in another form? The partizans of the present Executive
sustain his favor in the most boundless extent. The Whigs are opposing
executive encroachment and a most alarming extension of executive power
and prerogative. They are contending for the rights of the people, for
free institutions, for the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws."

There soon appeared three practical issues which forced the new
alignment. The first was the Bank. The charter of the United States Bank
was about to expire, and its friends sought a renewal. Jackson
believed the Bank an enemy of the Republic, as its officers were
anti-Jacksonians, and he promptly vetoed the bill extending the charter.
The second issue was the tariff. Protection was not new; but Clay
adroitly renamed it, calling it "the American system." It was popular in
the manufacturing towns and in portions of the agricultural communities,
but was bitterly opposed by the slave-owning States.

A third issue dealt with internal improvements. All parts of the country
were feeling the need of better means of communication, especially
between the West and the East. Canals and turnpikes were projected in
every direction. Clay, whose imagination was fervid, advocated a vast
system of canals and roads financed by national aid. But the doctrine of
states-rights answered that the Federal Government had no power to enter
a State, even to spend money on improvements, without the consent of
that State. And, at all events, for Clay to espouse was for Jackson to
oppose.

These were the more important immediate issues of the conflict between
Clay's Whigs and Jackson's Democrats, though it must be acknowledged
that the personalities of the leaders were quite as much an issue as any
of the policies which they espoused. The Whigs, however, proved unequal
to the task of unhorsing their foes; and, with two exceptions,
the Democrats elected every President from Jackson to Lincoln. The
exceptions were William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, both of whom
were elected on their war records and both of whom died soon after their
inauguration. Tyler, who as Vice-President succeeded General Harrison,
soon estranged the Whigs, so that the Democratic triumph was in effect
continuous over a period of thirty years.

Meanwhile, however, another issue was shaping the destiny of parties and
of the nation. It was an issue that politicians dodged and candidates
evaded, that all parties avoided, that publicists