hout any potent opposition. The second war with
England lent it a doubtful luster but the years immediately following
the war restored public confidence. Trade flourished on the sea. The
frontier was rapidly pushed to the Mississippi and beyond into the vast
empire which Jefferson had purchased. When everyone is busy, no one
cares for political issues, especially those based upon philosophical
differences. So Madison and Monroe succeeded to the political regency
which is known as the Virginia Dynasty.

This complacent epoch culminated in Monroe's "Era of Good Feeling,"
which proved to be only the hush before the tornado. The election of
1824 was indecisive, and the House of Representatives was for a second
time called upon to decide the national choice. The candidates were John
Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William H. Crawford. Clay
threw his votes to Adams, who was elected, thereby arousing the wrath of
Jackson and of the stalwart and irreconcilable frontiersmen who hailed
him as their leader. The Adams term merely marked a transition from the
old order to the new, from Jeffersonian to Jacksonian democracy. Then
was the word Republican dropped from the party name, and Democrat became
an appellation of definite and practical significance.

By this time many of the older States had removed the early restrictions
upon voting, and the new States carved out of the West had written
manhood suffrage into their constitutions. This new democracy flocked to
its imperator; and Jackson entered his capital in triumph, followed by a
motley crowd of frontiersmen in coonskin caps, farmers in butternut-dyed
homespun, and hungry henchmen eager for the spoils. For Jackson had let
it be known that he considered his election a mandate by the people to
fill the offices with his political adherents.

So the Democrats began their new lease of life with an orgy of spoils.
"Anybody is good enough for any job" was the favorite watchword.
But underneath this turmoil of desire for office, significant party
differences were shaping themselves. Henry Clay, the alluring orator
and master of compromise, brought together a coalition of opposing
fragments. He and his following objected to Jackson's assumption of vast
executive prerogatives, and in a brilliant speech in the Senate Clay
espoused the name Whig. Having explained the origin of the term in
English and colonial politics, he cried: "And what is the present but
the same contest