PREFACE TO THE ANNIVERSARY EDITION
This is the hundredth anniversary of the memorable campaign which marked the rising of the people and the election of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency, and it has been thought appropriate to issue an Anniversary edition of “Party Battles of the Jackson Period” uniform with “Jefferson and Hamilton.”
It has not been thought necessary to change the text of the first edition materially. The passing of the century has brought a fairer appraisement of Jackson’s character and career, but he remains, and ever must, a subject of controversy, because he was a crusader for certain fundamentals of government on which men divide honestly. His civic integrity, his flaming patriotism, and his robust Americanism are beyond all controversy, and men of all political persuasions do homage to his memory.
With a world-wide movement against democracy to-day, and with striking manifestations of its existence here, it is well for Americans to ponder the lessons of the struggle for its preservation by Jackson and the masses whom he led with such superb courage and consummate ability. There is little being urged against it now that was not heard during the period of his leadership. It had never been in more deadly danger than when he met its enemies in bitter battle. And now, after a hundred years, there are indications that the battle he fought successfully must be fought again, if the elemental ideas he stood for are to survive in governmental practice.
In some of the reviews of the first edition it was suggested that I had been “hard on John Quincy Adams.” A careful reading convinces me that the conclusion is not justified. Such was not my intention or desire. Though often petty in small things, he was always heroic in big things, and these determine the character of a public man. In the chapters on the French quarrel I have sought to show him at his best, sinking his partisanship in his Americanism, and subordinating his personal prejudices to his patriotism.
Claude G. Bowers
March 16, 1928
PREFACE
It is the purpose of the author to deal, more minutely than is possible in a general history or biography, with the brilliant, dramatic, and epochal party battles and the fascinating personalities of the eight years of Andrew Jackson’s Administrations. From the foundation of the Republic to the last two years of the Wilson Administration, the Nation has never known such party acrimony; nor has there been a period when the contending party organizations have been led by such extraordinary politicians and orators. It was, in a large sense, the beginning of party government as we have come to understand it. It was not until the Jacksonian epoch that we became a democracy in fact. The selection of Presidents then passed from the caucus of the politicians in the capital to the plain people of the factories, fields, and marts. The enfranchisement of thousands of the poor, previously excluded from the franchise, and the advent of the practical organization politicians, wrought the change. Our government, as never before, became one of parties, with well-defined, antagonistic principles and policies. Party discipline and continuous propaganda became recognized essentials to party success.