Henry Clay declared that it was a just principle to inquire what
great interests belong to each section of our country, and to promote
those interests, as far as practicable, consistently with the Constitution,
having always an eye to the welfare of the whole. "Assuming this
principle," said he, "does any one doubt that if New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the Western States constituted
an independent nation, it would immediately protect the important
interests in question? And is it not to be feared that, if protection is not
to be found for vital interests, from the existing systems, in great parts
of the confederacy, those parts will ultimately seek to establish a
system that will afford the requisite protection?" [Footnote: Clay,
Works, IV., 81, 82; Annals of Cong., 18 Cong., 1 Sess., II., 1997,
2423.]
While the most prominent western statesman thus expressed his
conviction that national affairs were to be conducted through
combinations between sections on the basis of peculiar interests,
Calhoun, at first a nationalist, later the leader of the south, changed his
policy to a similar system of adjustments between the rival sections.
John Quincy Adams, in 1819, said of Calhoun: "he is above all
sectional and factious prejudices more than any other statesman of this
union with whom I have ever acted." [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, V.,
361, VI., 75.] But Calhoun, by the close of the decade, was not only
complaining that the protective policy of certain sections set a
dangerous example "of separate representation, and association of great
Geographical interests to promote their prosperity at the expense of
other interests," but he was also convinced that a great defect in our
system was that the separate geographical interests were not
sufficiently guarded. [Footnote: Am. Hist. Assoc., Report 1899, II.,
250.] Speaking, in 1831, of the three great interests of the nation--the
north, the south, and the west--he declared that they had been
struggling in a fierce war with one another, and that the period was
approaching which was to determine whether they could be reconciled
or not so as to perpetuate the Union. [Footnote: Am. Hist. Rev., VI.,
742; cf. J.Q. Adams, in Richardson, Messages and Papers. II., 297; J.
Taylor, New Views, 261; [Turnbull]. The Crisis, No. 2.]
We see, therefore, that, in the minds of some of the most enlightened
statesmen of this decade, American politics were essentially a struggle
for power between rival sections. Even those of most enlarged national
sympathies and purposes accepted the fact of sectional rivalries and
combinations as fundamental in their policies. To understand the period,
we must begin with a survey of the separate sections in the decade from
1820 to 1830, and determine what were the main interests shown in
each and impressed upon the leaders who represented them. For the
purposes of such a survey, the conventional division into New England,
middle region, south, and west may be adopted. It is true that within
each of these sections there were areas which were so different as to
constitute almost independent divisions, and which had close
affiliations with other sections. Nevertheless, the conventional
grouping will reveal fundamental and contrasted interests and types of
life between the various sections. In the rivalries of their leaders these
sectional differences found political expression. By first presenting a
narrative of forces in the separate sections, the narrative of events in the
nation will be better understood.
A sectional survey, however, cannot fully exhibit one profound change,
not easy to depict except by its results. This was the formation of the
self-conscious American democracy, strongest in the west and middle
region, but running across all sections and tending to divide the people
on the lines of social classes. This democracy came to its own when
Andrew Jackson triumphed over the old order of things and rudely
threw open the sanctuary of federal government to the populace.
CHAPTER II
NEW ENGLAND (1820-1830)
By geographical position, the land of the Puritans was devoted to
provincialism. While other sections merged into one another and even
had a west in their own midst, New England was obliged to cross
populous states in order to reach the regions into which national life
was expanding; and her sons who migrated found themselves under
conditions that weakened their old affiliations and linked their fortunes
with the section which they entered. The ocean had dominated New
England's interests and connected her with the Old World; the fisheries
and carrying--trade had engrossed her attention until the embargo and
the War of 1812 gave importance to her manufactures. In spirit, also,
New England was a section apart, The impress of Puritanism was still
strong upon her, and the unity of her moral life was exceptional.
Moreover, up to the beginning of the decade with which we have to
deal, New
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