322 HARRISON, TYLER 



appropriating what was best in Federalism, and becom- 

 ing more and more the national party, while the Fed- 

 eralists, losing their hold upon the people, sink into the 

 position of a sectional party and at length dwindle 

 into a faction. First it was John Quincy Adams, 

 prince and protagonist of mugwumps, who upheld 

 Jefferson in the embargo; then it was Daniel Webster, 

 who refused to lend countenance to the Hartford con- 

 vention ; and so the great party of Washington and 

 Hamilton went to pieces until, in 1820, the victors 

 could afford to be magnanimous, and Rufus King was 

 reflected to the United States Senate through the aid 

 of Martin Van Buren. As Federalist candidate for 

 the presidency in 1816, King had received the electoral 

 votes of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware. In 

 1820 there was no candidate to take the field against 

 Monroe. In 1824 the four candidates were so-called 

 Republicans. In 1828 the election of Jackson over 

 Adams was the victory of the West over the East, of 

 the backwoodsman over the Harvard professor, of the 

 so-called " man of the people " over the so-called " aris- 

 tocrat," rather than the victory of one definite and 

 avowed scheme of public policy over another. Never- 

 theless, by 1828, the old issues having disappeared, 

 new issues had arisen, and were really, though perhaps 

 not distinctly, involved in the election. The ad- 

 ministration of Adams had raised such new issues. 

 The rapid settlement of the Western country was re- 

 vealing the urgent need of better means of com- 

 munication. The genius of George Stephenson had 

 already devised the means of dealing with such a 

 problem, and private enterprise, laying thousands of 

 miles of iron rails, was soon to supply the need most 



