance failed. Among Monroe's possible
successors there was no one plainly marked out as the heir of the
Jeffersonian tradition. Thus--though no American public man saw it at
the time--America had come to a most important parting of the ways. The
Virginian dynasty had failed; the chief power in the Federation must now
either be scrambled for by the politicians or assumed by the people.

Among the politicians who must be considered in the running for the
presidency, the ablest was Henry Clay of Kentucky. He was the greatest
parliament